Endlings: Przewalski's horse and Genghis Khan - Nov 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about BB ‘Endlings’ once more. This week’s animal – the Przewalski’s horse.

Now, last week’s episode, about the Thylacine, (aka the Tasmanian wolf), was rather lacklustre; this week’s episode is something else because of two points. One is that the Thylacine and the Przewalski’s wild horseserve as foils to each other – both were captured for the zoos, but while that served just as an extra cause of extinction for the Thylacine, for the Przewalski’s horse it was a salvation – the species was able to survive its’ extinction in the wild In the zoos, and those zoo animals served as the initial breeding stock for the rewilding program. Only, as BB points out, returning a formerly extinct (in the wild) animal into the wild is only the beginning, much more management lies ahead. This just might be a subtle criticism to such programs, as Colossal, who appear to do exactly that… once they get to it, of course. When that happens is another question, but BB is gearing up to be prepared already.

That said, the point that BB brings up in this week’s episode is a good one – humans are still the dominant force on the planet, many things happen on Earth with their involvement, and living space is one of them. Namely: to survive in the wild, the Przewalski’s horses need a certain ecosystem, and without human help that would be impossible. Moreover, to achieve this ecosystem, to accommodate the Przewalski’s wild horses, a certain amount of land had to be given up to them, land that could be used otherwise, by other species, including humans. In Mongolia, In case of the Przewalski’s horse, this came true. In other cases, it might not have, and as BB point out, PR and aesthetics (and national pride) were very important, if not crucial, in achieving this – and we come to the second point.

Genghis Khan. One of Earth history’s lynchpins. In this week’s historical anecdote, he, supposedly, saw some of the wild Przewalski’s horses in his day and age, but his horse was spooked by them, and did not approach them. Good for the horses! GK was one of the most formidable and ruthless leaders in human history, and his take on nature was to organize giant, organized (sorry about the repetition), hunts, that took their toll on nature, including wild horses, most likely. Yes, the scale with modern hunting is not comparable, but hunting alone does not cover all of the extinctions on this planet…

Back to Przewalski’s horses and Thylacines, another reason why the latter perished while the former did not… yes, because an Australian marsupial had a worse time surviving in old time zoos than an Asian placental mammal. However, the fact that horses have an entirely different PR than wolves (or anything wolf-related) do, also served a fact. Humans – especially those of the West, of the Anglo-Saxon Protestant (initial) origin wanted to save Przewalski’s horses, and so they did, while the Thylacine… while with the Thylacine, it was the other way, and so the Thylacine is gone, extinct, at least officially… Real life sucks, remember?

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Phaedra and Natalie Haynes

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So, let us talk about Ms. Haynes and her book ‘Pandora’s Jar’ once more, or, more specifically, about the Phaedra entry.

Now, who is Phaedra? Ariadne’s younger sister, who did marry Theseus and it cost all of them dearly. More generally, she is a one-story character – she is here to mess Theseus’ established family, to cause the death of his son Hippolytus from Theseus’ previous relationship, and that is it. She is done and gone… but Ms. Hayes is not.

By now, people are beginning to accept/realize officially that in some aspects, women are not different from men; they have had a piece of the power pie for a few decades now, and the world has not become a better place. Sure, it is all the fault of men, no doubt, but even KK’s Netflix series, ‘All’s Fair’, was unable to sell itself on this premise. Maybe all is the fault of men, but the society did not care, and ‘All’s Fair’ is a failure rather than a success.

Ms. Haynes takes a somewhat different approach than KK and the rest of the K-clan; her fiction (like ‘Stone Blind’ and ‘1000 Ships’) often portrait women as a part of an all-encompassing sisterhood; almost all of them can get along, regardless of the meddling men, but her language is smooth and politically correct and detached; almost emotionless, (more Athena than Medusa) and easily forgettable.

‘PJ’ is largely like this too, even though it is non-fiction; some of the women discussed in this essay collection, such as Clytemnestra and Medea, are ambiguous, but Ms. Haynes is not ruffled, she deals with them as they come along. Then there is Phaedra, and unexpectedly Ms. Haynes’ tone shifts – now she is quite loud and driven and makes her point clearly: Phaedra is not wicked or a liar, (not really); the men who proclaim her so are the true villains and misogynists; just look at their treatment of Hades and Persephone!

…What Hades and Persephone have to do with Phaedra and co.? Here is the thing. Each entry in ‘PJ’ goes as follows: first Ms. Haynes retells the story of each female character (using info that is easily found on Wiki or Google), then she lists and/or re-tells one or another famous ancient play where this character starred; then she talks (or re-tells) a more modern adaptation of the play; and then she discusses some of the artwork – ancient or otherwise – that also feature this character. Pause.

More precisely, a lot of information Ms. Haynes tells us is either available in public domains, or she is just re-telling one or another ancient play (or modern movie, etc.), in her own words. Not quite the champion that girl power needs. She is better than KK who just has beautiful aesthetics covering up an empty void, but then again, it is KK. Anyone is better than she is.

The ‘Phaedra’ entry, meanwhile, is not too different from the other entries; the complication here is that there is not a lot of information about Phaedra, unlike, say, Medea or Penelope, so Ms. Haynes spends a lot of time discussing, first, the fate of Hades and Persephone, and then re-telling the Euripides’ play ‘Hippolytus’.

Again, this is not unique; a big amount of the ‘Eurydice’ chapter is given to Admetus and Alcestis; there is not a lot to tell about Eurydice either, and Ms. Haynes was paid by page, or was commissioned to write a set number of pages (and about a certain list of characters), so she had to improvise. She did, but she was nowhere as fired up about Eurydice as she was about Phaedra. Maybe something about Phaedra’s situation hit Ms. Haynes close to home? Who knows, we will never do.

As for Phaedra’s story per se… For a start, the main trio of characters are not exactly human. Theseus is the demigod son of Poseidon, of course, and his son Hippolytus is Poseidon’s grandson, true, but his mother was an Amazon.

The Amazons were liminal figures In the Greco-Roman culture; they dwelled in the space between RL and fiction. The meetings of Greeks and Romans with women of other cultures – Scythians, Celts, Teutons, who did not believe, or could not afford, the Greco-Roman sexual-social segregation inspired them. See, this way of life is taxing on both men and women – women have no independence and are completely dependent on men (a humiliating position), while men have to carry out all of the financial strain of their family – a position that is not much better. Therefore, it is safe to say, that in the ancient times sexism and misogyny were features of the elite – the lower classes could not afford them and so they were not as sexist or misogynist as their superiors, who ignored them. Pause. What about the Amazons?

The Amazons did not fit into this worldview at all – they distorted or challenged it. Their kingdom was a kingdom of women who were the ones in charge, the politicians, the warriors, and so on, and the men were subservient, if they were there at all. If the Amazons were cats, frogs, or something similar, it would not be a problem, but the Amazons were humans and that what made the Greeks (and the Romans, and the other Europeans) so angry: here was an alternate society that worked. Of course, it was also a work of fiction, and so the ancient authors had no problem in sending various male heroes, such as Heracles and Theseus, against the Amazons, and defeat them, even though the Amazons were supernaturally strong and supernaturally beautiful – no glory in defeating a land full of homely women, now is there?

Of course, sometimes it went the other way around – after Theseus married his Amazon lover, and the pair had had Hippolytus, the Amazons got their act together to invade Greece and besiege Athens, all in proper, military manner. The Amazons have to be formidable and competent, or else there is no glory in defeating them, you know? Only, in this case, the victory came with an unexpected cost – Theseus’ own Amazon wife died, leaving behind a son, Hippolytus, who was slightly more than an ordinary puny mortal – this is why Aphrodite became so peeved when Hippolytus threw his lot with Artemis, not with her.

However, this is also why she has to be subtle – Hippolytus is also the grandson of Poseidon, and everyone on Olympus treated the earth-shaking god-king of the sea gently, (except for Zeus – but he does not feature here, so let us bypass him). The direct approach wouldn’t work here – there was a chance, no matter how slim, that Aphrodite’s meddling would get back to Poseidon, who might decide to come over to Aphrodite’s home one night with his trident, his crown, and a pack of condoms to do onto her what he did onto Medusa, since Aphrodite’s meddling with Theseus and Hippolytus gave him a legitimate opening and who can resist the goddess of Love? Therefore, Aphrodite went with the roundabout option via Phaedra.

Phaedra is a one-story character, but she is also a member of the Cretan royal house. Her father is Minos … whether or not the same Minos who was the son of Zeus and Europa is open to debate, but Phaedra still has the blood of Zeus on her father’s side, and her mother’s Pasiphae, the queen of Crete, the daughter of Helios and a sea nymph, a demigoddess who was able to get intimate with Poseidon’s white bull and bear the Minotaur. A daughter of such a woman (and a man), you would think that Hippolytus would have no chance against her, but Hippolytus did not succumb, and rejected his stepmother, (whose age in regards to him is unknown); he did not bring shame onto his father’s home – and died.

Phaedra left a note accusing Hippolytus of raping her, and committed suicide. Theseus invoked Poseidon and cursed Hippolytus, proclaiming that his son should die. He is the asshole here, not Phaedra or Hippolytus, and Poseidon, who granted his wish, is barely better – of all the gods that could have issue with sexual abuse he is in the far end of the line…

Regardless, a bull of sea – maybe the same one who fathered the Minotaur, cough, came from the sea and caused Hippolytus to perish from a chariot crash. The truth about Phaedra's lie was revealed too late. The scene was set for Theseus’ further (and final) fall from grace. How Hippolytus and Phaedra fare on the other side is unknown. What is left?

…The pointedly partisan stance of Ms. Haynes on the story – she is normally not like this, but pointedly fair and neutral, this is why her fiction is quite forgettable. Yes, the women are in general good and better than the men are, but some men are also decent fellows – and this approach takes the bite from her bark, makes her fiction, well, into fiction… as in fan fiction, written about ancient Greek (and Roman) myths. She is trying to revolutionize the world’s view about via re-telling of the ancient classical myths. She gets accolades for that, but no lasting impact, it looks like. Pity, if she was more as how she was in ‘Phaedra’ and less like how she is via ‘Stone Blind’ or ‘1000 ships’, she might have actually succeeded. Instead, she is more successful than KK was, but only just. The patriarchy – or rather, the patrilinage – will go on. Real life sucks, you know?

Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

Endlings: Thylacine (and the Gorgon) - Nov 10

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about Ms. Haynes’ Medusa-based novel? Pause

In truth, I wanted to talk about BB/Endlings ‘Thylacine’ episode, but not unlike what we had with the Florida panther last month, BB/Endlings found their stride: it is dutiful retelling of Wikipedia articles, including the Thylacine one. When the ‘Wild Kratts’ cartoon series had the titular characters travel back in time to see the Thylacine and its’ extinction, it was actually a more derived take – and ‘Wild Kratts’ is a children’s cartoon!.. Where were we?

Here is the thing. Ms. Haynes positions herself as a progressive person, she talks about the Greek myths from a more feminist/feminine P.O.V., but…

…but these days (mid-2020s) it might not be enough. Obviously, kudos to her for not talking smack about other mythological writers, but it does make her essays – about Helen, Medusa, the Amazons – feel rather flat and one-dimensional: they are dutiful retellings of the depictions of the mythical women in the modern or post-Medieval art, writing and sometimes in other media, such as TV series. There also dutiful retellings of the myths of the mythical women in question; they are broken by sarcastic comments (that do not amount to anything and serve to better depict Ms. Haynes as a person), by rhetorical questions (that are not usually followed up), and by the like. One can imagine Ms. Haynes as, say, a university or a college teacher, who is delivering lectures to her class, engaging them in discussion and conversation, trying to make them think about her subject, and largely forgetting about them once they graduate and leave her class behind. There will always be exceptions, of course, but usually the effort behind those exceptions will come from the other people, not her. Ms. Haynes non-fiction book, ‘Pandora’s Jar’, has the same feeling. It is quite informative, of course, but not particularly progressive – or ‘progressive’; in a Protestant/post-Protestant world of the modern Western culture, this can make the difference between eternity (remembrance) and oblivion…

As for her fiction books… ‘A Thousand Ships’ is based on various Greek (and Roman?) plays about what happened during the last days of the Trojan War and what happened after, including the Odyssey and a few other chapters. Here, Ms. Haynes tries something different, such as Penelope’s personal development, but-

-but what can you do, if you are writing a novel (or another piece) based on someone else’s story, such as the Greek literary works and folk myths, and not your own? Most often, one out of the three: you can dutifully retell the myth such as it is, (Mr. Pullman did in his book of the Greek myths), you can write something that is entirely your own, (aka your own work, which can be argued pro and contra, but it’s yours), or you can re-tell the original story (for example Perseus’ and Medusa’s) with just a few different tweaks ‘behind the scenes’, a sort of crypto-history, put otherwise. In addition, this is how Ms. Haynes’ novels feel like – dutiful re-telling of the traditional myths, with a few comments – sarcastic, poignant, etc., it doesn’t matter – scattered here and there; they don’t amount to anything but to make her novels stand out from the rest and make them more sellable. It is not a bad strategy, it certainly is sensible, but, again, it makes her books, novels and otherwise, a one-hit wonder, forgettable quite easily.

… ‘Stone Blind’ is the telling of Medusa, Perseus, and Athena; Ms. Haynes is being sympathetic towards Medusa, making Perseus a coward, and the decapitated head of the Gorgon eventually petrify Athena, who thus finds peace in death. This is actually quite clever, but the mild, respectful, (and sometimes sarcastic) language of the novel wears away any controversial bits, making the readers of ‘Stone Blind’ feel stone cold towards the novel’s characters. The Gorgons are not bad. Athena is cold. Perseus is a coward, apparently. So on, but currently there is plenty of fan works that drive the same point home; in ‘Thousand Ships’ Ms. Haynes made Penny the Amazon queen suicidal – that is something else, but we’ll talk about it some other time. What about ‘Endlings’?

Same thing that goes down with Ms. Haynes, really. The first episode, about the passenger pigeons was intriguing and thought provoking because there was talk about bringing the avian back (and we talked about it). The second was also interesting, because of the silphium’s ambiguity, (and we talked about it too). However, the next episode – the Florida panther – and this episode – the Thylacine – are straightforward: the pumas are dying out in Florida because (insert your reason here), and the Thylacine is gone because (insert your reason here II). Maybe it disappeared in the second half of the 20^th century, not the first, but it is still gone, and it cannot be brought back (because humans don’t want to, apparently – is it so much harder to bring back the Thylacine than the dire wolf or the giant moa?). Aye, ‘Endlings’ are supposed to be sad – but sad because of the inevitable extinction, not because they are just that depressive and simply-made… Ah well, this is real life. It sucks, remember?

…Well, this is it for now, see you all soon!

Helen

 Something quite different: a short drabble about queen Helen of Sparta, (because real life still sucks):

The pearly glow never faded. Not at dawn, not in the echoing halls, not even in the deepest, darkest corners of Olympus. Helen, the woman who launched a thousand ships, was perpetually bathed in it. It was the light of her perfection, a gift… or perhaps a curse, depending on the day.

She was, as the gods intended, a masterpiece frozen in time. Her skin, alabaster smooth; her eyes, a startling violet; her lips, eternally curved in a serene, almost ethereal smile. The ultimate objet d'art. And utterly, desperately, bored.

She drifted through the eternal gardens, the nectarine scent of the ambrosia blossoms doing little to alleviate the ennui that gnawed at her divine existence. The gods admired her, of course. They paid her lip service, told her tales of her legendary beauty. But they didn't see her. They saw the idea of her. The tragedy, the catalyst. Not Helen herself.

Her thoughts, as they often did, drifted to Penelope. Penelope of Ithaca. Her cousin. Penelope, who wasn’t blessed (or burdened) with such blinding beauty. Penelope, whose face, Helen remembered, bore the marks of worry lines and the soft creases around her eyes that came from years of laughter and, yes, tears.

Penelope, who aged.

Helen closed her eyes. She remembered a childhood visit to Ithaca. Penelope, already a woman, tending her olive groves. The earthy scent of the oil, the calloused hands that held Helen’s own smooth, pampered ones. Helen had been captivated by Penelope’s quiet strength, her unwavering loyalty.

Now, in her eternal state, Helen understood.

Penelope’s story, though not as loudly sung, was ultimately more resonant. A husband lost, presumed dead. Years spent fending off aggressive suitors with cunning and weaving. A love story sustained by hope and fidelity.

Helen had been a prize, a pawn in a game played by kings and gods. Penelope had been a fortress, a steadfast beacon in a tempestuous sea.

Sometimes, staring at her own flawless reflection in the still waters of the nymph's pool, Helen would whisper a silent wish: to trade the eternal prison of her perfect beauty for one single day in Penelope's weathered, yet infinitely more fulfilling, shoes. To feel the sun on her face, the earth beneath her feet, and the embrace of a love earned, not decreed. A day filled with the imperfections that made life, and Penelope's life especially, so beautifully real.

So, what do you think?

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So, let us talk about Ms. Haynes’ book, ‘Pandora’s Jar’, (PJ) instead. Released in 2020, this is a series of essays about the state of women in the Greek myths, and-

-And let us first call a dog a dog – the Greeks (and the Romans) treated their women quite badly, they established the foundations of the more modern misogyny in their ancient times.

Let us elaborate. On one level – biological and anatomical, humans have two sexes that are anatomically very different, to say nothing of the entire issue of pregnancy and childbirth. But when it comes to society and politics, men and women are not so different; since the 1990s, I think, women are playing an increasingly larger role in the global politics, business, and the like…and the human society hasn’t improved/changed too much – when it comes to values and morals, men and women aren’t so different at all. Natalie Haynes?

Ms. Haynes is trying to champion the female cause – her PJ is all about the injustice that the ancient Greeks (and Romans) did to the female characters in their myths, legends, and so on. That is quite so, Ms. Haynes did a great job in PJ, but… this fact is already admitted by plenty of people, she hasn’t quite discovered anything new, uncovered something previously unknown; rather, she dutifully re-told what already was established, while working in the sufficiently safe territory – the Greek-Roman myths, who offend no one and are a part of the Western culture these days.

The language of Ms. Haynes in PJ is specific also – it is professional, weighted and measured, with sources and outsources, footnotes and endnotes, references and insights… It is the language of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, not of Medusa, who was a being of emotion instead.

Pause. Since we are talking about the obvious and the established by now, let us call out Medusa for what she was (also) – a goddess of death, the embodiment of death… Her head is the head of a corpse; her petrifying gaze is the killing gaze, no more, no less… By going after her head, Perseus goes into the Underworld, into the Afterlife – no wonder he needed the help of the Olympians, Hermes and Athena, to succeed… The feud between Athena and Medusa is probably a later addition, when Medusa was re-cast as a priestess of Athena, who was violated by Poseidon, and Athena transformed/killed her on top of the sexual abuse… Fun… Natalie Haynes?

Ms. Haynes dutifully discussed Medusa’s plight in PJ (2020) and later on in her own fictive novel, ‘Medusa’s Story’ (2024). In the latter, she added her own twists and tweaks, but the basic story is the old one; feel free to read it for yourselves to decide on your own; Medusa (and to a lesser extent) her sisters became celebrities only to succumb to obscurity once more… Pause.

No, seriously, Medusa, her sisters, Perseus, Athena, etc. – they were never real, not in the way they are depicted in the stories at any rate. However, the world runs on stories, and Medusa and Perseus’ story used to be good, (still probably is), but now it is well established, rather worn, and people are not influenced by it as they were before. Fame and celebrity is fleeting, and after fame often comes obscurity, as the movie ‘Amadeus’ showed. Medusa is not like Mozart’s nemesis (in ‘Amadeus’), but not unlike him, she was first made famous as a symbol of a strong, independent woman, and now she is no longer needed.

Elaborating. Throughout the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, Medusa was often used as a feminist icon, but now the feminist movement itself changed. Therefore, Medusa is quietly slipping into obscurity once more, alongside Perseus, Andromeda, and so on. Athena, of course, is doing better, as she is a goddess who figures in many stories, but still…

The difference between gods and demigods is that the gods pop up in many stories, especially if there is a beautiful woman (or a handsome man) involved. Demigods and heroes, (regardless of their gender), usually have only one story to themselves, and once it is done, it is done. Oh, it can be retold, but it is still the same old story, unless you do the Riordan treatment and tell an entirely new one, (but not even Mr. Riordan changed the Medusa and Perseus story) – but that has pratfalls of its own…

Moreover, it is a different story altogether, and we will talk another time about it. For now let’s just point out that Ms. Haynes is trying to dutifully retell the old stories while pretending that she is telling something cutting-edge new (she isn’t), and be done for it. If you disagree with my statement about it, I am ready to listen.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

 

Endlings: Florida Panther - Oct 28

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, which is why I wanted to talk about Riordan and Oshiro’s ‘Court of the Dead’ novel (CoD), when I realized that it was not that different from the Florida panthers. Say what?

This week, ‘Bizarre Beasts’ released the episode about the Florida panthers – the wild cats, not the sports’ team and, again, it is a straightforward retelling of the Wiki page, plus an audio quote of Ms. Betty Osceola, an important person among the Miccosukee Native Americans. She is talking, to nobody’s surprise, about the Florida puma, and-

-And, yes, the obligatory statement: the North American ‘panther’ is another name for the puma, Puma concolor; it is only a distant relative to the ‘true’ panthers – the jaguar and the leopard; its’ closest relatives are the cheetah and the jaguarondi, a little-known wild cat that doesn’t look anything like the jaguar. Pause.

…All cats resemble one another; the differences between a tiger, a puma, a bobcat, and a housecat are mainly due to their sizes; there are few specialists as there are among the bovids, for example, or the rodents. This allows the felines to be very successful carnivores, and the puma is one of them; it is still the top feline carnivore in North America west of Mississippi. In the east, it is another story, as only the state of Florida still has any in the wild. This group of pumas was shrinking fast, due to inbreeding, so the U.S. government brought several pumas from Texas to fix this – and they did. But because the Florida wild themselves are shrinking, the pumas there are still dying-out and people need to fix this situation – just watch the BB episode for yourself. Stop.

So, here is the situation – after the series’ premiere that talked about the potential recreation of the passenger pigeon (done by a completely different narrator), and the dodgy episode about the dodgy silphium plant, BB hit its stride – the Florida panther episode is straightforward and simple, with nary a problem; it is delivered in a touching, poignant manner that is supposed to resonate with its’ audience – and perhaps it does. Only, is it enough to make the latter care enough to do something, to be affected by the BB delivery? That is the question.

On the other hand, we have ‘The Court of the Dead’ novel, where Will and Nico (a homosexual WASP couple) team-up with Frank and Hazel (a heterosexual POC couple) to help many monsters who don’t want to be evil, defeat a group of villains that are quite reminiscent for J-Ro’s Ministry of Magic in her HP books. These days she is keeping quiet (for her own reasons), but Mr. Riordan is going full speed ahead!..

Of course, he might not have a choice – when he stopped featuring sexual minorities and the like in his YA novels (‘The Trials of Apollo’ series), the price for his books fell to a flat $10-$15 dollars a book, that is very cheap by modern standards, and perhaps even a financial loss. Therefore, if Mr. Riordan wants to stay in the green (and work for Disney), he has to toe the party line, and if not, then just look at Gina Carano – she did not, and so she is gone.

Therefore, again, Mr. Riordan continues to release progressive and forwards-facing books; the problem here is that the society may not care; these days, the Americans are highly individualistic, and care only about what they think; a book, no matter how well-written, is not enough on its’ own to change their opinion – you need federal support to do so. In the U.S. In particular, this is a chancy and an unlikely thing to have or to manifest, and so that is that. ‘The Court of the Dead’ remains an inert, almost impotent, almost pointless and unrequired YA novel that does not do anything, or does not affect anyone, just as the ‘Endlings’ series of BB do – or don’t do. Sad, isn’t it? That is real life, however. It sucks.

This is it for now. See you all soon!

 

Endlings: Silphium - Oct 21

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the silphium plant instead. Pause.

This is a somewhat different topic from my usual discussions, so, firstly, what was the silphium plant, beyond the obvious? The honest answer may surprise you: no one knows. It died out fully, presumably, during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, and it was supposed to be a spice that improved the taste of food and an aphrodisiac.

What could it have been? Jonathan Drori in his book “Around the world with 80 plants” calls it a plant of the Ferula genus, but others suggest the genus Thapsia instead; still others proclaim that silphium was not a plant in the Ferula genus, but rather asafoetida, latex gum, made from the roots of such plants. Pause.

The depictions of this plant exist, but they are stylized, and do not fully match the depictions of the extant Ferula & Thapsia plants; that would not be wrong, as silphium could have been its’ own species, but as Ms. Suta at BB pointed out, the depictions of silphium overall show it having stems and leaves of one plant, flowers of another, and fruits of yet a third, making it something of a chimera, then… Wait, what?

The word ‘Chimera’ has several meanings, but we’re interested in the most well-known: a Greek imaginary monster, so ridiculous that it could not have existed for real, as it had a leonine head, a caprine body, and a serpentine tail. Not even the ancient Greeks and Romans believed that the Chimera was ever real, and neither are its’ descendants, ‘lesser chimeras’, the children of human imagination.

Silphium, unfortunately for some, seems to share the Chimera’s baseline traits: a mixture of features of different species, though plant, not animal. This is important, as while people usually know plenty of animal species, the species of plants are more obscure, and one often needs a lot of botanical experience to differentiate between, say, an American basswood, a European linden, and a cultivar of either one of them. You can say: “This beast looks like a tiger, but it is not a tiger, because it has [insert traits here]”, and even complete homebodies will identify it correctly as a lion, a leopard, or even a jaguar. However, if you say “This plant looks like a fennel, but it is not a fennel, because…” then identifying it becomes much harder, because of the obvious. In addition, people said that “silphium looks like a Persian herb, but it is not the same because it tastes differently”, eh?

Gastronomy, now, is something else. People also say “The sauce for the goose is the sauce for the gander”, but people had different tastes in food since the Stone Age, and food preparation is an important variable, too. The Persian Ferula species might have tasted worse than the Libyan silphium did, or it might not have been. Pause.

…Libya is a reason why I have paused, too – you know what else Libya is associated with? The “Odyssey” – Homer put his Lotus-eaters and their Lotus tree there. Like silphium, people argued about the identity of the Lotus tree for a while now; there are several RL plant species that fit the identity of this mythical plant, but not entirely, just as it is with silphium.

Could silphium been a myth, just like how the vegetable lamb and the unicorn are? Technically yes, but there are plenty of evidence that it did exist, right? Nero received the last stalk of it, (what he did with It is another matter entirely), and The Julius Caesar supposedly had much more in his treasury, but the problem with such declarations that by now they are just historical anecdotes, where separating fact from fiction is simply hard. JC might have really had ‘1500 pounds of laser’ in his treasury, or he might not have – now it is hard to tell.

(Silphium is also called laser or laserwort, but the plants of the genera Laser & Laserpitium are not related to it at all. Fun!)

These days, of course, separating truth from fake news can be done easily enough, but in the Ancient period? Not so much, and silphium’s obscurity made it worse. Even the reasons of its’ extinction are conflicting: Johnathan Drori proclaimed that it was the overharvesting, but Ms. Suta at BB suggests that overgrazing and the desertification that follows were to blame instead.

Now, since we’re talking about ‘Bizarre Beasts’, listen – BB does not do wholesale cheating, but it can alter its performance accordingly; the ‘Endlings’ premiere, the passenger pigeon episode, was done grandly, with a guest speaker, and the BB staff sending out tiny plastic pigeons afterwards. The silphium episode, on the other hand, was much more subdued and restrained; Ms. Suta moved on quickly enough to talk about the general ‘extinction is bad and why’ topic, and the episode was about 10 minutes long, almost 30% shorter than the passenger pigeon piece. Why?

Because BB did their research and realized that underneath all the historical anecdotes and culinary discussions might be a chimera – a plant that never was as it was described; it existed – it might still exist – in another way entirely, but the way Pliny and friends described? It never been.

Finally, getting back to the silphium’s extinction – could it have been saved? (If it was a real Libyan plant?) Again, we get more ambiguity – Drori suggests that silphium was very hard to move and translocate, but…

On one hand, this sort of operation is hard to do, even now – only a few years ago people tried to introduce African cheetahs to India; the Indian government was difficult, (and when the cheetahs were introduced, they died out in India quite quickly). In addition, when it comes to translocating just some of India’s only Asiatic lions, (they live in the Gir forest; from the genetic P.O.V., they are a part of the leonine subspecies that live in West and Central Africa), India flat-out refused. Things could have gone in any way, but then the Donald’s government partially alienated Modi’s India, it turned from the U.S. to RF and CPR, so now the West are not bothering India with their rewilding projects, lest it gets worse. Bully, and yes, translocating silphium from Libya to other countries might have been just as hard, but on the other hand, the Roman republic/empire of that time was much less concerned about PR; if there was silphium in Libya, and it was profitable, they would have done something about the status quo – but they did not. Maybe because there really wasn’t anything profitable in Libya, not even silphium? Until time machines become available to the public, we will never know.

For now, however, this is it. See you all soon!