Dagmara Skrzywanek-Jaworska, Konrad Tadajczyk

Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum L.) in Ancient Medicine and Roman Law
2023-05-25

This article deals with the history of pharmacy and law, for which the common denominator is the Janus face of Conium maculatum L. (Greek: κώνειον). It is a poisonous plant of the celery family (Apiaceae), usually associated with the Athenian court’s unjust sentence against Socrates. Nowadays, a poison hemlock is often confused with Cicuta virosa L., which, however, did not grow in ancient Greece and none of the authors mentioned it in their works.

The poison hemlock was one of the better known poisonous plants, both in Greco-Roman antiquity and in Byzantium. Its healing properties were also appreciated, treating it as a medicinal herb and an ingredient in many pharmacological preparations.

Prescriptions containing Conium maculatum were prescribed by the most famous ancient physicians, apothecaries and botanists, such as Hipppocrates of Kos, the precursor of modern pharmacology Pedanius Dioscorides and Claudius Galen, but also Aulus Cornelius Celsus, Areteus of Cappadocia, Marcellus Empiricus among others. Their findings were later confirmed by early Byzantine physicians such as Paul of Aegina and Orybasius. Ancient poets, philosophers and historians such as Plato, Aristophanes, Pliny the Elder and Nicander of Colophon also mentioned this plant in their works.

The interest in Conium maculatum on the part of the ancient medical community was dictated by its dual nature. It raised awareness of the entire spectrum of the effects of drugs containing hemlock, from the most desirable effect, i.e. curing the patient, through the various types of symptoms associated with poisoning, to death. From the point of view of the medicine of the time, it was also a test of knowledge and specific medical skills, which ultimately boiled down to the proper preparation and application of the medicine and, in the case of poisoning, the application of an effective antidote.

The Janus face of poison hemlock as a potential corpus delicti was also confirmed in the sources of Roman law. Beginning in the late republic, poisoners were punished on the basis of the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis issued in 81 BC by the Roman dictator Cornelius Sulla. After Octavian Augustus took over (27 BC), this law was not repealed but transformed over time into a general law against homicide (homicidium) and remained in force even after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. In classical Roman law, not only the intentional (with the aim of killing a human being), but also the unintentional (due to lack of skill or care) application of poison could be the basis of one’s criminal liability.

Keywords: History of Pharmacy, Poison Hemlock, Conium maculatum L., Roman Law.

© Farm Pol, 2023, 79(1): 3–11