Art. 0016 Rev. 1789
Talk:Apiaceae
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Silphium: taxed out of existence?
Reverted. Solinus wrote in the third century, and Mommsen, following Salmasius, shows that his passage is mostly Pliny’s account of ladanum: it even has the gum collected from goats’ beards. And Pliny’s publicani are not the tax. They are the contractors who leased the pastures and found sheep more profitable. — Rosa L. (talk) 16:03, 26 September 2026 (UTC)
They were responding to incentives. — InvisibleHand (talk) 16:05, 26 September 2026 (UTC)
So were the kings. Their incentive was to keep the plant: the cut was fixed “like those in use in mines”, with regard to previous cuttings and the supply (Theophrastus 6.3.2), and the plant stayed on the coins for nearly three centuries. A lessee’s incentive runs to the end of the lease. — Moor (talk) 16:09, 26 September 2026 (UTC)
For the record, Amigues (2004) rejects both the raid and the tax-farmers and blames the roots, which died when the juice was taken; Miski (2021) adds the plant’s slow growth and single flowering. The article gives all of them and says that the sources disagree. — Kingfisher (talk) 16:14, 26 September 2026 (UTC)
Could we simply say that it disappeared through “a combination of factors”? Everybody could live with that. — Ed. Bernstein (talk) 16:17, 26 September 2026 (UTC)
Closing. Strabo, Pliny and Solinus stay in the order of the sources, Solinus with Mommsen’s caveat, followed by the modern explanations. See Silphium § Disappearance. — Catchment Committee (talk) 16:24, 26 September 2026 (UTC)
The Disappearance section leans on Pliny’s “tax-farmers” and Miski’s “short-term profit”. Solinus says it plainly: the inhabitants dug the plant up themselves, ob intolerandam vectigalis nimietatem, because the tax was unbearable. A crop taxed out of existence is a lesson about taxes, not about markets. I have moved Solinus to the top of the section. — InvisibleHand (talk) 15:58, 26 September 2026 (UTC)