In the Greek and Roman medical tradition, cannabis was not unknown. Pliny, Dioscorides and Galen all mentioned it. Galen, writing in the 2nd century CE, noted that cannabis preparations could affect the body, and that cannabis-containing cakes were sometimes served in Italy after dinner. Taken in large amounts, he wrote, they affected the head and produced warmth.

For LIBERA HERBA, this is a small but beautiful trace.

The plant was not only in fields.
Not only in rope.
Not only in medicine.

It was also at the table.
A seed, a cake, a warm head, a loosened conversation.

Ancient medicine did not separate body, appetite, pleasure and remedy as sharply as we do today. Galen’s cannabis belongs to that older world, where a plant could be food, drug, fibre, medicine and social atmosphere at once.

Not scandal. Materia medica.

Factual Note

Galen, along with Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides, is among the classical authors who mention cannabis. The NCBI review notes that Galen wrote of cannabis cakes served in Italy and described their warming, head-affecting properties when consumed in quantity.

Galen
c. 129–216 CE
Greek physician in the Roman Empire

One of the most influential physicians of antiquity. His medical writings shaped European and Islamic medicine for more than a millennium.

Galen – warmth at the Roman table

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