The use of aromatic plants in cooking and medicine has been a constant throughout history. Mint, specifically, has been used to flavor many dishes and in medicine to facilitate digestion, as a mouth freshener and for its stimulating properties. Some of us, including myself, believed the urban legends that also attributed aphrodisiac properties to it... especially in women. And I say that I include myself, because at the time when adolescents stopped seeing girls as the enemy and began to be interested in them -and their bodies-, the older ones (those who had already unbuttoned a bra ) told us that mint in women had aphrodisiac properties. So, we took advantage of any occasion -especially at the village festivals- to offer them drinks with mint (I remember the mix of Pipermint with vanilla milkshake). The effects... I'll leave it here.
The fact is that in ancient Rome it was thought that this was the case. In fact, the Jews filled the bed of the newlyweds with mint leaves and among the witches or sorceresses of the city, mint was used as an ingredient in their elixirs of love. Therefore, in times of war it was forbidden to plant mint seeds and make concoctions with it. Men should focus on “making war and not love «.
Valeria Messalina
One of the women of Rome, of whom we have already spoken, and who did not need to take any type of aphrodisiac, was Valeria Messalina, wife of Emperor Claudius. In the words of the poet Juvenal…
Turn your eyes to the emulators of the gods, listen to what Claudius endured. When his wife realized that her husband was sleeping, the august prostitute dared to take his hood at night and, preferring the esther to the Palatine's bedroom, she left him accompanied by no more than one slave.
And hiding her dark hair with a blonde wig she entered the hot brothel with worn upholstery, in a small empty room that was hers; she then prostituted herself with her bare golden breasts, usurping the name of Licisca, and displaying the womb from which you were born, noble Briton. He warmly greeted those who entered and demanded money.
Then, when the brothel owner said goodbye to his girls, he left sad, and did what he could:close the room last, still burning with the erection of his stiff clitoris, and she would withdraw, tired of guys but not yet satiated, and disfigured by the smoke from the oil lamp and her dark cheeks carrying the smell of the brothel to her pillow.
Sources and image:Valeria Mesalina, Histories of History – Carlos Fisas, Rome of the Caesars – Juan Eslava Galán