Onion Aphrodisiac Foods in
Greece and Rome
In two great cultures, the Roman and Greek, onions were also very popular for heating up passions. The poet Ovidio Publio Nason, born the 20th of March in 43 B.C. in Sulmona, a little village in the center of Italy,- praised its merits.
Ovidio left his town to Rome at a very young age but since it was normal at that time, for a young Roman man of an accommodated family and with ambitions, the last stage of his formation was completed in Greece. In the company of a friend, Macro the poet, he made a trip to the East and Greece. They stopped for a little while in Sicily and after a long time in Athens he returned to start, to obey his father, a political career, which he never completed.
He was into writing, love and the women of the empire.
In one of all these exotic places, and from an exotic lady full of fire, the young Roman writer might have acquired his knowledge on the amplitude of the powers of onions.
Ovidio was a womanizer, who married three times. His first wife was still very young, and was a woman that according to him was “inept and useless”.
The marriage lasted a very short time.
Despite the fact that the second wife was, in the opinion of the poet, “irreproachable”, that marriage also lasted a very short time.
With his second wife he had a daughter, who gave him two grandsons.
He married a third time with a woman of the Flavia family, who was a widow but still very young and had a daughter from her previous marriage.
He lived a happy life with her – the wisdom and knowledge of a widow must always be appreciated – until the day he died, and he always confessed his love for her and his thankfulness in an authentically sincere tone as can be seen in some of his poetry.
The widow of Ovidio also carries with her another interesting anecdote, which was not very nice for him: Ovidio’s life came to an end in the fall of the year 9 A.C. when he was fifty two years old. When he traveled once with his friend Maximo Cotta, and was in the island of Elba, he received a closing order from the emperor Augustus to be exiled to Tomis, the country of the getas, located in the coast of the Black Sea.
This land was known as an inhospitable place and was exposed to constant incursions of the barbarian tribes.
The punishment was imposed to him under the form of relegation, simple exile, but it was lighter than deportation that also cost him the loss of his citizenship and patrimony. Either way it was an authoritarian act of Augustus that did not give Ovidio an opportunity to put up his own defense.
But, why did this happen?
Still today it is a mystery and the real objective that is hidden under the “mistake” that Ovidio uses when referring to his exile.
He had written a poem that supposedly was the cause of his becoming condemned. But it is not known which is the mistake he says he made.
Ovidio himself did not want to mention it, by which he repeated once and again: “Alterius facti culpa silenda mihi” (“The responsibility of my other action must be silenced”).
The other thing seems to have been women…..
There is a possible relationship with Julia, the granddaughter of the emperor, also condemned to exile due to her licentious life in the year 8 B.C. Did they eat onions together?
He is also identified to “Corina”, who was a character of his texts, with another Julia, who was non other than the daughter of Augustus. If it was her that gave him the words and inspiration for his poetry – and her father knew it in some way – then it would be obvious why he was condemned.
Another Roman poet, Marcial who also formed part of the Roman Empire around 40 A.C. creator of the epigram, minimized onions, classifying them as a sure resource to “push the husband away”.
Well, perhaps the husbands that pushed themselves away… did they step through the doors of Rome or did they stay hooked?
|
