pothos.org

Hi everyone:

On a whim tonight I made saffron shrimp for dinner, and afterwards, curious, went a-googling about the spice. On the history of saffron wiki, I found:

Later, Persian saffron was heavily used by Alexander the Great and his forces during their Asian campaigns. They mixed saffron into teas and dined on saffron rice. Alexander personally used saffron sprinkled in warm bath water. He believed it would heal his many wounds, and his faith in saffron grew with each treatment. He even recommended saffron baths for the ordinary men under him. The Greek soldiers, taken with saffron's perceived curative properties, continued the practice after they returned to Macedonia.

The reference is: Willard, P (2001), Secrets of Saffron: The Vagabond Life of the World's Most Seductive Spice. But of course the Wiki doesn't give Willard's sources.

So has anyone seen this before, and know what ancient source, if any, it comes from?

Warmly,
Karen

No, I haven't heard of him bathing in saffron before. The only mention of spices and Alexander that I recall is when Leonidas told him, "When you've conquered the spice-bearing regions, you can throw away all the incense you like. Till then, don't waste it." Other than Willard, I couldn't find any other references to saffron.

Greetings,

If Alexander *did* bathe in saffron, he might well have come out tinted orange <laughing>..

Regards,
Sikander

sikander wrote:Greetings,

If Alexander *did* bathe in saffron, he might well have come out tinted orange <laughing>..

Regards,
Sikander

That might explain, somewhat, his 'ruddy' complexion!

karen wrote: The reference is: Willard, P (2001), Secrets of Saffron: The Vagabond Life of the World's Most Seductive Spice. But of course the Wiki doesn't give Willard's sources.

So has anyone seen this before, and know what ancient source, if any, it comes from?

Warmly,
Karen

I've never heard of this before, but when I looked, found it repeated all over the Internet. I see one site claimed he used it to dye his hair. Another claimed he took it home with him to Macedon. (Tricky, that!)
Another mentioned Cleopatra bathing in the stuff, and said it was an aphrodisiac.
But lots and lots of ancient writers were mentioned, including Dioscorides and people who were writing about herbs, spices and medical matters, so maybe it was one of them who first mentioned Alexander in connection with it. Or maybe it's just another 'urban legend'.
This site
http://www.american.edu/TED/saffron.htm
seems to be quoting this Willard when it says:

“Alexander himself succumbed to the Persians’ sumptuous nature…As sometimes happens when life is led at such a ruthless pitch, the inherent plainness of Alexander’s Macedonian nature gave way in a dim hope for absolution, if not of peace, to the voluptuous pleasures of the Persian courts...For here was a country where a blissful life was truly led, one that was balanced between the heart and the mind, where an amalgamation of tastes drew together to create a sublime and exalted cuisine, and it had long been in place when Alexander settled in.” Thus, an admirer of Persian kingship and culture, Alexander the "Great," upon destroying the ancient palace of Persepolis, took, along with several Persian wives, the secrets of Persian saffron home with him. Thus began its spread to much of the Western world."

That sounds as if it might have come from a Persian source to me.

Thanks for posting about this, it's very interesting - I love trying to track down where the 'myths' come from. I must dig out my researches on the left-handed one, I think it might interest people.

Fiona

Fiona wrote:But lots and lots of ancient writers were mentioned, including Dioscorides and people who were writing about herbs, spices and medical matters, so maybe it was one of them who first mentioned Alexander in connection with it. Or maybe it's just another 'urban legend'.

A legend it is! And not the only one - Alexander's name is mentioned on the internet in reference to just about every eastern spice, fruit and food, from apricots to ices, yet the only ones I recall from the sources are bananas and aloe. OTH, he probably was responsible for the introduction of some fruits and spices to Greece - we are told he sent samples of flora and fauna back to Aristotle. The stories going round on the internet are considerably embelished though.

Best regards,

Hi Amyntoros (et al):

If it had appeared to be just on the Internet, and wasn't sourced from an actual book that purports to have some scholarly rigor, I'd never have started this thread.

Reading the excerpt, I think I can leave aside thoughts of scholarly rigor.

I read somewhere else, a wiki on the history of saffron I think, that it was first grown in... Greece. So Alexander would hardly have had to bring it back from Persia. When I think about it, even if the Persians only had been producing it, Greeks would probably have been using it anyway, since there were already all sorts of cultural ties.

Oh well, at least we can get some jokes out of it. Effect of a saffron bath upon Alexander's complexion:

This is misinformation. Internet is the core of misinformation. A little story like this spreads all over, by people that put it in their sites without quotes from sources, and then you might even see it in wikipedia. So, from just an imaginery story it may become a possibility. Because wikipedia says so, or the X Y Z website. And after 50 years, who knows, it may be in history books also.

Ok, maybe a little bit exaggerated here, but you get the point.

By the way, Canada yesterday has officialy recognised Skopjia as Macedonia.

I stop here.

Or else i will go off limits.

amyntoros wrote: A legend it is! And not the only one - Alexander's name is mentioned on the internet in reference to just about every eastern spice, fruit and food, from apricots to ices, yet the only ones I recall from the sources are bananas and aloe. OTH, he probably was responsible for the introduction of some fruits and spices to Greece - we are told he sent samples of flora and fauna back to Aristotle. The stories going round on the internet are considerably embelished though.

Best regards,

The ices one has cropped up a lot this summer, for some reason. Sure, they're legends, but what fascinates me is where they come from. They can't suddenly have appeared out of the ether - can they? - when we got the Internet. That's why I like to dig and see if I can find clues as to how far back some of these things go.
Now this one about the saffron seemed, as Karen said, as if it might have had some basis, from the sound of the book that was quoted - until we saw a sample of its scholarship.
Even so, it may not be invention - or at least, not *modern* invention. There may be a reference in some ancient herbal or pharmacopeia. That still wouldn't mean it was true, I realise that, but suppose such a thing had been 'invented' in Roman times - would that alter our perceptions, or would we give it more credibility than a modern Internet myth?
How old does a spurious reference have to be before it starts to gain credibility?
I suppose that a lot of the material in the various Alexander Romances was the urban legend of its day, yet you sometimes see those episodes being quoted with serious intent. Not as much as the 'official' sources, but still, with a kind of respect that implies that the writer acknowledges that such-and-such might be true. Alexander and Hephaistion's trip to the Olympic Games would be a good example of that.
I think it's true, though, that the Internet has encouraged proliferation of this kind of thing. One feeds upon another, one site quotes another...one person's 'might have been' becomes the next person's 'was', and so on.
With regard to the various fruits, plants, etc, I suppose it's reasonable enough, if the plant in question was previously unknown in Greece, and becomes known around Alexander's time, to assume that it may have been one of the things he sent home, or maybe just a result of greater exchange going on, perhaps between more distant places than before.
It's even understandable - though not excusable! - for a writer to say Alexander 'took' home, when he should really have said 'sent' home, as the writer's focus is on the commodity and its appearance in Greece, not who did the actual taking.
This doesn't apply to the saffron writer, though, because, as Karen also said, the Greeks had saffron, they grew it themselves.
It would be interesting to know just how much Alexander's conquests affected trade and commerce. I don't know if a study of this has ever been done, or if the data even exist to make it possible, but it would be an interesting thing to read about.

Fiona