ABSTRACT
The great age of ancient Greece and Rome is known as the ‘Classical World’ (c. 500 BC-c. AD 500). In time, the all-conquering Greek general, Alexander the Great spread Hellenistic knowledge and culture throughout much of the known ancient world and the Romans later carried their civilization even further afield, past one of the ‘Pillars of Hercules’ (Gibraltar) to northern Europe. Nepenthe or Nepenthes (Greek ne, not and penthos, grief) was a legendary analgesic drug in Ancient Greece. The herb which contained the anodyne was imported from Egypt and although there is some doubt as to its identification it appears that the plant may have been Papaver somniferum. Nepenthe, in the guise of morphine, was a popular anesthetic premedication in the 1960s. The Romans relied mainly on votive offerings and superstitious practices. There was a household god for most diseases and each householder had a number of domestic herbal medicines for family use.
