The Anointed World: A Guide to the Flower Oils of Antiquity
What Ancient Flower Oils Were — and Were Not
Before tracing individual oils through the ancient world, it is worth establishing what ancient flower oils actually were — a question more complicated than it might appear. Modern perfumery is built on essential oils: concentrated aromatic compounds extracted through steam distillation, a technique developed in the Arab world around the 10th century CE and unknown to the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, or Mesopotamians. Ancient flower oils were not, therefore, essential oils in the modern sense.
What ancient cultures produced were infused oils: base oils — olive, almond, sesame, castor, ben — in which aromatic plant materials had been steeped, heated, and filtered, until the carrier oil was saturated with fragrant compounds. This process, known in later perfumery as enfleurage in its cold form and maceration in its heated form, was technically simple but demanded considerable horticultural and chemical knowledge to produce consistent, high-quality results. Which flowers, at which stage of bloom, heated to what temperature, steeped for how long, with what additional resins or spices added to fix and extend the fragrance — these were questions whose answers were commercially valuable and closely guarded.
A second class of ancient aromatic product was the unguent: a semi-solid preparation in which aromatic materials were combined with a fatty base — often animal fat, beeswax, or a blend of oils — to produce something closer to a modern solid perfume or balm. Unguents were applied to the body, to hair, to statuary, and to the dead; they appear in every ancient culture with sufficient agricultural surplus to support specialist production.
What follows is an account of the principal flower oils of the ancient world — the flowers from which they derived, the cultures that produced them, the methods employed, and the uses to which they were put.
Rose Oil — The Oldest Luxury
Source flower: Rosa damascena, Rosa gallica, Rosa centifolia Principal producing regions: Persia, Egypt, Greece, Roman Campania Known ancient names: Rhodinon (Greek), Oleum rosaceum (Latin), Golab (Persian)
Rose oil is the oldest flower oil for which we have sustained documentary evidence, and it remained the most commercially significant aromatic oil in the ancient world from at least the 6th century BCE through the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Its dominance was not accidental: the rose produces an abundance of fragrant petals, its scent is immediately and universally pleasing, and the aromatic compounds it contains — including geraniol, citronellol, and nerol — are stable enough to survive the maceration process with their character largely intact.
The earliest Greek references to rose oil appear in the texts of Theophrastus, the 4th-century BCE botanist whose Enquiry into Plants and On Odours constitute the most systematic ancient account of aromatic production. Theophrastus describes the preparation of rhodinon with a precision that allows modern reconstruction: rose petals were added to olive oil and heated gently, with salt sometimes added to facilitate the extraction of aromatic compounds. The process was repeated with fresh petals until the oil was sufficiently saturated. Alkanet root was sometimes added to produce a reddish tint prized for cosmetic use.
Egyptian rose oil production was centred in the Fayum oasis and in the gardens of the Delta, where Rosa damascena was cultivated at scale. Papyrus documents from Roman Egypt record large commercial transactions in rose oil: a text from the 2nd century CE records a merchant purchasing several kilograms of rose oil for resale, suggesting that the trade was conducted in quantities well beyond individual or household use. The oil was exported to Rome and across the Empire, making Egyptian rose growers and oil producers participants in the widest commercial network the ancient world had yet seen.
Medicinally, rose oil was used across the ancient world for a range of conditions whose diversity reflects both genuine pharmacological properties and the general therapeutic prestige of expensive materials. Dioscorides prescribes rose oil for headaches, ear infections, eye conditions, and skin inflammation. Galen, physician to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, used rose oil extensively and wrote about its properties in terms that suggest considerable empirical knowledge of its effects. Modern analysis has confirmed that rose petals contain compounds with anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and mild analgesic properties, lending some retrospective credibility to ancient medical use.
The most celebrated use of rose oil, however, was social rather than medical. At Roman banquets of the Imperial period, rose oil was used in quantities that ancient moralists found scandalous. Guests were anointed with it on arrival; it was added to wine; it was sprayed from pipes concealed in the ceiling. Nero's extravagances with rose oil were sufficiently notorious to be recorded by multiple ancient sources. The historian Suetonius records that rose oil was piped through the walls of Nero's Golden House so that guests might be sprayed with scent between courses — an image of almost comic luxury that nonetheless testifies to the industrial scale of rose oil production required to supply the demands of Imperial Rome.
Lily Oil — Sacred Salve of the Ancient Near East
Source flower: Lilium candidum (Madonna lily) Principal producing regions: the Levant, Egypt, Greece Known ancient names: Sousonon (Hebrew/Phoenician), Krinon (Greek), Oleum liliatum (Latin)
Lily oil occupies a different cultural register from rose oil: where rose oil was the perfume of pleasure and conspicuous consumption, lily oil was, from its earliest appearances in the ancient record, associated with sanctity, healing, and the divine. The white Madonna lily, whose cultivation in the eastern Mediterranean predates written records, produced an oil prized both for its scent — full, waxy, slightly sweet, with an almost animalic undertone — and for its medicinal properties, which ancient physicians believed to be considerable.
Phoenician lily oil is among the earliest named flower oils in the ancient world. The city of Sidon, on the coast of what is now Lebanon, was known in classical antiquity as a centre of both purple dye production and aromatic oil manufacture; lily oil from Sidonian workshops reached Greek and Egyptian markets from at least the 7th century BCE. The Phoenician term sousonon — from the Semitic root that gives us the Hebrew shoshan, lily — appears in trade documents and Greek references to Levantine commerce with sufficient frequency to suggest that Sidonian lily oil was a recognised brand, a quality designation that carried commercial weight across the Mediterranean.
In Greek religious practice, lily oil was among the most appropriate offerings to the gods. Its association with Hera — whose sacred flower was the lily — made it a standard component of temple dedications and sacrificial preparations. The olive oil used to anoint the great chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was reportedly infused with lily and other aromatics; the scent of the statue's oil was considered a component of the divine presence it housed.
The preparation method for lily oil was more demanding than for rose oil. The large, waxy petals of Lilium candidum contain less readily extractable aromatic material than rose petals, and ancient perfumers typically employed a cold enfleurage method — pressing fresh petals into animal fat or a base oil repeatedly until the fat was saturated — rather than heated maceration. Theophrastus notes that lily oil required several rounds of petal replacement to achieve a satisfactory strength of fragrance, a labour-intensive process that contributed to its cost and its prestige.
Iris Oil — The Perfume Beneath the Perfume
Source material: Iris pallida, Iris florentina (orris root, not the flower) Principal producing regions: Egypt, Greece, the Italian peninsula Known ancient names: Irisinon (Greek), Oleum irinum (Latin)
Iris oil is, in an important sense, a paradox: it is classified as a flower oil, but the aromatic material from which it derives is not the flower but the root — the dried rhizome of Iris pallida or Iris florentina, known since antiquity as orris root. When freshly harvested, orris root is nearly scentless. It is only after several years of drying that the root develops its characteristic fragrance: a rich, powdery, violet-like scent produced by the compound irone, which develops through the slow oxidation of aroma precursors in the dried rhizome.
This extended maturation period — three years was typical in ancient practice, as in modern — made orris root one of the most capital-intensive aromatic materials in the ancient world. A perfumer investing in orris root cultivation was committing to a three-year wait before any return on that investment, a fact that structured the entire economics of its production. Orris cultivation tended to be concentrated in estates large enough to sustain long production cycles: the great aristocratic landholdings of Egypt, the temple estates of Greece, and later the agricultural holdings of Roman Italy that supplied the perfumery workshops of Rome and Capua.
The ancient use of orris root was primarily as a fixative: added to infused oils and unguents, it slowed the evaporation of more volatile aromatic compounds, extending the longevity of a perfume on the skin and in storage. This fixative property — now understood chemically but empirically observed in antiquity — made orris root an ingredient in numerous compound perfumes rather than a stand-alone product. Athenaeus, the 3rd-century CE author, lists irisinon as one of the four great perfumes of the ancient world alongside rhodinon (rose), nardos (spikenard), and kypros (henna).
The production of irisinon described by Theophrastus and later by Dioscorides involved macerating dried and powdered orris root in olive oil, sometimes with added wine, bee balm, and other aromatics. The resulting oil was less immediately striking in scent than rose or lily oil — the violet character of orris is subtle and requires some familiarity to appreciate — but was highly valued precisely for this quality: it was the perfume beneath the perfume, the invisible structure on which more vivid scents rested.
Henna Oil — Arabia, Egypt and the Scent of the Bride
Source flower: Lawsonia inermis Principal producing regions: Egypt, Arabia, North Africa, the Levant Known ancient names: Kypros (Greek), Henna (Arabic), Camphire (Hebrew)
Henna oil — derived from the small, intensely fragrant flowers of the henna shrub rather than from its leaves — was one of the most widely traded aromatic oils of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. The flowers of Lawsonia inermis produce a scent that ancient writers consistently describe as among the most powerful and intoxicating of all floral fragrances: sweet, slightly spicy, with a richness that some ancient sources compare to roses and others to something entirely distinct. The Song of Songs references the camphire — almost certainly henna — in the vineyards of En Gedi as an image of perfumed beauty; Dioscorides, writing in the 1st century CE, places kypros oil among the most medicinally and aromatically significant preparations available.
Egyptian production of henna oil was centred in the regions where henna cultivation was most intensive: the Delta, the Fayum, and Upper Egypt in the vicinity of Luxor. The oil was prepared by macerating henna flowers in olive or ben oil — ben oil, pressed from the seeds of the Moringa tree, was prized as a perfume base for its own near-scentlessness, which allowed the fragrance of the flowers to express itself without interference. Ben oil also has exceptional oxidative stability, making it an ideal carrier for precious aromatic materials intended for long-term storage or export.
The association between henna oil and bridal preparation was ancient and geographically widespread. Across the Near East, Arabia, and North Africa, anointing with henna oil — distinct from, though related to, the application of henna dye paste — was part of pre-wedding ritual for women, a practice that combined the apotropaic properties attributed to henna with the olfactory preparation of the body for its most significant social transition. This ritual function gave henna oil a stable demand base beyond the general luxury market: it was required for specific ceremonies at specific life moments, giving its production a predictability that purely fashion-driven luxuries lacked.
Narcissus Oil — The Intoxicating and the Uncanny
Source flower: Narcissus tazetta, Narcissus jonquilla Principal producing regions: the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, Phoenicia Known ancient names: Narkissos (Greek), Narcissinum (Latin)
Narcissus oil was, among ancient flower oils, the one most consistently described in terms of ambivalence. Ancient writers admired it — Theophrastus ranks narcissus oil among the finest — but also noted a quality of excess in its fragrance, a heaviness that distinguished it from the more immediately approachable scents of rose or violet. The Greek term narke, from which both the plant genus and the word narcotic derive, captured something real about the fragrance: narcissus flowers in quantity produce an atmosphere that is not quite comfortable, and the oil, concentrated, shared something of this quality.
The aromatic compounds responsible — indole and related molecules — are also present in jasmine and tuberose, and explain why all three flowers were described in similar terms by ancient writers: powerfully attractive but slightly overwhelming, reminiscent in their richest registers of something beyond the simply floral. Modern perfumery classifies indolic florals as animalic white flowers, and uses them precisely for their capacity to suggest warmth, skin, and presence rather than cool, abstract florality.
Narcissus oil was produced primarily in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean, where Narcissus tazetta grows in its largest natural concentrations and was cultivated in gardens from at least the New Kingdom period. Phoenician traders carried the oil westward to Greek markets, and its association with the cult of the dead — narcissi planted on graves, narcissus oil used in funerary preparations — gave it a cultural weight that made it more than a luxury perfume. It was an oil of passage, used at the moments when human beings crossed thresholds: death, illness, divine encounter.
Violet Oil — The Perfume of Athens
Source flower: Viola odorata Principal producing regions: Attica, the Italian peninsula, North Africa Known ancient names: Ionon (Greek), Oleum violaceum (Latin)
Athenian violet oil was among the most culturally specific aromatic products of the ancient world: an oil so identified with a single city that its name — ionon, from ion, violet — carried the implication of Attic origin across the Greek-speaking world. Athens' reputation as iostephanos, violet-crowned, was partly metaphorical, referring to the beauty of its literature and culture, but it was also grounded in literal reality: the market gardens of Attica produced violets in quantity for the garland trade and for the perfumery workshops that extracted ionon for export.
The chemistry of violet oil posed particular challenges for ancient perfumers. The principal aromatic compound in Viola odorata — ionone — is highly volatile and present in relatively small concentrations in the flower, making it difficult to capture in macerated form with the intensity that distinguished rose or lily oil. Ancient violet oil was therefore a more elusive product than its popularity might suggest: real ionon of quality was expensive and difficult to produce consistently. Theophrastus notes that violet oil requires careful temperature management during maceration — too much heat destroys the fragrance entirely — and that the brief flowering season of the violet imposed a narrow window for collection.
These production difficulties contributed to adulteration: ancient sources including Pliny complain about violet oil diluted with inferior materials or scented with substitute aromatics. The existence of consumer complaint about adulteration implies, in turn, a sufficiently developed market for violet oil that sellers could reasonably expect buyers to know what they were purchasing. This is the condition of a mature, sophisticated trade: one in which both producers and consumers have developed sufficient expertise to recognise and dispute quality.
The medical applications of violet oil were extensive. Dioscorides recommends it for headaches, fever, and sleep disorders. Its use as a hair oil and scalp treatment appears in Roman sources. And its application to inflamed or irritated skin was commonplace across the Mediterranean world, with some empirical justification: Viola odorata does contain compounds with anti-inflammatory properties that modern analysis has confirmed.
Jasmine Oil — The Nocturnal Absolute
Source flower: Jasminum sambac, Jasminum officinale Principal producing regions: South Asia, Persia, Arabia, later Egypt and North Africa Known ancient names: Yasamin (Arabic/Persian), Sambacinum (Latin, from Sanskrit sambac)
Jasmine oil presents ancient perfumers with one of their most technically demanding subjects: the flower's aromatic compounds degrade almost immediately on exposure to heat, making heated maceration — the most common ancient extraction method — unsuitable. Effective jasmine oil required cold enfleurage: a process in which flowers were laid on fat-covered plates or pressed between layers of fat-soaked cloth, left for hours, then replaced with fresh flowers, with the cycle repeated until the fat was saturated. The process was slow, labour-intensive, and required enormous quantities of flowers — modern estimates suggest that a kilogram of absolute jasmine oil requires several million individual flowers — which explains why genuine jasmine oil was among the most expensive aromatic materials in any ancient market where it appeared.
The Latin name sambacinum — derived directly from the Sanskrit sambac — is itself evidence of long-distance trade: it indicates that Roman consumers were aware of the South Asian origin of jasmine oil and that the name, like the flower, had survived intact the journey from Indian gardens to Mediterranean markets. Pliny includes sambacinum in his account of the aromatic oils available in Rome, placing it alongside Syrian and Egyptian products in a context that implies commercial availability, if at great cost.
In Indian Ayurvedic medicine, jasmine oil was applied to wounds, used in eye preparations, and taken internally in small quantities for conditions ranging from depression to fever. The flower's association with Kama, god of love, and with erotic literature gave the oil an aphrodisiac reputation that was commercially useful and culturally durable: across the Arabic-speaking world into which Indian jasmine cultivation expanded from the early medieval period, jasmine oil retained its associations with desire, sensuality, and feminine beauty.
The night-blooming intensity of Jasminum sambac — its flowers open at dusk and are spent by morning, releasing their fragrance most powerfully in the hours of darkness — gave the oil a particular cultural cachet in traditions that associated night with love and mystery. Ancient Tamil Sangam poetry describes jasmine-scented nights as the natural atmosphere of erotic encounter; this literary association reinforced commercial demand for an oil that could, in some measure, recreate those conditions.
Saffron Oil — More Than Spice
Source flower: Crocus sativus Principal producing regions: Crete, Persia, later Kashmir Known ancient names: Krokinon (Greek), Crocinum (Latin), Zafaran (Persian/Arabic)
Saffron oil — distinct from saffron as a culinary spice — was produced by macerating the dried stigmas of the saffron crocus in olive or ben oil to produce an intensely coloured and fragranced preparation used in both perfumery and medicine. The aromatic compounds of saffron — safranal, picrocrocin, and the carotenoid crocin responsible for the colour — transfer with some fidelity into oil, producing a preparation that was simultaneously a perfume, a dye, and a medicinal agent.
The labour intensity of saffron production — each crocus produces only three stigmas, and the entire global crop must be harvested by hand within a narrow autumn window — made saffron oil one of the most expensive substances in the ancient world, comparable in cost to gold in some contexts. Its use was therefore deeply entangled with status and display. Persian royalty anointed themselves with saffron oil; Alexander the Great's adoption of this practice from Persian court custom was noted by Greek historians as one of many signs of his progressive orientalisation. Roman emperors had saffron oil sprayed over crowds during public appearances.
The golden colour of saffron oil contributed to its divine associations: across Persian, Greek, and Hindu traditions, the colour associated with the sun and with divinity was saffron-yellow, and the oil that produced that colour was correspondingly sacred. Hindu sacred thread ceremonies and bridal preparations used saffron oil; in Greek ritual, the garments of brides and of those being initiated into mystery cults were dyed saffron-yellow, a colour that the corresponding oil helped maintain as fragrant symbol as much as visual one.
Medicinally, saffron oil appeared in preparations for coughs, liver complaints, and as a sedative. Dioscorides describes its internal use in wine as a treatment for urinary disorders; its external application to the skin was recommended for rashes and inflammation. The oil's genuine pharmacological activity — modern research has confirmed antidepressant, anti-inflammatory, and mild sedative effects from saffron compounds — lends retrospective credibility to ancient medical uses that might otherwise seem purely prestigious.
Chamomile Oil — The Physician's Flower
Source flower: Anthemis nobilis (Roman chamomile), Matricaria chamomilla (German chamomile) Principal producing regions: Egypt, Greece, Roman Europe Known ancient names: Anthemis (Greek), Chamaemelon (Latin, from Greek khamai — on the ground — and melon — apple)
Chamomile oil occupies a different position from most ancient flower oils in that its primary ancient use was unambiguously medicinal rather than cosmetic or ritual. The sweet, apple-like scent of chamomile flowers — the source of the Greek name khamai melon, ground apple — was noted and appreciated in antiquity, but what sustained chamomile cultivation and oil production across the ancient world was its therapeutic reputation, which was extensive and, in many respects, well founded.
Egyptian medical papyri reference chamomile preparations for fever reduction; the Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE) includes chamomile among the plants used in anti-inflammatory preparations. Greek physicians from Hippocrates onward prescribed chamomile for a range of conditions including nervous disorders, digestive complaints, and menstrual pain. Dioscorides devotes considerable space to chamomile's properties, noting its use in steam inhalations, poultices, and infused oils. Roman physicians of the Imperial period — including Galen — considered chamomile one of the most reliably useful of all medicinal plants.
The preparation of chamomile oil was less technically demanding than that of rose or jasmine: the flowers are relatively easy to macerate, tolerating gentle heat without significant aromatic degradation. The bisabolol and chamazulene compounds responsible for chamomile's anti-inflammatory properties — the latter giving German chamomile oil its distinctive deep blue colour when extracted — transfer into oil, making the macerated preparation genuinely pharmacologically active rather than simply fragrant. This congruence of scent and medicinal efficacy made chamomile oil one of the most credible ancient flower medicines and one of the most continuously used: from Egyptian papyri to the present day, its therapeutic use has never entirely lapsed.
Tuberose Oil — The White Absolute of the Americas
Source flower: Polianthes tuberosa Principal producing regions: Mexico (pre-Columbian), later India and southern France Known ancient names (Mesoamerican context): Omixochitl (Nahuatl)
Tuberose oil — or rather, the aromatic preparations derived from tuberose flowers in the ancient Mesoamerican world — represents a flower oil tradition entirely independent of the Mediterranean and Asian networks described elsewhere in this guide. The Aztec civilisation and its predecessors cultivated tuberose in the pleasure gardens of the elite and used the flowers in both ritual offering and personal fragrance preparation. The method employed was closer to enfleurage than maceration: flowers were pressed into fatty materials — probably rendered animal fat — to extract their fragrance, a process that paralleled, without any cultural connection, the enfleurage techniques of ancient Egypt and Phoenicia.
The tuberose fragrance is among the most complex in the botanical world: simultaneously sweet, waxy, indolic, and spicy, with a persistence on the skin unusual even among concentrated flower oils. Aztec texts describe omixochitl — the bone flower — as essential to certain ceremonial preparations, and the flower's association with the dead (its whiteness, the funerary context of many of its uses) gave tuberose oil a ritual significance that structured both its cultivation and its use.
Its entry into Old World perfumery following Spanish colonisation was rapid and transformative. By the late 17th century, tuberose absolute — produced in the enfleurage workshops of Grasse — had become one of the most sought-after and expensive perfumery materials in Europe. The flower's capacity to yield a fragrance that was at once floral and animalic, familiar and exotic, made it irresistible to a European perfumery tradition hungry for new aromatic experiences. The long history of its cultivation in Mesoamerica was, in this new context, largely invisible — the flower arrived in Europe as a novelty, without its cultural biography.
Lotus Oil — Egypt's Divine Extraction
Source flower: Nymphaea caerulea (blue lotus), Nelumbo nucifera (sacred lotus) Principal producing regions: Egypt, India Known ancient names: Susinum (Latin, originally from Semitic, applied variously to lily and lotus oils), various Egyptian terms
Lotus oil presents particular difficulties of definition in the ancient record. The blue lotus of Egypt (Nymphaea caerulea) and the sacred lotus of India (Nelumbo nucifera) were both sources of aromatic preparations, but the surviving descriptions of their extraction and use are frequently ambiguous — ancient writers did not always distinguish clearly between the two species, and the term susinum (sometimes translated as lily oil, sometimes as lotus oil) appears to have been applied to both.
What is clear is that blue lotus flowers were macerated in base oils to produce aromatic preparations used in Egyptian religious ritual. Temple inventories and offering lists include flower oils among the substances applied to statuary and burned as offerings; the blue lotus oil would have contributed both its own delicate fragrance and the powerful cultural associations of the flower itself. The mildly psychoactive compounds present in Nymphaea caerulea — apomorphine, nuciferine — may have transferred in some measure into infused oils, potentially explaining the elevated states reported in contexts involving the oil's ritual use.
In India, lotus oil from Nelumbo nucifera was used in Ayurvedic medicine and in preparations for religious ceremony. The lotus being the flower most closely associated with divine presence across both Hindu and Buddhist traditions, its aromatic preparation was correspondingly sacred — used to anoint temple images, to prepare the bodies of the dead, and to mark significant ritual transitions. The fragrance of lotus oil — slightly green, watery, subtly sweet — was itself understood as a form of divine communication, the scent of the sacred made perceptible to human senses.
Compound Oils — Where Flower Oils Became Art
No account of ancient flower oils is complete without noting that the most prized aromatic preparations of the ancient world were not single-flower oils but compound preparations: complex blends of multiple flower oils, resins, spices, and fixatives, formulated by specialist perfumers whose knowledge was proprietary and commercially vital.
The most famous of these was the Egyptian kyphi — a compound incense and oil preparation whose recipe appears in inscriptions at the temples of Edfu and Philae and in the writings of Plutarch and Dioscorides. Kyphi contained, depending on the recipe, up to sixteen ingredients: raisins, wine, honey, resin, juniper berries, and aromatic plants including several flower-derived materials. It was burned as a temple incense, dissolved in wine as a medicinal drink, and used as an unguent for the body. The precise formulation was apparently a matter of priestly knowledge, adjusted over time and between temples, with each variant representing accumulated experience of what worked.
The Greek megaleion — named after its inventor, Megallos of Sicily — combined burnt resin with cassia, cinnamon, and a rich floral base that included elements of rose and narcissus oil. Roman compound perfumes of the Imperial period were formulated by specialist unguentarii — perfumers whose trade combined chemistry, botany, and considerable artistic sensibility — who drew on the full range of aromatic materials flowing into Rome from across the known world.
These compound preparations represent the apex of ancient flower oil culture: the point at which botanical knowledge, chemical skill, commercial ambition, and aesthetic aspiration converged. They were not simply pleasant-smelling substances. They were arguments about what beauty was, formulated in oil and flower.
The flower oils of the ancient world were among the most valuable commodities in pre-modern trade, surpassed in cost per unit weight only by the rarest spices and the most precious metals. Their production shaped agricultural landscapes, supported specialist craft industries, and sustained trading networks across three continents. Their loss — the true recipes of kyphi, the precise method of ancient rhodinon, the exact character of first-century Sidonian lily oil — is among the subtler but more genuinely felt absences in our knowledge of the ancient world. We know the names. We know some of the methods. We cannot, quite, smell what they smelled.
