Philtre

Philtre (Gr. philtro, 'love-charm'). A superstitious belief in the efficacy of certain artificial means of inspiring and securing love seems to have been generally prevalent from very early times; and among the Greeks and Romans love-charms, and especially love-potions, were in continual use. It is not certainly known of what these love-potions were composed, but there is no doubt that certain poisonous or deleterious herbs and drugs were among their chief ingredients, to which other substances, animal as well as vegetable, are said to have been added, coupled with the employment of magic rites. Thessaly had the credit of producing the most potent herbs, and her people were notorious as the most skilful practisers of magic arts, whence the well-known 'Thessala philtro' of Juvenal (vi. 610). These potions were violent and dangerous in operation, and their use resulted often in the weakening of the mental powers, madness, and death instead of the purpose for which they were intended. Lucretius is said to have been driven mad by a love-potion, and to have died by his own hand in consequence. In the corrupt and licentious days of the Roman empire the manufacture of love-charms of all kinds seems to have been carried on as a regular trade, the purchasers, if not the makers of them, being chiefly women. The use of philtres seems to have been not unknown during the middle ages; and in the East, the nurse of superstition, belief in the power of love-potions lingers down to the present day.