“May honey drip on You” Beliefs about honey in ancient Greece and Rome

Honey has long been known to contain important and beneficial properties. In the era of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire that knowledge imputed magical and mystical meanings and uses to honey.

Earlier this week, I read an article by Louise Cilliers and Francois Pieter Retief on ‘Bees, Honey and Health in Antiquity’. They argued that honey was a valuable and multi-use commodity in antiquity, used for medicine, in religious ceremonies, and simply as a sweetener. The focus of their study was on evidence from ancient Greece and Rome, which acts as a nice segway into my next focus on this period of history.

In this week’s Honeybee Histories, we therefore look a bit further into Cilliers and Retief’s arguments about the early uses of honey.