10 interesting facts about population control in ancient Greece reveal a surprisingly sophisticated mix of herbal remedies, legal edicts, and cultural practices that shaped family size in the classical world.
10 Interesting Facts Overview
10 Silphium
There is abundant documentary evidence that the Greeks were well‑acquainted with the contraceptive virtues of a modest tree called silphium, belonging to the Ferula genus. This botanical marvel was both discovered and commercialised by Greek colonists in Cyrene, a coastal settlement on today’s Libyan shoreline near Shahhat.
Attempts to transplant silphium beyond Cyrene proved futile; the species could not survive elsewhere. Overharvesting drove the plant to extinction, and by the first century AD it had become a luxury item due to its scarcity. The final historical reference we possess dates to the fourth century AD.
Modern experimental work with extracts from related Ferula species has demonstrated contraceptive efficacy in animal models when the preparation is administered within three days of mating. This suggests that silphium may have functioned as an ancient herbal “morning‑after” pill, much like the modern versions marketed today (Wilson 2006: 182).
9 Magical Procedures
In the Hellenic world, magical concoctions, spells, amulets, and incantations were thought to influence both fertility and contraception. Strangely enough, the testicles of a weasel were believed to work in opposite directions.
According to the ancient Greek compilation known as the Cyranides (section 2.7), the right testicle of a weasel “reduced to ashes and mixed in a paste with myrrh” was thought to promote conception when inserted into a woman’s vagina on a small woolen ball before intercourse.
The contraceptive counterpart employed the left testicle, “wrapped in mule skin and attached to the woman.” Because the source does not detail precisely how the testicle should be affixed, modern scholars cannot confirm or refute the efficacy of this curious practice (McKeown 2013: 35).
8 Male Contraception
Some ancient writers mention a plant dubbed periklymenon that was reputed to act as a male contraceptive, though modern scholars have yet to identify the exact species. The eminent Greek physician Galen reported that athletes chewed the chaste tree to prevent erections, and other sources claim that priests gnawed its leaves to dampen sexual desire (Wilson 2006: 182).
Contemporary laboratory tests of chaste‑tree extract on dogs have shown it can suppress sperm production effectively. While coitus interruptus (withdrawal) was also known, the scanty textual evidence makes it difficult to gauge how widely this method was practiced.
7 Abortion
Abortion was a familiar procedure in ancient Greece. While Greek physicians possessed both surgical and chemical means to terminate a pregnancy, literary sources indicate that surgical interventions were discouraged because of the danger they posed to the mother.
Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, remarks in Plato’s Theaetetus (149d) that midwives could, with “drugs and incantations,” cause a miscarriage if they chose to. Ancient medical texts list several plants used to abort early pregnancies, including rue, pennyroyal, myrrh, juniper, and birthwort.
Although abortion sparked controversy in certain city‑states, there is no clear evidence that it was a punishable offense. Medical writings suggest that the practice was especially prevalent among prostitutes (Wilson 2006: 1).
6 Infanticide
Infanticide functioned as a recognized family‑planning tool. Legally, a child received little protection until the amphidromia ceremony, during which the father officially named the newborn.
Consequently, a child could be killed without legal repercussions or moral outcry at any point before this naming ritual. Moreover, several Greek law codes expressly permitted infanticide under particular circumstances.
The phrase “infant exposure” (the act of leaving the infant outdoors) appears in ancient sources, likely serving as a euphemism for infanticide. The outcome of such abandonment was either death or adoption by a third party (Hornblower and Spawforth 2012: 735). Tales of exposed infants—Oedipus, Paris, Telephus—underscore the prevalence of this practice, although precise rates remain difficult to determine.
5 Deformed Infants
A particularly stark form of infanticide is documented in Sparta. According to Plutarch’s “Life of Lycurgus” (16), every newborn was presented to the elders for assessment:
If the infant was well‑built and sturdy, the father was ordered to rear it…; but if it was ill‑born and deformed, it was sent to the so‑called Apothetae, a chasm at the foot of Mount Taygetus, because a life not equipped with health and strength was deemed of no benefit to either the child or the state.
Sparta was not unique in this regard. Aristotle, in Book 7 of his Politics, advocated for a law forbidding the survival of deformed children: “As to the exposure and rearing of children, let there be a law that no deformed child shall live.” The Roman Law of the Twelve Tables (Table 4, 1) likewise prescribed immediate death for notably deformed infants.
4 Homosexuality
Scholar William Percy has argued that the encouragement of same‑sex relations in ancient Greece—especially the institutionalized Athenian pederasty—served as a mechanism for limiting population growth. Aristotle (Politics 2.1272a 22‑24) made a similar claim regarding Cretan pederasty, suggesting it was intended to curb demographic expansion.
While it is impossible to confirm that Greek societies consciously promoted homosexuality as a demographic policy, it is reasonable to assume that an increase in same‑sex encounters would naturally reduce the frequency of heterosexual intercourse, thereby lowering birth rates.
Thus, homosexuality may have functioned as an inadvertent form of population control—not a deliberately crafted strategy, but a side effect of cultural practices that limited procreative activity (Wilson 2006: 127).
3 Legal Regulations
Various aspects of population management were codified into law across Greek city‑states. In Gortyn, a central Cretan city, inscriptions dating to around 450 BC detail statutes governing family size and infant exposure (Hornblower and Spawforth 2012: 623‑735).
The Gortyn code (3, 43‑48) permitted infant exposure under certain conditions: “If a divorced wife bears a child, it must be brought to the husband in the presence of three witnesses; if he refuses, the mother may either rear or expose the child.”
Interestingly, the same code (4, 9‑13) imposed fines on women who exposed a child prematurely: fifty stater for a free child, twenty‑five stater for a slave. In Thebes, the law prohibited infanticide outright, yet allowed impoverished parents to sell their children.
2 Mortality And Life Expectancy
War stood out as the chief cause of adult male mortality, though maternal, neonatal, and infant deaths were also alarmingly high. No reliable demographic statistics survive, but scholars have proposed a wide range of estimates: maternal mortality may have ranged from 5 per 20,000 births (likely an underestimate) to 25 per 1,000 births, varying by region and era (Hornblower and Spawforth 2014: 161, 617).
Forensic analyses of Classical Greek burial sites suggest infant mortality hovered around 30 percent, based on data from Olyntus in northern Greece—though the representativeness of the sample remains uncertain.
The Greeks coined the term amphithales (“blooming on both sides”) to describe a child whose both parents were still alive. The very existence of such a specific word hints at a generally low life expectancy (McKeown 2013: 16).
1 Miscellaneous Birth Control Methods
Ancient texts record a variety of additional contraceptive tricks that defy easy classification and whose effectiveness remains dubious. In the first century AD, the Greek physician Dioscorides advised anointing the male organ with cedar gum and applying alum to the uterus, believing this would render the womb inhospitable to the male seed.
Other suggested practices included a suppository made of peppermint and honey applied before intercourse, and a peppery pessary used after sexual activity to “dry out” the uterus, thereby making it hostile to a developing fetus.