OSR in the Ancient World: Cyrene

For no reason whatsoever, I've been diving into the history of Libya in the Greek and Roman conquest, especially in the Jebel Akhdar (Green Mountain) region. The location of the present day town of Shahhat coincides with the ancient site of the Greek colony of Cyrene, and is notable not only for a rich mythological history, but for extensive archaeological investigation of the Cyrene Necropolis, one of the most important such sites in the Classical Mediterranean.

I've compiled a few interesting bits and bobs, but first, I will pay the Joesky tax with a new Shrine and Saint.

Shrine of Cyrene Lionkiller

Cyrene was a Thessalian warrior princess, drawn not to the loom or to revelry but to the hunting of wild beasts and herding livestock. She attracted the roving eye of the Seer Apollo when she battled a lion without her spear, and in the course of their affair he crowned her a queen of a bountiful land in Africa, thereafter named Cyrenaica. She is yet worshiped as the patron goddess of her city, and blesses those who tread the wild and its dangers.

Shrine: A tall stele bearing her image behind the main gate of Cyrene; to enter the city, one must go around it, so that all travelers know who guards it.
Favorite Offerings: The pelt of a lion, an amphora of fresh milk, a jar of myrtle honey.

Rare Offering: The pelt of a lion captured in the wild and slain by you in public single combat.
Blessing: Locate Animal, 1st level Druid spell with 160' range for 10 rounds.
Approves: When you expose yourself to the dangers of the wild, but especially when you slay or capture a dangerous beast.

A favorite verse: There was Cyrene, a champion in the leafy forest with her lionslaying hands, princess of proud Lapithai, the bronze-tipped javelin and sword called her to combat and slay the wild beasts of the field, she is guardian of a city rich in beauty.

Curse: The Shepherd's Watch. Your soul is bound to the nearest domestic animal. Any damage done to it is mirrored to you. If it dies, you die. Cultists of Cyrene tend to keep lambs for this purpose.

I've mixed up the Saints and Shrines system a bit here, incorporating some mechanics from Arnold K's Augury, Blasphemy and Oaths post. Now, onto some historical tidbits.

Cyrene was located in a wet and well-forested region of modern-day Libya, which is otherwise one of the driest and least forested countries in the world. The Green Mountain region is roughly 150 miles long and 30 miles wide, curving slightly along a coastal horn, located between the modern-day cities of Benghazi and Derna. The native people are the Amazigh, and records indicate that as far back as the 13th century BCE, the local tribes frequently invaded the New Kingdom of Egypt.

It was colonized by Greece around 631 BCE, and became a prominent center of trade and high Greek culture, including the Cyrenaic School of Philosophy founded by Aristippus. After Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, it was invaded and occupied by the Egyptian Ptolemy dynasty. As Rome became prominent and colonized Egypt in turn, it soon became a separate province. My interest in the region ends in the year 0, but this gives us plenty of good material.

The Cyrene Necropolis

My favorite feature of the old city is the Necropolis. It's about four square miles of tombs and mausoleums, the oldest dating back to 600 BCE, built by the Greek colonists, and later built upon by Romans. It's built into a hill, with the tombs constructed in terraces. 

If you want a classical tomb complex for a proper tomb adventure, you could scarcely do better for historical inspiration. A quote from James Hamilton's Wanderings in North Africa stuck out to me as being directly relevant to PCs and adventuring, as he laments the tomb-robbing in the region.

"Some feelings of melancholy must be awakened in every visitor, as he follows those long lines of violated sepulchres, ranged along the sides of the hills, obtruding far into the plain below, and stretching in every direction across the table-land to the south. The simple sarcophagus and proud mausoleum now alike gape tenantless; perpetuating neither the affection of the survivors nor the merits of the dead, they are mute as to their history, their fate, and almost their names. Barbarian hands have disturbed the relics, and rifled the treasures which they once contained; the existence of such treasures must have been the incentive to, and can alone account for the universal violation of the tombs — hatred, if profitless as well as toilsome, is seldom thus unrelenting."

Silphium

[EDIT: The drama around Silphium and its medicinal and contraceptive properties are mostly fabricated. While it was popular and well-valued, in reality it was mostly used as a food product, the stem boiled and served in a dish. Mentions of its medicinal, let alone contraceptive use, follow Pliny, and are not supported in ancient texts. Also, the claim that it was extinct was a misinterpretation of Pliny. He only claimed that the plant grew less common in Cyrenaica and was less harvested, but that other, inferior breeds of the plant were extant and well-trafficked from the eastern empire. In other words, Hamilton got his stuff wrong. The below information reflects popular understanding, not historical reality.]

Hamilton, writing in 1856, notes that Cyrene was an ancient go-between for goods from the African interior to the Mediterranean, with treasures including ostrich feathers, precious stones, ivory, gold and slaves. However, he notes one infamous product original and unique to Cyrenaica, the Silphium plant.

Silphium was a plant, extinct since the third or second century BCE, believed to resemble fennel. It had a long history in the Mediterranean, as its juice, called laserpitium, was a cure-all, and was prized by the Greeks and Romans as an aphrodisiac and a contraceptive. It grew exclusively in the Green Mountain region, and many attempts to grow it at scale or move it to other locations failed without exception. Contemporary theories hold that it may have been a hybrid, or perhaps especially sensitive to its native soil chemistry, but in a fantasy we need not stick to such plausible explanations.

How valuable was it? The playwright Aristophanes used the phrase, 'Silphium of Battus' as a synonym for extraordinary wealth, and Romans paid its weight in silver; if you use a gold-based economy, saying that the plant is worth its weight in gold is completely accurate. The supply of Silphium was one of the treasures that Caesar laid claim to at the start of the civil war, and the very last stalk of Silphium in existence was supposedly given to the Emperor Nero as a curiosity.

If you want to give the party some unique treasure, a rare patch of Silphium growing in soil transported from Cyrenaica would be quite a piece.