In a palace where a curious conception of the love of Atalanta and
Meleager was said to figure on the walls, there was a door on
which was a sign, imitated from one that overhung the Theban
library of Osymandias--Pharmacy of the Soul. It was there Tiberius
dreamed.

On the ivory shelves were the philtres of Parthenius, labelled De
Amatoriis Affectionibus, the Sybaris of Clitonymus, the
Erotopaegnia of Laevius, the maxims and instructions of
Elephantis, the nine books of Sappho. There also were the pathetic
adventures of Odatis and Zariadres, which Chares of Mitylene had
given to the world; the astonishing tales of that early
Cinderella, Rhodopis; and with them those romances of Ionian
nights by Aristides of Milet, which Crassus took with him when he
set out to subdue the Parthians, and which; found in the booty,
were read aloud to the people that they might judge the morals of
a nation that pretended to rule the world.

Whether such medicaments are serviceable to the soul is
problematic. Tiberius had other drugs on the ivory shelves--magic
preparations that transported him to fabulous fields. There was a
work by Hecataesus, with which he could visit Hyperborea, that
land where happiness was a birthright, inalienable at that; yet a
happiness so sweet that it must have been cloying; for the people
who enjoyed it, and with it the appanage of limitless life, killed
themselves from sheer ennui. Theopompus disclosed to him a
stranger vista--a continent beyond the ocean--one where there were
immense cities, and where two rivers flowed--the River of Pleasure
and the River of Pain. With Iambulus he discovered the Fortunate