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By Root 1212 0

everyone who has spent any time with him. He wrote the emperor of all self-help works, Meditations, a book packed with stunning insights laid out as poetic exercises—meditations for more perspective on oneself, others, and reality itself. He was also a famously wise ruler. Master historian Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) called the reign of Marcus Aurelius “the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy.”11 Aurelius held the vast Roman world, but he knew that what we really want, we want from the people close to us, and that beyond a certain point they won’t give it to us—because they have their own thing going on. We have to figure out how to do the best we can under these circumstances. As we saw, his advice is to not try to be like Plato and imagine a new utopian world, but rather to try in moderate earnest to make this world good. If you pay meditative attention to the vast size of time and the span of the universe, you will be more realistic, more generous, and will develop a better sense of humor about yourself. Remember that either life means something, or it means nothing and is all chance; either way, you need to relax, get through your panic, and get in on the game. Most of all, if you can remind yourself, in stable and unstable times, that change is the nature of things, you will be wise and able to help others. Only don’t think that if you are perfectly generous, kind, and wise you will escape the derision of humanity: people have something nasty to say about everyone. If you are perfect, Aurelius warned, they will still be a little glad when you are dead and no longer around making them aware of their not being as perfect as you.

Life is hard for everyone sober, even Aurelius! The only person ever known as a great emperor and true philosopher was on a steady, carefully managed diet of opium highs. Apparently, there are limitations to wisdom, and happiness is often managed by a variety of means. Borrowing his Meditations, and not his opium, is perhaps like borrowing the idea of a bicycle but building yours with only one wheel (perhaps to cut down the chances of your getting a flat tire). Of course I am not actually advocating that university classes in Roman philosophy come with a lab fee for the dope, as we know that these drugs hold bad trouble for anyone who cannot control their use. Still, it is possible to see modern psychotropic drugs, or booze, or various smokable plants, in similar terms. Also, modern prescription opiates like Vicodin are used by people to feel happy, to take away pain, and to help them fall asleep. Marcus Aurelius tinkered with his chemistry just as we do today. Later, Galen was personal physician to the Emperors Commodus and Severus. Commodus refused theriac. Severus demanded the exact preparation given to Marcus Aurelius; he so admired the already legendary emperor that he did his drugs. As for Galen, throughout his practice he continued to recommend the use of opium as a cure for headaches, asthma, coughs, colic, fevers, and melancholy. People would henceforth refer to mixed opium drugs not only as theriacs, but now as galenes or galenics.

In the Middle Ages the word theriac became treacle, and Venice became the European source of it. The Venetian treacle recipe was a thick, sugary syrup with opium in it, and was used medicinally for every ill. When opium began to be regulated, the syrup without the drug was sold as a cheap sweetener, still called treacle in Europe, but usually called molasses in the United States. In the medieval European period, while opium use was slowly changing from ancient Greek theriac to Renaissance Viennese treacle, most of the new writing was produced in the Muslim world. One of Muhammad’s sacred tenets was that Muslims are not supposed to drink alcohol. That doesn’t mean they never did, or don’t now, but it was and is a strong prohibition. Since they should not drink, Muslims took a great deal of hashish and opium. (It reminds us of the Mormons disallowing caffeine while sipping ephedra.) There were apothecaries