The emperors kept a special store of drugs of their own and had botanists in Sicily, Crete, and Africa who supplied not only them with medicinal herbs, but also the city of Rome as well, Galen says. However, the emperors appear to have reserved a large supply of the finest and rarest simples for their own use. Galen mentions a large amount of Hymettus honey in the imperial stores—ἐν ταῖς αὐτοκρατορικαῖς ἀποθήκαις,[562] whence our word “apothecary.”[563] He proves that cinnamon[564] loses its potency with time by his own experience as imperial physician. An assignment of the spice sent to Marcus Aurelius from the land of the barbarians (ἐκ τῆς βαρβάρου) was superior to what had stood stored in wooden jars from the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. Commodus exhausted all the recent supply, and when Galen was forced to turn to what had been on hand in preparing an antidote for Severus, he found it much weaker than before, although not thirty years had elapsed. That cinnamon was a commodity little known to the populace is indicated by Galen’s mentioning his loss in the fire of 192 of a few precious bits of bark he had stored away in a chest with other treasures.[565] He praises the Severi, however, for permitting others to use theriac, a noted medicine and antidote of which we shall have more to say presently. Thus, he says, not only have they as emperors received power from the gods, but in sharing their goods freely they are like the gods, who rejoice the more, the more people they save.[566] [Sidenote: Galen’s private supply of drugs: _terra sigillata_.]