The Roman emperor Nero had a mercurial personality. For example, he killed his wife by kicking her when she was pregnant, but then he gave her the most lavish funeral imaginable. He burned on her pyre all of the cinnamon in Rome. There could have been no higher honor. The Romans believed cinnamon was sacred and every Roman emperor stocked cinnamon in his treasury. The Romans weren’t the only ones who valued cinnamon. The ancient Egyptians used it for witchcraft and embalming. Their references to