This, the sequel to the same author's much-acclaimed 'Xanthippic Dialogues,' is a multi-faceted commentary on the post-modern condition, which takes the form of part-Hellenistic, part-Arabian fairy tale. Archeanassa of Colophon, subject of a poem attributed by Diogenes Laertius to Plato, has returned to her birthplace in search of the lost manuscripts of another ex-lover, the poet Antimachus. There, she encounters Perictione, Plato's niece, who loves alone in the ruined and brutalized city amid memories and dreams. Perictione tells the strange story of Merope of Sardis, the Nietzshean philosopher who both made and destroyed her life. Little by little Archeanassa comes to recognize that Perictiones story is also her own story, and that the mystery of Colophon is the mystery of modernity itself. Through dialogues, stories and fantasies, the narrative explores the aesthetic way of life, and the possibilities of meaning in an age of inverted commas.