exposed outside Carthage; Attalus, city prefect of Rome, declared Emperor by Alaric “is captured, and, after the thumb and forefinger of his right hand have been cut off, is banished”. Above all, the work had a “distinctly geographical bias”, with “even the geography of poets...pressed into... service”. Events were often narrated topographically (a practice shared with Ammianus Marcellinus).In his account of his trip to the Blemmyes, there are digressions on the weather, wells, agriculture and fossils. Olympiodorus concluded, from the fossil remains, that the Great Oasis of Siwah had once been an island. He gives detailed accounts of the routes taken by Alaric and Stilicho on various campaigns, mentioning rivers, towns, distances and features of the landscape. Though Olympiodorus was a Pagan, the work was "carefully neutral" on religious issues, (apart from some references to the disastrous effects of removing pagan statues). He was capable of even-handedness towards people, praising the Gothic general Sarus for his bravery and skill in battle, but denouncing him as an oath-breaker. Though emperors are generally mentioned with respect, he depicted Honorius as an oath-breaker (Honorius had promised safe passage to Constantine III and his son, but then had them executed), but praised his arrangement with the Visigoth Ataulf, whereby the latter defeated the rebel Jovinus in 413. Surprisingly, in the political context of the times, Olympiodorus spoke positively of Stilicho, and disapproved wholeheartedly of his execution by Honorius. He could also take unfavourable views of individuals: for instance, the pious Olympius, whom Olympiodorus regarded as a traitor, while other writes regarded him as a ‘public benefactor’. He did not like Galla Placidia, telling us that her second husband, the emperor Constantius III, was “generous and open-handed” till he married her, after which he descended into "parsimonious ways".. The work has been seen as a piece of travel-writing, in which the wandering poet goes in search of “themes, patrons and rewards”; however, Matthews points out that the style is more in keeping with an official document, designed to inform and make policy recommendations based on the situation in the west. Olympiodorus himself described the work as “a collection of materials for a history”, (), Gillett tells us that holders of public office in antiquity often assembled such materials so that they, or others, could use them as the basis for a history. Thompson points out that Olympiodorus’ idiosyncracies of style: the Latinisms, slang (vernacular Greek),