church,was another possible informant. The sometime Praetorian Prefect, Palladius, who had the task of raising Alaric’s tribute from the aristocracy in 408, was another possible source, and may have provided Olympiodorus with his knowledge of public and private wealth. His unfavourable account of Galla Placidia mirrors those of commentators in the western Empire, where Placidia was not popular. His detailed account of Roman statistics were most probably gleaned from the city’s archives, which Olympiodorus could, as a government official, have accessed on his visit for the installation of Valentinian III (assuming he went; his description of Rome and his amazement at the splendour of the city was "almost" certainly "based on autopsy"). Olympiodorus also drew on personal experience: for instance, his account of the student initiation rites in the baths of Athens, which were unlikely to be public, is so detailed it suggests that Olympiodorus had participated in them. He learned enough of barbarian customs and language to comment on their tribal structure. The story of the silver statues (below) was told to him by Valerius, given as governor of Thrace (who may have been the son of his friend Leontius, and brother of Eudocia Augusta). Influence Originally, the intended readership of the history may have been small, perhaps restricted to the emperor, his wife and sister, and his principal advisers. However, it was used and paraphrased by several other writers. Sozomen, a near contemporary, wrote his Ecclesiastical History (also dedicated to Theodosius II) in the 440s. Though not the most prolific user of the history, he provides some details not found in other works, and is closer in style to the original, often preserving Olympiodorus’ details, and Latinisms, by straightforward transcription of Latin characters into Greek. Sozomen switches his emphasis from the East to the West when he follows Olympiodorus, and his narrative becomes more precise. The last book (Book IX), which uses Olympiodorus as a source for a large part of it, led Matthews to note that Sozomen seems to forget he is writing an ecclesiastical history, and becomes “almost secular”. Sozomen notes the powers of Stilicho, but does not present Olympiodorus’ favourable view of him, merely mentioning (twice) that he was killed by soldiers in Ravenna. Sozomen tells of the besieging of Rome by Alaric, and mentions “certain Tuscans, who… promised to drive out the barbarians with thunder and lightning; they boasted of having performed a similar