permission to wear the cloak on his way from the bath, being accompanied by a numerous and distinguished throng." In the same year (416), and probably as part of the same trip, he visited the oases of the Egyptian desert. His description of the journey ends with the assertion that Homer’s family were natives of the Thebaïd. The official purpose of the visit may have been to gather information about the Blemmyes of Nubia, a group of barbarians living south of the Great Oasis and the Thebaïd, who frequently raided both. In about 419/20, he undertook an actual mission to the Blemmyes, probably in his official capacity. He gives another account of a harrowing sea-voyage: "While talking of a marvellous star (called Urania by the sailors), he was leaning heavily against the mast, which nearly gave way and precipitated him into the water." His parrot seems to have perished, as his writing at this time contains what looks like an obituary. At the border town of Syene (now Aswan), a request was sent to the ethnarchs (leaders) of the Blemmyes, requesting permission to meet them. They referred the decision to their ‘prophets’, who applied divination to the question, and decided in favour of allowing Olympiodorus into their territory: they “were eager to meet him owing to his reputation.” He was urged to visit the emerald mines of the Pharaohs, but official permission was withheld. This is read as the local kings’ refusal, in Freese’s translation of Photius, but Treadgold thinks it much more likely that it was the Emperor’s decision: Olympiodorus was commissioned to travel for five days and no further, and the emerald mines could obviously not be reached within this time. (As further evidence, Treadgold points out that Olympiodorus uses the word basileus (βασιλεύς), the proper title of the Roman Emperor, to refer to the withholder.) On his return journey, he stopped off at his native Thebes, where he learned of the death of his son. He continued his journey to Alexandria, where he met his friend Hierocles. His final recorded journey was to Rome in 424/5, in the company of the magister officiorum Helio, for the installation of the six year old Valentinian III as Western Emperor, in place of the usurper Johannes (423-5). Though there is no direct evidence that Olympiodorus went on this trip, there are several compelling reasons to think he did: his detailed