bond of servitude"). Or the cry of the starving population in the Circus Maximus, faced with a grain blockade from Africa, exploitation by the grain merchants, and the prospect of eating each other: ("Fix a certain price on human flesh"). Olympiodorus “jestingly” suggests that the name (soldiers) derives from the (dry bread, biscuit) which they ate. He gave distances in Roman miles (), as well as stades: eg. (Rimini), “thirty miles from Ravenna”.; or “two hundred and ten stadia distant from Ravenna”. Olympiodorus transliterated every Roman title into Greek, an unusual practice: Greek historians avoided transliteration, often by leaving out the officials' titles altogether. The history includes detailed accounts of people, eg. his account of Constantius III: “Constantius, as he rode along, had a dejected and sullen appearance, with his great eyes and neck and broad head; his whole body was bent over his horse and he looked askance on either side, in order as the old expression has it, “to appear worthy of empire.” At feasts and banquets, however, he was agreeable and sociable, and often even condescended to vie with the mimes who performed at table.” The accuracy of personal details was often corroborated: Stilicho’s nemesis, “the cruel and inhuman Olympius”, is described as a pious Christian; this is confirmed by letters from Saint Augustine of Hippo. He narrates the motivations of various characters with clarity, showing how they manoeuvered through the volatile political landscape of the times. The history provided statistical and cultural details: eg. the sizes of armies; “the emperor called ten thousand Huns to his assistance in the war against Alaric”; the buying-off of Alaric, in which the city agreed to “give five thousand pounds of gold, and thirty thousand of silver, four thousand silk robes, three thousand scarlet fleeces, and three thousand pounds of pepper”; the relative sizes of the baths (there were 1600 seats in the Antonine baths, and twice that number in the Baths of Diocletian). Olympiodorus was able to calculate the annual income of Roman senators, and the immense sums spent by them during their, and the families’, public offices. It also showed a predilection for gruesome details: “Olympius, who intrigued against Stilicho.. is beaten to death by order of Constantius, the husband of Placidia, after his ears have first been cut off”; the heads of usurpers (Jovinus and his brother Sebastian, Constantine and his son Julian, Maximus and Eugenius) are