dangers of foreign travel (ch.8) and the quality (or type) of death (ch.9 – as opposed to the time of death considered in III.10). The final chapter of the work is described as "a curious one" for introducing a separate theme at the end of the book. This refers to the seven 'ages of man', which Ptolemy briefly mentioned in III.1 as a matter which varies the emphasis of astrological configurations according to the time in life they occur: "we predict events that will come about at specific times and vary in degree, following the so called ages of life. His argument is that, just as an astrologer must consider cultural differences "lest he mistake the appropriate customs and manners by assigning, for example, marriage with a sister to one who is Italian by race, instead of to the Egyptian as he should", it is necessary to consider the age in life that important astrological events occur. This is to ensure the prediction will "harmonise those details which are contemplated in temporal terms with that which is suitable and possible for persons in the various age-classes" and avoid out-of-context predictions such as imminent marriage for a young child, or "to an extremely old man the begetting of children or anything else that fits younger men". This leads into a discussion of the planetary themes of the seven ages of life which: The information in the passage can be summarised as follows: The book ends with a brief discussion of astronomical and symbolic cycles used in the prediction of timed events, which includes mention of (primary) directions, annual profections, ingresses, lunations and transits. The translator of the Loeb 1940 English translation, F. E. Robbins, reports a "puzzling problem" regarding the final paragraph of the book. One group of manuscripts have either been left unconcluded or supplied with text that matches an Anonymous Paraphrase of the work (speculatively attributed to Proclus); the other presents text which is the same in general content, but longer, according with manuscripts that were transmitted through Arabic translations. Robbins considers it certain that the ending which concurs with the text of the Paraphrase is spurious. Robert Schmidt, the English translator of the later Project Hindsight edition agrees with his choice, stating that the text of the latter "sounds more generally Ptolemaic". Robbins explains that the lack of an ending usually occurs when ancient books are compiled in