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And now, they say, he is playing the mountebank over that very thing, digging a pit, collecting logs, and promising really awesome fortitude.Thanks to Paul Graindor, the date of the Olympiads mentioned in connection with Peregrinus can now be determined. He has deduced from the apparent ages of the children represented in the exedra erected ty Herodes on the comlotion of his aqueduct that this took place in a.d. 153 (Hérode Atticus et Sa Famille, pp. 87-88). His deduction finds support in the text of Lucian as soon as we recognise that Lucian is talking about four different Olympiads, not three. The first is that on which Peregrinus criticised the aqueduct, which will be the year of its completion, a.d. 153. At the nezt (τὴν ἑξῆς, A.D. 157) he withdrew his criticism. The Olympiad just after which he announced his intention of cremating himself need not and cannot be identical with the one of a.D. 157; it is called by the speaker the last, or previous (τὴν ἐμπρόσθεν), and the text clearly implies a lapse of time. It must therefore be the one of a.d. 161. Then comes the fourth, on which the cremation took place, dated by Eusebius in a.d. 165.
