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and afterwards, at the next Olympiad, he gave the Greeks a speech which he had composed during the four years that had intervened, praising the man who had brought in the water and defending himself for running away at that time. “At last he was disregarded by all and no longer so admired; for all his stuff was stale and he could not turn out any further novelty with which to surprise those who came in his way and make them marvel and stare at him—a thing for which he had a fierce craving from the first. So he devised this ultimate venture of the pyre, and spread a report among the Greeks immediately after the last Olympic games that he would burn himself up at the next festival.
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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.
