  At times the underlying tensions rise to the surface, but Olympiodorus was expertly evasive of trouble from the audience. In his 44th lecture on the Gorgias, for instance, he reassures his students that pagan myths ought not to be taken literally; one ought to understand that names such as Zeus and Hera and Hades were merely part of the language in which ‘they’ (i.e., the ancient Greeks) talked. Puzzled by the vertiginous and conflicting possibilities of allegorical interpretations of myth, once they are not taken literally, one obstinate student must have intervened, for Olympiodorus makes the following evasive remark (§44.7): “If someone says ‘Then neither ought we put trust in philosophers, since they are in disagreement, some saying the soul is water, others that it is air, some that it is mortal, others that it is immortal’, we reply that in this case we put our trust in those who stay closer to the common notions. But [in myths] there are no common notions to guide our education. Hence we should first explicate the myths — for indeed Plato explicates them. So he said earlier …”.