 It is also important to identify Simplicius’ purpose and intended audience in writing his compendious exegetical works. Given the sheer size of the commentaries and their argumentative structure, which at times is rather complex, it is difficult to imagine that Simplicius is aiming at students. Moreover, given the uneven length of the exegeses of specific lemmata and the considerable number of so-called digressions (see  §2),  it is not clear how a teacher could organise the material in the commentaries for a series of lessons. To be suitable for the classroom, Simplicius’ style would have needed to be much more didactic and elementary. Although Baltussen (2010: 717) maintains that 