  The date of Philodemus’ departure from Athens is unknown: he may have been part of the mass exodus of intellectuals and others in the wake of the Mithridatic Wars of 88–86 or of Rome’s campaigns in Asia of 74–65; perhaps he left Athens on the death of Zeno, to whom he proclaims his devotion. One source has a certain Philodemus driven from the Sicilian town of Himera when his teachings were thought to have incurred divine wrath in the form of an epidemic (Aelian, in Suda, s.vv. Himeraiai, sukophantein, and timôntai; cf. Sider 1997, 9–10). The reconstruction of the testimonium is somewhat difficult, and nothing says that it must have to do with our Philodemus. Still, it would not be unusual for an Epicurean to be accused of atheism, and new readings in Philodemus’ Index Academicorum (cf. Fleischer 2017b) show that he did indeed spend time in Sicily.