that the interpreter of such texts must work hard at the process of interpretation. The simulated nature of the accounts must be fully considered. In this we would stress the tentativeness of our own interpretations of the various texts studied herein. We do not wish to give the reader the impression that we believe that none of the data in the ancient texts is trustworthy or that all is rhetoric and stereotyped vocabulary. It is simply that the use of a common transmission code underlying the ancient