Oppian, who wrote the epic Halieutica in the period 177–80 CE, was a celebrity not only in his own day but also in later antiquity and the Byzantine world. Over 70 manuscripts of the poem survive, together with extensive scholia, a prose paraphrase and several Vitae; 8 epigrams celebrate him; Eustathius quotes him repeatedly and favourably. Despite his fame, however, the sources are strangely undecided about his place of origin: all agree that he is from Cilicia, but some place him in Corycus, others in Anazarbus. Why is this?