Patterns of mobility on the part of poets and musicians in any society and in any given period are likely to be determined by three factors: first, key features of the society they are operating in, such as its cultural and political divisions, and conditions of travel and communication; second, the existence of opportunities for performance that might attract performers, such as festivals and competitions; and third, aspects of the professional organisation of poets and musicians: are we dealing with individuals or groups, with people who normally live at home or with professionals who are continuously on the move? The present paper explores these issues for the Artists of Dionysus operating in the Mediterranean world during the Hellenistic and imperial periods. I shall show that in both these periods the volume of travel was very great, as the result of the explosion in festival culture that took place at the beginning of the Hellenistic period and continued in the Roman empire. At the same time, I shall suggest that the general pattern exhibited by the movements of the Artists was very different in the two periods: in the Hellenistic period, travel is focused through a number of regional associations of artists, which themselves comprised poets and musicians from a wide variety of places; whereas in the Roman empire, these regional associations fall away, and eminent artists are designated as belonging to the oikoumenē (‘the inhabited world’ within the boundaries of the Roman empire).