A professor of Greek rhetoric, frequent letter writer and influential social figure, Libanius (AD 314–393) is a key author for anybody interested in late antiquity, ancient rhetoric, ancient epistolography and ancient biography. Nevertheless, he remains understudied because it is such a daunting task to access his large and only partially translated oeuvre. This volume, which is the first comprehensive study of Libanius, offers a critical introduction to the man, his texts, their context and reception. Clear presentations of the orations, progymnasmata, declamations and letters unlock the corpus, and a survey of all available translations is provided. At the same time, the volume explores new interpretative approaches of the texts from a variety of angles. Written by a team of established as well as upcoming experts in the field, it substantially reassesses works such as the Autobiography, the Julianic speeches and letters, and Oration 30 For the Temples.
This book is a study of the fourth-century sophist Libanius, a major intellectual figure who ran one of the most prestigious schools of rhetoric in the later Roman Empire. He was a tenacious adherent of pagan religion and a friend of the emperor Julian, but also taught leaders of the early Christian church like St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great. Raffaella Cribiore examines Libanius's training and personality, showing him to be a vibrant educator, though somewhat gloomy and anxious by nature. She traces how he cultivated a wide network of friends and former pupils and courted powerful officials to recruit top students. Cribiore describes his school in Antioch--how students applied, how they were evaluated and trained, and how Libanius reported progress to their families. She details the professional opportunities that a thorough training in rhetoric opened up for young men of the day. Also included here are translations of 200 of Libanius's most important letters on education, almost none of which have appeared in English before. Cribiore casts into striking relief the importance of rhetoric in late antiquity and its influence not only on pagan intellectuals but also on prominent Christian figures. She gives a balanced view of Libanius and his circle against the far-flung panorama of the Greek East.
Libanius of Antioch was a rhetorician of rare skill and eloquence. So renowned was he in the fourth century that his school of rhetoric in Roman Syria became among the most prestigious in the Eastern Empire. In this book, Raffaella Cribiore draws on her unique knowledge of the entire body of Libanius’s vast literary output—including 64 orations, 1,544 letters, and exercises for his students—to offer the fullest intellectual portrait yet of this remarkable figure whom John Chrystostom called “the sophist of the city." Libanius (314–ca. 393) lived at a time when Christianity was celebrating its triumph but paganism tried to resist. Although himself a pagan, Libanius cultivated friendships within Antioch’s Christian community and taught leaders of the Church including Chrysostom and Basil of Caesarea. Cribiore calls him a “gray pagan” who did not share the fanaticism of the Emperor Julian. Cribiore considers the role that a major intellectual of Libanius’s caliber played in this religiously diverse society and culture. When he wrote a letter or delivered an oration, who was he addressing and what did he hope to accomplish? One thing that stands out in Libanius’s speeches is the startling amount of invective against his enemies. How common was character assassination of this sort? What was the subtext to these speeches and how would they have been received? Adapted from the Townsend Lectures that Cribiore delivered at Cornell University in 2010, this book brilliantly restores Libanius to his rightful place in the rich and culturally complex world of Late Antiquity.
This book offers translations of ten rhetorical declamations of the fourth-century AD sophist Libanius of Antioch and some related texts, almost all appearing for the first time in a modern language. In these works the declaimer impersonates such mythological or historical figures as Poseidon, Paris, Achilles, and Orestes, either in court (as prosecutor or defendant) or by trying to persuade his audience to take a course of action. The texts illustrate the sophist's eloquence and had an educational purpose in the schools, but were also delivered before adult audiences. They also put the Hellenic past on display for audiences of the Greek East in the Roman Empire. The annotated translations are accompanied by analyses of their themes, structure, and argumentation.
Libanius of Antioch was a rhetorician of rare skill and eloquence. So renowned was he in the fourth century that his school of rhetoric in Roman Syria became among the most prestigious in the Eastern Empire. In this book, Raffaella Cribiore draws on her unique knowledge of the entire body of Libanius’s vast literary output—including 64 orations, 1,544 letters, and exercises for his students—to offer the fullest intellectual portrait yet of this remarkable figure whom John Chrystostom called "the sophist of the city."Libanius (314–ca. 393) lived at a time when Christianity was celebrating its triumph but paganism tried to resist. Although himself a pagan, Libanius cultivated friendships within Antioch’s Christian community and taught leaders of the Church including Chrysostom and Basil of Caesarea. Cribiore calls him a "gray pagan" who did not share the fanaticism of the Emperor Julian. Cribiore considers the role that a major intellectual of Libanius’s caliber played in this religiously diverse society and culture. When he wrote a letter or delivered an oration, who was he addressing and what did he hope to accomplish? One thing that stands out in Libanius’s speeches is the startling amount of invective against his enemies. How common was character assassination of this sort? What was the subtext to these speeches and how would they have been received? Adapted from the Townsend Lectures that Cribiore delivered at Cornell University in 2010, this book brilliantly restores Libanius to his rightful place in the rich and culturally complex world of Late Antiquity.
Libanius of Antioch (AD 314-393) stands out as a fundamental source for the history of the Greek East in the fourth century AD. Drawn from the 1269 letters written between 355 and 365, the 183 letters presented here play an important role in making the age of Constantius II and Julian the Apostate the best-documented period of the ancient world.
Philip Schaff Prize, American Society of Church History S-USIH Book Award, Society for U.S. Intellectual History Merle Curti Award in Intellectual History, Organization of American Historians “A fascinating book...Gin Lum suggests that, in many times and places, the divide between Christian and ‘heathen’ was the central divide in American life.”—Kelefa Sanneh, New Yorker “Offers a dazzling range of examples to substantiate its thesis. Rare is the reader who could dip into it without becoming much better informed on a great many topics historical, literary, and religious. So many of Gin Lum’s examples are enlightening and informative in their own right.”—Philip Jenkins, Christian Century “Brilliant...Gin Lum’s writing style is nuanced, clear, detailed yet expansive, and accessible, which will make the book a fit for both graduate and undergraduate classrooms. Any scholar of American history should have a copy.” —Emily Suzanne Clark, S-USIH: Society for U.S. Intellectual History In this sweeping historical narrative, Kathryn Gin Lum shows how the idea of the heathen has been maintained from the colonial era to the present in religious and secular discourses—discourses, specifically, of race. Americans long viewed the world as a realm of suffering heathens whose lands and lives needed their intervention to flourish. The term “heathen” fell out of common use by the early 1900s, leading some to imagine that racial categories had replaced religious differences. But the ideas underlying the figure of the heathen did not disappear. Americans still treat large swaths of the world as “other” due to their assumed need for conversion to American ways. Race continues to operate as a heathen inheritance in the United States, animating Americans’ sense of being a world apart from an undifferentiated mass of needy, suffering peoples. Heathen thus reveals a key source of American exceptionalism and a prism through which Americans have defined themselves as a progressive and humanitarian nation even as supposed heathens have drawn on the same to counter this national myth.
