Editing Libanius

{{Short description|Greek rhetorician (4th century AD)}}
{{refimprove|date=December 2013}}
{{Infobox person
| name          = Libanius
| image         = File:Libanius the sophist.jpg
|image_size     = 250px
| caption       = Libanius as imagined in an eighteenth-century woodcut
| birth_name    = <!-- only use if different from name -->
| birth_date    = {{Circa|314 AD}}
| birth_place   = [[Antioch]], [[Coele Syria (Roman province)|Coele-Syria]] 
| death_date    = 392 or 393 AD
| death_place   = [[Antioch]], [[Coele Syria (Roman province)|Coele-Syria]]
| nationality   = <!-- use only when necessary per [[WP:INFONAT]] -->
| occupation    = Teacher of [[rhetoric]]
| years_active  = 
| known_for     = 
| notable_works = ''Oration I'', ''A Reply To Aristides On Behalf Of The Dancers'', ''Lamentation''
}}
'''Libanius''' ({{langx|grc|Λιβάνιος|Libanios}}; {{c.|314–392 or 393}}) was a teacher of [[rhetoric]] of the [[Sophist]] school in the [[Eastern Roman Empire]].<ref name="EB1911">{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Libanius|volume=16|page=534}}</ref> His prolific writings make him one of the best documented teachers of higher education in the ancient world and a critical source of history of the [[Greek East and Latin West|Greek East]] during the 4th century AD.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bradbury |first1=Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures Scott |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EeDklnSViQgC |title=Selected Letters of Libanius: From the Age of Constantius and Julian |last2=Libanius |last3=Bradbury |first3=Scott A. |date=2004 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-0-85323-509-5 |pages=2 |language=en}}</ref> During the rise of [[Christianity|Christian]] [[hegemony]] in the later [[Roman Empire]], he remained unconverted and in religious matters was a [[Hellenistic religion|pagan Hellene]].

==Life==
===Origin===
Libanius was born in [[Antioch]], [[Coele Syria (Roman province)|Coele-Syria]] located near the modern-day city of [[Antakya]], [[Turkey]]. He was born into a deeply cultured and once-influential family that had experienced substantial recent decline. In 303 AD, eleven years before his birth, his family had participated in resisting an insurrection by a local army garrison. In the end, Roman Imperial authorities were equally concerned by local aristocrats arming themselves as they were by the rebellious troops. Libanius' family fell out of favor and his grandfather was executed. Libanius' father died when he was eleven, leaving his upbringing to his mother and maternal uncles, who were in the process of rebuilding his family's reputation.<ref name="EB1911" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bradbury |first1=Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures Scott |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EeDklnSViQgC |title=Selected Letters of Libanius: From the Age of Constantius and Julian |last2=Libanius |last3=Bradbury |first3=Scott A. |date=2004 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-0-85323-509-5 |pages=2–3 |language=en}}</ref>

At fourteen years old he began his study of [[rhetoric]], for which he withdrew from public life and devoted himself to philosophy. Unfamiliar with [[Latin (language)|Latin literature]], he deplored its influence.

===Career===
He studied in [[History of Athens#Roman Athens|Athens]] under [[Diophantus the Arab]] and began his career in [[Constantinople]] as a private tutor. He was exiled to [[Nicomedia]] in 346 (or earlier) for around five years<ref name=EB1911/> but returned to Constantinople and taught there until 354.<ref name="GS370"/> At this time, he held an official appointment as a sophist in the capital and received an imperial salary.<ref name="Kaster">{{cite journal |last1=Kaster |first1=Robert A. |title=The Salaries of Libanius |journal=Chiron |date=1983 |volume=13 |pages=52;55;58-59 |url=https://kaster.scholar.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf4666/files/1983_chiron_0.pdf |access-date=14 October 2024}}</ref>
Before his exile, Libanius was a friend of the emperor [[Julian (emperor)|Julian]], with whom some correspondence survives, and in whose memory he wrote a series of orations; they were composed between 362 and 365. 
In winter 353/54 he returned to Antioch in expectation of succeeding his former teacher Zenobius, but the latter refused to yield his place and Libanius could only take the position upon Zenobius' illness and following death in autumn 354.<ref name="Kaster" /> His pupils included both pagans and Christians.<ref name="GS370">{{cite book | title=Dictionary of Ancient History | editor1-last=Speake | editor1-first=Graham | publisher=Penguin Books | location=London | year=1994 | page=370 | isbn=0-14-051260-8}}</ref> There, he continued to receive an imperial salary, which was temporarily cut between , which resulted in Libanius in writing many letters trying to obtain it back.<ref name="Kaster"/>{{efn|Though some modern accounts insinuate that the salary was cut by the Christian praefect [[Helpidius (praetorian prefect)|Helpidius]] because Libanius was a pagan, relations between the two were not uniformly hostile and there is no evidence that the hostility was inspired by religious differences.<ref name="Kaster"/>}}

Libanius used his arts of rhetoric to advance various private and political causes. He attacked the increasing imperial pressures on the traditional city-oriented culture that had been supported and dominated by the local upper classes. Nevertheless, though Libanius liked to assume the role of an honourable, independent citizen, he concerned himself often with winning for himself and his friends honours and privileges bestowed by the central imperial authority.<ref name="Kaster" /> He is known to have protested against the [[persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire]]. In 386, he appealed without success to emperor Theodosius to prevent the destruction of a temple in [[Edessa]], and pleaded for toleration and the preservation of the temples against the predation of Christian monks, who he claimed:

{{quote|[...]hasten to attack the temples with sticks and stones and bars of iron, and in some cases, disdaining these, with hands and feet. Then utter desolation follows, with the stripping of roofs, demolition of walls, the tearing down of statues and the overthrow of altars, and the priests must either keep quiet or die. After demolishing one, they scurry to another, and to a third, and trophy is piled on trophy, in contravention of the law. Such outrages occur even in the cities, but they are most common in the countryside. Many are the foes who perpetrate the separate attacks, but after their countless crimes this scattered rabble congregates and they are in disgrace unless they have committed the foulest outrage...Temples, Sire, are the soul of the countryside: they mark the beginning of its settlement, and have been passed down through many generations to the men of today. In them the farming communities rest their hopes for husbands, wives, children, for their oxen and the soil they sow and plant. An estate that has suffered so has lost the inspiration of the peasantry together with their hopes, for they believe that their labour will be in vain once they are robbed of the gods who direct their labours to their due end. And if the land no longer enjoys the same care, neither can the yield match what it was before, and, if this be the case, the peasant is the poorer, and the revenue jeopardized.|Libanius, ''Pro Templis''<ref>Pro Templis (Oration XXX.8-10)</ref>}}
 
The surviving works of Libanius, which include over 1,600 letters, 64 speeches and 96 progymnasmata (rhetorical exercises), are valuable as a historical source for the changing world of the later 4th century.<ref name="GS370"/> His oration "A Reply To [[Aelius Aristides|Aristides]] On Behalf Of The Dancers" is one of the most important records of Roman [[concert dance]], particularly that immensely popular form known as [[pantomime]].<ref>Alessandra Zanobi, ''Ancient Pantomime and its Reception'', Article retrieved April 2016 [http://www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk/learning/short-guides/ancient-pantomime-and-its-reception]</ref> His first ''Oration I'' is an autobiographical narrative, first written in 374 and revised throughout his life, a scholar's account that ends as an old exile's private journal. Progymnasma 8 (see below for explanation of a "progymnasma") is an imaginary summation of the prosecution's case against a physician charged with poisoning some of his patients.<ref>Ratzan, R.M. and Ferngren, G.B. (April 1993). "A Greek progymnasma on the
physician-poisoner". ''[[Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences]]''. '''48''' (2): 157–70.</ref>

Although Libanius was not a Christian his students included such notable [[Christianity|Christians]] as [[John Chrysostom]]<ref name=EB1911/> and [[Theodore of Mopsuestia]].<ref>[[Averil Cameron|Cameron, A.]] (1998) "Education and literary culture" in Cameron, A. and [[Peter Garnsey|Garnsey, P.]] (eds.) ''[[The Cambridge Ancient History|The Cambridge ancient history: Vol. XIII The late empire, A.D. 337-425]]''. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]], pp. 668-669.</ref> Despite his friendship with the pagan restorationist Emperor [[Julian the Apostate|Julian]] he was made an honorary ''[[praetorian prefect]]'' by the Christian Emperor [[Theodosius I]].

== Works ==
*64 [[oration]]s in the three fields of oratory: judicial, deliberative and epideictic, both orations as if delivered in public and orations meant to be privately read (aloud) in the study. The two volumes of selections in the [[Loeb Classical Library]] devote one volume to Libanius' orations that bear on the emperor Julian, the other on Theodosius; the most famous is his "Lamentation" about the desecration of the temples ({{lang|grc|Περὶ τῶν Ἱερῶν}});
*51 {{transliteration|grc|[[declamation|declamationes]]}}, a traditional public-speaking format of Rhetoric in Antiquity, taking set topics with historical and [[Greek mythology|mythological]] themes (translations into English by e.g. D.A. Russell, "Libanius: Imaginary Speeches"; M. Johansson, "Libanius' Declamations 9 and 10"; 
*96 {{transliteration|grc|progymnasmata}} or compositional exercises for students of rhetoric, used in his courses of instruction and widely admired as models of good style;
*57 {{transliteration|grc|hypotheses}} or introductions to [[Demosthenes]]' orations (written {{c.|352}}), in which he sets them in historical context for the novice reader, without polemics; 
*1545 letters have been preserved, more letters than those of Cicero. Some 400 additional letters in Latin were later accepted, purporting to be translations, but a dispassionate examination of the texts themselves shows them to be misattributed or forgeries, by the Italian [[humanism|humanist]] Francesco Zambeccari in the 15th century. Among his correspondents there was [[Censorius Datianus]].
*{{cite book|last=Libanius| url = https://archive.org/details/operarecensuitri10libauoft/page/n5/mode/2up| series = Opera| title = Epistulae|translator = [[Richard Foerster (classical scholar)|Richard Foerster]]| year = 1903}}

== English editions ==
* Scott Bradbury, ''Selected Letters of Libanius''. Liverpool, University Press, 2004. {{ISBN|0-85323-509-0}}
*[[Raffaella Cribiore]], ''The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. (Includes translation of c. 200 letters dealing with the school and its students. [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2007/2007-08-07.html Reviewed in Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews].)
* Margaret E. Molloy: ''Libanius and the Dancers'', Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim 1996 {{ISBN|3-487-10220-X}}
* A.F. Norman, ''Libanius: Selected Works'', 2 volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Loeb Classical Library, 1969–1977.
* A.F. Norman, ''Libanius: Autobiography and Selected Letters'', 2 volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Loeb Classical Library, 1993. [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1994/94.02.05.html Reviewed in Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews].)
*[[Lieve Van Hoof]], ''Libanius: a critical introduction'' (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/libanius_monody.htm Libanius: "Funeral Oration on Julian"]
*[http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/libanius_02_16_letters_to_julian.htm Libanius: "16 letters to Julian"]
*[http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/libanius_monody_on_daphne_02_text.htm Libanius: "On the temple of Apollo destroyed by fire"]
*[http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/libanius_monody_on_nicomedia_02_text.htm Libanius: "On Nicomedia, destroyed by an earthquake"]
*[http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/libanius_pro_templis_02_trans.htm Libanius: Oration 30: for the temples]
*{{in lang|fr}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20051017213318/http://recherche.univ-montp3.fr/cercam/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=83 Centre Libanios], the Libanius Site by P.-L.&nbsp;Malosse, part of [[CRISES]] research centre.
*[http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/resources/rhetoric/prog-lib.htm Two moral anecdotes from the ''Progymnasmata'':] (in English) on the harshness of classical Roman [[education]] and an encomium of [[Thersites]]
*[http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/summary_libanius?greekEncoding=UnicodeC Craig Gibson, translator, Summary of "Libanius, Hypotheses to the Orations of Demosthenes"]
*Open source XML version of Libanius' works by the University of Leipzig, at [https://opengreekandlatin.github.io/libanius-dev/ Open Greek & Latin Project]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Libanius}}

[[Category:310s births]]
[[Category:390s deaths]]
[[Category:4th-century Romans]]
[[Category:4th-century Greek writers]]
[[Category:Late-Roman-era pagans]]
[[Category:Ancient Greek rhetoricians]]
[[Category:Ancient Greek educators]]
[[Category:Ancient Greek letter writers]]
[[Category:Correspondents of Libanius| ]]
[[Category:Roman-era students in Athens]]
[[Category:Roman-era Sophists]]
[[Category:Roman-era Greeks]]
[[Category:Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire]]
[[Category:Memoirists]]
[[Category:People from Antioch]]

[[Category:Year of birth uncertain]]
[[Category:Year of death uncertain]]