Libanius - Wikipedia Libanius From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Libanius" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Libanius as imagined in an eighteenth-century woodcut Libanius (Greek: Λιβάνιος, Libanios; c. 314 – 392 or 393) was a Greek teacher of rhetoric of the Sophist school. During the rise of Christian hegemony in the later Roman Empire, he remained unconverted and in religious matters was a pagan Hellene. Contents 1 Life 2 Works 3 English editions 4 References 5 External links Life[edit] Libanius was born into a once-influential, deeply cultured family of Antioch[1] that had recently come into diminished circumstances. 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 literature, he deplored its influence. He studied in 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[1] but returned to Constantinople and taught there until 354.[2] Before his exile, Libanius was a friend of the 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 354 he accepted the chair of rhetoric in Antioch, his birthplace, where he stayed until his death. His pupils included both pagans and Christians.[2] 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. 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: "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."[3] 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.[2] His oration "A Reply To 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.[4] 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 again a physician charged with poisoning some of his patients.[5] Although Libanius was not a Christian his students included such notable Christians as John Chrysostom[1] and Theodore of Mopsuestia.[6] Despite his friendship with the pagan restorationist Emperor Julian he was made an honorary praetorian prefect by the Christian Emperor Theodosius I. Works[edit] 64 orations 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 (Περὶ τῶν Ἱερῶν); 51 declamationes, a traditional public-speaking format of Rhetoric in Antiquity, taking set topics with historical and mythological themes (translations into English by e.g. D.A. Russell, "Libanius: Imaginary Speeches"; M. Johansson, "Libanius' Declamations 9 and 10"; 96 progymnasmata or compositional exercises for students of rhetoric, used in his courses of instruction and widely admired as models of good style; 57 hypotheses or introductions to Demosthenes' orations (written ca 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 humanist Francesco Zambeccari in the 15th century. Among his correspondents there was Censorius Datianus. English editions[edit] 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. 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. Reviewed in Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews.) Lieve Van Hoof, Libanius: a critical introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2014) References[edit] ^ a b c Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Libanius" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 534. ^ a b c Speake, Graham, ed. (1994). Dictionary of Ancient History. London: Penguin Books. p. 370. ISBN 0-14-051260-8. ^ Pro Templis (Oration XXX.8-10) ^ Alessandra Zanobi, Ancient Pantomime and its Reception, Article retrieved April 2016 [1] ^ Ratzan RM and Ferngren GB (April 1993). "A Greek progymnasma on the physician-poisoner". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 48 (2): 157–70. ^ Cameron, A. (1998) "Education and literary culture" in Cameron, A. and Garnsey, P. (eds.) The Cambridge ancient history: Vol. XIII The late empire, A.D. 337-425. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 668-669. External links[edit] Libanius: "Funeral Oration on Julian" Libanius: "16 letters to Julian" Libanius: "On the temple of Apollo destroyed by fire" Libanius: "On Nicomedia, destroyed by an earthquake" Libanius: Oration 30: for the temples (in French) Centre Libanios, the Libanius Site by P.-L. Malosse, part of CRISES research centre. Two moral anecdotes from the Progymnasmata: (in English) on the harshness of classical Roman education and an encomium of Thersites 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 Open Greek & Latin Project Authority control BIBSYS: 90333936 BNE: XX1315863 BNF: cb11912954z (data) CANTIC: a10418933 CiNii: DA01323515 GND: 11857258X ISNI: 0000 0001 2122 2137 LCCN: n50052091 LNB: 000046383 NDL: 001156519 NKC: jn19990005063 NLA: 35304333 NLG: 22890 NLI: 000084151 NSK: 000423216 NTA: 068216483 RERO: 02-A000105012 SELIBR: 71241 SUDOC: 026989573 Trove: 904679 VcBA: 495/56341 VIAF: 17225859 WorldCat Identities: viaf-74669487 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Libanius&oldid=994437266" Categories: 314 births 394 deaths Byzantine-era pagans 4th-century writers 4th-century Romans Ancient Greek rhetoricians Ancient Greek educators Ancient Greek writers Correspondents of Libanius Roman-era students in Athens Roman-era Sophists Roman-era Greeks Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire Hidden categories: Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference Articles needing additional references from December 2013 All articles needing additional references Articles containing Greek-language text Articles with French-language sources (fr) Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with LNB identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLG identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers Wikipedia articles with NSK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with RERO identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikisource Languages العربية Български Català Čeština Deutsch Ελληνικά Español فارسی Français Galego Հայերեն Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית Latina Lietuvių Lingua Franca Nova Magyar Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Polski Português Română Русский Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska Türkçe Українська Edit links This page was last edited on 15 December 2020, at 18:46 (UTC). 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