LIBANIUS. - Pagan rhetorician, b. at Antioch in Syria in 314 A.D., d. there in 393. He studied at Athens under the African rhetorician Diophantus, having as fellow pupils St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, with whom he maintained friendly relations, although he remained decisively pagan. He kept a school at Constantinople with great success, so much so that the jealousy and envy of his colleagues forced him to leave. He then taught at Nicomedia in Bithynia, and there he met the future emperor Julian. He later transferred his teaching to his native city (354), and there he remained until his death, always listened to with admiration.
The most brilliant period of his life was that in which the emperor Julian stayed, for almost two years, at Antioch, and gave him great proofs of esteem and affection. And L.'s most ardent hopes seemed in that brief period to be fulfilled through the work of Julian, who had devoted himself to the restoration of the pagan religion. The unexpected death in battle of the young Emperor filled him with grief, and almost drove him to suicide. Because of the fame of his learning and his gentle urbanity, even the Christians showed him consideration; his fellow pupil Gregory of Nazianzus greeted him as prince of orators, John Chrysostom was his devoted pupil; his voice was listened to also by high Roman magistrates and by the emperor Theodosius himself. From the latter he asked, for example, that he restrain the fury of certain Christian fanatics who were destroying noble buildings and beautiful sculptures of pagan art, and that he grant pardon to his fellow citizens, always prone to restlessness and rebelliousness.
A most prolific writer, and for the most part preserved thanks to the admiration of the Byzantines, there remain of him orations (Λόγος), declamations (Μελέτας), exercises (προγυμνάματα), studies on Demosthenes and 1544 letters. All his concerns are naturally for form, pedantically bound to the examples of Attic orators. Some happy moment amid so much adorned emptiness can be grasped in the oration on the death of Julian, and in the panegyric for his Antioch.
Bibliography6 works
Roberto Paribeni