Libanius

Libanius was a fourth-century Greek rhetorician and teacher based mainly at Antioch. His speeches and letters illuminate education, urban politics, imperial administration and religious change in the later Roman Empire, including his association with Julian.

Libanius was a Greek rhetorician and teacher based largely at Antioch whose surviving speeches and letters provide detailed evidence for civic and intellectual life in the fourth-century Roman Empire. A committed pagan, he nevertheless maintained relationships with Christian students and officials during a period of major religious change.

In Gore Vidal’s Julian, Libanius is one of the two elderly intellectuals who frame Julian’s memoir after the emperor’s death. His correspondence with Priscus introduces, interrupts and questions Julian’s own version of events, allowing Vidal to contrast personal memory with later historical judgement. Libanius’s pagan commitments and experience of Antioch also make him an apt witness to the religious conflict surrounding Julian’s attempt to revive traditional cults.