Entry (Details):

Native of Antioch, of curial family Lib. Or. I 2-3, Eun. V. Soph. XVI 1.1. Born in 314 Lib. Or. I 139, 144, Ep. 727, 947, 1036. His paternal great-grandfather was a native of Antioch, bilingual and skilled in prophecy, whose four sons were all executed in 303/4 after the revolt of Eugenius 1; Libanius’s maternal grandfather, who was famous as a rhetor, also was involved but narrowly escaped; part of the family’s property was confiscated, and Libanius’s father had a struggle to maintain himself and his two unmarried sisters; Lib. Or. I 2-3. Libanius had two uncles on his mother’s side, Panolbius and Phasganius, who became his guardians after his father died Lib. Or. I 4, X 9-13. See stemma 18.

He was educated in grammar and rhetoric, first at Antioch by Zenobius of Elusa from 328 to 336 Lib. Or. I 5-9, XXXVI 11, then at Athens under Diophantus from 336 to 340 Lib. Or. I 15-26, Eun. V. Soph. XVI 1.2-3, Suid. s.v. Λιβάνιος. In 340 he was temporarily appointed a professoriRole name: professor at Athens Lib. Or. I 25, II 13-14, Ep. 1274. He then taught for a while at Constantinople Lib. Or. I 37, Eun. V. Soph. XVI 1.6. He was forced to leave Constantinople in 342/3 by Limenius, and after a brief stay in Nicaea accepted the offer of a post in Nicomedia Lib. Or. I 46-8, Ep. 901, Eun. V. Soph. XVI 1.7, Soc. III 1; after five years there from c. 343 to c. 348 Lib. Or. I 51, he was called back to Constantinople Lib. Or. I 74. There he delivered a successful panegyric on Constantius II Lib. Or. LIX (a. 348/9), was highly regarded by a succession of proconsuls and obtained honours and property through the emperor’s gift Lib. Or. I 80. In 353 through Strategius Musonianus he was offered a teaching post at Athens but declined it Lib. Or. I 82ff.;he then returned to Antioch in 353 and after a short period as a private teacher obtained in 354 an official post there Lib. Or. I 94, 100-4, II 17, Ep. 409, 430, Eun. V. Soph. XVI 1.8.

In the following years he delivered a speech demanding salaries for his assistants Or. XXXI (a. 355), a lamentation on the earthquake at Nicomedia Or. LXI (a. 358), and at the Olympia of 360 a panegyric οn Antioch Or. XI. He became intimate with Julian when the emperor visited Antioch in 362-3 Lib. Or. I 122-5, Jul. Ep. 96-8 and was offered a titular quaestorship, which he declined Lib. Or. I 125, II 8, Jul. Ep. 96, 98. He delivered a speech on Julian’s consulship in 363 Or. XII, and also spoke on behalf of Aristophanes Or. XIV, defended the curia of Antioch in its quarrel with Julian Or. XIII, XV, XVI (he was Antiochene envoyiRole name: envoy to Julian Or. XV 4), and delivered a monody on Daphne Or. LX. After Julian’s death he delivered several speeches Or. XVII, XVIII, XXIV.

No speeches are extant for the reign of Valens, when he was often in danger, being accused of having supported the usurper Procopius and of engaging in activities involving soothsaying and magic Or. I 146, 156-78.

Under Theodosius he was offered and accepted, probably in 383, an honorary praetorian prefectureiRole name: honorary praetorian prefecture Or. I 219, XXX 1, XLV 1, Eun. V. Soph. XVI 2.8 (wrongly states that he declined it), cf. Petit, Byzantion XXI (1951), 293-4. Between 384 and 390 he delivered a number of speeches, mostly hostile, on several comites Orientis and consulares Syriae Or. XXVI-XXIX, ΧΧΧIII, XLI, XLVI, LIV, LVI, cf. Or. I 205-10, 225-30, 269-70, 271-4, as well as speeches on various public abuses Or. IX (on New Year’s gifts), XLV (on prisons), XLVII (on patronage), XLVIII-XLIX (on curiales), L (on the transport corvée), LI-LII (on the undue influence of potentiores in courts of law). After the Riot of the Statues in 387 he acted as spokesmaniRole name: spokesman for the city Or. I 252-4, XIX-XXIII, Zos. IV 41.2-3.

Libanius also delivered a number of speeches on educational topics Or. II, III, XXXIV, XXXV, XLIII, LVIII, and οn local Antiochene abuses Or. VIII, X, LIII, LXII, as well as several private speeches Or. IV, XXXII, XXXVI-XL, XLIV, LV, LVII, LXIII, a protest against the rejection by the senate of his friend Thalassius Or. XLII, speeches on moral themes Or. V, VI, VII, XXV, and one in favour of the mimes Or. LXIV. Apart from speeches he composed 51 declamations, as well as introductions to the speeches of Demosthenes.

He was a zealous pagan and delivered a plea in 385/6 on behalf of pagan temples Or. XXX; however under Julian he supported an attitude of toleration towards Christians Ep. 763, 819, 1411, 1414, and in 364 wrote against the persecution of Manichees Ep. 255 and Jews Ep. 1251. He was a friend of the Jewish patriarch Gamaliel . Libanius had two brothers, an elder who was already a grandfather in 353 and was dead by 380 Or. I 86, 197, and a younger who went blind and who died in c. 383 Or. I 197-8, 213. He had an aunt who married a general (στρατηγός) and who died in old age in 364 Or. XLVII 28, Ep. 1326. Spectatus 1 and Marcus were his cousins Ep. 115, 372, and he was also related to Thalassius 1, Thalassius 2, Theodora 2, Bassianus 2, Eumolpius , Iamblichus 2, Sopater 2, and Bassiana (Ep. 230, 1409). He never married but lived with a woman of slave origin who was the mother of his son Cimon Arabius Or. I 145, 195-6, 279-80, XVII 37, Ep. 959, 1063, 1221, Eun. V. Soph. XVI 1.12; her death occurred in 390/1 Or. I 278. He probably died in 393 (cf. Seeck, Briefe, 446-7).

His family’s property had been much reduced in 303/4 (see above), and his mother sold what remained of his father’s estate in 336/40 (while he was in Athens) Or. I 26-7. However he acquired property at Constantinople in c. 351 by a gift from the emperor Or. I 80, Ep. 177, 454, 463, 464; in 359/60 as joint heir with Spectatus of their uncle Phasganius he obtained that portion of the inheritance consisting of land Ep. 115, 126; in 388/9 he inherited the estates of his friend Olympius 3 Or. I 275-8, LXIII 2-9, Ep. 1051. He also owned lands in Cilicia Ep. 615, 619, 623, 654, and had an estate on which were Jewish tenants Or. XLVIII 13-15. He also seems to have had some interest in trade, since he sent a ship to Sinope Ep. 177-8.

Described as the teacher of St Basil, St Gregory of Nazianzus, St John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Maximus of Seleucia Soc. VI 3, Soz. VI 17, VIII 2, Phot. Bibl. 96; see further P. Petit, Les étiudiants de Libanius. Also mentioned Theod. HE III 23, Soc. III 1, 17, 23, Soz. VI 1.

Addressee of Greg. Naz. Ep. 236; correspondent of St Basil Lib.-Bas. Ep. 1-26 (ed. Foerster, Vol. II, 572-97).