For a long time, Libanius has remained a dark horse: difficult to access, his texts have largely been mined for extratextual data such as prosopographical information, administrative structures or the chronology of fourth-century events. This book hopes to have shown that he deserves much better: the author of the largest surviving corpora of letters and progymnasmata from classical antiquity, of one of the most extensive corpora of ancient declamations, and of a wide variety of orations spanning the whole fourth century, he has much to offer to anybody interested not just in ancient rhetoric and epistolography, but also in Late Antiquity, social, cultural and religious history, and the reception of antiquity in Byzantium and beyond. Even more than the exceptional quantity of Libanius’ conserved output, though, it is its extraordinary quality which this book hopes to have brought out: the rhetorical creativity displayed in it, the socio-cultural, religious and geographical range of people appearing in it, the variety of topics discussed in it, and the self-presentation played out in it make that Libanius’ oeuvre, from the humblest one-paragraph letter or progymnastic exercise to the most elaborate declamation or imperial speech, has much to offer for an understanding of the most exciting aspects of his age and of antiquity more generally.

In order to do justice to these rich and intense texts, taking them at face value, as a straightforward source of information, is not enough: as shown throughout this volume, a more sophisticated approach, combining a literary and a historical perspective, having attention for text and context, and taking into account production, publication and reception, is necessary in order to bring out their full potential. Attentively studied in this way, Libanius’ texts yield unique insights and provide important corrections to established views on a wide variety of topics. Through his Autobiography, Orations and Letters, for example, Libanius allows us to catch an exceptionally elaborate glimpse not just of the life of a fourth-century Greek gentleman, but also, and above all, of how such people positioned and presented themselves to their peers and posterity (Chapters 1, 2, 4, 8 and 9).