, a celebrated sophist of antiquity, was born of an ancient and
, a celebrated sophist of antiquity, was born
of an ancient and noble family at Antioch, on the Orontes,
in the year 314. Suidas calls his father “Phasganius
” but
this was the name of one of his uncles; the other, who was
the elder, was named Panolbius. His great-grandfather,
who excelled in the art of divination, had published some
pieces in Latin, which occasioned his being supposed by
some, but falsely, to be an Italian. His maternal and paternal grandfathers were eminent in rank and in eloquence;
the latter, with his brother Brasidas, was put to death by
the order of Dioclesian, in the year 303, after the tumult
of the tyrant Eugenius. Libanius, the second of his father’s three sons, in the fifteenth year of his age, wishing
to devote himself entirely to literature, complains that he
met with some “shadoxvs of sophists.
” Then, assisted
by a proper master, he began to read the ancient writers
at Antioch; and thence, with Jasion, a Cappadocian, went
to Athens, and residing there for more than four years,
became intimately acquainted with Crispinus of Heraclea,
who, he says, “enriched him afterwards with books at
Nicomedia, and went, but seldom, to the schools of Diophantus.
” At Constantinople he ingratiated himself with
Nicocles of Lacedosmon (a grammarian, who was master to the emperor Julian), and the sophist Bermarchius. Returning to Athens, and soliciting the office of a professor,
which the proconsul had before intended for him when he
was twenty- five years of age, a certain Cappadocian happened to be preferred to him. But being encouraged by
Dionysius, a Sicilian who had been prefect of Syria, some
specimens of his eloquence, that were published at Constantinople, made him so generally known and applauded,
that he collected more than eighty disciples, the two sophists, who then filled the chair there, raging in vain, and
Bermarchius ineffectually opposing him in rival orations,
and, when he could not excel him, having recourse to the
frigid calumny of magic. At length, about the year 346,
being expelled the city by his competitors, the prefect
Limenius concurring, he repaired to Nice, and soon after
to Nicomedia, the Athens of Bithynia, where his excellence in speaking began to be more and more approved by
all; and Julian, if not a hearer, was a reader and admirer
of his orations. In the dame'city, he says, “he was particularly delighted with the friendship of Aristaenetus;
” and
the five years which he passed there, he styles “the spring
or any thing else that can be conceived pleasanter than
spring, of his whole life.
” Being invited again to Constantinople, and afterwards returning to Nicomedia, being
also tired of Constantinople, where he found Phoenix and
Xenobius, rival sophists, though he was patronised by
Strategius, who succeeded Domitian as prefect of the East,
not daring on account of his rivals to occupy the Athenian
chair, he obtained permission from Gallus Cassar to visit
for four months, his native city Antioch, where, after Gallus was killed, in the year 354, he fixed his residence for
the remainder of his life, and initiated many in the sacred
rites of eloquence. He was also much beloved by the emperor Julian, who heard his discourses with pleasure, received him with kindness, and imitated him in his writings.
Honoured by that prince with the rank of quaestor, and
with several epistles of which six only are extant, the‘ last
written by the emperor during’ his fatal expedition against
the Persians, he the more lamented his death in the flower
of Ms age, as from him he had promised himself a certain
and lasting support both in the worship of idols and in his
own studies. There was afterwards a report, that LibaIhus, with the younger Jamblichus, the master of Proclus,
inquired by divination who would be the successor of Valens, and ia consequence with difficulty escaped his cruelty, Irenaeus attesting the innocence of Libanius. In like
manner he happily escaped another calumny, by the favour
of duke Lupicinus, when he was accused by his enemy
Fidelis, or Fidustius, of having written an eulogium on the
tyrant Procopius. He was not, however, totally neglected
by Valens, whom he not only celebrated in an oration,
but obtained from him a confirmation of the law against
entirely, excluding illegitimate children from the inheritance of their paternal estates, which he solicited from the
emperor, no doubt for a private reason, since, as Eunapius
informs us, he kept a mistress, and was never married.
The remainder of his life he passed as before mentioned,
at Antioch, to an advanced age, amidst various wrongs
and oppressions from his rivals and the times, which he
copiously relates in his life, though, tired of the manners
of that city, be had thoughts, in his old age, of changing
his abode, as he tells Eusebius. He continued there, however, and on various occasions was very serviceable to the
city, either by appeasing seditions, and calming the disturbed minds of the citizens, or by reconciling to them
the emperors Julian and Theodosius. That Libanius lived
even to the reign of Arcadius, that is, beyond the seventieth year of his age, the learned collect from his oration
on Lucian, and the testimony of Cedrenus; and of the
same opinion is Godfrey Olearius, a man not more respectable for his exquisite knowledge of sacred and polite
literature than for his judgment and probity, in his’ ms
prelections, in which, when he was professor of both languages in the university of his own country, he has given
an account of the life of this sophist.