As Mary Beard and Roy Gibson have pointed out, many ancient letter collections have suffered from chronological reordering by their early modern and modern editors.[1] Libanius is one of the lucky exceptions to this rule, as Richard Foerster published Libanius’ letters in the order in which they can be found in the best manuscripts: letters 1-1112 in his edition follow the order of the letters in Vaticanus gr. 85 and Vossianus gr. 77, whereas letters 1113-1540 are absent from these manuscripts but present in Vaticanus gr. 83, which contains by far the greatest number of letters, but has demonstrably altered their order.[2] Foerster’s choice to preserve the order of the best manuscripts is fortunate as Libanius’ letter collection is exceptional amongst ancient letter collections in its attention to chronology: within each of the three main manuscripts, large sequences of letters occur in roughly chronological order, but the order of the sequences themselves is not always chronological.
To date, slightly over two thirds of the 1544 genuine letters in Foerster’s edition have been translated into a modern language.[3] Yet whereas Foerster wisely printed the letters in the order of the manuscripts, modern translations have had a double tendency to make selections—e.g., only those letters illustrating Libanius’ biography or school practice—and to present their selections in a rearranged order—e.g., reordered chronologically or by addressee. Recently, however, translators of Libanius have changed tack, with a first non-selective translation of letters 1-493 in Spanish appearing in 2005 and an Italian translation of letters 840-1112 in 2017.[4]
In the book under review, Scott Bradbury and David Moncur now present the first non-selective translation of Libanian letters into English. Whilst those who have not mastered Greek may regret that they chose to translate the same letters that were already translated into Italian, viz. letters 840-1112, two elements explain this choice. First, the conserved letters belong to two chronologically separate periods of Libanius’ life, viz. the years 355-365 (letters 19-839 and 1113-1540) and the years 388-393 (letters 840-1112). The letters of the later period thus form a chronologically coherent and manageable unit. And, second, Bradbury already translated a selection of letters from the years 355-363 in 2004.[5]
As with Bradbury’s earlier volume, the translations offered in this volume by Bradbury and Moncur are, overall, of very high quality. Particularly laudable is the authors’ choice to steer a middle course by producing a translation that remains faithful to the original Greek, whilst also being very readable in English. Also of great help are the illuminating introductory comments to each letter, often longer than the translation itself and familiarizing the reader with the topic, people and background to individual letters or groups of letters, as well as the footnotes explaining particular elements and referring the reader to further literature. The result is that the letters of Libanius’ last years are now fully accessible to English-speaking readers both as individual texts and as a literary unity within Libanius’ letter collection.
To provide readers with a more general overview and help with contextualizing Libanius’ late letters, the translation is preceded by a sixty-page introduction. After a brief presentation of Libanius (I) and his letters (II), Bradbury usefully sketches the dynastic and political context of Theodosius’ reign (III) before delving deeper into Libanius’ engagement with imperial government after Julian (IV) via panegyric and invective (V). These general observations are followed by four sections that each set out a major conflict in which Libanius was involved in old age. The discussion of the riot of the statues is brief (VI). Bradbury bases himself on Browning’s 1952 study on the topic, but one would have loved to see him engage with the quite ample literature on the topic that has appeared over the last thirty years.[6] As far as the accusations concerning Thrasydaeus are concerned (Autobiography 257-8), Bradbury argues convincingly that Oration 32 leaves Magnus Maximus aside in order to focus on Libanius’ behaviour towards his alumnus Thrasydaeus (VII). Concerning the enmity with the anonymous comes (Autobiography 255-6 and 262-7), Bradbury follows Libanius’ suggestion that the old informer’s trumped-up charge of treason was laughed away in Constantinople, but it remains unclear why this was the case, or why this accusation was treated so differently from the next (VIII). The last case (IX), dated to July or August 388, concerns the famous charge of illegal divination that is documented not only in the Autobiography (271-4) but also in seven letters as well as in Oration 54. Whilst Bradbury greatly clarifies the political and economic background as well as the roles played by Romulus and by the governor Eustathius, it is regrettable that the course of events, undoubtedly of crucial importance for Libanius and including an initial acquittal, subsequent rescission, and final acquittal, is not explained in detail (see p. 25 n. 66, with further references to brief discussions in the comments to two relevant letters).
Sections X-XIV of the introduction discuss three major dossiers present in Libanius’ late letters (Eusebius the sophist in XI, Thalassius in XII, and Cimon in XIV) and do so against the background of relations between Antioch and Constantinople (X) and between Libanius and Proculus (XIII). The final two sections written by Bradbury discuss Libanius’ kinsman Aristaenetus—whom Bradbury, against the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, convincingly proposes not to identify with the urban prefect of 392—and the dominant role of grief in Libanius’ letters after the death of his son Cimon. The introduction is concluded with a very brief section in which Moncur summarizes Foerster’s main conclusions on the manuscripts of Libanius’ (late) letters.
Overall, the introduction is invaluable for its contextualization of Libanius’ late letters. For several aspects, such as the role of Romulus or the identity of Aristaenetus, it includes important corrections of existing scholarship; for many others, such as the accusations against Libanius and the composition of the Antiochene embassies, it offers by far the clearest and best discussion of the evidence that is now available; and by setting out the major dossiers amongst the late letters, it shows the potential of reading Libanius’ letters as a collection. Without proposing an interpretation of the late letters as a literary unity, Bradbury and Moncur pave the way toward bringing research on Libanius’ letters into alignment with research on ancient epistolography in general.
What is sometimes missing in this otherwise excellent introduction is engagement with previous scholarship. The authors undoubtedly master the whole literature and refer to much of it, but the volume’s timely nature would have been even clearer had it included an overview of the growing attention for letter collections in general (see n. 1) and engaged more with existing research on Libanius’ letter collection in particular (see the Spanish and Italian volumes mentioned above, as well as various studies).[7] Likewise, its innovative aspects would have been more obvious had it contained more explicit engagement with earlier discussions of particular aspects of Libanius’ late letters.[8] As it stands, the volume does not make it easy for readers less familiar with research on Libanius to see what the debates are, or where Bradbury and Moncur innovate by correcting existing research or bringing new elements to the table.
The translation of the 273 letters is followed by four appendices, a list of references and an index. The first appendix offers a translation of three late letters conserved outside of the corpus (letters 2, 9, and 18). The second presents a prosopography of the addressees of Libanius’ late letters, listing for each person the outlines of their career as well as the letters they received and the letters in which they are mentioned. The third appendix provides a timeline of events for 387-393, both in the empire and in Libanius’ life, indicating which letters and other works by him refer to these events. The fourth appendix, finally, discusses the dating of the late letters, offering some of the most innovative and stimulating ideas of the book. It draws attention, for example, to the exceptionality, within ancient epistolary collections, of the attention for chronology in the ordering of Libanius’ letters. Again, it questions Seeck’s assumption—unquestioningly followed by almost all scholars ever since—that letters that cannot be dated absolutely can be relatively dated based on their position in the collection. Moncur and Bradbury rightly emphasize instead that “[t]his does not imply that each individual letter or letter group was copied into the file immediately after composition such that the manuscripts order reflects precisely the time of writing or dispatch” (p. 424), thereby allowing the possibility of design in Libanius’ letter collection (p. 424-5, n. 14). Or again, they reassess perceived chronological gaps in the late correspondence, arguing that letters 947 and 1024 may not be the “fixed temporal marker point” they have often been taken to be. These conclusions were also taken into account throughout the volume, where Bradbury and Moncur clearly indicate for each letter whether Foerster’s dating, largely based on Seeck, holds up to scrutiny or not.
All in all, this book makes a double contribution to scholarship. To students and scholars of the fourth century, it opens up one of the most important sources by providing a translation with introduction and commentary. And to scholars of Libanius, it adds another, big question mark to some of the accepted truths that have been taken for granted throughout the twentieth century but that have rightly started to be questioned over the past years. Thanks to these two qualities, the book will be an essential tool for historians of the fourth century as well as a source of inspiration for future research on Libanius.
Notes
[1] M. Beard, ‘Ciceronian Correspondences: Making a Book out of Letters’. In Classics in Progress, ed. T.P. Wiseman. Oxford: 2002, 103-44; R.K. Gibson, ‘On the Nature of Ancient Letter Collections’. The Journal of Roman Studies 102 (2012): 56-78.
[2] See L. Van Hoof (2023), ‘In cauda venenum: The End of Libanius’ Letter Collection and Foerster’s Edition’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 116 (2023): 965-94.
[3] An overview up to 2014 can be found in L. Van Hoof (ed.), Libanius: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge; New York: 2014, Appendix E.
[4] Á. González Gálvez, Libanio: Cartas. Libros I-V. Madrid: 2005; A. Pellizzari, Maestro di retorica, maestro di vita: Le lettere teodosiane di Libanio di Antiochia. Rome: 2017.
[5] S. Bradbury, Selected Letters of Libanius: From the Age of Constantius and Julian. Liverpool: 2004.
[6] E.g. D. French, ‘Rhetoric and the Rebellion of A.D. 387 in Antioch’. Historia 47 (1989): 468-84; H. Leppin, ‘Steuern, Aufstand und Rhetoren: Der antiochener Steueraufstand von 387 in christlicher und heidnischer Deutung’. In Gedeutete Realität: Krisen, Wirklichkeiten, Interpretationen, ed. H. Brandt. Stuttgart: 1999, 103-23; I. Sandwell, Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews and Christians in Antioch. Cambridge: 2007, esp. 173-7; A. J. Quiroga Puertas, La retórica de Libanio y de Juan Crisóstomo en la Revuelta de las Estatuas. Salerno: 2007.
[7] E.g., B. Cabouret, ‘Libanius’ Letters’. In Libanius: A Critical Introduction, ed. L. Van Hoof. Cambridge: 2014, 144-59; L. Van Hoof, ‘Self-Censorship and Self-Fashioning: Gaps in Libanius’ Letter Collection’. Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 92 (2014): 209-29; L. Van Hoof, ‘The Letter Collection of Libanius of Antioch’. In Late Antique Letter Collections: A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide, ed. C. Sogno, B. K. Storin, and E. J. Watts. Berkeley: 2017, 113-30; E. J. Watts, ‘Old Age in the Antioch of the 390s: A Reappraisal of Libanius’s Last Collection of Letters’. In Antioch II: The Many Faces of Antioch. Intellectual Exchange and Religious Diversity, CE 350-450, ed. S.-P. Bergjan and S. K. Elm. Tübingen: 2018, 221-33.
[8] E.g., on the Antiochene embassies, there are important discussions by J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire. Oxford: 1972, 267-9 and A. F. Norman, Libanius: Autobiography and Selected Letters. Volume 2. Cambridge, MA: 1992, 454-9. On the dossiers of Eusebius, Thalassius and Cimon, see, e.g., A. F. Norman, Libanius: Autobiography and Selected Letters. Volume 2. Cambridge, MA: 1992, 454-64. On the riot of the statues, see n. 6.