2014 Not The Last Pagan Libanius Between

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chapter 13
Not the last pagan: Libanius between elite

rhetoric and religion
Peter Van Nuffelen
13.1 Introduction
The religious history of the fourth century used to be understood in terms of
a conflict between paganism and Christianity, with the former resisting the
irresistible progress of the latter.1 As one of the major representatives of
Greek culture in the fourth century, Libanius has often been interpreted in
this light. Indeed, several of his works seem to substantiate such a view. His
thirtieth oration To the Emperor Theodosius for the Temples has helped to
shape the modern perception of the destruction of temples as the paradig-
matic act of the supersession of paganism by Christianity – a perception
that, notwithstanding continued scholarly interest in temple destruction,2
has recently been called a historiographical myth.3 Libanius also consciously
associated himself with the emperor Julian, writing a Monody (Oration 17,
early 364),4 a Funeral Oration (Oration 18, the so-called Epitaphios, written
after 11/10/3685), and an appeal to Theodosius I to avenge the (in his view)
murdered Julian (Oration 24, 379).6 With these orations, Libanius inter-
vened in the debate that was raging about Julian’s legacy – a debate that was
clearly marked by religious oppositions.7 All these speeches explicitly and
The writing of this chapter was supported by the DFG in the framework of the Lichtenberg-Kolleg der
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.
1
A classic statement of such a view is Momigliano (1963). In relation to Libanius, Gibbon (1781=1994,
917) stated that ‘Libanius experienced the peculiar misfortune of surviving the religion and the
sciences, to which he had consecrated his genius. The friend of Julian was an indignant spectator of
the triumph of Christianity’.
2
Cf. Van Loy (1933), 10, Fowden (1978), Hahn (2002), (2004) and (ed.) (2011) and Hahn, Emmel and
Gotter (2008). For the reception of the oration, see Nesselrath (2011a), 40.
3
Lavan (2011). 4 See Chapter 2 in this volume.
5
Van Nuffelen (2006), reinstating the traditional dating against Wiemer (1995a), 260–8 and Felgentreu
(2004).
6
Cf. Benedetti Martig (1990), 111–50.
7
Cf. Penella (1993), Nesselrath (2001) and Elm (2012), 336–478. Libanius, Letter 1264.6 states that he
has withheld publication of Oration 17 as the enemies of Julian are in power. From the tabulation in
Cribiore (2013), 152–63, one can calculate that Libanius often refers to religion in his letters on the
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implicitly argue for the superiority of pagan religion and engage in what has
been called Gegenapologetik, that is, implicit attacks on Christian tenets.8
Libanius thus assumes a much more explicit anti-Christian position than
his most famous contemporary colleague among fourth-century orators,
Themistius, who, around the same time, seeks to depict paganism and
Christianity as ultimately converging on the same truths.9 Most recently,
Jan Stenger has argued that religion is integral to Libanius’ conception of
Hellenic identity and that he was consciously anti-Christian.10
Current scholarship has turned away from seeing the encounter between
paganism and Christianity only in terms of conflict,11 and it is difficult anyway
to consider Libanius as a hard-headed pagan activist like his younger con-
temporary Eunapius or some Athenian and Alexandrian Neoplatonists.12 The
first studies on Libanius’ religion found it hard to detect in his oeuvre the
coherence of thought and the strong religious convictions associated with
the Neoplatonists, who are often seen as the front line of late ancient pagan-
ism. They concluded that Libanius was a traditionalist, for whom Greco-
Roman religion was part and parcel of the transmitted culture but only part
of it.13 Such an attitude has been interpreted in quite diverging ways:
A.F. Norman thinks Libanius moderate and emphasizes his ‘fundamental
decency and the full weight of the Hellenic principle’14, and Raffaella Cribiore
calls Libanius a ‘gray pagan’ who lacked the zeal of Julian.15 Such approaches
assume we can grasp Libanius’ personal beliefs. Proposing a more sociological
period 361–5: under Julian, half of the letters have references to religion, during the aftermath of his
reign, a third of them. In each case, there is a high proportion of what Cribiore calls ‘significant’, more
extensive references (45% under Julian, 32% during the aftermath of the reign).
8
Cf. Fatouros (1996), Rosen (2006), 292. See Sandwell (2007a), 167 and Graf (2012), 185 for the
argument that Oration 9 On the Calends (dated to the early 390s) responds to John Chrysostom’s
attacks on the Calends festival shortly before. This is possible, but the date of Oration 9 is less firmly
fixed than commonly assumed. The end of the oration refers to the fact that the altars of the gods ‘do
not nowadays have everything they had before, because the law forbids it’ (Oration 9.18: βωμοὶ τε
θεῶν νῦν μὲν οὐ πάντα ἔχουσι τὰ πρόσθεν νόμου κεκωλυκότος; Tr. Wright (2012), 209). This is
usually understood as a reference to the Theodosian laws enacted against pagan sacrifice, in particular
CTh 16.10.10 (24/2/391), 16.10.11 (16/6/391) and 16.10.12 (8/11/392). But the phrase can also be
understood as referring to earlier prohibitions of blood sacrifice: the altars do not receive ‘everything’
any more, so they might still receive libations or other forms of sacrifice. As we shall see below,
Oration 30, usually dated to the mid 380s, precisely assumes such a distinction to exist.
9
Cf. Heather and Moncur (2001), 24.
10
See Stenger (2009), 78 and 384–8. See also Chapter 12 of this volume.
11
Cf. Brown and Lizzi Testa (2011), revisiting Momigliano (1963).
12
Soler (2009) argues that Libanius had contacts with Neopythagorean, anti-Christian circles. The
argument remains very speculative. Quiroga Puertas (2005a, 148–157) argues for a cultural monothe-
ism. For monotheism in Libanius, see Sandwell (2010) and Cribiore (2013), 213–16.
13
Cf. Misson (1914), 155 and Geffcken (1920), 8. See also Petit (1956a), 191, Liebeschuetz (1972), 225–41,
Wöhrle (1995) and Quiroga Puertas (2007c).
14
Norman (1983), 161. 15 Cribiore (2013), 168–73.
Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion 295

interpretation, Johannes Hahn has Libanius standing ‘for the religious indif-
ference among pagan members of his class in Antioch’,16 thus joining André-
Jean Festugière.17 In her comparison of Libanius and John Chrysostom, in
turn, Isabella Sandwell interprets Libanius as the paradigm for the strategic
use of religion in Late Antiquity.18 She argues that religion is or is not put to
use depending on the specific context in which he is writing. His apparent
moderation reflects the game of paideia that Libanius is playing and in which
it was crucial to know when it was proper to refer to religion and when not.
She contrasts this practical attitude with John Chrysostom, who, taken as a
paradigm of Christianity’s attitude towards religious allegiance, wishes reli-
gious identity to trump all other identities.
There are, thus, three factors that come into play when assessing
Libanius’ attitude towards religion: his social position as a member of the
Antiochene elite, which made him speak from a dominant position; the
precise rhetorical situation of each text, possibly generating uses of religion
that may seem incompatible at first sight; and particular religious convic-
tions that he may have held, similar to or different from those of other
fourth-century pagans. This chapter argues that we must take all three into
consideration at the same time and that we cannot exclude any of them. The
overarching methodological problem is that of drawing conclusions about
social and individual views on religion from rhetorical practices and texts.
Whilst rhetorical texts are rooted in reality, they only provide a distorted
mirror of reality. In addition, it would be mistaken to take a rhetorical
argument as directly expressing the orator’s view: arguments were tailored
for the situation in which they were to exert their influence.
The present chapter discusses the three factors in turn. In Section 13.2,
I take a closer look at Libanius’ social position. Writing from a position of
cultural and social power, he incarnates, as it were, the elite culture of his age.
That status is, for him, self-evident and phenomena that challenge it (such as
Christianity and shorthand) are met with social depreciation. Precisely
because his cultural stance is self-evident, there is no need for him to
emphasize all its aspects, including its religious side, in every piece of writing.
Such an attitude is not a sign of indifference or moderation, but a token of
cultural superiority. As such, his oeuvre is a striking testimony to the self-
confidence of the so-called last pagans. Sections 13.3 and 13.4 focus on the
rhetorical argument of Libanius’ most famous ‘religious’ speech: Oration 30
To the Emperor Theodosius for the Temples. Often read as a principled defence
16 17
Hahn (2011), 119. Cf. Petit (1956a), 191 and Pack (1986), 296–8. See Festugière (1959), 234.
18
Sandwell (2007a).

of traditional cult and as an expression of Libanius’ deep commitment to
Graeco-Roman religion, the oration actually is concerned with a specific
problem: the threat of confiscation of estates and the loss of revenue on the
grounds that sacrifice had been practised there. Defending the temples is a
rhetorical diversion tactic to draw attention away from this real legal problem
that some members of the Antiochene elite seem to have faced. If we therefore
cannot take the oration as direct proof of Libanius’ religious convictions, the
construction of his argument helps to shed light on a crucial connection that
recurs again and again: Libanius stresses the role played by traditional cult in
maintaining the stability and welfare of the empire. As set out in the final
section, this public role of religion was one of the key issues in disputes
between paganism and Christianity, and Libanius clearly participates in that
debate. Far from being indifferent in religious matters, then, Libanius was
rather self-confident, writing, as he did, from a position of social power. As
such, religion was not a private matter: it surfaces most prominently in
Libanius’ orations when public salvation is at stake.
13.2 Not the last pagan

Religious affiliation is less prominent a theme in Libanius than it is in the bulk
of fourth-century literature, be it Christian or Neoplatonist in inspiration.
This fact, which is likely to strike anybody reading the author’s oeuvre, has
been explained in various ways, as stated in the introduction: scholars have
linked it with Libanius’ decent character, his religious indifference, or his
indebtedness to the values of Hellenic culture and to its traditional tolerance
of religious diversity. Most recently, Sandwell has argued that Libanius’
strategic, gentleman-like use of religion was paradigmatic for ancient
society at large, until it was progressively challenged in Late Antiquity by
pagan and Christian identity politicians, such as the emperor Julian and
Christian bishops.19 In particular, she has opposed the rigidity of John
Chrysostom’s view on religious identity to Libanius’ flexibility: ‘Libanius
did not see religious interaction in terms of interaction between well-defined
religious identities. Rather he allows people a more flexible approach to
religious interaction . . .’20 At the same time, Sandwell has drawn attention
to the rhetorical use which Libanius makes of religion21: he suppresses
19
Sandwell (2007a), 239. 20 Sandwell (2007a), 7.
21
Sandwell (2007a). Cribiore (2013), 137–9 suggests Sandwell sees Libanius as an ‘opportunist’ (139), but
this is not an accurate characterisation of Sandwell’s position. In fact, Sandwell’s view of Libanius is
rather close to Cribiore’s of a pagan scholar displaying flexible but moderate attitudes in a complex
religious world.

or highlights references to his own religious allegiance and that of his
correspondents depending on the situation he finds himself in and the aims
he is pursuing.
Whilst Isabella Sandwell’s book has been very important in emphasizing
the rhetorical nature of Libanius’ remarks about religion, the crucial ques-
tion is the degree to which one can draw conclusions about religious views
from such a rhetorical practice. In Sandwell’s view, the fact that Libanius
uses religion rhetorically demonstrates that he puts religion at the service of
rhetoric, and thus that he was flexible in religious matters: it did not matter
to him what the religion of his addressees or interlocutors was.22 A different
interpretation is possible, though. Indeed, the strategic use of religion, for
example the highlighting of paganism when establishing a relationship with
Richomer23 and the downplaying of Christianity when defending
Thalassius and Orion,24 presupposes an accurate knowledge of, and thus
an active interest in, the religious position of the addressee as well as the
wider audience: Libanius identified his interlocutor as well as his audience as
being Christian, Hellene, or Jew, and consciously decided to use that
knowledge or not.25 As such, he was very much a child of his times: he
was conscious of other people’s religious convictions and sought to respond
to these. This is not a matter of principled flexibility, but rather a case of
treading sensitively but decidedly in matters of religion.
Yet if, as will be shown more extensively below, this is indeed the case,
why is religion not more prominent in his works? In order to understand
this, we must shift the focus away from religion and rhetoric, and take into
account the social context. Indeed, a lack of emphasis on religion similar to
that of Libanius can be found in the writings of representatives of the Latin
fourth-century elite. The pagan Symmachus, for example, hardly draws
attention to religious allegiance in his letters, but neither does the Christian
Ausonius, to the extent that for a while scholars doubted his Christian
allegiance.26 As Alan Cameron has noted, this shows that in fourth-century
Rome, the classical tradition was the normative culture for pagans and
Christians alike, and that it is thus very difficult to distinguish pagans and
Christians on the basis of their literary output and, for example, references
22
Sandwell (2007a), 277–8: in contrast with Neoplatonists and Christians, Libanius did not feel he had
‘to define himself and those he knew as either Greek or Christian at every moment’ and sidestepped
‘the whole religious issue by playing down the importance of religion to other areas of life’.
23
Libanius, Letters 972 and 1024.
24
Libanius, Letters 819, 763 and 1364. For further cases, see Cribiore (2013), 175–80 and 184–5.
25
See Jan Stenger’s considerations on utterances of Greek identity as a discursive and social practice
(Chapter 12), as well as his discussion in Stenger (2009), 70–8.
26
Langlois (1991), Coskun (2002), 216–37 and Salzmann and Roberts (2012), xlvii–xlviii.

to pagan deities therein.27 The elite all shared in a single culture, founded on
the classical past. Contrary to the still common perception that Libanius
formed a fast receding island of traditional culture in a rapidly swelling sea
of Christianity,28 he must be understood in this context of shared elite
culture.29 Much like his Latin peers, it is striking how self-evident tradi-
tional culture is in his writings:30 there is no need to justify traditional
values, culture and gods – to the point that scholars, who tend to think of
the fourth century as an age of deep religious feelings, are disappointed
at what seems to be a merely literary deployment of deities and a
Gelehrtenreligion. We need to understand this attitude not as an absence
of feelings (we are dealing, after all, with rhetorical texts), but as an
indication of the social power of traditional culture. Libanius’ cultural
code is normative and does not need justification or explication. Others
conform to it or are supposed at least to understand his language and
allusions. He was thus able to accommodate religious differences to the
extent that others subscribed to the overriding cultural code that he and his
peers incarnated.
Against this background we can also understand why Christian bishops,
such as John Chrysostom, emphasized religious identity much more
strongly than Libanius: besides the obvious fact that John was religious
leader whilst Libanius was not, some Christians could not but reject one
aspect of traditional culture for religious reasons. This hardly ever led to a
full rejection of classical culture, but it questioned its self-evident nature. As
such, it raised awareness of the fact that one situated oneself partially outside
the elite consensus.31 In contrast with John Chrysostom, Libanius fully
identified with traditional culture and put himself forward as the standard
to which others had to conform. Indeed, he often assigns himself the
authority to express judgements on religious matters: he criticizes innova-
tions in traditional religious practices, socially deprecates new religious
groups such as the Christians, and links virtue to traditional religion.32
Even if Libanius did not talk about religion all the time, it is clear that he did
not sever the link between elite culture and traditional cult, as some
Christians, such as Gregory of Nazianzus, would do.33 It is telling, in this
respect, that whereas Libanius often looks down upon Christianity as a
27
See Alan Cameron (2011), 176–7 for a taxonomy of different positions.
28
Graf (2012), 185: ‘the last pagan’. 29 See Liebeschuetz (1972), 225–7. 30 Cf. Schouler (1984).
31
This generates an extensive Christian reflection on the relationship between Christianity and tradi-
tional education: cf. Gemeinhardt (2007).
32
e.g. Libanius, Orations 10.14, 11.150–5, 20.3, 45.20–1 and 50.11. 33 Cf. Elm (2012), 389–93.

lower-class phenomenon,34 John’s writings convey the persistent impres-
sion of writing from a cultural and social opposition to a dominant
culture.35
Libanius’ strategic use of religion, then, is rooted in fourth-century elite
culture, in which traditional culture, including pagan religion, and social
power went hand in hand.36 This socio-cultural superiority made that he did
not experience the need to emphasize traditional religion at all times, let alone
defend it continuously:37 his addressees and audiences are supposed to already
share that world or to enter into it. This world, it should be emphasized, is not
a social world in which religious differences are absent or systematically
obscured: Libanius knew very well the religious allegiances of his correspond-
ents, as much as they knew his. Even if he did not always feel the need to draw
attention to them, there can be little doubt that for Libanius traditional
religion was an integral part of his social self-understanding. It would there-
fore be misguided to think of Libanius as indifferent or uncommitted.
In so far as Libanius’ utterances (or lack thereof) about religion are not
only steeped in rhetorical practice, but also deeply rooted in the social world
of the fourth-century elite, both these elements need to be taken into
account if we wish to assess what role he saw for religion in society. In
Section 13.3, I wish to illustrate what such an approach can bring by
presenting an analysis of Oration 30 To the Emperor Theodosius for the
Temples. My choice for this oration has two grounds. First, as is already
clear from its title, religion occupies a major role within Oration 30, which is
therefore considered a text of central importance for defining Libanius’
religious views. As such, it provides an excellent test-case to explore how and
what we can learn about Libanius’ real convictions through his rhetoric.
And second, Oration 30 dates from the reign of Theodosius, when the
numerical and social importance of Christianity had greatly increased and
religious legislation became more strict. Libanius explicitly acknowledges
the fact that Theodosius thinks his religion better than others, and thus at
times sounds very much as Christian apologists did in the second and third
century, pleading for a benevolent attitude of the powers that be. Yet the
fact that even at this late point in time, he still asserts that this does not
exclude the emperor from employing pagans as officials (§53) and, what is
more, depicts pagan temples as the incarnations of Greek culture and
civilization, provides perhaps the clearest possible illustration of the major-
ity stance that characterizes most of his oeuvre.
34
Libanius, Orations 20.3 and 45.20–21. 35 Cf. Tloka (2005); Maxwell (2006).
36
Cf. Brown (1992). 37 Cf. Limberis (2000), 398.
13.3 To the Emperor Theodosius for the Temples:

rhetoric for the elites
The oration To the Emperor Theodosius for the Temples, probably written
between 381 and 392,38 presents itself as advice to Theodosius I to stop the
destruction of temples, even though it is considered unlikely that the text was
ever actually presented to the emperor. It may seem an obvious expression of
the fundamental pagan beliefs of the orator and a last-ditch plea for toleration
against a victorious Christianity.39 Even within such a framework, however,
the oration has been read in diametrically opposed ways. Sandwell finds in the
oration proof for the tendency of Libanius (and late antique paganism in
general) to identify religious beliefs as private affairs, so as ‘to leave the civic
and the political as an autonomous, neutral public space that would not
constantly be the site of religious conflict’.40 By contrast, Thomas Sizgorich
has argued that the oration exemplifies how communal religious identities are
shaped by narratives: in this case, for Libanius the whole history of Hellenism
is, as it were, incarnated in the temple. Sizgorich also draws attention to the
fact that Libanius depicts the anonymous official who destroys the temples as
a counter-image of the emperor: morally deprived, he lets his private interests
take precedence over public interests. In Sizgorich’s view, then, the oration
sees religion as an essential ingredient of public life.41
In recent scholarship, then, the oration has become a test-case to under-
stand the role Libanius would attribute to religion in social life. Pursuing the
suggestions from the preceding section, I shall analyse the rhetorical argu-
ment as well as the social context to show that the oration is only at the
surface about religion and seeks, in fact, to defend elite interests. If religion
is then mainly rhetorically used, some of the arguments deployed shall
nevertheless allow us, in the next section, to draw some conclusions about
how Libanius envisaged the role of religion in society.
First of all, we need to understand the rhetorical strategy and aim that
Libanius is pursuing in the oration. Indeed, as Jean-Michel Carrié has shown
for Libanius’ oration against military patronage (Oration 47, also addressed to
38
Nesselrath (2011a), 33–8 provides a clear overview of the discussions about the date and settles for the
solution proposed by Wiemer (1995b), 128: the writing is situated in 385–7 under Cynegius as
Praetorian Prefect of the East but publication in 388, when the pagan Tatianus became Prefect. For
earlier discussions, see Van Loy (1933), Pack (1935), 45, Petit (1951) and Liebeschuetz (1972), 30.
Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer (2011, 111) also dates the oration to 385–7. For the terminus ante quem of 392 and
the identification of the anonymous official with Cynegius, see below.
39
See, e.g., Wiemer (1995b), 128 and (2011a), 163 and Stenger (2009), 388.
40
Sandwell (2007a), 157. She later (p. 180) links the privatization of religion to religious toleration.
41
Sizgorich (2007), 84–91 and (2009), 86–106. See also Stenger (2009), 377–89.

Theodosius I), the ‘rhetorical’ subject of a speech can differ substantially from
its ‘real’ subject. Thus Oration 47 is, in fact, concerned with the extension of
land possession by the military, drawing tenants away from land owned by
curiales, whereas its surface argument is targeted against illegal forms of
patronage. The aim of such a rhetorical strategy is easy to understand:
Libanius could not contest the legally valid acquisitions by the military. In
order to have a chance of success with the emperor, he therefore needed to
claim that an illegal practice was taking place.42 As any orator, Libanius
develops a rhetorical strategy that maximizes his chances of success.
Most studies of To the Emperor Theodosius for the Temples still take the
oration at face value and consider that Libanius seeks to defend the main-
tenance of the key monuments of paganism against their illegal destruction
by Christian fanatics. It is thus seen as the principled stance of a defender of
a pagan against Christian intolerance.43 If such readings accept Libanius’
presentation of the destructions as illegal acts, I shall argue, in contrast, that
he is in fact concerned with a real legal issue and its legal and paralegal
enforcement. He accuses the monks and other Christians of bringing up
false accusations of blood sacrifice as an excuse to expropriate the land with
the temple where the sacrifice supposedly happened. This points, in turn, to
a real legal worry: Libanius never disputes that if sacrifice had really taken
place, the authorities would have had the right of confiscation. The
destruction of temples is put forward as the central topic, not only because
it can function well as a symbol of monastic zeal, but mainly because it was
an indisputable illegal act and thus provided Libanius with firm legal
ground from which to accuse his opponents.
Indeed, there are sufficient indications in the oration to think that Libanius
pursues a more precise goal than the defence of the religious value of temples.
Two key passages render this clear. First, Libanius laments, towards the end of
the narration (§§10–12),44 that accusations of the violation of legislation in
religious matters have led to peasants being robbed of their possessions and
land owners of their land. Two tactics have been used to this aim: on the one
hand, the claim that the land being cultivated is actually temple land (§11), all
of which legally belonged to the imperial treasury;45 on the other, the
accusation that sacrifice had been performed on the land, leading to
42
Carrié (1976). See also Grey (2011), 219–20. For a similar analysis of Oration 31, see Van Hoof
(2014c).
43
e.g. Norman (1977), 92–3, Wiemer (2011a), 163 (‘Grundsatzrede’), Kahlos (2009), 92–5, Cribiore
(2013), 158 (‘the official spokesman of paganism’).
44
For the structure, see Nesselrath (2011a), 31–2.
45
Delmaire (1989), 641–4. See Libanius, Oration 30.43 and CJ 11.66.4 (18/1/383?).

confiscation (§§12, 15). What is at stake, therefore, is the legal title to land. If
the narratio leaves studiously unspecified to what social class the land owners
actually belong, the peroratio (§§54–5), which is the second key passage,
clearly points to elite land owners. There Libanius exclaims: ‘How have
they grasped in anger the estates that belong to others?’46 The speech
concludes ominously on the warning that the ‘lords of the estates’ may
‘help themselves and the law’ against such actions.47 The reference to the
‘lords of the estates’ in the very last sentence is revealing: whereas most of
the oration has tended to highlight the trouble caused to the cultivators of the
land,48 it now becomes clear that Libanius is speaking as a land owner
defending his estates (or, at least, those of his class).49
These key passages suggest that a specific legal issue is at stake: the
confiscation of land on the grounds of violation of legislation about sacrifice
or because it was temple land. Indeed, whilst the oration presents itself as a
speech of advice (symbouleutikos) to the emperor, it has many aspects of a
forensic oration (dikanikos).50 In effect, a substantial part of the oration is
taken up with a definition of the grounds on which the accusations rest on
the one hand, and a rejection of the way the law has been enforced on the
other. In the case of the grounds of the accusations, Libanius claims that
there are no legal grounds for confiscation as no illicit sacrifice took place.
The focus here is on the definition of what constitutes a sacrifice; the
confiscation of temple land receives little attention, probably because it
was an unambiguous legal issue that was hard to dispute. The second point,
about law enforcement, is argued by highlighting the paralegal actions of
monks and by morally discrediting the official who had the legal authority
to enforce the law. The following discussion of these two argumentative
strategies will confirm the initial assessment that the oration is only at the
surface about the destruction of temples, which is highlighted in order to
transfer the accusation of illegal practice to his opponents.
The first strategy, regarding the legal grounds, falls into two parts, the
first of which is his definition of the legal situation regarding sacrifice in §7.
46
Libanius, Oration 30.54: Πῶς δ᾿ἀλλοτρίων ἅπτονται μετ᾿ὀργῆς ἀγρῶν; ‘How do they grasp the
estates of others in anger?’
47
Libanius, Oration 30.55: ἴσθι τοὺς τῶν ἀγρῶν δεσπότας καὶ αὑτοῖς καὶ τῷ νόμῳ βοηθήσοντας.
48
Libanius, Oration 30.20: ἀλλ’ ἐν οἷς ἐξηλάσατε τοὺς ταῖς αὑτῶν ἐπιμελείαις πενίᾳ βοηθοῦντας . . .
(but your expulsion of people who by their personal care provided relief for poverty . . . ’ Tr. Norman)
can be understood as a reference to the expulsion of benevolent landowners.
49
Cf. Libanius, Oration 47.11 and 22, for the use of ager and despotes with the meaning of ‘estate’
and ‘lord’.
50
Stenger (2009), 378 and Nesselrath (2011a), 32.

Even if scholars sometimes take Libanius’ sketch as a factual account,51 his
account is distorted by rhetorical imperatives.52 According to Libanius,
Constantine did not ban sacrifice, but his son Constantius II did. The ban
was then reversed by Julian and only partially reinstated by Valens and
Valentinian, who, according to Libanius, forbade blood sacrifice but allowed
the burning of incense. This was, in Libanius’ presentation, confirmed by
Theodosius I. This account cannot be easily matched onto the extant legal
evidence. If the attitude of Constantine remains disputed in scholarship,53 a
law of Constantius II indeed ordered to close all temples and to abstain from
sacrifice, on the punishment of execution and confiscation (CTh 16.10.4,
1/12/356). It seems, however, that temples were generally kept open but not
for sacrificial purposes.54 So much is indeed confirmed in a law from 30/11/382
(CTh 16.10.8). If Libanius’ account of Constantine and Constantius II could
be made to fit the legal evidence, there is no evidence for the distinction
between blood sacrifice and the offering of incense in the extant legal record of
Valens and Valentinian, nor among the laws of Theodosius. CTh 16.10.7 (21/
12/381) and 16.10.9 (25/5/385) are sometimes seen as validating Libanius’
account, for these laws prohibit blood sacrifice for divinatory purposes,
whereas incense is only explicitly prohibited by CTh 16.10.12 (8/11/392).55
Yet the specific anti-divinatory scope of the first two laws explains their
focus on blood sacrifice (one needs an animal in order to predict the future
by reading its entrails), and they do not legislate about the offering of incense
in any way. Moreover, had these laws constituted the legal basis for the
prosecutions, Libanius would have had a much easier case to plead, for he
only would have had to argue that no divination had taken place. Most
probably, then, some general prohibition of sacrifice was in place, possibly
going back to Constantius’ law, and in making the distinction between blood
sacrifice and incense Libanius is performing a rhetorical trick known from
other sources: the absence of explicit prohibition is interpreted as evidence for
non-prohibition.56 So much is indeed admitted to in §18: ‘By banning the
51
Wytzes (1978), 1336–7, Nesselrath (2011a), 33, Nesselrath (ed.) (2011), 80 n. 34 and Cribiore (2013),
224–6.
52
Cf. Behrends (2011), 123–4.
53
Barnes (1984), Bradbury (1994) and Behrends (2011, 117–26) argue that Constantine did ban sacrifice.
Doubts expressed by Belayche (2005), 352 with further references.
54
Bonamente (2011), 70 and Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer (2011), 111.
55
Nesselrath (ed.)(2011), 80 n. 34. Belayche (2005) argues that no prohibition of sacrifice, including
blood sacrifice, existed before the laws of 391 and 392. Libanius’ argumentative strategy would make
no sense if by the 380s no such prohibition existed.
56
The Novatian historian Socrates (Church History 5.10.27–8) interprets CTh 16.5.12 (3/12/383) as
granting the Novatians the right to have churches in Constantinople. In fact, the law grants the

performance of one specific action you automatically permit everything else’.57
The law of 392 can be possibly understood as a response to this kind of
argument: its long catalogue of specific actions that are outlawed seeks to close
off the loopholes that people like Libanius exploited in court cases.
Besides claiming that the offering of incense is allowed, Libanius also
disputes that what his opponents claim to be sacrifice is only a festal meal. In
fact, he claims, the peasants did ‘sacrifice’, but not near the altar and without
the intention to sacrifice.58 Implicitly, he accepts that an act of butchery
took place near a temple.59 Libanius’ argument shows that a fine line ran
between a proper sacrifice and a mere common meal. It needs little elabo-
ration that pagans could use the distinction to obscure their sacrificial acts,
whereas Christians might wilfully misinterpret a shared meal close to a
temple as a sacrifice. Again Libanius’ argument is not isolated: the legislator
acted on this contentious issue, first allowing festal meals (CTh 16.10.17, 20/
8/399), then outlawing them in temples (CTh 16.10.19.3, 15/11/408).
The frequent references to legal enactments in Oration 30 hence do not
provide a factual exposé of the actual legal situation regarding sacrifice in the
fourth century. Libanius is rather exploring the possible room for interpre-
tation that would put the incriminated acts in a different, innocent light. It
is significant that later laws precisely seek to close off these loopholes. These
laws were obviously not direct responses to Libanius, but they indicate that
he used arguments that others too are likely to have put forward in similar
circumstances. Libanius’ rhetorical reading of the legal record is in line with
general practice in Late Antiquity, when accused and defendant alike
engaged in biased reinterpretations of extant laws.60 There is little reason
to doubt that his selection of laws is biased too and does not seek to be
comprehensive or representative: it cannot be excluded that Valens and
Valentinian did enact a constitution on sacrifice which Theodosius con-
firmed, but it is unlikely that they actually made the clear distinction
between blood sacrifice and incense that Libanius ascribes to them.
Nicenes this right and excludes a number of heresies. The Novatians were a schism that claimed to
follow the same faith of Nicea (without officially having accepted the council). Sozomen, Church
History 7.12.11 corrects Socrates. See Van Nuffelen (2004). Many of the claims made by Eusebius for
Constantine’s religious legislation (Life of Constantine 2.45 and 4.25) are based on such overinterpre-
tations: see Behrends (2011), 115.
57
Libanius, Oration 30.18: ἓν εἰπὼν δεῖν μὴ ποιεῖν τἄλλα πάντα ἀφῆκας (Tr. Norman).
58
Libanius, Oration 30.17: ‘οὐκ ἔθυσαν οὖν;’ ἐρήσεται τις. ‘Πάνυ γε, ἀλλ᾿ἐπὶ θοίνῃ καὶ ἀρίστῳ καὶ
εὐωχίᾳ τῶν βοῶν ἀλλαχοῦ σφαττομένων . . .’. ‘Did they not sacrifice, then?’ one may ask. ‘Of course
they did, but for a shared meal and dinner and good cheer with the cattle being slaughtered
somewhere else . . .’.
59
Libanius, Oration 30.18. 60 Cf. Harries (1999), Humfress (2007).

We should note in passing that the preceding argument raises some
questions about the traditional establishment of the terminus ante quem of
24/2/391. Oration 30.33 and 35 states that sacrifice is not prohibited in Rome
and Alexandria, whereas CTh 16.10.10 (24/2/391), addressed to the Prefect of
Rome, and CTh 16.10.11 (16/6/391), addressed to the praefectus augustalis and
comes Aegypti explicitly forbid the entry into temples and sacrifice. This
apparent matching of Libanius’ claims and later decrees may be mere coinci-
dence. Libanius can hardly be taken to mean that all types of sacrifice were
allowed in these two cities, as this would contradict his earlier statement that
Theodosius forbade blood sacrifice but allowed the burning of incense
(§§8, 18). Nor do extant constitutions on sacrifice allow for exceptions in
Rome and Alexandria: CTh 16.10.7 (21/12/381) and 16.10.9 (25/5/385) are, for
example, both addressed to Prefects of the Orient and can thus reasonably be
surmised to apply in Alexandria too. In fact, Libanius’ argument is again more
rhetoric than reality. Starting out from the fact that Christians claim that
sacrifice to the gods is a dangerous aberration, Libanius suggests that they
should have forbidden sacrifice altogether if their attitude was fully logical.
But the Christians actually allow sacrifice to happen in the major cities of
Rome and Alexandria because, so he alleges, they secretly fear that the end of
the practice there might mean the end of the empire. Christian legal reticence
is thus taken as proof of the fact that even they still believe in the power of the
gods. For this argument to work, it suffices that the burning of incense is still
permitted across the empire (as Libanius assumes); it does not presuppose a
specific legal status for Alexandria and Rome. This admittedly forced inter-
pretation on Libanius’ part can still be reconciled with CTh 16.10.10 and 11.
They confirm the ban of sacrifice but add two elements in comparison with
earlier laws: the description of what is prohibited is specified to include all acts
of worship in a temple, and specific fines are decreed for officials who engage
in such acts. It seems that these constitutions should be interpreted as
targeting high officials that exploited their status to get away scot-free.
Neither text mentions explicitly incense and could thus, conceivably, still be
interpreted according to Libanius’ blood sacrifice vs. incense dichotomy. The
legal text that provides the most secure terminus ante quem is thus CTh
16.10.12 (8/11/392), in which incense is explicitly outlawed. The general
terminus ante quem is the destruction of the Serapeion, which happened in
early 392, before April.61
Crucially, Libanius never disputes that the confiscations of land rested on
firm legal basis: if the land being cultivated was temple land, it had to be
61
Cf. Hahn (2006). Cf. Libanius, Oration 30.44.

transferred to the treasury, and if one was found to sacrifice, the land on
which this happened was to be confiscated. Instead, Libanius accuses his
opponents of falsely claiming that land used to be temple land, of inventing
accusations,62 and of misinterpreting the festal meals as sacrifice. He does
not claim, however, that the act of sacrifice should not lead to confiscation
nor that temple land should not be handed over to the treasury. As we have
seen, the confiscation of temple land is well-attested in fourth-century
legislation. Interestingly, the former surfaces for the first time in CTh
16.10.12 (8/11/392), a law that must post-date the composition of the oration.
Constantius II had decreed confiscation before, but this happened after the
execution of the person who had sacrificed (CTh 16.10.4;1/12/356); Libanius
does not envisage execution. What part of the estate would be confiscated is
unclear, but one would presume the property on which the sacrifice took
place. An earlier constitution fixes this punishment for the construction of
Arian churches on private estates,63 and so much is also set out in CTh
16.10.12: the estate on which someone has sacrificed has to be confiscated if
he is the owner. If one performs sacrifice on the property of someone else,
without the owner knowing, the person who has sacrificed will be fined
25 pounds of gold. Officials can be fined 30 pounds of gold if they decide to
look away and not enforce the law.64 The situation envisaged by Libanius is
similar but not identical to the one laid out in this law. As we have seen, he
insists that the burning of incense is legitimate, an act that the constitution
of 392 outlaws specifically. Libanius also does not mention fines as a
punishment. If we are allowed to take this as implying that fines were not
foreseen in the legal situation he presupposes, we could speculate that at the
moment of his writing estates were to be confiscated if sacrifice had taken
place there, even if this was done by the peasants without the landowner
knowing. The landowner would thus have been responsible for the acts of
his peasants.65 If such speculation is justified, the law of 392 can be seen as
responding to the difficulties generated by the situation Libanius describes,
for it allows landowners to avoid confiscation by claiming ignorance of the
acts of their peasants.
In the light of his acceptance of the legal principle that sacrifice would
entail confiscation, it should not come as a surprise that Libanius is very
62
It was possible for delatores to claim part of the estate themselves: Delmaire (1989), 626–31.
63
CTh 16.5.8 (19/7/381).
64
CTh 16.10.12 (8/11/392): Bonamente (2011), 78; Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer (2011), 105. For similar stipula-
tions regarding the donatists, see CTh 16.6.4 (12/2/405).
65
This can be related to the injunction that landowners should actively pursue the conversion of their
estates, a well-attested plea by bishops: for references, see MacMullen (1984), 100–1.

concerned about the enforcement of law, to which we now turn. Early on,
the oration introduces the famous image of vagrant bands of monks coming
down as locusts on temples (§8). This may seem an illegal act, but later the
oration makes clear that the attackers claim to be acting according to the law
(§§15–26, 49). What Libanius is depicting, then, are acts of paralegal law
enforcement. It did indeed happen that Christians enforced religious laws
themselves because they thought the officials were too slack – a practice that
would be condemned by law but also by bishops such as Augustine.66
Paralegal enforcement was therefore not undisputed even in Christian
circles. Focusing on the monks as perpetrators added to the negative
colouring of the act, as they were rather negatively perceived by a wider,
also Christian, public.67 The focus on paralegal law enforcement is con-
firmed by later accusations of Libanius that his opponents bypass the courts,
an act that is due, so he suggests, by sheer lack of evidence (§§19–20):
knowing that their case would not hold in a proper court of law, the
perpetrators chose to take the law into their own hands.
Nevertheless, Libanius also seems to be worried by the possibility of legal
enforcement. Both victims (§11) and perpetrators (§19) seem to have pre-
sented themselves to bishop Flavian. It is hard to tell if a bishop would have
been allowed to judge such cases,68 and it is doubtful if he would have been
able to enforce his decisions. At any rate, it suggests a desire for, at least, a
semblance of legality on the side of the perpetrators, which is more than
Libanius allows for at the beginning of his oration. If the early part of the
oration seems concerned with people who clearly had no right to enforce the
law, commentators have often remarked upon the fact that the monks
disappear towards its end, when an anonymous official who closes down
temples takes pride of place. In fact, the image of rapacious and vicious
monks discredits in advance this official, who is indeed depicted as a
similarly greedy and nasty individual.69 This official clearly is more of a
threat to Libanius, for he had the authority to punish contravention of the
law (§49). The initial focus on paralegal enforcement by a despised group in
society thus serves to predispose the reader to see the actions of that official
in the same light as theirs, that is, as the pursuit of private greed in blatant
66
CTh 16.11.1 (20.8.399); Augustine, Sermon 62.17–18. For the problem of paralegal enforcement, see
Fowden (1978).
67
For negative opinions about monks, see e.g. Consultationes Zacchariae et Apollonii 3.3.1–2, 6;
Hieronymus, Letter 22.28; Augustine, Retractationes 2.21 and Letter 262; Cassianus, Collationes 18.7;
Ambrose, Epistulae extra collectionem 1.27; CTh 16.3.1 (2/9/390); Rutilius Namatianus 1.439–52, 7.515–26.
See Brown (1992), 51, Jiménez Sánchez (2010), Nesselrath (2011b) and Wallraff (2011).
68
On the episcopalis audientia, see Humfress (2007), 170–3 and (2011). 69 Libanius, Oration 30.49.

disrespect of the law. But Libanius’ own rhetoric betrays that this man
claimed to be backed up by imperial decrees and we should be careful not to
take Libanius’ depiction as an accurate representation of events.
The anonymous official in §§46–50 is usually identified with Maternus
Cynegius, who was Praetorian Prefect of the East between 384 and 388, and
to whom the widespread closing of temples across the East is usually
attributed. Neil McLynn has, however, shown that this view of Cynegius
is based on the uncritical conflation of different accounts by modern
scholars. He also argues persuasively that if Cynegius engaged in anti-
pagan activities, it must have been in Egypt and not in Syria.70 As a
consequence, he sheds serious doubts on the traditional identification of
Libanius’ anonymous official, suggesting that this may have been a lower
ranking provincial official. In addition to McLynn’s arguments, one can
note that the oration is, as argued, really concerned with confiscations on
accusation of sacrifice, which is different from the attacks on temples out of
fanaticism that scholarship attributes to Cynegius.71
The discussion of the legal argument in Oration 30 allows us to draw three
important conclusions. First, Libanius’ legal account does not aspire to be
complete nor accurate: it is a rhetorically constructed argument that seeks to
exploit loopholes and proposes highly tendentious interpretations. Second,
Libanius’ account of the legal basis for the prosecutions cannot be exactly
matched to the extant contemporaneous record of the Codex Theodosianus
(CTh). This suggests that the Codex is not an accurate reflection of the legal
situation at the end of the fourth century. For legal historians this is stating the
obvious,72 but the point is worth emphasizing given that traditional readings
of Oration 30 often try to explain Libanius’ account with reference to the
extant legal record. It seems, in fact, that religious legislation postdating the
oration seeks to ward off the kind of interpretations that Libanius puts
forward. Finally, the oration To the Emperor Theodosius for the Temples is
only at its rhetorical surface an argument for the preservation of cult buildings:
the focus on temples is a diversion strategy, as their destruction was an
indisputable transgression of the law.73 Libanius used the theme to divert
70
McLynn (2005), 33–6.
71
Cynegius is said by Zosimus to have closed temples on demand of the emperor (4.37.3). If one wishes
to identify Cynegius with Libanius’ official, then one can understand Libanius’ argument in 30.49–50
as saying that he had overstepped his instructions by allowing the destruction of temples instead of
their closure. But as I have argued throughout, this is not Libanius’ principal worry. The distinction
between closing and destroying is sometimes not noticed in scholarship: Behrends (2011), 96.
72
Delmaire (2005), 35–6. On the code and its compilation, see Matthews (2000).
73
No destruction is demanded in fourth-century legislation and sometimes explicit preservation is
requested: CTh 16.10.3 (1/11/342), 16.10.15 (29/8/399).

attention away from unproven offences committed by pagans to the undis-
putable crimes of Christians – a depiction that is tendentious at best. What is
at stake is a much more specific situation: members of the Antiochene elite see
part of their properties disturbed or even confiscated and transferred to the
imperial treasury because sacrifice is practised in the shrines on their estates or
because they own temple land (or at least the accusation is levelled against
them to usurp their possessions). The enforcement of the law may also have
been the act of Christian zealots, as Libanius wishes us to believe (even if one is
entitled to doubt the extent that he suggests). More worryingly, however, was
the involvement of state officials, who actually had the authority to enforce the
law and the power to protect those who had paralegally enforced the law. To
the Emperor Theodosius for the Temples is, thus, not the principled stance of a
pagan, but the defence of specific class (and maybe even personal) interests.74
13.4 To the Emperor Theodosius for the Temples:

the public and the private between rhetoric and religion
That this primarily legal argument has gone unnoticed for long is a tribute
to Libanius’ rhetoric. Indeed, in addition to the tendentious presentation of
the absence of sufficient legal grounds and of the overzealous law enforce-
ment, Libanius consciously seeks to conjure up the sympathy of his audi-
ence by emphasizing the hardship that hits the land: the peasants get
discouraged by the removal of the gods, and yields and tax revenues go
down (§10). He obscures his class interests by another two-pronged rhet-
orical strategy: on the one hand, the emphasis on the public benefit of
(private) temples, and, on the other, the privatization of the motives of the
law enforcers.75
Let us look at the first strategy first. On a quick reading, Oration 30 does
not seem to be concerned with private interests but with the general
preservation of the temples: the narratio opens with an emphasis on the
importance of temples in the rise of civilization, a theme that recurs again in
§§ 30–36 where the importance of traditional cult for the welfare of the
empire is emphasized. Libanius thus operates a double refocusing in relation
to the real issue at stake. First, the issue is no longer the practice of sacrifice
but the destruction of temples. As said, this gives him a much stronger legal
74
For the elite interests of Libanius, see Pack (1935), 9 and Petit (1956a), 35–6 and 62. Libanius usually
covers up elite interests with more general considerations: see, e.g., Orations 19.44, 21.20, 22.12,
47.7–8, 47.34 and 47.56–9.
75
This corresponds to the two rhetorical heads identified by Berry and Heath (1997), 415–18: usefulness
and legality.

position, as the destruction of temples had never been ordered:76 those who
pretended to enforce the law can hence be depicted as the actual offenders
(see §§20–26 and 50). A second refocusing concerns the relationship
between countryside and city. In his detailed analysis, Hans-Ulrich
Wiemer has noted the paradox that Libanius seems mainly concerned
with attacks on temples in the countryside (§9), whereas the only concrete
examples given relate to civic sanctuaries (see §§22–23, 45). Wiemer
explains this by the fact that Libanius, as a city-dweller, had little feeling
for the countryside.77 In fact, this shift in focus rather seems to be part of the
conscious rhetorical strategy to decriminalize private sacrifice through refer-
ence to the usefulness of public temples78 and to shift attention away from
the countryside to the city: crucially, the attention is transferred from
temples on private estates to temples in the civic spaces. In doing so, the
private interests of the landowners are turned into an issue of public welfare,
for traditionally the benefit of pagan cult for society at large was enacted
through public cult. The first part of Libanius’ rhetorical strategy thus seeks
to draw attention away from possible illegal sacrifice on elite estates (what
Libanius or the people he defends are accused of) and refocuses the issue on
the public usefulness of pagan temples and cult. The argument becomes at
once legal and moral: it is illegal to destroy temples and detrimental to the
common good. That Libanius can only rhetorically suggest the massive
destruction of temples is evident in the fact that he discusses a single specific
(but nevertheless unnamed) example (§§44–45),79 a temple that was more-
over situated on the margins of the empire. Arguably, he had little other
evidence to marshal his contention of destruction on a grand scale.80
The second part of the rhetorical strategy seeks to depict those who
enforce the law as flawed individuals who pursue their own particular
interests. The depiction of monks as parasitic dangers to society at the
start of the oration is part of that strategy, as is the scathing attack on the
anonymous official in §§46–50, who is accused of associating with them.
Symbol for his depravity is that he is supposedly egged on by his wife, a
classical stereotype.81 The couple tries to impose their private religious views
on the rest of society and are driven by greed: ‘He ought not to have put his
private pleasures before your interests’.82 As T. Sizgorich has demonstrated,
they are implicitly contrasted with the attitude the emperor is supposed to
76
Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer (2011), 111. 77 Wiemer (2011a), 168.
78
See already Libanius, Oration 30.11.
79
See also Oration 30.22, the destruction of a statue in Beroia.
80
On the relative paucity of temple destruction, see Lavan (2011). 81 Cooper (1992), 161.
82
Libanius, Oration 30.48: Ἔδει δὲ αὐτὸν <μὴ> μετὰ τὰς οἰκείας ἡδονὰς τὰ σαυτοῦ θεραπεύειν . . .

take, as the defender of the commonwealth.83 Not only does he have to
abide by strict legality (§§6–7),84 he is also to think of the importance of
these cults for the stability of the empire. In this light, the choice to
highlight the destruction of a temple close to the Persian border at the
very end of the oration (§45) cannot be accidental: it symbolizes the dangers
the empire exposes itself to by abandoning the protection of the gods. That
temple, Libanius suggests, protects Rome against its arch-enemy. Again the
argument plays on legal and moral sensibilities at the same time: it is illegal
to privately enforce the law and, in doing so, the law enforcers only pursue
their private interests.
Libanius’ rhetorical transformation of the enforcement of the law into a
pursuit of private interests is summed up in the ominous threat at the very
end of the oration: if Theodosius does not restore legality, the estate owners
will have to stoop to the level of those who attack their possessions and use
private force to restore public order. In other words, they will have to resort
to paralegal violence too. It is obvious that in comparison with the real
situation, in which Libanius defends private interests and the official applies
public law, he succeeds in construing an argument in which he stands for
public interest and law-abiding whereas his opponents pursue private profit
and disregard the law.85 It is testimony to Libanius’ persuasiveness that his
rhetorical reconfiguration of reality has often been taken for fact.
At the end of this analysis of Oration 30, the reader may be entitled to
wonder if one can find any views on religion in its rhetorical fireworks for
elite interests: it clearly is not a principled defence of paganism, but a
cleverly constructed argument to ward off possible confiscations by refocus-
ing the issue on indisputable wrongs. The oration is therefore in the first
place a testimony for late antique elite interests. Indeed, it vividly illustrates
the self-confident nature of Libanius’ allegiance to traditional culture: in a
plea to an openly Christian emperor, Libanius develops the classic pagan
argument that public welfare depends on traditional cult. Even though he
also plays on Christian sensibilities, for example in depicting temples as a
83
Sizgorich (2007), 89. The emperors preceding Theodosius are also depicted as not imposing their
private views on society (Oration 30.6, 30.53–4). This is a classical rhetorical trick: the emperor is
depicted as already subscribing to the argument proposed (cf. Oration 1.262).
84
Unsurprisingly given the legal nature of many of his orations, Libanius often refers to laws as the basis
for his arguments: Oration 33.15 refers to CTh 15.9.1; Oration 9.18 refers to CTh 16.10.10. The
references in Orations 39.13, 45.32 and 47.35 are harder to identify, as are the references in Oration 30.
85
One therefore need not be surprised that Libanius’ class, the curiales, hardly play a role in the
oration: they are absent because highlighting their role would suggest private interests: pace
Wiemer (2011a), 172–8.

place of social care at the image of Christian churches,86 he does not
abandon his conviction that the traditional gods need to be worshipped
to ensure the stability of the empire. Admittedly, this can also be interpreted
as part of Libanius’ self-presentation as a free-speaking orator: in this case,
little danger was associated with such a pose, as it is unlikely that the oration
was ever publicly proclaimed or reached the emperor.87 Nevertheless, as
Section 13.5 argues, the argument for the public usefulness of pagan cult
may actually be the closest we can get to Libanius’ convictions.
13.5 The need for a public religion

In several of his orations, Libanius argues for the public utility of traditional
cult. It is hinted at in Oration 7 (§§10–11), which states that those who destroy
temples, as an immoral way of acquiring fortune, will be punished by the
gods, as will be their children. More explicitly, it is the theme of Oration 24, a
plea to the emperor (ad 378–9) to punish the murderers of Julian.88 Most of
the oration is concerned with demonstrating how the empire and the indi-
vidual emperors have suffered for not seeking out the person who killed
Julian – even though Libanius inserts also the more practical argument that
punishing the killers of one’s predecessor is a good way of scaring off possible
attackers (§28). The scenes of cosmic grief at Julian’s death in Orations 17
(§30) and 18 (§292) are based on the same thought. Obviously, the target
audience and Libanius’ desire for self-presentation explain much about these
orations,89 but the choice to write them and to present such an argument is
revealing. Especially the connection made between Julian’s death, his restora-
tion of paganism, and divine wrath is telling. Even if the Julianic orations
pursue a specific rhetorical purpose within the context of elite factionalism in
Antioch, the way Libanius goes about defending Julian is probably not
fortuitous. His choice to write Oration 24 and to link the military defeat of
imperial troops with the death of Julian and anti-pagan measures, hints at the
conviction that traditional worship was important for the general welfare.
Indeed, such utterances cannot be mere rhetorical strategy: one can think of
better ways of persuading the Christian Theodosius to spare the temples or to
avenge Julian. Even if one imagines these orations to have been addressed to a
small circle of like-minded friends, we have to draw the same conclusion: the
86
Van Nuffelen (2011), 52. 87 Wiemer (2011a), 172.
88
On the date, see Wiemer (1995a), 362–3.
89
Sandwell (2007a), 219–24. For the complexities of Libanius’ relationship with Julian, see Wiemer
(1995a).

choice to present such orations for such an audience reveals something about
choices and options taken by Libanius.
The emphasis on the public importance of traditional cult is, in fact, a
ubiquitous argument in pagan apologetics of the period. It returns in
Symmachus’ plea for the restoration of the altar of Victory,90 whilst
Augustine (and in his wake Orosius) seek to rebut the anti-Christian
argument that the decline of paganism was the cause of the sack of Rome
in 410.91 Indeed, Christians often produced the exactly opposite argument
that only Christianity can help to maintain the empire.92 The persistence
of this argument in Christian and pagan circles shows that there was little
‘neutralization of public space’ in ideological terms: pagans and Christians
might agree on practical cohabitation, but both sides held quite different
conceptions on which divine power ultimately assured the survival of
society. Religion could not be privatized to render public space ‘neutral’,
as the divine assured the survival of the public.93
It must now be clear that Libanius does not reduce Greco-Roman
religion to a private affair: on the contrary, it is of eminent importance
and use for the common good. This is an expression of the self-confident
stance which, as shown in Section 13.2, Libanius adopted. This dominant
elite perspective made it impossible for him to conceive of the traditional
gods as other than crucial for the common good. In such a conception, the
new religion, Christianity, can only represent private motives, or worse,
moral depravity. The elite culture to which Libanius adheres generates,
therefore, both inclusion and exclusion of religious ‘others’. On the one
hand, it makes the day-to-day cohabitation of individuals with different
religious faiths possible by providing a shared cultural code. Whilst
Libanius can thus give a place to Christians as individuals, his under-
standing of his tradition, on the other hand, makes it impossible for him
to attribute a meaningful public place to Christianity as a religion: the
decline of the traditional public cult implies a decline of the empire, its
Greek culture, and the social position that Libanius derives from it. It is
therefore misleading to understand Oration 30 (or Libanius in general) as
propounding religious toleration or freedom of religion:94 Libanius is not
90
Symmachus, Relatio 3. 91 Augustine, The City of God 1.1–2.
92
Cf. Straub (1972), Marcone (2002).
93
The idea of the creation of a neutral, secular space in Late Antiquity is expounded in Markus
(1990).
94
As is implied in the title of Nesselrath (ed.) (2011). See the different argument of Limberis (2000), 398
and Stenger (2009), 386–7.

a Themistius who conceives of Christianity and Graeco-Roman religion
as two ways of worshipping the divine and thus ensuring its protection of
the empire.95
13.6 Conclusion
Libanius’ attitude towards religion may seem variable, even contradictory at
times: the downplaying of religion in personal exchanges sits side by side
with its instrumentalization in rhetoric and the belief in Graeco-Roman
religion as the basis for a stable empire. This chapter has emphasized that
one should first study the rhetorical argument as well as the social context of
each text of Libanius and that one cannot take his utterances as straightfor-
ward commitments to certain views about the position of religion in society.
In different contexts, different arguments can be produced. Whilst this
makes it more difficult to talk about Libanius’ convictions, I have suggested
that his choice for certain topics and certain arguments may allow us to
situate him within the religious spectrum of his age.
This chapter has confirmed a conclusion already drawn in the first
scholarship on Libanius: his religious views are strongly influenced by his
elite cultural outlook. Against the tendency to see Libanius as one of the last
representatives of that culture and to project that consciousness onto him,
I have argued that his attitude is best explained as expressing self-confidence
in the social position of the cultural tradition which Libanius stood for.
This confident position allowed for the bridging of differences to the
extent that one’s correspondents accepted to play the game on Libanius’
terms. At the same time, however, it also reconfirmed religious differences:
Libanius clearly could not abandon the religious aspect of traditional culture
and continuously emphasized the public importance of traditional cult.
Christians could be accepted as individuals but not as a group.
95
Themistius, Oration 5.68cd.

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C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/5039152/WORKINGFOLDER/VAHO/9781107013773C13.3D 293 [293–314] 22.5.

Not the last pagan: Libanius between elite

294 Peter Van Nuﬀelen

Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion 295

296 Peter Van Nuﬀelen

13.2 Not the last pagan

Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion 297

298 Peter Van Nuﬀelen

Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion 299

300 Peter Van Nuﬀelen

13.3 To the Emperor Theodosius for the Temples:

Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion 301

302 Peter Van Nuﬀelen

Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion 303

304 Peter Van Nuﬀelen

Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion 305

306 Peter Van Nuﬀelen

Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion 307

308 Peter Van Nuﬀelen

Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion 309

13.4 To the Emperor Theodosius for the Temples:

310 Peter Van Nuﬀelen

Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion 311

312 Peter Van Nuﬀelen

13.5 The need for a public religion

Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion 313

314 Peter Van Nuﬀelen

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