Raffaella Cribiore

Libanius the Sophist: Rhetoric, Reality, and Religion in the Fourth Century

Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Rhetoric and the Distortion of Reality 2. A Rhetor and his Audience: The Role of Invective 3. A Man and his Gods 4. God and the Gods Conclusion: Julians School Edict Again Select Bibliography Index

Between City and School: Selected Orations of Libanius

Acknowledgements A Note on Abbreviations and English Translations Introduction Orations in Chronological Order: 1. Oration 61 (358 CE) 2. Oration 37 (after 365) 3. Oration 40 (366) 4. Oration 55 (early) 5. Oration 53 (380-384) 6. Oration 41 (382-387) 7. Oration 39 (before 384) 8. Oration 35 (388) 9. Oration 51 (388) 10. Oration 52 (388) 11. Oration 63 (388-389) 12. Oration 38 (after 388) Glossary Select Bibliography Index

Inscriptions from Tombs at Bir esh-Shaghala

Excavations during the past decade by the Supreme Council of Antiquities have uncovered a number of cemeteries belonging to the ancient city of Mut (Mothis in Greek), which was the capital of the Dakhleh Oasis. At one of these, Bir esh-Shaghala, these excavations have found several large mud-brick tombs which originally had pyramidal superstructures and subterranean burial chambers. The authors publish here, in advance of a full report on the site, the Greek and demotic texts found on and in two of the tombs.

O.Florida inv. 21: an amorous triangle

Edition of O. Florida Inv. 21 (second/third century), first presented by R.S.B. at the Twenty-Fourth International Congress of Papyrology. The text (in prose, but unmistakably comic in vocabulary and tone) is a piece of speech (mime or erotic epistolary fiction?), and presents a scene involving a sexual triangle (a man, a barbarian woman, and the speaker, who is male or female).

Vying With Aristides In The Fourth Century: Libanius And His Friends

The sophist Libanius in Antioch was one of Aelius Aristides? most fervent admirers, and paid tribute to him in letters and orations. This chapter addresses the questions: why Aristides was so irresistible to orators in the fourth century; what were the reasons (besides his perfect Attic style) that made him a cardinal point of reference? In addition, since the direct references to Aristides in Libanius date to the first phase of his activity in Antioch, it is meaningful to inquire whether Aristides? influence on the fourth-century sophist can be perceived in later periods. Vying with another writer meant acknowledging one?s forebears and disclosing one?s literary pedigree but might also involve a degree of antagonism and the attempt, often botched, to improve on a forerunner. Libanius twice invoked his tutelary deity, Tyche, who allowed him to disprove the adage that ?a prophet is not honored in his own country?. Keywords: Aelius Aristides; antagonism; fourth-century sophist; sophist Libanius; Tyche

Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt

Papyri problems and exercises on papyri and ostraca, work books and text books provide some of the richest evidence for the processes of education in the Roman world. This study examines how the skill of writing was taught, and how it was learned.