Libanio e Antiochia. La dedizione di un intellettuale alla sua città

Abstract

This contribution aims at demonstrating how the life of public speaker Libanius was devoted in toto to his city, Antioch of Syria, both as the official sophist of the same city and as professor of numerous generations of students. Lover of traditional paideia and guardian of the classical tradition, Libanius brings back to life in the fullest way the model of the Attic orator, of which Demosthenes had been the highest expression. Combativeness, talent and patriotism therefore unite the Athenian orator and the Antiochene one, and exposed them to the envy of their colleagues and to the consequent accusations of magic, of such a topical character that these allegations weren’t taken into account by biographers; nonetheless, the same allegations come into play in the episode of the chameleon, which scarred Libanius in a clear way.