The Dynamics of Rhetorical Performances in Late Antiquity by Quiroga Puertas Alberto J.;

Author:Quiroga Puertas, Alberto J.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-09-27T16:00:00+00:00

3  All the world’s a stage: Libanius’ life as a rhetorical performance

The italicized part of the title of this chapter is an obvious quotation from Jacques’ monologue in Shakespeare’s play As you like it. Jacques’ comparison between the world and life with a stage in which we are “merely players” can evoke for us Libanius’ way of reflecting on his life as he related many of his personal and professional experiences in the guise of oratorical shows performed on different stages. Theaters, schools, and public spaces of different metropoleis of the Eastern Mediterranean saw him performing. Libanius was in tune with other late antique pepaideumenoi in presenting himself in front of an audience that he intended to awe with his oratorical flow. What sets him apart from figures like Themistius, Synesius or Himerius is the intensity with which he emphasized his oratorical agones or his peers’ performances, resulting in reports of hypokríseis becoming a topos of his work.

Therefore, far from suggesting that Libanius was a Shakespearian character avant la lettre, the intention of the following pages is to look into the narration of his rhetorical performances not only as the main backdrop against which he narrated the events of his life but also as a less explored window into the cultural and social scene of his time. Thus, after a brief review of the studies that have dealt with the rhetorical dimension of Libanius’ works, in the first part of this chapter I will focus on the significance that Libanius gave to rhetoric and oratory as inseparable disciplines with a philanthropic mission. Then I will analyze Libanius’ Autobiography as an oration in which his reports of the late antique oratorical world served him to create his public persona in the context of relevant debates in the religious and cultural landscape of the fourth century AD.

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