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WIEMER, H.-U., Libanios und Julian. Studien zum Verhältnis von Rhetorik und Politik im vierten Jahrhundert n. Chr. Beck, München, 1995. XII,408p. Original blue gilt titled cloth with dust wrps. Series: Vestigia, 46. ‘The emperor Julian is one of the historical figures that every generation feels impelled to examine anew. Like Alexander the Great, he had a brief but meteoric career, full of passionate action and visionary plans. Unlike Alexander he ultimately had little impact upon the world around him. Also unlike Alexander, he can be seen directly through abundant contemporary writings - both his own and detailed impressions of him recorded by one of his admiring contemporaries. The huge funeral speech by the rhetor Libanius and the six speeches he composed either for or about the emperor constitute a major historical source from a highly intelligent observer. Amazingly, in spite of all the attention that has been devoted to Julian, the world has had to wait until now for a systematic study of his relationship with Litanies as mirrored in the Julianic speeches. (…) W.’s book (…) has a clear and reasonable structure that puts Libanius’ oeuvre in the foreground rather than the life of Julian. The argument is lucid and convincing. The author has mastered the scholarly literature down to 1994 and deploys it judiciously. After a detailed review of all the evidence for contact between Julian and Litanies from the schooldays of the future emperor until his death, W. discusses, one by one, the six Julianic speeches (…). What is most impressive is W.’s understanding of the special character of each of the Greek texts he is interpreting and the unerring good sense that he brings to them. This is not just another look at Julian. It is a real advance. W. concludes his work with a large dividend in the form of a long discussion of the economic crisis at Antioch in 362/3. He treats this issue as a case-study (…). The analysis is enriched by W.’s interest in the social as well as economic forces that subverted Julian’s attempts to remedy a grain shortage at Antioch (…). W. cleverly uses the failure of Julian’s economic measures at Antioch as s means of assessing the rhetorical strategies of Libanius. (…) Litanies cultivated and admired Julian, but he was a political creature, whose speeches have to be judged in terms of their rhetorical purpose and their intended public. Rhetoric is often treacherous as a historical source but, as W. has demonstrated here, it can sometimes provide unparalleled access into individual moments of historical time. His attempt to analyse each Julianic speech as a reflection of a rhetorical strategy under particular circumstances is triumphantly vindicated by the time we reach the end of his book. (…) One comes away from this book with a deeper understanding of Libanius.’ (G.W. BOWERSOCK in Gnomon, 2000, pp.640-642). € 65.00 (Antiquarian) ISBN: 9783406393358