Libanius, a Greek sophist or rhetorician, was born at Antioch, in Syria, about 314 A.D. He studied at Athens, and began to teach there so successfully that he soon moved to Constantinople. There his prelections were so attractive that he emptied the benches of the other teachers of rhetoric, who had him expelled from the city on a charge of 'magic.' He then proceeded to Nicomedia; but after five years returned to Constantinople.
Ultimately, in 354, he settled down in his native city, where he died about 393. Libanius was the instructor of St Chrysostom and St Basil, who always remained his friends, though Libanius was himself a pagan, and a great friend of the Emperor Julian. His works, which are mostly extant, consist of orations, declamations, letters, &c. The most complete edition of the orations and declamations is that by Reiske (4 vols. 1791-97), and of the letters that by J. C. Wolf (1738). See Lives by Petit (Paris, 1866) and Sievers (Berlin, 1868).