The Social World of Libanius

FAIN: FB-50608-04

Scott A. Bradbury
Smith College (Northampton, MA 01060-2916)

I am applying for funding to write The Social World of Libanius, a monograph whose principal themes will be friendship, patronage, and social relations in the Eastern Roman Empire of the fourth century A.D. Libanius of Antioch (A.D. 314-393) has left 64 orations and 1,544 letters, the richest repository of information for patronage studies to survive from any period of antiquity. Social Network Theory will be the main methodological tool at the heart of the study of friendship and patronage. This book follows on my volume of letters in translation, Selected Letters of Libanius from the Age of Constantius and Julian, to appear in autumn 2003. Late Antique letter collections are currently drawing much scholarly interest. This will be the first modern study of Libanius' letters. Further, it will be the only attempt to date to apply Social Network Theory to one of the great Late Antique letter collections and it will provide a model for other scholarly treatments.