Tiresome or Pamphleteering? The Use of Periautologia in Libanius of Antioch’s To Those Who Called Him Tiresome (Or. 2)

Abstract

The study of periautologia (“self-praise”) in Ancient Greek literature has been somehow overlooked even though its presence is felt in numerous works. The absence of the analysis of periautologia is even more remarkable in the case of the works composed by the sophist Libanius of Antioch given the autobiographical nature of most of his speeches. Thus, in this paper I surveyed the use and the purposes of periautologia in one of his speeches—Or. 2, To those who called him tiresome—in order to ascertain which rhetorical and literary strategies were deployed by Libanius. The sophist’s concern with losing his influence in the cultural and political milieu of the end of the fourth century AD contributes to explain the frequent use of periautological passages in his Or. 2.