Libanio tra attualità e tradizione. L’orazione IX

Libanius’ speech IX reveals the persistence in Libanius of the interest in the religious dimension, free from the polemical tones adopted elsewhere. A global cosmic perspective pervades the speech. The Kalendae Ianuarie festival, marking the beginning of the new year, was a parenthesis of joy and carefreeness for all the inhabitants of the empire, regardless of their religious beliefs. The relevance of this anniversary as a vehicle of imperial ideology for the unity of the empire could explain Theodosius’ rescript of 389 to the praefectus Urbis Romae Albinus on the legal calendar of Rome, which, including not only Easter, but also the Kalendae, would have surprised Libanius himself first. This Libanius' late speech, thus, can also be read as the rhetorical reaction to the Christian debate against the Kalendae, through the enkomion of the peculiar characters of the anniversary, in which everyone, pagans and Christians, ‘mingled’, sharing drunkenness and transgression, in a kind of festive κοινή.