LIBANIUS (A.D. 314-393), Greek sophist and rhetorician, was born at Antioch, the capital of Syria. He studied at Athens, and spent most of his earlier manhood in Constantinople and Nicomedia. His private classes at Constantinople were much more popular than those of the public professors, who had him expelled in 346 (or earlier) on the charge of studying magic. He removed his school to Nicomedia, where he remained five years. After another attempt to settle in Constantinople, he finally retired to Antioch (354). Though a pagan, he enjoyed the favour of the Christian emperors. When Julian, his special patron, restored paganism as the state religion, Libanius showed no intolerance. Among his pupils he numbered John Chrysostom, Basil (bishop of Caesarea) and Ammianus Marcellinus. His works, consisting chiefly of orations (including his autobiography), declamations on set topics, letters, life of Demosthenes, and arguments to all his orations are voluminous. He devoted much time to the classical Greek writers, and had a thorough contempt for Rome and all things Roman. His speeches and letters throw considerable light on the political and literary history of the age. The letters number 1607 in the Greek original; with these were formerly included some 400 in Latin, purporting to be a translation, but now proved to be a forgery by the Italian humanist F. Zambeccari (15th century).
Editions: Orations and declamations, J. J. Reiske (1791-1797); letters, J. C. Wolf (1738); two additional declamations, R. Förster (Hermes, ix. 22, xii. 217), who in 1903 began the publication of a complete edition; Apologia Socratis, Y. H. Rogge (1891). See also E. Monnier, Histoire de Libanius (1866); L. Petit, Essai sur la vie et la correspondance du sophiste Libanius (1866); G. R. Sievers, Das Leben des Libanius (1868); R. Förster, F. Zambeccari und die Briefe des Libanius (1878). Some letters from the emperor Julian to Libanius will be found in R. Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci (1873). Sixteen letters to Julian have been translated by J. Duncombe (The Works of the Emperor Julian, i. 303-332, 3rd ed., London, 1798). The oration on the emperor Julian is translated by C. W. King (in Bohn’s “Classical Library,” London, 1888), and that in Defence of the Temples of the Heathen by Dr Lardner (in a volume of translations by Thomas Taylor, from Celsus and others, 1830). See further J. E. Sandys, Hist. of Classical Scholarship, i. (1906), and A. Harrent, Les Écoles d’Antioche (1898).
LIBATION (Lat. libatio, from libare, to take a portion of something, to taste, hence to pour out as an offering to a deity, &c.; cf. Gr. λείβειν), a drink offering, the pouring out of a small quantity of wine, milk or other liquid as a ceremonial act. Such an act was performed in honour of the dead (Gr. χοαί, Lat. profusiones), in making of treaties (Gr. σπονδή, σπένδειν = libare, whence σπονδαί, treaty), and particularly in honour of the gods (Gr. λοιβή, Lat. libatio, libamentum, libamen). Such libations to the gods were made as part of the daily ritual of domestic worship, or at banquets or feasts to the Lares, or to special deities, as by the Greeks to Hermes, the god of sleep, when going to rest.
LIBAU (Lettish, Leepaya), a seaport of Russia, in the government of Courland, 145 m. by rail S.W. of Riga, at the northern extremity of a narrow sandy peninsula which separates Lake Libau (12 m. long and 2 m. wide) from the Baltic Sea. Its population has more than doubled since 1881 (30,000), being 64,505 in 1897. The town is well built of stone, with good gardens, and has a naval cathedral (1903). The harbour was 2 m. S. of the town until a canal was dug through the peninsula in 1697; it is now deepened to 23 ft., and is mostly free from ice throughout the year. Since being brought, in 1872, into railway connexion with Moscow, Orel and Kharkov, Libau has become an important port. New Libau possesses large factories for colours, explosives, machinery belts, sails and ropes, tobacco, furniture, matches, as well as iron works, agricultural machinery works, tin-plate works, soap works, saw-mills, breweries, oil-mills, cork and linoleum factories and flour-mills. The exports reach the annual value of £3,250,000 to £5,500,000, oats being the chief export, with flour, wheat, rye, butter, eggs, spirits, flax, linseed, oilcake, pork, timber, horses and petroleum. The imports average £1,500,000 to £2,000,000 annually. Shipbuilding, including steamers for open-sea navigation, is on the increase. North of the commercial harbour and enclosing it the Russian government made (1893-1906) a very extensive fortified naval port, protected by moles and breakwaters. Libau is visited for sea-bathing in summer.
The port of Libau, Lyra portus, is mentioned as early as 1263; it then belonged to the Livonian Order or Brothers of the Sword. In 1418 it was burnt by the Lithuanians, and in 1560 it was mortgaged by the grandmaster of the Teutonic Order, to which it had passed, to the Prussian duke Albert. In 1701 it was captured by Charles XII. of Sweden, and was annexed to Russia in 1795.
See Wegner, Geschichte der Stadt Libau (Libau, 1898).
LIBEL and SLANDER, the terms employed in English law to denote injurious attacks upon a man’s reputation or character by words written or spoken, or by equivalent signs. In most early systems of law verbal injuries are treated as a criminal or quasi-criminal offence, the essence of the injury lying not in pecuniary loss, which may be compensated by damages, but in the personal insult which must be atoned for—a vindictive penalty coming in the place of personal revenge. By the law of the XII. Tables, the composition of scurrilous songs and gross noisy public affronts were punished by death. Minor offences of the same class seem to have found their place under the general conception of injuria, which included ultimately every form of direct personal aggression which involved contumely or insult. In the later Roman jurisprudence, which has, on this point, exercised considerable influence over modern systems of law, verbal injuries are dealt with in the edict under two heads. The first comprehended defamatory and injurious statements made in a public manner (convicium contra bonos mores). In this case the essence of the offence lay in the unwarrantable public proclamation. In such a case the truth of the statements was no justification for the unnecessarily public and insulting manner in which they had been made. The second head included defamatory statements made in private, and in this case the offence lay in the imputation itself, not in the manner of its publication. The truth was therefore a sufficient defence, for no man had a right to demand legal protection for a false reputation. Even belief in the truth was enough, because it took away the intention which was essential to the notion of injuria. The law thus aimed at giving sufficient scope for the discussion of a man’s character, while it protected him from needless insult and pain. The remedy for verbal injuries was long confined to a civil action for a money penalty, which was estimated according to the gravity of the case, and which, although vindictive in its character, doubtless included practically the element of compensation. But a new remedy was introduced with the extension of the criminal law, under which many kinds of defamation were punished with great severity. At the same time increased importance attached to the publication of defamatory books and writings, the libri or libelli famosi, from which we derive our modern use of the word libel; and under the later emperors the latter term came to be specially applied to anonymous accusations or pasquils, the dissemination of which was regarded as peculiarly dangerous, and visited with very severe punishment, whether the matter contained in them were true or false.