"This book offers a historically contextualized literary reading of eight Greek panegyrics composed by Libanius, Themistius, and Julian in the 340s and 350s CE, and addressed to Constantius II and his wife, the empress Eusebia (Libanius' Oration 59, Themistius' Orations 1-4, and Julian's Orations 1-3). Its central concerns are the role that the composition, performance, and dissemination of imperial panegyric played in establishing the careers of the three most prominent Greek pagans of the fourth century; and their development of Greek epideictic literature in an era beyond the Second Sophistic. These speeches allow us to explore the role of performed Greek literature during a period when the Constantinian settlement - of new dynastic control of the empire, of the relationship between Christianity and the state, and the place left for traditional Greek literature and culture - was open for debate. In Praise of Constantius exposes the rich intertextual dynamics between these eight speeches, other contemporary works, and canonical works of Greek political literature. It revises standard interpretations of panegyric's communicative function, and treats the orator less as a vector for others' messaging and instead as an active agent in political discourse in pursuit of his own ends; and substantially re-writes the early careers of each of its subjects, emphasizing their precarity and the utilization of performed paideia in managing moments of personal and political upheaval"-- Provided by publisher.