Libanius' Social Networks: Understanding the Social Structure of the Later Roman Empire

Abstract

Our understanding of the later Roman empire is often posed in terms of an opposition between the imperial centre and the periphery of Greek cities, between the imperial bureaucracy and civic elites. These opposed positions are seen as bounded aggregates, discrete categories and tightly bound groups that make up the social structure of the Roman empire. Network theory, however, provides us with an alternative approach for understanding social relations, one in which individual ties and relationships are the most important factor. This paper explores the social networks of the orator Libanius to show that the ‘bounded aggregates’ of imperial centre and Greek civic elite may not have been as central as we often think they were to the later Roman empire. [They] try to avoid imposing assumptions about the boundaries of aggregates. They do not assume that analysis can proceed on the basis of a few discrete categories such as proletariat and bourgeoisie or core and periphery. They do not assume that tightly bound groups are the fundamental building blocks of large-scale social systems... it is the network members’ crosscutting membership in multiple social circles that weave together social systems.1