This chapter explores the lives and experiences of select Antiochene women, as they appear in the rich literary repertoire of Late Antiquity.

A systematic review of the Classical, Late Antique, and Byzantine sources that underpin the study of Antioch.

The Introduction discusses paideia (culture of Greek intellectuals) and its relevance for fourth-century clergy by providing a background to the Cappadocian Fathers. The chapter defines the meaning of "classical masculinity" for this study and places its treatment of gender into the broader scholarship on late antiquity and Christianity. The chapter outlines key concepts such as aretē (manly virtue), agathos (superior person), and asceticism (self-denial), and introduces agōn (contest or struggle) as the concept around which the book is organized. It also directs the reader to consider the Second Sophistic as the antecedent to the fourth-century culture of epistolary exhibitions. The chapter explains the differences in the Cappadocians’ use of genre and the distinguishing features of epistolography and hagiographic biography. And the Introduction explores identity theory and its usefulness for investigating gender and Christianity.

This chapter explores the role of violent pedagogic practices in the formation of elite males in the later Roman Empire. It draws on the work of the sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Basil Bernstein to inform an analysis of education’s key role in social and cultural reproduction. Focusing on selected writings of two late-fourth century contemporaries, Libanius and Basil of Caesarea, the chapter suggests that violence of various sorts played a pivotal role in the formation of elite male subjects, whether in the school of the teacher of rhetoric (Libanius) or in monastic training (Basil). Violence played a pivotal role in both the form and content of late Roman education – as well as suffering and inflicting violence on others, students read about and performed violent narratives. The considered cultivation of feelings of fear was viewed as maintaining the pedagogic order and helping to form ideal masculine subjects. Through such experiences and by reflecting on them in pedagogic contexts, students learnt to understand the parameters of legitimate and illegitimate violence, enabling them to protect themselves and their community in a competitive social context.