Themistius, philosopher in Constantinople

Themistius (c. 317 - c. 388 AD) was one of the most influential pagan intellectuals of the fourth century: a philosopher, orator, and senator based at Constantinople, renowned for his learned paraphrases of Aristotle that remained standard study aids for centuries. Despite remaining a pagan, he won the trust of a remarkable succession of Christian and non-Christian emperors - Constantius II, Jovian, Valens, and Theodosius I - serving as a court panegyrist, advisor, and eventually urban prefect of Constantinople, while famously arguing for religious toleration and the dignity of philosophy in public life. He helped recruit members for the rebuilt senate of Constantinople and stood as a leading voice of the educated, classically trained elite of the eastern capital. He appears in this corpus as a correspondent of the Antiochene rhetorician Libanius, with whom he exchanged letters within the wider network of late-antique literary culture.