The book under review deals with friendship relations in the Greek East of the Roman Empire in the second half of the fourth century. Taking its cue from Libanius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom, Seraina Ruprecht tackles the issue from a practical rather than theoretical angle, and examines what these authors (and especially their letters) can reveal not so much about individual friendships, but about the norms and expectations associated with friendship in various fourth-century elite circles, and the ways in which close and less close friendships are described and advertised to others.

After a short introduction (Part I) outlining the state of the art as well as the theoretical framework, the book consists of two main parts. Part II is dedicated to Libanius. In the first chapter, R. offers a good overview of Libanius’ social position and network. Though largely a summary of previous research, this chapter offers what may well be the best overview of what we know about Libanius’ network. It rightly draws attention to insights that have too often been neglected — such as Wiemer's thesis, convincingly established in 1995 but all too often neglected in English- and French-language scholarship, that Libanius never became a vir clarissimus — and is critical of both older and newer scholarship, for example concerning the transmission of Libanius’ letter collection. The second chapter illustrates the added value of carefully studying the use of philia and related terms in Libanius’ oeuvre, instead of starting out from modern presuppositions on friendship. Against P. Brown's suggestion (Power and Persuasion (1992), 45) that these terms were used euphemistically for what was in fact patronage, R. traces Libanius’ openness in using the term to refer to relations both between equals and between people of different status, highlighting the expectation of mutual support that seems to be crucial to Libanius’ understanding. The third chapter first shows how salutations, hardly ever studied outside of Rome or for Late Antiquity, were structured by the rules of rank rather than gradations of friendship. By contrast, dining or bathing together as well as the way in which people greeted each other could powerfully show their proximity or distance, even though unwritten rules limited people's freedom in this respect, especially in relations between unequal friends. The fourth and final chapter of Part II deals with communication between friends who were separated by distance. Here, R. rightfully stresses that letters were both multimedial — the text of a letter was presented visually and complemented by the carrier's oral report — and multifunctional — letters fulfilled a rhetorical, aesthetic as well as a social and informative function. In addition, she emphasises how writing and receiving letters — or not — was carefully registered by others: the absence of friendship was clearly signalled by the absence or interruption of correspondence. Whereas letters to close friends were often characterised by an abundance of details about everyday life, explicit confirmations of friendship tended to betray an increased distance between correspondents.

Part III, likewise divided into four chapters, discusses the same topics in Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom. With regard to friendship, R. discovers more similarities than differences between these Christian authors and Libanius: elite networks were of paramount importance to Christian bishops too, and their friendships were subject to the same rules and expectations. As a result, friendship united elites across religious and other divides. At the same time, there are some significant differences. Apart from the fact that Christians developed the concept of agape alongside that of philia in order to refer to the special relationship between fellow Christians, Christian writers also emphasised divine rewards alongside a friend's gratitude as a reward for the favours that were expected in a relation of philia, for example, and they made much more use of the open letter, to distance themselves from heretics. In addition, Christians also faced a tension between the expectations of friendship, such as taking part in banquets, and the ascetic life some of them chose. As R. shows, a range of responses to this tension can be observed among fourth-century Christians. The book ends with a brief conclusion (Part IV), followed by some thirty pages of bibliography and three indices (sources, people and places, and realia).

In contrast to what some readers may expect on the basis of the book's subtitle, R. does not offer network analysis. But what she does offer will be of interest to scholars of the individual authors studied in her book as well as to those interested in ancient friendship. This is due in particular to R.'s commendable choice to focus on the middle ground between theoretical reflections about friendship on the one hand, and individual friendships on the other: by carefully analysing what a range of nearly contemporary pagan and Christian descriptions can teach us about the norms and expectations associated with friendship in Late Antiquity, R. opens up an innovative perspective on the writings of the authors studied, on the meaning of various human interactions and their display in Late Antiquity, and thus, ultimately, on late antique society.