ABSTRACT
After a rather uncertain period spent at school in Cappadocia young Basil went to Constantinople while Gregory took the road to Palestine and Egypt. He returned to his homeland in 355/6 with the desire to start a career as a rhetorician, like his father, although he was asked by the citizens of Neocaesarea to come there to become the teacher of their children. For him, life in Athens did not mean an abandonment of his identity in order to comply with the rules of a society to which he could not belong, simply because it was fashionable. Basil was able to select from Himerius' religious philosophy and from his Hellenistic mysticism, the beauty of argumentation, the power of eloquence and refinement of speech. The work of Basil was part of the curriculum of the Gymnasium to remind students why and for what reason they needed to study the Greek classics.
