This paper aims to analyse current bibliographical trends on the study of late antique rhetoric and historiography. After a brief survey of the modern methodologies, special attention will be paid to two recent publications by S. Elm and R. Cribiore. These works offer new methodological perspectives in the analysis of the works of key figures (the emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Libanius of Antioch) in the political, religious and cultural landscape of the fourth century AD.