Aerius Sophist

Aerius (Greek: Aerios) was a sophist - a professional teacher and practitioner of rhetoric - known almost entirely as a correspondent of Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus (c. 393-c. 458/466), in northern Syria. Theodoret addressed several surviving letters to him, written in the cultivated literary register the bishop reserved for educated friends, touching on rhetoric, friendship, and philosophical commonplaces rather than ecclesiastical business, which suggests Aerius moved in the lettered, possibly still partly pagan, civic elite of the eastern provinces in the first half of the fifth century. Beyond this correspondence he is otherwise unattested: no independent dates, offices, or biographical details are securely known, and his exact city of activity is not recorded.