Anatolios

Anatolius is a recipient of letters in the corpus of Libanius, the great fourth-century rhetor of Antioch, and the name also appears among the addressees of Isidore of Pelusium. The most prominent Anatolius in Libanius's correspondence is the high imperial official who served as praetorian prefect of Illyricum (c. 357-360) under the emperor Constantius II, a learned and cultivated administrator whom Libanius praised for his devotion to Greek paideia even as he sparred with him over policy. Because this database record groups by name across two collections, it may conflate that prefect with one or more other men called Anatolius (a very common name); the safest statement is that this Anatolius is attested primarily as a learned correspondent in late-antique epistolary networks centered on the Greek-speaking East. No birth or death dates can be assigned with confidence without disambiguating the individual letters.