Aper

Aper is known chiefly as the recipient of letters in two fifth-century collections, and the name very likely conflates two distinct men. In the correspondence of Paulinus of Nola (early 5th c.), Aper appears as a former provincial official who, together with his wife Amanda, renounced secular public life to embrace Christian asceticism; Paulinus addresses several letters to the couple encouraging their conversion (notably Letters 38, 39, and 44). In the letters of Sidonius Apollinaris (later 5th c. Gaul), a different Aper is a Gallo-Roman aristocrat of curial standing, connected through his mother to the Arverni of the Auvergne, whom Sidonius urges to embrace his ancestral region (Letters 4.21 and 5.14). Beyond these letters Aper is otherwise little attested; the offices, dates, and biographical details for each man are inferred largely from the correspondence itself, and specifics should be treated with caution.