Aristaenetus

Aristaenetus was a friend and correspondent of the sophist Libanius in mid-fourth-century Antioch, and an imperial official who rose to a vicariate (he is recorded as vicarius of an eastern diocese under Constantius II). Libanius esteemed him highly, and when Aristaenetus perished in the catastrophic earthquake that destroyed Nicomedia in 358 AD, Libanius mourned him in a celebrated monody, lamenting the loss of a man he counted among the noblest of his circle. He survives chiefly through this correspondence and Libanius's funerary praise, which together make him one of the better-documented members of the orator's network of letters; the seven letters addressed to him here reflect that close epistolary friendship. (Identification rests on the prominent Aristaenetus of Libanius's circle, PLRE I 'Aristaenetus 1'; other minor namesakes appear in the same period, so caution is warranted.)