Aristainetos

Aristaenetus (Greek Aristainetos) is the name of one or more correspondents of the 4th-century AD sophist Libanius of Antioch, who received eleven of his letters. The best-known bearer of the name in Libanius's circle was Aristaenetus, a cultivated official and intimate friend of Libanius who held the post of vicarius and perished in the catastrophic earthquake that destroyed Nicomedia on 24 August 358 AD; Libanius mourned him deeply and the historian Ammianus Marcellinus likewise praised him. It is not certain that all eleven letters are addressed to this same man, as Libanius's vast correspondence contains several figures of similar name, so the recipient is best understood as a member of the educated Greek-speaking municipal and administrative elite of the eastern Roman provinces in the mid-fourth century who moved in Libanius's intellectual orbit.