Hypatius, former student

Hypatius is known here chiefly as a recipient of letters from Libanius, the great pagan rhetor and teacher of Antioch (314-c.393), and is identified in the corpus as one of his former students. Like many of the young men who passed through Libanius's school of rhetoric, he would have gone on to administrative or municipal service, with his old teacher writing on his behalf or to keep up the bonds of patronage and friendship that the school fostered. Beyond this epistolary context he is otherwise little attested; the name 'Hypatius' was common in the fourth century and borne by several distinct men, so he should not be confused with the better-known praetorian prefect Hypatius (consul 359). No secure dates, offices, or biographical details can be established for him from the surviving evidence.