Parthenius

Parthenius was a young kinsman (nephew) of Magnus Felix Ennodius, the deacon and later bishop of Pavia, who addressed him in several letters in the early sixth century while Parthenius was pursuing his education, partly at Rome. Born into the senatorial-aristocratic circles of Ostrogothic Italy, he went on to a substantial public career that carried him into Merovingian Gaul, where he rose to high office and the rank of patrician under the Frankish kings. According to Gregory of Tours, his career ended violently: detested for the heavy taxes he was held responsible for, he was seized and stoned to death by an enraged mob at Trier around 548. He is best known to the corpus as the recipient of letters from Ennodius, which capture him at the start of that trajectory as an ambitious, well-connected young man being urged toward virtue and learning.