Aristaenetus was an ancient Greek

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 epistolographer

Epistolography

Epistolography is the art or practice of writing letters, with particular regard to their timeframe and cultural environment. Generally, the letters were written for a public audience, however, private letters could be useful for a better knowing of the author and his works.- Context :According...

 who flourished in the 5th or 6th century AD. He was formerly identified with Aristaenetus of Nicaea (the friend of Symmachus

Symmachus

Symmachus can refer to several different people of Roman antiquity:*Symmachus the Ebionite , was the author of one of the Greek versions of the Old Testament;*Pope Symmachus, pope from 498 to 514....

), who perished in an earthquake at Nicomedia

Nicomedia

Nicomedia was an ancient city in what is now Turkey, founded in 712/11 BC as a Megarian colony and was originally known as Astacus . After being destroyed by Lysimachus, it was rebuilt by Nicomedes I of Bithynia in 264 BC under the name of Nicomedia, and has ever since been one of the most...

, 358

358

Year 358 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Datianus and Cerealis...

, but internal evidence points to a much later date. Under his name, two books of love stories, in the form of letters, are extant; the subjects are borrowed from the erotic elegies of such Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

n writers as Callimachus

Callimachus

Callimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar at the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of the Egyptian–Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes...

, and the language is a patchwork of phrases from Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

, Lucian

Lucian

Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....

, Alciphron

Alciphron

Alciphron was an ancient Greek sophist, and the most eminent among the Greek epistolographers. Regarding his life or the age in which he lived we possess no direct information whatsoever.-Works:...

 and others. The stories are feeble and insipid, and full of strange and improbable incidents.

Sources

• Boissonade
  Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie
  Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie was a French classical scholar.He was born at Paris. In 1792 he entered the public service during the administration of General Dumouriez. Driven out in 1795, he was restored by Lucien Bonaparte, during whose time of office he served as secretary to the...
  
   (1822); Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci (1873). English translations: Boyer (1701); Thomas Brown (1715); R. B. Sheridan and Nathaniel Halked (1771 and later).