ARISTAENETUS  ,

Greek epistolographer, flourished in the 5th or 6th century A.D . He was formerly identified with Aristaenetus of Nicaea (the friend of Symmachus), who perished in an earthquake at Nicomedia, A.D . 358, 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 Alexandrian writers as Callimachus, and the language is a patchwork of phrases from Plato, Lucian, Alciphron and others . The' stories are feeble and insipid, and full of strange and improbable incidents . Text: Boissonade (1822); Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci (1873) . English translations: Boyer (1701); Thomas Brown (1715); R . B . Sheridan and Halked (1771 and later) .