A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

2. A friend of St. Gregory Nazianzen, a man of learning and cultivated taste, who was first an advocate, and afterwards praefect of Cappadocia. St. Gregory appears to have been on very intimate terms with him, and to have written to him numerous letters, of which only four are still extant (Epist. 198-201, vol. ii. p. 163, &c. ed. Paris), written about the year 386. He also addressed a poem to him (about the same time), in which he tries to persuade him to embrace the Christian faith (Carm. vii. vol. ii. p. 1070), but the result of his exhortation is not known. He has been supposed to be the author of the work Περὶ Φύσεως Ἀνθρώπου, but probably without sufficient reason ; as, though it is quite possible that a heathen magistrate might afterwards become a Christian bishop, it is hardly probable that no notice of so eminent a conversion should have been preserved. In fact, there seems to be no reason for supposing the two persons to be one and the same, except that they probably lived about the same time.