Under the name of Aristaenetus, we have a collection of 50 fictional letters, which include alluring love stories. An unknown Greek-speaking scholar from the Late Roman Empire, close to the twilight of the ancient world, when Christianity has been established, writes epistolary literature, following an old manner and language, with a thematic focus on love; and indeed in a variety of versions that are mostly found in the realm of extramarital and monogamous love.

This work addresses one of the core issues that ideologically differentiate the Greek world from that of Christianity. At a time when religion becomes a defining factor in the formation of identity, Aristaenetus, bold and libertine, returns to the Greek past; he presents love as the great master of human life.

However, he excludes from his fiction "boyish" and homosexual love in general—though at a second level of reading, he continuously implies it. His letters serve as a testimony to the literary aesthetics and erotic morality of late antiquity; a period that was crucial for the formation of Western sexuality.

The present book represents the first annotated edition of the letters of Aristaenetus in Greek literature.