Sopater of Apamea

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Sopater of Apamea, a distinguished sophist and Neoplatonist, was a disciple of Iamblichus, after whose death (c. 325), he went to Constantinople, where he enjoyed the favour and personal friendship of Constantine I, who afterwards, however, put him to death, to prove, it was alleged, the sincerity of his own conversion to Christianity.^[1] Eunapius, who gives a fuller account of the matter,^[2] and Zosimus^[3] ascribe his death to the machinations of Flavius Ablavius; and, according to Eunapius, the pretext for his condemnation was the charge that he detained by magical arts a fleet laden with grain, of which Constantinople was in the utmost want. The year of his death must have been between 330 and 337.

The Suda lists two different sophists called Sopater, but there is no reason to suppose that there were two different people by that name. He wrote a variety of works, including one On Providence, and another called People who have Undeserved Good or Bad Fortune. In addition, he wrote epitomes of numerous works, and probably also the Historical Extracts, of which Photius^[4] has preserved a summary, from which it appears that it contained a vast variety of fact and fiction, collected from a great number of authors.