The Dark Ages Collection. David Hume
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Byzantine populace and in senatorial circles.3 He was hated as an Isaurian. If we remember the depredations of the Isaurians in the reign of Arcadius, it is not surprising that they had an evil name, and it is more than probable that the soldiers introduced into the capital by Leo had not belied their reputation for rudeness and violence. Zeno’s accession meant Isaurian ascendancy, high places for the Emperor’s fellow-countrymen, and more rude mountaineers in the capital. Historians of the time vent their feelings by describing him as physically horrible and morally abominable,4 and he was said to be a coward.5 His most trusted counsellor was the Isaurian Illus, who was, however, to prove a thorn in his side, and Trocundes, the brother of Illus, also rose into prominence.
The first year of the reign was crowded with anxieties. Vandals, Ostrogoths, Huns, and Arabs were all in arms against the Empire. King Gaiseric must have been deeply displeased by the murder of the Arian Aspar, with whom he is said to have been on friendly terms. After Leo’s death, the Vandals descended on the western shores of Greece and captured Nicopolis. Zeno was not prepared for war. He sent to Carthage Severus, a man of high repute, who made a favourable impression on Gaiseric by refusing all his gifts. The king made him a present of all the captives who had fallen to the share of the royal family and allowed him to redeem others from any Vandals who willing to sell. A perpetual peace was then concluded between the two powers (A.D. 474),6 and was maintained for nearly sixty years. Meanwhile Zeno’s coronation had provoked Aspar’s Ostrogothic relative Theoderic Strabo to new hostilities in Thrace. The Master of Soldiers in the Thracian provinces was captured and slain; but Illus took the field and terminated the war.
If the Emperor was able to cope with foreign foes by negotiation or arms, his position amid a hostile court and people was highly precarious. A formidable conspiracy was formed against him, of which the leading spirit was his mother-in-law, the Augusta Verina.7 She had concurred in Zeno’s elevation, but she did not like him, and being a woman of energy and ambition she found it distasteful to fall into the background, overshadowed by her daughter, the Augusta Ariadne. Her scheme was to raise to the throne and marry her paramour Patricius, who had formerly held the post of Master of Offices. She engaged the co-operation of her brother Basiliscus, who had been living in retirement at Heraclea on the Propontis, and Basiliscus succeeded in seducing the Isaurian brothers Illus and Trocundes to abandon their loyalty to Zeno.8 When all the preparations were complete, the queen-mother, with consummate skill, persuaded Zeno that his life was in danger and that his only safety was in flight. Taking with him a large company of Isaurians, and supplying himself with treasure, he crossed over to Chalcedon (January 9, A.D. 475) and fled to Isauria.9 Those who accompanied him were fortunate, for, when the Emperor’s flight was known, the populace indulged in their inveterate hatred of the Isaurians by a colossal massacre. Verina now hoped to reign as mistress of the palace, but she was outwitted by her brother, who was himself ambitious of the purple. The choice of the ministers and Senate fell not on Patricius but on Basiliscus, who was proclaimed and crowned Emperor at the Hebdomon palace. He immediately crowned his wife Zenonis as Augusta, and conferred the rank of Caesar upon his youthful son Marcus, whom he afterwards crowned Augustus.10 The circumstances of his elevation naturally led to a breach with Verina, and, having good reason to fear her capacity for intrigue, he took the precaution of putting Patricius to death.11
Basiliscus reigned for twenty months and in that time he made himself extremely unpopular, chiefly by his ecclesiastical policy. He favoured the heresy of Monophysitism and issued a decree against the Council of Chalcedon. He and his wife had fallen under the influence of Timothy Aelurus, the bishop of Alexandria, who had come to Constantinople, and he went so far as to withdraw the Asiatic sees from the control of the bishop of Constantinople.12 Acacius, the Patriarch, was roused by this injury to the rights of his see. He draped St. Sophia in black and appeared in mourning before a large sympathetic congregation. Basiliscus left the city.
The Emperor had made another enemy in the Ostrogothic Theoderic Strabo, who, as the enemy of Zeno, had supported his elevation, by bestowing a Mastership of Soldiers13 on his relation Armatus, a young fop, who was the lover of the Empress Zenonis. Their love is described by a historian in a passage worthy of a romance.14
Basiliscus permitted Armatus, inasmuch as he was a kinsman, to associate freely with the Empress Zenonis. Their intercourse became intimate, and as they were both persons of no ordinary beauty they became extravagantly enamoured of each other. They used to exchange glances of the eyes, they used constantly to turn their faces and smile at each other; and the passion which they were obliged to conceal was the cause of dule and teen. They confided their trouble to Daniel a eunuch and to Maria a midwife, who hardly healed their malady by the remedy of bringing them together. Then Zenonis coaxed Basiliscus to grant her lover the highest office in the city. The preferment which Armatus received from his uncle elated him beyond measure. He was naturally effeminate and cruel. Theoderic Strabo despised him as a dandy who only care for his toilet and the care of his body; and it was said that in the days of Leo he had punished a number of Thracian rebels by cutting off their hands. When he was exalted by his mistress’s husband, he imagined that he was a man of valour, and dressed himself as Achilles, in which guise he used to ride about and astonish or amuse the people in the Hippodrome. The populace nicknamed him Pyrrhus, on account of his pink cheeks, but he took it as a compliment to his valour, and became still more inflated with vanity. “He did not,” says the historian, “slay heroes like Pyrrhus, but he was a chamberer and wanton like Paris.”
Basiliscus, perhaps soon after his elevation, had despatched Illus and Trocundes against Zeno, who, now in his native fortresses,15 had resumed the life of an Isaurian chieftain. Basiliscus, however, failed to fulfil what he had promised to the two generals; and they received letters from some of the leading ministers at the court, urging them to secure the return of Zeno. For the city was now prepared to welcome the restoration of the Isaurian, to replace the Monophysite, whose unpopularity was increased by the fiscal rapacity of his ministers.16 Illus decided to change sides, and his resolution may have been reinforced by the fact that he had a certain hold over Zeno, having got into his power Longinus, Zeno’s brother, whom he kept a prisoner in an Isaurian fortress. Accordingly, Zeno and Illus joined forces and started for Constantinople. When Basiliscus received news of this danger, he hastened to recall his ecclesiastical edicts and to conciliate the Patriarch and the people.17 But it was too late. Armatus, the Master of Soldiers, was sent with all available forces to oppose the advancing army of the Isaurians, but secret messages from Zeno, who promised to give him the Mastership of Soldiers for life and to confer the rank of Caesar on his son, induced him to betray his master. He avoided the road by which Zeno was advancing and marched into Isauria by another way. This betrayal decided the fate of Basiliscus. Zeno entered the capital without resistance in August 476. Basiliscus was sent to Cucusus in Cappadocia and there beheaded; his wife and children shared his fate. The promise which had been made to Armatus was kept to the letter. His son was created Caesar at Nicaea. But immediately afterwards the Emperor, by the advice of Illus, caused him to be assassinated, and the Caesar was stripped of his rank and compelled to take orders.18
A deplorable misfortune, which occurred in the reign of Basiliscus, is said to have helped, as accidents in superstitious ages always help, to render his government unpopular. This was an immense conflagration,19 which, beginning in the quarter of Chalkoprateia, spread far and wide, reducing to ashes the adjacent colonnades and houses. But more serious was the destruction of the Basilica, the library founded by Julian, which contained no fewer than 120,000 books. Among these rolls, the intestine of a serpent, 120 feet long, on which the Iliad and Odyssey were written in golden characters, is specially mentioned. The fire spread along Middle Street and destroyed the palace of Lausus, which contained among its splendours some of the most beautiful works of Greek plastic art, the Cnidian Aphrodite, the Lindian Athene, and the Samian Here.
§ 2. The Revolts of Marcian and Illus (A.D. 479-488)
For the first few years after the restoration of Zeno, Illus was all-powerful. He was consul in A.D. 478; he was appointed Master of Offices, and created a patrician. But he was bitterly detested by the two Empresses,