The Dark Ages Collection. David Hume
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Empire had begun again to offer themselves as recruits — he formed the plan of recruiting regiments from native subjects no less valiant and robust. He chose the hardy race of Isaurian mountaineers who lived almost like an independent people in the wild regions of Mount Taurus and were little touched by Hellenism. The execution of this policy, begun by himself and carried out by his successor, counteracted the danger that the Germans would prevail in the East as they were prevailing in the West.
Leo had recourse to Tarasicodissa,16 an Isaurian chieftain, who came to Constantinople, and presently married his daughter Ariadne (A.D. 466 or 467),17 having changed his uncouth name to Zeno. For about four years there was a struggle for ascendancy between the two factions. A new corps of Palace guards was formed, and we may conjecture that it was recruited from stalwart Isaurians, with the title of Excubitors.18 The Excubitors are for many centuries to be an important section of the residential troops, and, when we meet them for the first time in the reign of Leo, they were, as we shall see, called upon to oppose the Germans.
When a great expedition sailed to Africa against the Vandals in A.D. 468,19 Leo entrusted the command, not to Aspar or his son, but to Basiliscus, the brother of the Empress Verina. The commander’s incompetence led to the failure of the enterprise. It was alleged, but the charge was probably false, that Aspar, sympathising with the Vandals, bribed Basiliscus to betray the fleet with the promise of making him Emperor.20 In the following year Zeno was consul. It is possible that he had already been appointed Master of Soldiers in praesenti,21 and in this capacity he took the field in Thrace apparently against an incursion of Huns.22 Some of his soldiers, at the instigation of Aspar, conspired to assassinate him, but forewarned of the plot he escaped to Sardica. After this he was nominated Master of Soldiers in the East, and left Constantinople for Isauria, where he suppressed the brigand Indacus, one of the most dangerous and daring of the Isaurian bandits.23
It was probably during the absence of his son-in-law in the East that Leo was at length induced by Aspar to perform his old promise of conferring the rank of Caesar upon his son Patricius (A.D. 469-470).24 Aspar is said (whether on this or some previous occasion) to have seized the sovran by his purple robe and said, “Emperor, it is not fitting that he who wears this robe should speak falsely,” and Leo to have replied, “Nor yet is it fitting that he should be constrained and driven like a slave.”25 There was great displeasure in Byzantium at the elevation of an Arian to a rank which was a recognised step to the Imperial throne. It appears that a deputation of clergy and laymen waited on the Emperor, imploring him to choose a Caesar who was orthodox, and the public dissatisfaction was expressed in the Hippodrome by a riotous protest, in which monks played a prominent part. Leo pacified the excited crowd by declaring that Patricius was about to turn from his Arianism and profess the true faith.26 The new Caesar was soon afterwards betrothed to Leontia, the Emperor’s younger daughter.
Meanwhile Anagast, a German soldier who had been appointed Master of Soldiers in Thrace, threatened to rebel. Messengers from the court persuaded him to desist from his enterprise, and he alleged that he had been instigated by Ardaburius, whose letters he sent to the Emperor as evidence.27 Having failed in this attempt, Ardaburius endeavoured to gain over the Isaurian troops in Constantinople28 to his father’s faction. These intrigues were betrayed to Zeno,29 who, if he was still in the East, must have hastened back to the capital (A.D. 471). The destruction of Aspar and his family was now resolved upon. There was only too good reason to regard them as public enemies, but foul means were employed for their removal. Aspar and Ardaburius were slain in the palace by eunuchs;30 the Caesar Patricius was wounded, but unexpectedly recovered; the third son Ermanaric happened to be absent and escaped.31 From this act the Emperor received the name of Butcher (Makelles). It was an important act in the long struggle against the German danger in the East. But it inaugurated a period of Isaurian domination which was to involve the Empire in a weary civil war. This was the price which had to be paid for the defeat of the German generals who sought to appropriate the Empire.
But the German danger was not yet quite stamped out. The Gothic friends of Aspar were dismayed, and they determined to avenge him. Count Ostrys,32 an officer of high rank who belonged to Aspar’s faction, burst into the palace with an armed troop, but in an encounter with the new guards, the Excubitors, they were worsted. Ostrys fled to Thrace, taking with him Aspar’s Gothic concubine. The Byzantine populace, with whom the powerful general, Arian as he was, probably had not been unpopular, cried, “A dead man has no friend save Ostrys.”33 The fugitive found a refuge in the camp of the Ostrogothic chief of German federate troops, Theoderic Strabo, Aspar’s relative, who, as soon as he heard tidings of the murder, replied by ravaging Thrace. Whether he was deeply incensed or not, he saw an opportunity of stepping into Aspar’s place, and when he made his peace with Leo in A.D. 473, he was appointed to the post of Master of Soldiers in praesenti, which Aspar had held. The career of Strabo will claim our attention later.34
At this time it was a common practice for rich people to maintain in their service not only armed slaves but bands of free retainers, often barbarians. It was natural enough that this practice should grow up in provinces which were exposed to hostile depredations, as in Illyricum and in those parts of Asia Minor which were constantly threatened by the Isaurian freebooters. But it is noteworthy, in view of Leo’s Isaurian policy, that in his reign Isaurians were themselves hired or retained by private persons and that the Emperor found it necessary to forbid this dangerous usage.35
Leo was a man of no education, but he seems to have possessed a good deal of natural good sense. The historian Malchus, who hated him for his religious bigotry, describes him as a sewer of wickedness and condemns his administration as ruinously rapacious.36 This accusation is probably untrue and malicious. The financial methods of the Empire were so oppressive that the charge of rapacity might be brought against any Emperor, but Leo seems to have done nothing to make the system more rigorous, and to have followed in the steps of Marcian in adopting particular measures of relief and clemency as occasion offered.37 He is reported to have said that a king should distribute pity to those on whom he looks, as the sun distributes heat to those on whom he shines, and he may at least in some degree have practised what he preached. An anecdote suggests that he encouraged petitions. His unmarried sister, Euphemia, resided in a house in the south-eastern corner of the Augusteum, close to the Hippodrome. The Emperor used to pay her a visit with affectionate regularity every week. She erected a statue to him beside her house, and on its base petitioners used to place their memorials, which were collected every morning by one of the palace servants.38
One of the destructive conflagrations which have so often ravaged Constantinople occurred in A.D. 465 (September 2). The fire broke out close to the arsenal,39 and it was said that it was caused by an old woman who was careless with her candle. Superstitious people believed that a malignant demon had assumed the shape of the old woman.40 The fire spread eastward to the Acropolis, as far as the old temple of Apollo, and southward to the Forum of Constantine, whence it devastated the porticoes and buildings of Middle Street westward as far as the Forum of Taurus, and also pursued a southward course to the House of Amantius or Church of St. Thomas and to the Harbour of Julian.41 It lasted three days. The senate-house on the north side of the Forum of Constantine was destroyed,42 and the Nymphaeum directly opposite to it, a building in which those who had not large enough houses of their own used to celebrate their weddings. Many magnificent private residences were burned down. It is said that Aspar ran about the streets with a pail of water on his shoulders, urging all to follow his example and offering silver coins to encourage them. There is no hint of the existence of a fire-brigade.43 The Emperor, alarmed by the disaster, withdrew across the Golden Horn to the palace of St. Mamas and remained there for six months.
In his ecclesiastical policy Leo followed Marcian and faithfully maintained orthodoxy as established by the Council of Chalcedon. No memorable feat of arms distinguished his reign44 to counterbalance the disastrous issue of his ambitious expedition against the Vandals, which will be recounted in another place.