Zeno of Byzantium

“ After hard fighting with Odoacer and the mixed multitude of mercenaries that followed him, the Goths conquered Italy, and Theodoric—German king and Roman patrician—began to reign at Ravenna. He always professed to be the vassal and deputy of the emperor at Constantinople, and theoretically his conquest of Italy meant the reunion of the East and the West. But the Western realm had shrunk down to Italy and Illyricum, and the power of Zeno therein was purely nominal. ”

“ Zeno was once chased out of his capital by rebels, and twice [pg 061] vexed by dangerous risings in Asia Minor, but on each occasion he triumphed over his adversaries, and celebrated his victory by the execution of the leaders of the revolt. Anastasius was vexed for several years by the raids of a certain Count Vitalian, who ranged over the Thracian provinces with armies recruited from the barbarians beyond the Danube. But, in spite of all these rebellions, the empire was never in serious danger of sinking into disorder or breaking up, as the Western realm had done, into new un-Roman kingdoms. ”

“ But the Emperor Zeno, who understood how to settle to his advantage any situation in which he found himself, advised Theoderic to proceed to Italy, attack Odoacer, and win for himself and the Goths the western dominion. For it was better for him, he said, especially as he had attained the senatorial dignity, to force out a usurper and be ruler over all the Romans and Italians than to incur the great risk of a decisive struggle with the emperor. ”

“ If I fall you will be relieved from an expensive and troublesome friend; if, with divine permission, I succeed, I shall govern in your name and to your glory.’
Zeno had not been sufficiently powerful to prevent Odoacer from taking the title of ‘Patrician’, but he had never liked the ‘barbarian upstart’ who had dared to depose an emperor. He had also begun to dread the presence of the restless Ostrogoths so close to Constantinople, and warmly appreciated Theodoric’s arguments in favour of their exodus. ”

“ Odoacer refused, and proclaimed himself king in Italy, while still affecting—against Zeno's own will—to recognize the Constantinopolitan emperor as his suzerain.
In 488 a.d. it occurred to Zeno to offer Theodoric the government of Italy, if he would conquer it from Odoacer. The Ostrogoth, who had harried the inland of the Balkan Peninsula bare, and had met several reverses of late from the Roman arms, took the offer. He was made “patrician” and consul, and started off with all the Ostrogothic nation at his back to win the realm of Italy. ”

“ When Marcianus and Pulcheria passed away, the empire came into the hands of a series of three men of ability. They were all bred as high civil officials, not as generals; all ascended the throne at a ripe age; not one of them won his crown by arms, all were peaceably designated either by their predecessors, or by the Senate and army. These princes were Leo I. (457-474) , Zeno (474-491) , Anastasius (491-518) . Their chief merit was that they guided the Roman Empire in the East safely through the stormy times which saw its extinction in the West. ”

“ But the reign of the usurper was short and turbulent.
Basiliscus presumed to assassinate the lover of his sister; he dared to offend the lover of his wife, the vain and insolent Harmatius, who, in the midst of Asiatic luxury, affected the dress, the demeanour, and the surname of Achilles. By the conspiracy of the malcontents, Zeno was recalled from exile; and the armies, the capital, the person of Basiliscus, were betrayed; and his whole family was condemned to the long agony of cold and hunger by the inhuman conqueror who wanted courage to encounter or to forgive his enemies. ”

“ He was as plain in his dress as he was frugal in his habits,--a man of great decorum and propriety of manners, resembling noticeably in his life and doctrines the Chinese sage Confucius. And yet this good man, a pattern to the loftiest characters of his age, strangled himself. Suicide was not deemed a crime by his followers, among whom were some of the most faultless men of antiquity, especially among the Romans. The doctrines of Zeno were never popular, and were confined to a small though influential party. ”

“ The publication of his Formulary of Union is a gross attack upon the spiritual independence of the Church. He imposes it [Pg 99] upon the eastern bishops on pain of expulsion. He puts open heretics into the sees of Alexandria and Antioch. All this is done under the advice and instigation of Acacius, who is the real author of the Henotikon, and who completes his acts by open defiance of Pope Felix. When Zeno died he left the empire a prey to every misery. In Italy, Herules and Ostrogoths were desperately contending for the possession of the country. ”

“ Zeno, otherwise called Tarasicodissa the Isaurian, was now Emperor, and nine months after, when his child-partner died, he became sole ruler of the Roman world, except in so far as his dignity might be considered to be shared by the phantom Emperors of the West, who at this time Page 67 were dethroning and being dethroned with fatal rapidity at Rome and Ravenna.
Thus mean and devious were the paths by which an adventurer could climb in the fifth century to that which was still looked upon as the pinnacle of earthly greatness. ”

“ Less frequently the Circus may be contemplated under a more serious aspect, as the focus of national agitation. In the year 491, during Easter week, Constantinople was thrown into a great commotion by a report that the Emperor Zeno had died somewhat suddenly, [440] and that no successor had yet been nominated for the throne. ”

“ That, theoretically at least, is how Odoacer regarded the state in which, by the good pleasure of the emperor Zeno, he held the title of patrician. He was an unlettered man, an Arian, as were all the barbarians, and he held what he held by permission of Constantinople, though he had won it by his own strength in the weakness and misery of the time. He never aspired, it would seem, to make himself emperor. ”

“ But the hopes of fortune depopulated the mountains, luxury enervated the hardiness of their minds and bodies, and in proportion as they mixed with mankind, they became less qualified for the enjoyment of poor and solitary freedom. After the death of Zeno, his successor Anastasius suppressed their pensions, exposed their persons to the revenge of the people, banished them from Constantinople, and prepared to sustain a war, which left only the alternative of victory or servitude. A brother of the last emperor usurped the title of Augustus ”

“ Arethusa, he thought, was safe at home; sleepless, worn out with waiting, trembling with anxiety, perhaps, but safe. Now that the deed was done, now that Andronicus was bound, and Johannes, his father, was restored to the throne, Carlo Zeno thought only of leaving Constantinople without delay, before the Emperor could take back his word, and revoke the cession of Tenedos. 345 For Zeno did not put his trust in Oriental princes, and feared the Greeks even when they offered gifts. With a swift Venetian vessel and a fair wind, the coveted island could be reached in two days, or even less ”

“ ZENO, East Roman emperor from 474 to 491, was an Isaurian of noble birth, and originally bore the name of Trascalissaeus, which he exchanged for that of Zeno on his marriage with Ariadne, daughter of Leo I., in 468. Of his early life nothing is known; after his marriage (which was designed by Leo to secure the Isaurian support against his ambitious minister Aspar) he became patrician and commander of the imperial guard and of the armies in the East. ”

“ If Sultan Amurad had been the man that Mohammed the Conqueror turned out to be, the Turks would have been in possession of Constantinople fully eighty years before they actually stormed it, and with a tenth of the loss.
If Zeno had relied on the eight hundred soldiers who had agreed to make a revolution for Johannes, he had done so because he knew they could be trusted to rise if there was a chance of plundering the palace and of cutting the throats of a few hundred of their divers countrymen who had been preferred before them as a body-guard, and were therefore their sworn enemies. ”

“ But more grateful than this to his suspicious nature, was the conclusion he drew from the frank, fearless countenance and the simple faith of the Pretorian. Such a man might be invaluable, and he determined that he should not be uselessly butchered, if it could be profitably avoided. When Zeno stooped, and whisperingly reminded him of the fact of the existence of a door, but seldom used, and hidden by the curtain, immediately behind the position of Martialis, he assented eagerly to the suggestion, which, we have seen, was carried out successfully. ”

“ The wars of Anastasius may be reviewed briefly in this section. They were four in number. 1. At the outset of his reign he found himself opposed within the capital by a strong faction of turbulent Isaurians, the relations and adherents of the late Emperor Zeno. Some of these held high office, and had even aspired to the throne. [733] On their dismissal and banishment from Constantinople the leaders fled to Isauria, where they levied large forces, and raised a rebellion by the aid of arms and treasure which Zeno had seen fit to amass in his native province. ”

“ Zeno had withdrawn more into the centre, and saluted the appearance of Plautia with an obeisance of extreme deference. It partook of the profound humility offered to an oriental potentate, and had the dexterous Greek searched the world through he could not have found a more perfect incarnation of haughtiness than in the youthful beauty before him, who trod the earthen floor of the hovel in her deshabille, as if she were a Semiramis clad in splendour and stepping to her throne of state. ”

“ And after Zeno had thus taken over the empire a second time, he carried out his pledge to Harmatus formally by appointing his son Basiliscus Caesar, but not long afterwards he both stripped him of the office and put Harmatus to death. And he sent Basiliscus together with his children and his wife into Cappadocia in the winter season, commanding that they should be destitute of food and clothes and every kind of care. And there, being hard pressed by both cold and hunger, they took refuge in one another's arms, and embracing their loved ones, perished. ”

“ And again he was angry, and swore that he would do so by her indeed if the story was a lie; but she smiled confidently, and nodded her assent.
'If you do not save the Emperor,' she said, 'you Venetians will be driven out of Constantinople before many months; and if Genoa once holds Tenedos how shall you ever again sail up the Dardanelles?'
Many a time she had heard Michael Rhangabé say as much to his friends, and she knew that it was wisdom. So did Zeno, and he wondered at the knowledge of his bought slave. So he came and went, turning over the great question in his brain ”

“ Whichever of us fails, they, not we, will be the stronger. They never give you real help, but send you out against me to perish here in the Desert.” Then all the Goths cried out, “The One-Eyed is right. These men are Goths like ourselves.” So the two Theodorics made peace, and Zeno had to cope with them both at once [a.d. 479] . Two years later Theodoric the One-Eyed was slain by accident—his horse flung him, as he mounted, against a spear fixed by the door of his tent—but his namesake continued a thorn in the side of the empire till 488 a.d. ”

“ That is not a promise.'
'Why should you trust the promise of a poor slave, sir? You would not believe a lady of Constantinople in the same case if she took oath on the four Gospels! Imagine any woman missing a chance of looking at another about whom she is curious!'
'Who is the other?' asked Zeno, not much pleased.
'She is young, and as fresh as spring. Her hair is like that of all the Venetian ladies——'
'Since you have seen her, why are you so anxious to see her again?'
'Ah! You see! It is she! I knew it! She is coming to-morrow with her father.'
'Well? ”

“ In this he disregarded the rights of the bishops of the Antiochene patriarchate, and the Byzantine bishops forthwith turned that precedent into a right. Maximus was followed by Basilius, Acacius, and Martyrius. The Monophysite Peter Fullo formed such a party against the last that he resigned in despair. This usurper resisted the Emperor Zeno's condemnation to banishment, and put himself, first secretly, then openly, as patriarch against Julian. He so persecuted the Catholics, that Julian died of sorrow. The Emperor Zeno banished the heretical Peter Fullo to Pityuns. ”

“ The East gave his zeal no less employment and concern. Zeno, son and successor to Leo the Thracian, favored the Eutychians. Basiliscus his admiral, who, on expelling him, usurped the imperial throne in 476, and held it two years, was a most furious stickler for that heresy. Zeno was no Catholic, though not a stanch Eutychian: and having recovered the empire, published, in 482, his famous decree of union, called the Henoticon, which explained the faith ambiguously, neither admitting nor condemning the council of Chalcedon. ”

“ A simple, childlike, and eminently affectionate disposition, with little strength of intellect or perhaps originally of will, much more inclined to meditation, speculation, solitude, or friendship, than to active and public life, with a profound aversion to the pomp of royalty and with a rather strong natural leaning to pedantry, he had embraced the fortifying philosophy of Zeno in its best form, and that philosophy made him perhaps as nearly a perfectly virtuous man as has ever appeared upon our world. ”