The Dark Ages Collection. David Hume

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СКАЧАТЬ suffered at the hands of the Ephthalites (January, A.D. 484; Piroz was slain) rendered it impossible for them to fulfill their promise.

      Zeno sent an Isaurian force against the rebels.34 About the same time Illus changed his plans, and entered into an alliance with his old enemy the Emperor Verina who was still languishing in an Isaurian fortress.35 He brought her to Tarsus, arrayed her in imperial robes; and it was decided to set aside Marcian,36 and to proclaim as Emperor the patrician Leontius. Verina crowned him Emperor, and a proclamation in her name was sent through the provinces of the East and Egypt. In this document she claims that the Empire belongs to her, that it was she who conferred it upon Zeno, and that now, since his avarice is ruining the state, she has determined to transfer it to the pious Leontius.37 The new Emperor was received at Antioch,38 and the rebellion spread. The Isaurian troops which Zeno had sent were obviously unable to cope with it, and Zeno sought the hope of Theoderic the Amal and his Ostrogoths. Theoderic, as Master of Soldiers in praesenti, joined the army of John the Scythian, and though he was recalled almost immediately, his followers seem to have remained and taken part in the campaign.39 Rugian auxiliaries were also sent under the command of Aspar’s son Ermenric. A battle was fought, the forces of Zeno were victorious, and Illus, Leontius, and Verina, with all their chief partisans, fled to the strong fortress of Cherris40 in the Isaurian mountains (autumn, A.D. 484). The Empress died in a few days. The cause of Illus was now hopeless, but the fortress held out for nearly four years. It was taken by treachery (488), and Illus and Leontius were beheaded.41

      The struggle between Illus and Zeno derives particular interest from the association of Illus with the prominent pagans who still flourished at Athens, Constantinople, and Alexandria. These men seem to have hoped that Illus, if victorious, would be able to secure public toleration for paganism.42 It was impossible, of course, to stamp the movement with a pagan character. If Illus had come forward as a new Julian, he would have had no following. But there is little doubt that he was personally in sympathy with the “Hellenes”; he was a man with intellectual interests and was inclined to the Neoplatonic philosophy. His close intimacy with the pagan savant, Pamprepius of Panopolis, who shared his fortunes, proves this. Pamprepius, who is described as swarthy and ugly, went in his youth from Egypt to the university of Athens, where he studied under the philosopher Proclus and was appointed professor of grammar (literature and philology). A quarrel with a magistrate forced him to leave Athens, and he betook himself to Constantinople, where pagans of talent, if they behaved discreetly, could still find a place.43 At the request of Illus he delivered a lecture, probably explaining the doctrines of Neoplatonism, and Illus procured his appointment as professor of grammar at the university. He established himself in the favour of Illus by public recitation of a poem,44 in reward for which he received a pension. But when Illus was absent in Isauria (A.D. 478), his enemies seized the opportunity to attack Pamprepius as a pagan and a sorcerer. He was banished from the city and retired to Pergamum; but Illus summoned him to Isauria, and then brought him back in triumph, and procured his appointment to the high post of Quaestorship. Henceforward his fortunes were bound up with those of Illus, to whom he acted as confidant and adviser throughout the struggle for the throne. The pagans blamed Pamprepius for the failure of the movement, and represented him as a traitor to the cause of his chief. But we may take it as certain that this charge was false, and that he was slain not because he was suspected of treachery, but because his prophecies had not come true and he had proved himself a blind guide.45

      The greater part of Zeno’s reign had been troubled on the one hand by the hostile risings of the Ostrogoths, which have still to be described, and on the other by rebellion. In 488 both these troubles were terminated by the departure of the Goths from Italy and by the final suppression of Illus. The Emperor persisted in his policy of firmly establishing Isaurian predominance. His brother Longinus, who had managed to escape from his prison,46 was consul twice and princeps of the Senate.47 Kottomenes had been appointed Master of Soldiers in praesenti, instead of Theoderic, in 484, and Longinus of Kardala at the same time became Master of Offices; both these men were Isaurians.48

      A modern historian who was perhaps the first to say a good word for Zeno, observes that “the great work of his reign was the formation of an army of native troops to serve as a counterpoise to the barbarian mercenaries”; and goes on to remark that the man who successfully resisted the schemes and forces of the great Theoderic cannot have been contemptible.49 And even from the pages of a hostile contemporary writer50 we can see that he was not so bad as he was painted. He is said to have been in some respects superior to Leo, less relentless and less greedy. He was not popular,51 for his ecclesiastical policy of conciliation did not find general favour, and he was an Isaurian. But he was inclined to be mild; he desired to abstain from employing capital punishment. In the first year of his reign, Erythrius was Praetorian Prefect, a very humane man, who, when he saw that sufficient revenue could not be raised without severe oppression, resigned his office.52 In fiscal administration Zeno was less successful than his predecessors and his successor Anastasius. We are told that he wasted all that Leo left in the treasury by donatives to his friends and inaccuracy in checking his accounts. In A.D. 477 the funds were very low, hardly sufficient to supply pay for the army. But the blame of this may rather rest with Basiliscus, who, reigning precariously for twenty months, must have been obliged to incur large expenses, to supply which he was driven to extortion, and in the following years the Ostrogoths were an incubus on the exchequer; while we must further remember that since the enormous outlay incurred by Leo’s naval expedition the treasury had been in financial difficulties, which only a ruler of strict economy and business habits, like the succeeding Emperor Anastasius, could have remedied. Zeno was not a man of business, he was indolent and in many respects weak. Yet it is said that his reign would have been a good one but for the influence of the Praetorian Prefect Sebastian, who succeeded Erythrius, and introduced a system of selling offices.53 Of Sebastian we otherwise hear very little.

      By his first wife Arcadia, Zeno had a son,54 of the same name, whose brief and strangely disreputable career must have been one of the chief scandals at the court. His father desired that he should be carefully trained in manly exercises, but unscrupulous young courtiers, who wished to profit by the abundant supplies of money which the boy could command, instructed him in all the vulgar excesses of luxury and voluptuousness. They introduced him to boys of his own age, who did not refuse to satisfy his desires, while their adulation flattered his vanity to such a degree that he treated all who came in contact with him as if they were servants. His excesses brought on an internal disease, and he died prematurely, after lying for many days in a senseless condition. After his death, Zeno seems to have intended to devolve the succession upon his brother Longinus, who enjoyed a vile reputation for debauchery.55 We have already seen how he was advanced to high posts of dignity. It is related that Zeno consulted a certain Maurianus, skilled in occult learning, who informed him that a silentiarius would be the next Emperor and would marry Ariadne. This prophecy was unfortunate for a distinguished patrician of high fame named Pelagius, who had once belonged to the silentiarii, for Zeno, seized with alarm and suspicion, put him to death.56 The Emperor’s unpopularity naturally made him suspicious, and he was in bad health. An attack of epilepsy carried him off on April 9, A.D. 491.

      § 3. The Henotikon (A.D. 481)

      The doctrinal decrees of Chalcedon were the beginning of many evils for the eastern provinces of the Empire. Theological discord, often accompanied by violence, rent the Church, and the Emperors found it utterly impossible to suppress the Monophysite, as they had suppressed the Arian, faith. In Alexandria, the monks and the majority of the population were devoted to the doctrine of One Nature, and on the death of Marcian the smouldering fire of dissatisfaction burst into flame. Timothy Aelurus,57 an energetic Monophysite, was set up as rival Patriarch; Proterius was murdered in the baptistery (A.D. 457, Easter) and his corpse was dragged through the city. Timothy sent a memorial to the Emperor Leo demanding a new Council, СКАЧАТЬ