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, and Leo formally asked for the opinion of the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and other leading dignitaries of the Church.58 They condemned the conduct of Timothy and he was banished to the Chersonese.59 At Antioch, the part of Timothy was played by Peter the Fuller, who during the reign of Leo was twice raised to the Patriarchal throne and twice ejected.60
When Basiliscus ascended the throne, the Monophysite cause looked bright for a few months. Peter and Timothy were reinstated, and Basiliscus issued an Encyclical letter61 in which he condemned the Council of Chalcedon and the Tome of Leo. But this declaration raised a storm in Constantinople which he was unable to resist. The monks were up in arms, and the Patriarch Acacius,62 who was not a man of extreme views, found himself forced to oppose the Emperor’s policy. Basiliscus hastened to retract, and he issued another letter, which was known as the anti-encyclical. But the settlement of the ecclesiastical struggle did not lie with him. Zeno returned, and a new policy was devised for restoring peace to the Church. His chief advisers here were Acacius and Peter Mongus, who had been the right-hand man of Timothy Aelurus. The policy was to ignore the Council of Chalcedon, but not to affirm anything contrary to its doctrine; and the hope was that the Monophysites and their antagonists would agree to differ, and would recognise that a common recognition of the great Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople was a sufficient bond of communion.
The Henotikon, a letter addressed by the Emperor to the Church of Egypt, embodied this policy (A.D. 481). It anathematises both Nestorius and Eutyches; declares the truth, and asserts the sufficiency, of the doctrine of Nicaea and Constantinople; and anathematises any who teach divergent doctrine “at Chalcedon or elsewhere.” As the document was intended to conciliate all parties, it was a blunder to mention Chalcedon; for this betrayed that the theological leanings of those who framed it were not favourable to the Chalcedonian dogma. The Monophysites gladly accepted it;63 interpreting it as giving them full liberty to denounce Chalcedon and the Tome of Pope Leo.
It is to be noted that Basiliscus by his Encyclical and Zeno by his Henotikon asserted the right of the Emperor to dictate to the Church and pronounce on questions of theological doctrine. They virtually assumed the functions of an Ecumenical Council. This was a claim which the see of Rome was not ready to admit except for itself. After the interchange of angry letters between Pope Simplicius and Acacius, a synod was held at Rome,64 and Acacius and Peter Mongus, who was now Patriarch of Alexandria, were excommunicated.65
The general result of the Henotikon was to reconcile moderate Monophysites in Egypt and Syria, and to secure a certain measure of ecclesiastical peace in the East for thirty years66 at the cost of a schism with the West. But the extreme Monophysites were not reconciled to the policy of Acacius and Peter.
§ 4. The Rise of Odovacar and his Rule in Italy (A.D. 473-489)
After the death of Olybrius, Leo was sole Roman Emperor for more than four months, and the Burgundian Gundobad, who had succeeded his uncle Ricimer as Master of Soldiers, directed the conduct of affairs in Italy. On March 5, A.D. 473, Glycerius, Count of the Domestics, was proclaimed Emperor at Ravenna “by the advice of Gundobad,”67