The Emperor settled large colonies of Isaurians in Thrace.22 The brief ascendancy of this people was now over for ever, but it was not to be regretted, for it had served the purpose of averting the far more serious peril of a German ascendancy, which might have brought upon the East the fate of Italy. Henceforward the foreign elements in the army were kept well in control by a preponderance of native troops.
It was fortunate for the Empire that the Isaurian struggle was over before a serious war broke out with Persia, which will be described in another chapter. But there was fighting from time to time with other enemies. The Blemyes troubled Egypt,23 the Mazices attacked Libya,24 the Tzani overran Pontus.25 The Saracens of the desert invaded Euphratesia, Syria, and Palestine in 498, but were thoroughly defeated. Another raid four years later was followed by a treaty of peace.26 In A.D. 515 Cappadocia was laid waste by an irruption of the Sabeiroi who came down from the region of the Caucasus.27 But a more dangerous foe than any of these were the Bulgarians beyond the Danube.
After the disruption of the Hunnic empire in A.D. 454, a portion of the Huns had occupied the regions between the mouths of the Danube and the Dniester, where they were ruled by two of the sons of Attila. During the reign of Leo and Zeno, they sometimes raided the Roman provinces and sometimes supplied auxiliaries to the Roman armies.28 They were kept in check by the Ostrogothic federates, but the departure of Theoderic from Italy had left the field clear for their devastations in Thrace and Illyricum, which throughout the reign of Anastasius suffered severely. These Huns now come to be known under the name of Bulgarians.29 But we must distinguish these Bulgarians, who were also known as Unogundurs, from two other great Hunnic hordes who will presently come upon the scene of history: the Kotrigurs who lived between the Dnieper and the Don, and the Utigurs who lived to the south of the Don. These latter peoples were to disappear in the course of time; the Unogundurs were to be the founders of Bulgaria.
The Bulgarians were undoubtedly the foes who invaded the Empire in A.D. 493, defeated a Roman army, and killed Julian, Master of Soldiers.30 The next recorded incursion was in A.D. 499, when Aristus, Master of Soldiers in Illyricum, lost more than a quarter of his army of 15,000 men in a battle against the Bulgarians.31 Their depredations were repeated three years later (A.D. 502), and on this occasion their progress was unopposed.32 Anastasius had determined to secure at least the immediate neighbourhood of the capital against the raids of the barbarians, and for this purpose he built a Long Wall,33 the line of which can still be traced, from the Propontis to the Black Sea, at a distance of about 40 miles west of Constantinople. The southern extremity was just to the west of Selymbria, and the northern between Podima and Lake Derkos. The fortification consisted of a stone wall about 11 feet thick, without earthworks or ditch, and traces of round towers projecting about 31 feet in front have been found. The length of the wall was 41 miles, and it corresponds roughly to the modern Turkish fortifications known as the Chatalja Lines, though the extreme points were further west.34 We do not hear of another invasion till A.D. 517, when a host of barbarian cavalry laid waste Macedonia, Epirus, and Thessaly, penetrating as far as Thermopylae.35 The consequences of the devastations of Germans and Huns for more than a hundred years was the depopulation of the Balkan provinces, the decline of its agricultural produce, and a considerable diminution of the Imperial revenue.36
§ 2. Church Policy
If the elevation of Anastasius had been popular, his popularity did not continue. His reign was frequently troubled by seditions in Constantinople, which were in many cases provoked by his ecclesiastical policy. His purpose was to maintain the Henotikon of Zeno; his personal predilections were Monophysitic. We are ignorant of the cause of the sedition which broke out in A.D. 493, but it was evidently serious, as the statues of the Emperor and Empress were dragged through the city.37 The relations between Anastasius and the Patriarch Euphemius, who had been opposed to his elevation, were strained. Euphemius was devoted to the doctrine of Chalcedon, and had been planning a campaign against the Patriarch of Alexandria, first Peter, and then his successor Athanasius, both of whom anathematised the Council of Chalcedon and the Tome of Leo. Without the Emperor’s knowledge he wrote a letter to Felix, the bishop of Rome, invoking his aid. The Patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem informed the Emperor that Euphemius was a heretic;38 and a council was held at Constantinople which confirmed the Henotikon and deposed Euphemius (A.D. 496).39 This led to a disturbance, and the people, rushing to the Hippodrome, supplicated the Emperor in vain to restore the Patriarch. Macedonius was appointed to the Patriarchal throne. He seems to have held much the same opinions as Euphemius, but he did not scruple to sign the Henotikon.40
A serious riot in the Hippodrome occurred in A.D. 498. The Prefect of the City had thrown into prison some members of the Green faction for the not uncommon offence of stone-throwing. The Greens demanded their release, and when the Emperor summoned the Excubitors to suppress them, there was a great uproar. Stones were thrown at the Kathisma, and one of these nearly hit Anastasius. The man who had thrown it was hewn in pieces by the Excubitors, and then the Greens set fire to the Bronze Gate of the Hippodrome. The fire spread not only to the Kathisma but also, in the other direction, to the Forum of Constantinople. Many offenders were punished, but a new Prefect, Plato, was appointed.41
The pagan festival of the Brytae, which was celebrated with dancing,42 repeatedly caused sanguinary riots among the demes, and in one of these disturbances (A.D. 501) a bastard son of the Emperor was killed, and the Emperor forbade its celebration for the future throughout the Empire, thereby “depriving the cities of the most beautiful dancing.” He had already abolished the practice of contests with wild beasts (A.D. 499).43
In A.D. 511 the Patriarch Macedonius, who no longer concealed his adhesion to the Council of Chalcedon, met the same fate as his predecessors. The Monophysites represented him as plotting against the Emperor, while the orthodox asserted that he was deposed because he declined to give up the profession of orthodoxy signed by the Emperor at his coronation. In any case, Anastasius had begun to move in the Monophysitic direction so far as to abandon the neutral spirit of the Henotikon. The position of Macedonius was not strong, because by signing the Henotikon he had alienated the orthodox monks of the capital. Seeking to win back their confidence he did not scruple to denounce Anastasius as a Manichaean. He was deposed by a local council in August, A.D. 511, was forced to surrender the document with the Emperor’s signature, and was banished to Euchaita. Timothy, an undisguised Monophysite, was elected in his stead.
A distinguished Monophysite monk, Severus of Sozopolis, had, a few years before, arrived at Constantinople with a company of two hundred fellow-heretics and had been received with honour by Anastasius.44 He caused scandal and disturbances by holding services in which the Trisagion (“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts”) was chanted with the Monophysitic addition “Who wast crucified for us,” which had been introduced at Antioch fifty years before. The new Patriarch Timothy interpolated this heretical phrase into the liturgy in St. Sophia. Anastasius, supported by the counsels of Marinus, Praetorian Prefect of the East,45