Zeno was the Byzantine emperor who witnessed the end of the Western Roman Empire, but he is mostly known for the legend of being buried alive by his wife.
As an emperor, he succeeded in bringing some stability to the Eastern Empire (Byzantine) but failed in the ambitious religious reforms he wished to pass. Despite his few achievements, he was never popular due to his barbarian origins.
Zeno (Greek: Ζήνων) was born around 425 AD as Tarasis in Isauria (present-day Turkey) around the Taurus Mountains. He was an Isaurian, one of a people known for their prowess in battle but regarded by the Romans as semi-barbaric. Nevertheless, because they were Christians, the Imperial Army accepted them into its ranks.
As he excelled in his military skills, he soon became a confidante of Emperor Leo I. To become more widely accepted in Constantinople, he adopted the name Zeno and, in 466, he married the daughter of Leo I, Ariadne. Some sources suggest it was Ariadne who convinced him to change his name for the sake of greater acceptance in the capital.
In the war against the Ostrogoths, Zeno diplomatically managed to redirect their king, Theodoric, toward Italy, thereby neutralizing the threat to Constantinople. In 467, amid these political and military maneuvers, his son Leo II was born in the capital. Zeno himself would later serve as Roman consul, and his son Leo II was elevated to co-emperor alongside his grandfather, Emperor Leo I.
When Leo I passed away, his grandson Leo II was still a child and too young to rule alone, Ambitious and politically astute, Ariadne and her mother, Verina, demanded that the Senate approve Zeno as co-emperor (474-475). Following Leo II’s death at age nine in 476, Zeno became the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, ruling from Constantinople.
Although the Western Roman Empire—in name only—continued until 476, when the last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was removed, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire continued to exist independently. Since there was no Western emperor thereafter, the Eastern emperors eventually claimed theoretical authority over the entire Roman Empire, abolishing the division between the Western and Eastern Roman Empire.
Zeno is temporarily overthrown
Zeno’s first achievement as Byzantine emperor consisted of securing peace with the Vandals, who had long threatened the stability of the empire. In 455, they had sacked Rome, looting invaluable works of art and further destabilizing the Western provinces. Zeno negotiated a peace treaty with Genseric, king of the Vandals, which not only ended hostilities but also included guarantees for the protection of Christians living within the Arian-dominated Vandal kingdom.
However, capitalizing on Zeno’s unpopularity and perceived incompetence, Verina’s brother, Basiliscus, seized the throne in 475. Zeno and Ariadne were forced to flee Constantinople and take refuge in Isauria, his native land. Determined to eliminate him, Basiliscus dispatched an army to Isauria with orders to capture the deposed emperor.
The ousted emperor, ever the diplomat, managed to win over the generals Illus and Trocundes, who had been leading the siege of his Isaurian stronghold, and the three of them led the army on to Constantinople. Basiliscus sent General Armatus to intercept the defectors, but Zeno promised Amatus a high-ranking position—possibly the post of magister militum— in exchange for his support. Armatus agreed, allowing Zeno’s forces to pass unopposed into the capital as the restored emperor in August 476.
He initially promised Basiliscus and his family that they would be spared execution and instead exiled to Limnae in Cappadocia. However, historical accounts on their fate differ, with some holding that they were beheaded shortly after arrival, while others claim they were imprisoned in a dried-up cistern and left to die of thirst and starvation.
This was not the only revolt the unpopular emperor confronted during his reign. Consul Marcian, husband of Ariadne’s sister, Leontia, and therefore Zeno’s brother-in-law, attempted to overthrow him and snatch the throne in 479. Marcian rallied a number of troops and citizens to storm the imperial palace and home of General Illus, a staunch supported of Zeno. Illus, however, managed to undermine Marcian’s forces by persuading the soldiers to abandon their cause, thus allowing Zeno to swiftly retake the palace, leading to Marcian’s arrest and exile.
Illus’s growing popularity made the Byzantine emperor increasingly suspicious, fearing that the general might attempt a coup. In 484, Ariadne reportedly hired an assassin to assassinate Illus, but the attempt merely wounded him. In response, Illus fled the palace and took refuge in Nicaea, where he proclaimed his friend Leontius as emperor. A year later, Zeno dispatched an army to fight the rebels. The army drove the rebels into the fortress of Papurius and besieged them. After a grueling three-year siege, Zeno’s army captured the fortress and beheaded Illus.
The fall of the West and the effort to unify the two churches
In 480, Zeno witnessed the end of the Western Roman Empire, the administrative division established upon the death of Theodosius the Great in 395. The Western Empire had been in decline for decades. In 476, the Germanic military leader Odoacer had Romulus Augustulus, the last Western emperor, in Rome removed and became the first non-Roman king of Italy. Four years later, the last official emperor of the West, Julius Nepos, who reigned from 474 to 475, was murdered in May 480.
Zeno, who came from an Orthodox Catholic background, was deeply troubled by the division between those who upheld the Orthodox doctrine on the two natures of Christ and the Miaphysites, who emphasized a single nature. In 482, he issued what would become his famous decree: the Henotikon (Greek: Ἐνωτικόν), or ‘Act of Union’ to reconcile Chalcedonian Orthodoxy with the Miaphysite position, seeking to heal the theological rift that threatened the unity of the empire.
The decree angered both parties. The Chalcedonians condemned it as leaning toward Monophysitism, a Christian theological belief that Jesus Christ has only one nature—either divine or a synthesis of divine and human. On the other hand, Miaphysites considered it heretical. Zeno sought to impose his religious policy with the aid of the Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople but ultimately failed. Most Egyptian Miaphysites rejected the patriarch Zeno appointed in Alexandria, and Pope Felix III vehemently condemned the edict, backed by most Orthodox bishops across the empire. The result was that the Act of Union divided the two sides further, resulting in the Acacian Schism—a break between the Eastern and Western Churches that persisted until Justin I ascended the throne in 518.
The legendary death of Zeno
Zeno, the Byzantine emperor who witnessed the end of the Western Roman Empire, was reported to be a heavy drinker who suffered from from epileptic episodes. He died in 491 under unknown circumstances. Two later chroniclers, George Kedrenos (11th century) and Joannes Zonaras (12th century), alleged that Ariadne had locked Zeno up unconscious—either due to intoxication or illness—within a sarcophagus and instructed passersby to ignore his cries for help after he regained consciousness.
It is also alleged that Zeno survived for some time by gnawing on his own arms before ultimately passing away. While such gaudy details remain unverified and are considered by many historians to be exaggerated or fabricated, they contribute to the enigmatic legacy surrounding the emperor’s death. Due to his unpopularity, largely stemming from his Isaurian origins, Zeno was not widely mourned upon his death. Following his passing, Ariadne is said to have married Anastasius Ι, an imperial chamberlain of Greek origin who succeeded Zeno as emperor.
Ultimately, the legacy of Zeno, the Byzantine emperor, is less about his diplomatic achievements or the legendary circumstances surrounding his death and more about his love for backgammon. The board game remains popular in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean today and is widely played at coffeehouses as well as at family and social gatherings.
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