ZENO

This article appears in Volume V28, Page 970 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: YAK-ZYM

ZENO ,

East

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

Roman emperor from 474 to 491, was an Isaurian of noble

birth

BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

, and originally bore the name of Trascalissaeus, which he exchanged for that of Zeno on his

marriage

MARRIAGE

with Ariadne, daughter of Leo I., in 468. Of his early life nothing is known; after his

marriage

MARRIAGE

(which was designed by Leo to secure the Isaurian support against his ambitious minister Aspar) he became patrician and

commander

COMMANDER

of the imperial guard and of the armies in the

East

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

. While on a campaign in Thrace he narrowly escaped assassination; on his return to the

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

he avenged himself by compassing the murder of Aspar, who had instigated the attempt. In 474 Leo I. died after appointing .as his successor Leo the son of Zeno and Ariadne; Zeno, however, with the help of his mother-in-law Verina, succeeded in getting himself crowned also, and on the death of his son before the end of the year became sole emperor. In the following year, in consequence of a revolt fomented by Verina in favour of her brother Basiliscus, and the antipathy to his Isaurian soldiers and administrators, he was compelled to take

refuge

REFUGE

Isauria

ISAURIA

, where, after sustaining a defeat, he was compelled to shut himself up in a fortress. The growing misgovernment and unpopularity of Basiliscus ultimately enabled Zeno to re-enter Constantinople unopposed (476); his rival was banished to Phrygia, where he soon afterwards died. The remainder of Zeno's reign was disturbed by numerous other less formidable revolts. Since 472 the aggressions of the two Ostrogoth leaders Theodoric had been a constant source of danger. Though Zeno at times contrived to play them off against each other, they in turn were able to profit by his dynastic rivalries, and it was only by offering them pay and high command that he kept them from attacking Constantinople itself. In 487 he induced Theodoric, son of Theodemir, to invade Italy and establish his new kingdom. Zeno is de-scribed as a lax and indolent ruler, but he seems to have husbanded the resources of the empire so as to leave it appreciably stronger at his death. In ecclesiastical history the name of Zeno is associated with the Henoticon or

instrument

INSTRUMENT (Lat. instrumentum, from insincere, to build up, furnish, arrange, prepare)

of union, promulgated by him and signed by all the Eastern bishops, with the

design

DESIGN (Fr. desiin, drawing; Lat. designare, to mark out)

of terminating the Monophysite controversy.
See J. B. Bury, The Later Roman Empire (London, 1889), i. pp. 250-274; E. W.

Brooks

in the English Historical Review (1893), pp. 209238; W. Barth, Der Kaiser Zeno (Basel, 1894).

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