Anastasius I (emperor)
 |
Flavius Anastasius. |
Flavius Anastasius or
Anastasius I (
c.
430–
July 9,
518) was
Byzantine emperor from
11 April 491 until his death. He was born at
Dyrrhachium not later than 430.
At the time of the death of
Zeno (
491), Anastasius, a palace official (
silentiarius), held a very high character, and was raised to the throne of the Roman empire of the East, through the choice of
Ariadne, Zeno's widow, who married him shortly after his accession. His reign, though afterwards disturbed by foreign and internecine wars and religious distractions, commenced auspiciously. He gained the popular favour by a judicious remission of taxation, and displayed great vigour and energy in administering the affairs of the empire.
The principal wars in which Anastasius was engaged were those known as the
Isaurian and the
Sassanid War. The former (
492-
496) was stirred up by the supporters of
Longinus of Cardala, the brother of Zeno. The
battle of Cotyaeum in
491 "broke the back" of the revolt, but
guerrilla warfare continued in the Isaurian mountains for some years longer. In the war with
Sassanid Persians (
502-
505),
Theodosiopolis and
Amida were captured by the enemy, but the Persian provinces also suffered severely and the Romans recovered Amida. Both adversaries were exhausted when peace was made (
506) on the basis of status quo. Anastasius afterwards built the strong fortress of
Daras to hold
Nisibis in check. The
Balkan provinces were devastated by invasions of
Slavs and
Bulgarians; to protect
Constantinople and its vicinity against them he built the
Anastasian Wall, extending from the
Propontis to the
Euxine.
The emperor was a convinced
Monophysite, but his ecclesiastical policy was moderate; he endeavoured to maintain the principle of the
Henotikon of Zeno and the peace of the church. It was the uncompromising attitude of the orthodox extremists, and the rebellious demonstrations of the Byzantine populace, that drove him in
512 to abandon this policy and adopt a monophysitic programme. His consequent unpopularity in the European provinces was utilized by an ambitious man, named
Vitalian, to organize a dangerous rebellion, in which he was assisted by a horde of "
Huns" (
514-
515); it was finally suppressed by a naval victory won by the general
Marinus.
There is a story about his choosing of a successor: Anastasius could not decide which of his three nephews should succeed him, so he put a message under a couch and had his nephews take seats in the room, which also had two other seats; he believed that the nephew to sit on the special couch would be his proper heir. However, two of his nephews sat on the same couch (one story has it that they were incestuous lovers), and the one with the concealed message remained empty. Then, after putting the matter to God in
prayer, he determined that the first person to enter his room the next morning should be the next emperor, and that person was
Justin, the chief of his guards. In fact, Anastasius probably never thought of Justin as a successor, but the issue was decided for him after his death.
The main elements of the complex monetary system of the early Byzantine Empire, which suffered a partial collapse in the 5th century, were revived by Emperor Anastasius I (491â€"518) in 498. The new system involved three denominations of gold (the solidus and its half and third) and five of copper (the follis, worth 40 nummi and its fractions down to a nummus).
