Leo I (emperor)

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Flavius Valerius Leo (401–18 January 474), known in English as Leo the Thracian or Leo I, was a Byzantine emperor who ruled from 457 to 474. He was known as Magnus Thrax (the "Great Thracian") by his supporters, and Leo the Butcher by his enemies.

Reign

Born as Leo Marcellus in the year 401 to a Thraco-Roman family (of the Daci or Bessi tribe), he served in the Roman army, rising to the rank of count (comes). He was the last of a series of emperors placed on the throne by Aspar, the Alan serving as commander-in-chief of the army, who thought Leo would be an easy puppet ruler.

Leo's coronation as emperor on February 7 457, was the first known to involve the Patriarch of Constantinople. Leo I made an alliance with the Isaurians and was thus able to eliminate Aspar. The price of the alliance was the marriage of Leo's daughter to Tarasicodissa, leader of the Isaurians who, as Zeno, became emperor in 474. In 469 Aspar attempted to assassinate Leo, and very nearly succeeded. In 471 Aspar's son Ardabur was implicated in a plot against Leo and both were killed by palace eunuchs acting on Leo's orders.

During Leo's reign, the Balkans were ravaged time and again by the East Goths and the Huns. However, these attackers were unable to take Constantinople thanks to the walls which had been rebuilt and reinforced in the reign of Theodosius II and against which they possessed no suitable siege engines.

Leo's reign was also noteworthy for his influence in the Western Roman Empire, marked by his appointment of Anthemius as Western Roman Emperor in 467. He attempted to build on this political achievement with an expedition against the Vandals in 468, which was defeated due to the treachery and incompetence of Leo's brother-in-law Basiliscus. This disaster drained the Empire of men and money. The expedition, which cost 130,000 pounds of gold and 700 pounds of silver, consisted of 1,113 ships carrying 100,000 men, but in the end lost 600 ships.

Leo's greatest influence in the West was largely inadvertent and at second-hand: the great Goth king Theodoric the Great was raised at Leo's court in Constantinople, where he was steeped in Roman government and military tactics, which served him well when he returned after Leo's death to become the Goth ruler of a mixed but largely Romanized people.

Leo died of dysentery at the age of 73 on January 18, 474.

Marriage and children

Leo and Verina and had three children. Their eldest daughter Ariadne was born prior to the death of Marcian (reigned 450 - 457). . Ariadne had a younger sister, Leontia. Leontia was first married to Patricius, a son of Aspar. Their marriage was probably annulled when Aspar and another of his sons, Ardabur, were assassinated in 471. Leontia then married Marcian, a son of Anthemius and Marcia Euphemia. The couple led a failed revolt against Zeno in 478-479. They were exiled to Isauria following their defeat.

An unnamed son was born in 463.He died five months following his birth. The only sources about him are a horoscope by Rhetorius and a hagiography of Daniel the Stylite.

The Georgian Chronicle, a 13th century complilation drawing from earlier sources, reports a marriage of Vakhtang I of Iberia to Princess Helena of Byzantium, identifying her as a daughter of the predecessor of Zeno. . This predecessor was probably Leo I, the tale attributing a third daughter to Leo. Cyril Toumanoff identified two children of this marriage. Mithridates of Iberia and Leo of Iberia. This younger Leo was father of Guaram I of Iberia. The accuracy of the descent is unknown.

References

Sources

Thomas F. Madden (Presenter). Empire of Gold: A History of the Byzantine Empire; Lecture 2: Justinian and the Reconquest of the West, 457-565. [Audio book]. Prince Frederick: Recorded Books.
Profile of Leo in The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell, The Rome that Did Not Fall The Survival of the East in the Fifth Century, Routledge Press, 1999, ISBN:0415154030

External links

Leo I Timeline