Anastasios I.

Semissis of Anastasius I.

Anastasios I ( Middle Greek Ἀναστάσιος Α΄ , Latin Anastasius , as Emperor Imperator Caesar Flavius ​​Anastasius Augustus ; * around 430 in Dyrrachium ; † 9/10 July 518 in Constantinople ) was from 491 to 518 (Eastern) Roman Emperor .

Proclamation as emperor

Flavius ​​Anastasius came from the Latin Balkan provinces of Estrom and was evidently an educated man who could safely speak both languages ​​of the empire, Latin and Greek . His family claimed an - undoubtedly fictional - descent from Pompey , Caesar's great adversary. He was last promoted to silentiarius and thus actually did not hold a particularly central position at the Eastern Roman imperial court: although he was a high-ranking official, his formal responsibility only extended to monitoring the staff. Nevertheless, he was a close confidante of the Empress Aelia Ariadne and was therefore proclaimed emperor in Constantinople on April 11, 491 - two days after the death of Emperor Zenos .

The people are said to have called out to Ariadne: “Give the empire an Orthodox emperor! Give the empire a Roman emperor! ”She achieved the elevation of Anastasius to emperor ( Augustus ) and married him shortly afterwards, thus ensuring a formal continuation of the dynasty , while at the same time Zeno's brother, the general Flavius ​​Longinus , was ignored in the succession plan.

Domestic and religious policy

Despite his advanced age - he was apparently only intended as a transitional ruler - Anastasios soon proved to be an extremely energetic emperor. So he quickly eliminated any rivals and consolidated the state finances: He reorganized the office of comes patrimonii with the function of finance state secretary , made the type of tax collection more efficient, reformed the copper currency and revitalized the economy in 498 by abolishing the chrysargyron ( collatio lustralis ) trade tax . It seems as if the imperial measures spared the senatorial upper class, but demanded a lot from the common people (cf. Colon Edict of Anastasius ). Anastasios is said to have left his successor Justin I a fabulous fortune of 320,000 gold pounds, as at least Prokopios of Caesarea claimed. So Anastasios' rule prepared the last heyday of the late ancient history under Justinian I. before.

It was important that by 498 Anastasios eliminated the Isaurians , many of whom had held important positions in the army since the time of Emperor Leo I (457 to 474), in a battle that lasted several years . How extensive this "Isaur War" actually was and whether it was not actually less about campaigns against rebellious semi-barbarians than about a conflict between the emperor and an influential opposition group within the army - Anastasios' predecessor Zeno was himself an Isaur - is disputed . What is certain is that Anastasios was finally able to break the resistance, executed the Isaurian leaders Longinus and Athenodorus and then celebrated himself as the victor in a splendid "triumph" in Constantinople in 498. With this he had decisively stabilized the empire, which had been through an institutional crisis since around 460.

Nevertheless, during Anastasios' further reign there were some serious domestic political crises, which were ultimately overcome. His religious policy in particular provided cause for resistance. Anastasios evidently adhered inwardly to Monophysitism ; and even if he did not openly take action against the Chalcedonian Christianity, there were still great tensions, since the emperor tried to enforce the Henoticon across the empire, contrary to his promise made before he came to power . In 511 he even had Macedonios II , the patriarch of Constantinople appointed by himself in 496 , deposed after he had already removed his predecessor Euphemius from office in 496 . Anastasius appointed the Monophysite-oriented patriarch of Antioch , Timotheus I, to be Macedonius' successor .

This led to the Staurotheis uprising, in which the circus parties rose up against Anastasius on the occasion of the christological disputes. With Areobindus even a counter-emperor was proclaimed, but he gave up after only one day when Anastasius managed to pull the people gathered in the hippodrome to his side with humble gestures. In the following year the magister militum per Thracias , Vitalian , revolted and appeared several times with an army before the capital, but was defeated in 515, whereupon he went into hiding. Justin I had Vitalian 520 eliminated.

The religious policy of Anastasius, who would probably have been willing to compromise personally, deepened the Akakian schism with the Roman Church (484-519), which could only be ended under Justin I. At the time of Anastasius, the Bishop of Rome insisted on the Chalcedonian creed and was not prepared to compromise. Gelasius I emphasized his superior authority on religious matters; Anastasios, for his part, described himself in a letter to the Roman bishop Hormisdas in 516 as pontifex ("priest") and thus underlined his claim to have the last word on church matters. The emperor was unable to resolve the conflict with Rome in this way. However, the imperial religious policy led to a temporary annexation of the Armenian Church to Constantinople.

Anastasios also used violence against the remaining non-Christians in the empire: In 502 he had pagan spring festivals forcibly suppressed. In addition, convicted Old Believers were to be expropriated, they were also not allowed to appear as beneficiaries in wills.

According to the sources, Anastasios had two eyes of different colors ( iris heterochromia ), which not only earned him the nickname dikoros ("double pupil"), but together with the religious conflicts and the internal and external wars, led to some contemporaries under Referring to alleged prophecies, saw the end of the world approaching and even believed to see the Antichrist in part in the emperor .

Foreign policy

Relations with the West

De iure , the Romans did not regard the contacts with the Germanic empires as a foreign policy, because Anastasios also continued to raise claims on the de facto lost western half of the empire , on the ruins of which Germanic warriors had established their own rulers. Conversely, Anastasios was nominally recognized as emperor almost everywhere, even if the actual power lay with the local rulers. There were conflicts during the reign of Anastasius, especially with the Ostrogoths , whose warrior association controlled the remaining rump of the Western Roman Empire. It was only after lengthy negotiations that the emperor confirmed the right to nominate consuls for the West to rex Theodoric the Great , who achieved rule over Italy in 493 by defeating Odoacer ; theodoric ruled de iure in the name of the emperor and left most of the Roman institutions in place. Whether Theodoric should be regarded as a Germanic king or rather as a Western Roman head of government in the tradition of Ricimer is disputed in research. The consuls appointed in the western Roman royal seat of Ravenna and in Constantinople have been recognized by both sides since 497/8, which can be seen as a symbol of the continued existence of imperial unity. In addition, Anastasios sent Theoderic the insignia of the western empire, which had reached Constantinople in 476. However, the Ostrogoths refrained from raising their own Augustus for Italy, which Anastasius had probably requested or at least suggested.

As early as 498/9 there was renewed tension with the Ostrogoths, but this did not escalate. The all in all good relations, however, did not prevent Theodoric from claiming Eastern Roman territories (namely the city of Sirmium in the Balkans , which had only belonged to Eastern Europe since 437) in succession to the Western Roman emperors from 504 onwards . In return, an Eastern Roman fleet attacked the coast of Italy in 507. In 510 there was a peaceful settlement between Theodoric and the emperor.

The active Germanic successor empires of West Rome recognized the sovereignty of the (East) Roman emperor in principle at the time of Anastasius, even if they ruled in fact sovereign. The reges of Burgundy proudly carried the title of imperial magister militum , and the Merovingian Clovis I also sought formal recognition of his position by the emperor, with whom, according to researchers such as Patrick J. Geary, he even formed a military alliance ( foedus ) against the Visigoths . If so, the eastern Roman naval attack on Italy in 507 could also have served to prevent Theodoric from helping the Visigoths. According to Gregory of Tours ( Historien 2,38), Clovis received the appointment of " consul " from Anastasius in 508 ; However, there is much to suggest that the Franconian was in truth elevated to patricius and that Gregor, who wrote decades later, succumbed to an error here. If this is the case, the Merovingian was placed on an equal footing with the Ostrogothic kings and could rule his sphere of influence as a kind of vice-emperor with the approval of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Both on the Roman and on the Germanic side, the idea of ​​the Roman universal empire was still alive, even if the political reality was already largely different. The only conceivable political frame of reference was still the Roman Empire .

Danube and eastern border

In the Balkans, proto-Bulgarians repeatedly crossed the Danube and undertook raids as far as Thrace . In 493 the magister militum Iulianus was killed fighting against them; In 499 the emperor sent the army master of Illyria, Aristus, with 15,000 elite soldiers against the enemy. But the Roman army was defeated in an ambush, and the comites Aquilinus, Nicostratus, Tancrus and Innocentius were killed in battle. In 502 there was another Bulgarian invasion, whereupon Anastasius had the so-called Long Wall (also Anastasius Wall ) built west of Constantinople and the lower section of the Danube Limes repaired.

Anastasios also had to wage war against the Persian Sassanids . After a long period of peace (since 441), tensions between the two empires had evidently built up, which led to war in autumn 502 (→ Roman-Persian Wars ). Obviously the Persians had taken tribute from the emperor ; the latter, in turn, had underestimated the great Eastern power and mistakenly assumed that the great king Kavadh I was bound by internal turmoil and conflicts with the Hunnic Hephthalites .

Ostrom was surprised by the first Sassanid attack: an imperial embassy under Anastasios' confidante Flavius ​​Rufinus was on the way to Kavadh and had to turn back when they heard of the Persian attack. After the first successes of the Persians and their Hephthalic allies, the Roman troops were able to slowly stabilize the situation: in 503 the emperor dispatched an army to the eastern border, which, for the time, was over 50,000 men. However, due to poor leadership, it was defeated by the Sassanids. In the following year, the revenge campaign of the magister officiorum Celer, who devastated Persian territory with his troops, was more successful . Amida , which was conquered in January 503, was finally won back by the Romans after a long siege and the payment of a not insignificant sum of 505, and in 506 an armistice, initially limited to 7 years and lasting 20 years, was concluded.

But tensions remained, as the wars under Justin I and above all Justinian I should show - not least because Anastasios had a very strong fortress built directly on the Persian border in the final phase of the fighting in violation of an old treaty in Dara , by which the Sassanids felt threatened and whose task they demanded again and again from then on. Even so, after 506, the Roman eastern border remained peaceful for about two decades.

Death and succession

Anastasios died on July 10, 518, allegedly during a terrible thunderstorm night. His successor posed a major problem, as he had only one illegitimate son, who had died in a riot in the hippodrome in 507, and had not designated anyone as successor by adoption or appointment as co-emperor or sub-emperor during his lifetime. His three adult nephews Hypatius , Pompeius and Probus , who had served as consuls successively between 500 and 502 , could not prevail. So finally Flavius ​​Iustinus , the commander of the imperial guard ( excubitores ), got his proclamation as emperor due to his good relations in the palace, perhaps with the participation of his nephew Petrus Sabbatius, the later emperor Justinian.

Anastasios was the last Roman emperor to bear the titles pontifex and pater patriae , and also the last to be called divus after his death .

rating

Anastasios pursued an overall successful financial and economic policy and stabilized the shaken position of the empire despite many crises. Although he suffered a few defeats in foreign policy (especially in the Balkans and in the war against the Sassanids , against whom he was only able to assert himself with heavy losses after severe setbacks) and de facto largely left the former western Roman area to its own devices, he was able to nevertheless defend the borders of the Eastern Empire in the end. Anastasios seems to have been a generally capable emperor who was perhaps just a little too inflexible. The judgment in the sources is ambivalent; Senatorial tradition describes the emperor as positive overall, while Christian historiography partly glorifies and partly demonizes him because of his polarizing religious policy.

The tablet of Anastasios I on the passage through the Dardanelles

literature

• Guglielmo Ballaira: I titoli trionfali dell'imperatore Anastasio I. In: Fabio Forner, Carla Maria Monti, Paul Gerhard Schmidt (eds.): Margarita amicorum. Studi di cultura europea per Agostino Sottili (= Bibliotheca erudita. Studi e documenti di storia e filologia. 26). Volume 1. Vita e Pensiero, Milan 2005, ISBN 88-343-1059-4 , pp. 63-80.
• Carmelo Capizzi: L'imperatore Anastasio I (491-518). Studio sulla sua vita, la sua opera e la sua personalità. Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientum, Rome 1969 ( Orientalia Christiana Analecta 184, ISSN  1590-7449 ).
• Peter Charanis: Church and State in the Later Roman Empire. The religious policy of Anastasius the First, 491-518. 2nd Edition. Kentron Byzantinon Ereunon, Thessalonike 1974 ( Byzantina keimena kai meletai 11, ZDB -ID 420491-8 ).
• Brian Croke: Poetry and Propaganda: Anastasius I as Pompey. In: Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies. 48, 2008, ISSN  0017-3916 , pp. 447-466, online (PDF; 291 kB) .
• Linda-Marie Günther : Anastasius. In: Manfred Clauss (Ed.): The Roman Emperors. 55 historical portraits from Caesar to Justinian. 2nd revised edition. Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47288-5 , pp. 418-424 and p. 475.
• Fiona K. Haarer: Anastasius I. Politics and Empire in the Late Roman World. Cairns, Cambridge 2006, ISBN 0-905205-43-X ( Arca 46), (Also: Oxford, Univ., Diss., 1998: The reign of Anastasius I, 491-518. ).
• AD Lee: Anastasius . In: Averil Cameron et al. (Ed.): The Cambridge Ancient History . Vol. 14, Cambridge 2000, pp. 52-62.
• Mischa Meier : Staurotheis di'hemas - The uprising against Anastasios in 512. In: Millennium . 4, 2007, pp. 157-237.
• Mischa Meier: Anastasios I. The emergence of the Byzantine Empire. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-608-94377-1 .
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 1: Aaron - Azarethes . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2007, ISBN 978-2-503-52303-3 , pp. 209-211.

Web links

Commons : Anastasios I.  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Hugh Elton: Short biography (English) at De Imperatoribus Romanis (with references).

Remarks

1. ↑ The solidus gold standard remained stable. The coin reform was based on the corresponding measures that Gunthamund, King of the Vandals , had carried out in Africa a few years earlier .
2. ↑ See Cod. Iust. XI, 1.1-2.
3. ↑ The chronicle of Hesychios of Miletus , who was born in the time of Anastasius and dealt with his reign, has not survived.
4. ↑ It was probably Anastasius who wanted to enforce the Henoticon , which was actually only intended for Egypt, as generally binding for the first time. Cf. Mischa Meier: Anastasios I. The emergence of the Byzantine Empire . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-608-94377-1 , p. 47.
5. ↑ The corresponding law in the Codex Iustinianus is very often mistakenly ascribed to Justinian I, but can be clearly assigned to Anastasius on the basis of papyrus finds. See Simon Corcoran: Anastasius, Justinian, and the Pagans . In: Journal of Late Antiquity 2, 2009, pp. 193ff.
6. ↑ See in detail Wolfram Brandes: Anastasios ho dikoros . End times expectation and imperial criticism in Byzantium around 500 AD. In: Byzantinische Zeitschrift 90, 1997, pp. 24–63.
7. ↑ See Henning Börm : The Western Roman Empire after 476 . In: Josef Wiesehöfer et al. (Ed.): Monumentum et instrumentum inscriptum . Stuttgart 2008, p. 47ff .; Mischa Meier: Anastasios I. The emergence of the Byzantine Empire . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-608-94377-1 , p. 370.
8. ↑ Cf. Matthias Becher: Chlodwig I. Munich 2011, p. 236f.
9. ↑ On this war, cf. in detail Geoffrey Greatrex: Rome and Persia at war . Leeds 1998.
10. ↑ In principle, the Roman imperial dignity was not hereditary in late antiquity anyway.
11. ↑ Hypatius was proclaimed anti- emperor 14 years later during the Nika uprising .
12. ↑ See Henning Börm: Review of: Meier, Mischa: Anastasios I. The emergence of the Byzantine Empire. Stuttgart 2009 . In: H-Soz-u-Kult , December 21, 2009.

predecessor	Office	successor
Zeno	Eastern Roman Emperor 491-518	Justin I.