Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

the court: the human element 149
Theodora’s family was not left far behind. Her daughter by an earlier liaison
probably married Anastasius’ grand-nephew; the empress managed to
marry the grandson that resulted from that union to Belisarius’ daughter,
and so attached the great general’s family to her own. Another relative
occupied a lucrative post in the palace administration and earned his keep
when he uncovered a potential conspiracy. 79 In similar fashion, Maurice’s
accession brought new wealth to his family. 80
Once these families reached the top, most showed remarkable staying
power, especially in the light of the upheavals that wracked the broader
society and economy of the sixth century. None of Anastasius’ relatives
followed him to the throne, but his descendants have been tracked in positions
of prominence and power over the next five generations. It is interesting
that the aristocratic eighth-century patriarch of Constantinople who
dared oppose imperial iconoclasm bore the name Germanus, so well
attested in Justinian’s family, and was himself the son of a seventh-century
patrician Justinian.
What we have been discussing so far looks like family patronage, the parcelling
out of wealth and position on the basis of kinship. In fact, kinship
meant more within the imperial palace. Family links functioned as a tool of
governance as well as a key component of court society. Thus, between 468
and 476, the generals Basiliscus, Armatus and Nepos were related to the
empress Verina by blood or marriage, while another two, Zeno and
Marcianus, married her daughters. Indeed, Odoacer may have been Verina’s
nephew, and the coincidence of the coup d’état in Ravenna and Basiliscus’
usurpation takes on new meaning. 81 In any event, Julius Nepos, who had
seized the western throne with Leo I’s support, was certainly married to a
relative of Verina, which helps explain why she pressured Zeno not to
abandon Nepos.
Zeno’s own kin in turn supplemented and perhaps counterbalanced his
mother-in-law’s relations: we have already seen that his son by an earlier
marriage had been groomed for the succession, but he died young. Zeno’s
brother Longinus was magister militum praesentalis and twice ordinary consul,
granting the Isaurian highlander honour and a chance to gain favour in
Constantinople through consular largess. Malalas identifies the Isaurian
general Illus, magister officiorum, patrician and consul, as Zeno’s uncle, 82
which suggests that the Isaurian emperor reached beyond the military
bureaucracy to control the key post of magister officiorum through kinship or,
at the least, ethnic solidarity. The same holds for another Illus or two, who
were praetorian prefects of the east in this period. 83
79 Procop. Wars vii.32.17; Anth. Gr. vii.590 with Cameron, Alan (1978) 268; Theoph. AM 6055.
80 John Eph. HE iii.5.18. 81 Krautschick (1986).
82 Demandt (1989) 188 n. 29, contra PLRE ii s.v. Illus 1.
83 PLRE ii s.v. Fl. Illus Pusaeus D. . .; Illus 2.
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