Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

52 2. the eastern empire: theodosius to anastasius
most for Zeno. Although extreme Monophysites were unhappy at its failure
to condemn Chalcedon, others, including the patriarchs of Alexandria and
Antioch, were willing to endorse it, as was the patriarch of Constantinople,
Acacius (471–89), who rather surprisingly (given his see) was unenthusiastic
about Chalcedon. In the west, the pope was incensed by its ambivalent attitude
to Chalcedon and by Zeno and Acacius associating themselves with the
Monophysite patriarchs, and threatened to excommunicate them (484).
However, Zeno evidently judged that the benefits to be derived from a
greater degree of harmony within the east outweighed the disadvantages of
poor relations with the west. So began the so-called Acacian schism between
Rome and Constantinople which was to last until Anastasius’ death. 114
Zeno was also responsible for the final closing of the school at Edessa
(489) which had been an important centre for Antiochene theology in its
Nestorian guise – another way of trying to win the support of both
Monophysites and Chalcedonians. The closure was in fact largely symbolic,
since the majority of the teachers had some time before realized that the
tide of opinion in the eastern empire was increasingly against them and had
therefore established themselves afresh across the border at Nisibis in
Persia, from where they had long drawn many students anyway and where
Nestorian Christianity was to have an enduring future. 115
iii. anastasius
1. Politics and administration
Zeno died from dysentery (or perhaps epilepsy) on 9 April 491. His marriage
to Ariadne had produced no further male offspring after young Leo,
another son from a previous marriage had also predeceased him, 116 and
Zeno had nominated no successor. His brother Longinus believed that he
had a good claim to the throne, but after the turmoil of Zeno’s reign there
was little enthusiasm for another emperor of Isaurian origin. Court officials
and senators promptly met to discuss the succession and, perhaps unable
to agree on a suitable candidate themselves, they accepted the proposal of
the chief chamberlain Urbicius that Zeno’s widow Ariadne be invited to
nominate the successor. This surprising move must have been due not so
much to Ariadne’s status as the widow of the unpopular Zeno, as to her
being the daughter of Leo and the last surviving member of the imperial
family previous to Zeno’s reign. It is another interesting, if unusual,
example of the opportunities that both imperial eunuchs and imperial
women sometimes had to influence political life during the fifth century, in
114 Frend, Monophysite Movement 174–83;Gray,Defence of Chalcedon 28–34; Meyendorff, Imperial Unity
194–202. 115 Meyendorff, Imperial Unity 98–9. 116 PLRE ii, s.v. Zeno 4.
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