See also: Basilisque

Flavius Basiliscus († 477), is briefly Roman Emperor of the East of 475 with 476 when the emperor Zénon is forced to leave Constantinople by a revolt. Its birth date is unknown.

Basiliscus is the brother of Vérine, woman of the emperor Leon I {{er}} which dies in 474. Its relations with the emperor enable him to continue a military career, which, after the first minor successes, finishes into 468, after it led the Byzantine invasion against Africa Vandale - one of largest military operations of the late Antiquité - to the disaster.

Basiliscus succeeds in seizing the power into 475, by exploiting the unpopularity of Zénon, the successor “Barbare” of Leon, and a plot organized by Vérine which has as a consequence the escape of Zénon out of Constantinople. However, lasting its court reigns, Basiliscus alienates the Church and the people of Constantinople by promoting the christologic position monophysite in opposition to orthodoxy chalcédonienne largely accepted. Moreover, its policy of protection of its capacity by the distribution of role-key to honest men draws up against him them important characters of the court, including his/her Vérine sister. Thus, quans Zénon tries to take again its empire, it does not meet practically any opposition while entering Constantinople triumphantly and by capturing and killing Basiliscus and its family.

The combat between Basiliscus and Zénon prevented the intervention of the Byzantine Empire against the fall of the Roman Empire of Occident which takes place at the beginning of September 476. When the chief of the Hérules, Odoacre, deposits the emperor of Occident Romulus Augustule and returns the imperial Regalia to Constantinople, Zénon has just recovered its throne and can only recognize Odoacre dux of Italy. Thus the Roman Empire of Occident finishes.

Origins and beginning of career

Probably originating in the Balkans, Basiliscus is the brother of Vérine, the woman of Leon Ist He was constant that Basiliscus is the uncle d' Odoacre. This bond is based on the interpretation of a fragment of the patriarch Jean d' Antioche (209.1), who stipulates that Odoacre and Armatus, the nephew of Basiliscus, are brothers. It is known that Basiliscus has a woman, Zenonis, and at least a son, Marcus.

The military career of Basiliscus begins under Leon the Ist emperor, his brother-in-law, the dignity of dux confers to him, or commander-in-chief, in Thrace. In this province, Basiliscus conducts a victorious military campaign against the Bulgares in 463. It succeeds Rusticus as a Magister militum per Thracias (464), and is some successes against the Goths and the Huns (466 or 467).

The consideration of Leon for Basiliscus increases and the recession of Hook rope in favor of his/her brother helps the military career and policy of Basiliscus by obtaining the Consul At into 465 and probably also of the row of Patrice. Its rise however will know a brutal crushing argument.

Disastrous forwarding against the Vandals

In 468, Leon chooses Basiliscus as chief of famous forwarding against Carthage, capital of the kingdom vandal. this invasion one of the more military large companies is recorded in annals of the history. It is an operation amphibian which comprise the displacement of more than ten thousand ships and a hundred and thousand soldiers. The goal of the operation is the punishment of the king vandal Genséric for the Sac of Rome of 455 during which the old capital of the Roman Empire of Occident was devastated by the fifteen days that it lasted and the empress, Licinia Eudoxia, widow of Valentinien III, and his/her daughters were taken along like hostage. The weakest estimate for the expenditure is of: 64000 pounds of gold, a sum which exceeds one year whole of incomes.

Sardinia and Libya are already conquered by Marcellinus and Héraclius when Basiliscus drops anchor close to the Promontorium Mercurii , maintaining the Cape Bon, opposite Sicily, with an about sixty kilometers of Carthage. Genséric requires of Basiliscus five days to produce the conditions of a peace During the negotiations, Genséric gathers its ships and attacks suddenly floats it Roman. The Vandals filled good number of vessels with combustible material and, during the night, these Brûlot S is launched against the Roman fleet which was not wary. The Roman commanders try to save some ships of the destruction, but their operations are prevented by the attack of other ships vandals. Half of the Roman fleet is burned, run or captured, and other half flees with Basiliscus. All forwarding is a failure. Héraclius makes retirement through the desert towards Tripolotania, holding the position during two years before being recalled; Marcellinus is withdrawn in Sicily where it is joined by Basiliscus.

Rise with the capacity

In 471 and 472, Basiliscus helps Leon to get rid of the Germanic influence at its court, fomenting with him the meutre magister militum Alain Aspar. The death of Aspar is followed of a revolt to Thrace carried out by the Ostrogoth Theodoric Strabo. Basiliscus is sent to subdue the revolt, which it succeeds in doing with the assistance of its nephew Armatus. In 474, it is high with the row of caput senatus (“first among the senators”) with the palate of the Hebdomon by the palatine officers and the Senate. The crowd of Constantinople still has her revenche on Zénon by almost killing all Isauriens in the city.

At the beginning, all seems well to go for the new emperor, who even tries to initiate a new dynasty by conferring the title of Augusta on his wife Aelia Zenonis and by naming his son Marcus césar, then later majestic. However, because of its bad management as an emperor, Basiliscus quickly loses the majority of its supports.

Reign

Corruption and fire in Constantinople

The most urgent problem which arises for the new emperor is the shortage of imperial financial resources of the state. Basiliscus is thus obliged to raise heavy taxes and to return to the practice of the sale of stations to highest offerer, proclamation of a diffuse dissatisfaction in the population causes. He extorts also money from the Church with the assistance of the prefect Epinicus, the favorite of Hook rope. Fire is seen as ill omen for the continuation of the reign of Basiliscus

Moreover, Théodoric Strabo, of which hatred for Isaurien Zénon pushes it á to support the revolt of Basiliscus, leaves the sides of the emperor. Basiliscus indeed raises its Armatus nephew, whose rumor makes of him the lover of the woman of Basiliscus, with the row of magiter militum , the same one as Strabo. Lastly, the support of Illus is probably more hesitant, being given the massacres of Isauriens authorized by basiliscus.

Since the beginning of its reign, Basiliscus expresses its support for the monophysites. Zacharias Scholasticus brings back how a group of Egyptian monks monophysites, having learned the news from died from Leon, go from Alexandria to Constantinople to subject to Zénon a request in favor of Timothée, but on their arrival in the capital lately, they find Basiliscus elected emperor. The magister officiorum Theoctistus, the former doctor of Basiliscus, is the brother of one of these monks, the delegation obtains an audience from Basiliscus thus, and with the support of Theoctistus and of the empress, they convince Basiliscus to point out to exile the patriarchs monphysites.

Basiliscus thus reinstalls Timothée Aelurus and Pierre the Fuller and on the insistence of this last emits a circular ( Enkyklikon ) with the bishops (the April 9th 475), inviting them to accept like valid only the first three oecumenical synods and to reject the council of Chalcédoine.

Fall and dead

Little time after its rise, Basiliscus dispatches Illus and his/her Trocundus brother against Zénon, which, now main of the fortresses of its grounds of Isaurie, took again its life of war leader. Basiliscus, however, hardly to fulfill the promises made to the two generals: moreover, they receive letters of one of the important Ministers for the court, pressing them to bring back Zénon, because the city prefers now an emperor isaurien restored rather than a monophysite, whose unpopularity increases with the tax rapacity of its ministers. Armatus avoids the road intentionally that takes Zénon and walk on Isaurie by another way. This treason precipitates the fall of Basiliscus. The Senate opens the doors of the city in Isaurien, allowing him to recover its throne. Basiluscus flees and seeks sanctuary in a church, but it is betrayed by Acacius. It then goes itself with its family after having torn off the solemn promise that their blood would not be widespread. Basiliscus, his wife Aelia Zenonis and her Marcus son are sent in a fortress in Cappadoce, where Zénon locks up them in a drained cistern and lets them die.

Basiliscus reigned for twenty month. It is described by the historical sources like a good general, but lack clearness and easy to disappoint

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