ANASTASIUS I 491AD Decanummium Large I Authentic Ancient Byzantine Coin i51197

Anastasius
I (Latin:
Flavius Anastasius Dicorus Augustus,
Greek
:
Ἀναστάσιος; c. 431 – 9 July 518) was
Byzantine Emperor
from 491 to 518. During his
reign the Roman eastern frontier underwent extensive re-fortification, including
the construction of
Dara
, a stronghold intended to counter the
Persian fortress of
Nisibis
. During his reign was built one of the
most fortified castle cities on the Adriatic
Durrës Castle
in
Durrës
.

Background and personal characteristics

Anastasius was born at
Dyrrhachium
in the Latin-speaking part of the
Balkans; the date is unknown, but he is thought to have been born no later than
430 or 431. He was born into an
Illyrian
family, the son of Pompeius (born c.
410), nobleman of Dyrrachium, and wife Anastasia Constantina (born c.
410). His mother was an
Arian
, sister of Clearchus, also an Arian, and
a paternal granddaughter of Gallus (born c. 370), son of Anastasia (born
c. 352) and husband, in turn daughter of Flavius Claudius
Constantius Gallus
and wife and cousin
Constantina
.

Anastasius had one eye black and one eye blue (heterochromia),
and for that reason he was nicknamed Dicorus (Greek: Δίκορος, “two-pupiled“).

Accession

At the time of the death of
Zeno
(491), Anastasius, a palace official (silentiarius),
held a very high character, and was raised to the throne of the Eastern Roman
Empire by
Ariadne
, Zeno’s widow, who preferred him to
Zeno’s brother,
Longinus
.

Ariadne married him shortly after his accession on 20 May 491. His reign,
though afterwards disturbed by foreign and internecine wars and religious
distractions, commenced auspiciously. He gained the popular favour by a
judicious remission of taxation, and displayed great vigour and energy in
administering the affairs of the Empire.

Foreign policy and
wars

Anastasius engaged in the
Isaurian War
against the usurper
Longinus
and the
Anastasian War
against Sassanid Persia.

The Isaurian War (492-497) was stirred up by the
Isaurian
supporters of Longinus, the brother of
Zeno who was passed over in his succession in favor of Anastasius. The
battle of Cotyaeum
in 492 “broke the back” of
the revolt, but
guerrilla warfare
continued in the Isaurian
mountains for some years longer.

In the
Anastasian War
(502–505),
Theodosiopolis
and
Amida
were captured by the Sassanids, but
Persian provinces also suffered severely and the Byzantines recovered Amida.
Both adversaries were exhausted when peace was made in 506 on the basis of the
status quo. Anastasius afterwards built the strong fortress of
Daras
to hold the Persians in check in
Nisibis
. The
Balkan
provinces were left denuded of troops,
however, and were devastated by invasions of
Slavs
and
Bulgars
; to protect
Constantinople
and its vicinity against them,
the emperor built the
Anastasian Wall
, extending from the
Propontis
to the
Euxine
.

Domestic
and ecclesiastical policies

The Emperor was a convinced
Miaphysite
, following the teachings of
Cyril of Alexandria
and
Severus of Antioch
who taught “One Incarnate
Nature of Christ” in an undivided union of the Divine and human natures, but his
ecclesiastical policy was moderate; he endeavoured to maintain the principle of
the Henotikon
of Zeno and the peace of the church.
It was rebellious demonstrations of the Byzantine populace, that drove him in
512 to abandon this policy and adopt Miaphysitic programme. His consequent
unpopularity in the European provinces was utilized by an ambitious man, named
Vitalian
, to organize a dangerous rebellion, in
which he was assisted by a horde of “Huns”
(514–515); it was finally suppressed by a naval victory won by the general
Marinus
.

Successor

The
Anonymous Valesianus
tells an account about
his choosing of a successor: Anastasius could not decide which of his three
nephews should succeed him, so he put a message under a couch and had his
nephews take seats in the room, which also had two other seats; he believed that
the nephew to sit on the special couch would be his proper heir. However, two of
his nephews sat on the same couch, and the one with the concealed message
remained empty.

Then, after putting the matter to God in
prayer
, he determined that the first person to
enter his room the next morning should be the next Emperor, and that person was
Justin
, the chief of his guards. In fact,
Anastasius probably never thought of Justin as a successor, but the issue was
decided for him after his death. At the end of his reign, he left the Imperial
treasury richer by 23,000,000 solidi or 320,000 pounds of gold.

Anastasius died childless in Constantinople on 9 July 518 (some sources say 8
or 10 July) and was buried at the
Church of the Holy Apostles
.

Family

Anastasius is known to have had a brother named
Flavius Paulus
, who served as
Roman consul
in 496. A sister-in-law, known as
Magna, was mother to Irene and mother-in-law to
Olybrius
. This Olybrius was son of
Anicia Juliana
and
Areobindus Dagalaiphus Areobindus
. The daughter
of Olybrius and Irene was named Proba. She married Probus and was mother to a
younger Juliana. This younger Juliana married another Anastasius and was mother
of Areobindus, Placidia, and a younger Proba. Another nephew of Anastasius was
Flavius Probus
, Roman consul in 502. Caesaria,
sister of Anastasius, married Secundinus. They were parents to
Hypatius
and
Pompeius
. Flavius
Anastasius Paulus Probus Moschianus Probus Magnus
,
Roman Consul in 518 also was a great-nephew of Anastasius. His daughter Juliana
later married
Marcellus
, a brother of
Justin II
. The extensive family may well have
included viable candidates for the throne.

Byzantine
Empire coinage reform

The main elements of the complex monetary system of the early Byzantine
Empire, which suffered a partial collapse in the 5th century, were revived by
Emperor Anastasius I (491–518) in 498. The new system involved three
denominations of gold (the solidus and its half and third) and five of copper
(the follis, worth 40 nummi and its fractions down to a nummus).

A 40 nummi coin of Anastasius is depicted on the
obverse
of the
Macedonian
50
denars
banknote, issued in 1996.

The
Byzantine Empire, or Eastern Roman Empire, was the
predominantly
Greek
-speaking eastern half continuation and
remainder of the
Roman Empire
during
Late Antiquity
and the
Middle Ages
. Its capital city was
Constantinople
(modern-day
Istanbul
), originally founded as
Byzantium
. It survived the
fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire

in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years
until it
fell
to the
Ottoman Turks
in 1453. During most of its
existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military
force in Europe. Both “Byzantine Empire” and “Eastern Roman Empire” are
historiographical terms created after the end of the realm; its citizens
continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire (Ancient Greek:
Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων,
tr.

Basileia Rhōmaiōn;
Latin
: Imperium Romanum),
or Romania (Ῥωμανία), and to themselves as
“Romans”.

Several events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the transitional period
during which the Roman Empire’s
east and west

divided
. In 285, the
emperor

Diocletian
(r. 284–305) partitioned the Roman
Empire’s administration into eastern and western halves. Between 324 and 330,
Constantine I
(r. 306–337) transferred the main
capital from Rome
to
Byzantium
, later known as Constantinople
(“City of Constantine”) and Nova Roma (“New Rome”). Under
Theodosius I
(r. 379–395),
Christianity
became the Empire’s official
state religion
and others such as
Roman polytheism
were
proscribed
. And finally, under the reign of
Heraclius
(r. 610–641), the Empire’s military
and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use instead
of Latin. Thus, although it continued the Roman state and maintained Roman state
traditions, modern historians distinguish
Byzantium
from
ancient Rome
insofar as it was oriented towards
Greek rather than Latin culture, and characterised by
Orthodox Christianity
rather than
Roman polytheism
.

The borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it
went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of
Justinian I
(r. 527–565), the Empire reached
its greatest extent after reconquering much of the historically Roman western
Mediterranean
coast, including north Africa,
Italy, and Rome itself, which it held for two more centuries. During the reign
of
Maurice
(r. 582–602), the Empire’s eastern
frontier was expanded and the north stabilised. However, his assassination
caused a
two-decade-long war
with
Sassanid Persia
which exhausted the Empire’s
resources and contributed to major territorial losses during the
Muslim conquests
of the 7th century. In a
matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the
Arabs.

During the
Macedonian dynasty
(10th–11th centuries), the
Empire again expanded and experienced a two-century long
renaissance
, which came to an end with the loss
of much of Asia Minor to the
Seljuk Turks
after the
Battle of Manzikert
in 1071. This battle opened
the way for the Turks to settle in
Anatolia
as a homeland.

The final centuries of the Empire exhibited a general trend of decline. It
struggled to
recover during the 12th century
, but was
delivered a mortal blow during the
Fourth Crusade
, when Constantinople was sacked
and the Empire
dissolved and divided
into competing Byzantine
Greek and
Latin realms
. Despite the eventual recovery of
Constantinople and
re-establishment of the Empire in 1261
,
Byzantium remained only one of several small rival states in the area for the
final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were
progressively annexed by the Ottomans
over the
15th century. The
Fall of Constantinople
to the
Ottoman Empire
in 1453 finally ended the
Byzantine Empire.