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 chap, xxxix] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 185 ambition. But the palace of Constantinople was ruled by female influence, and agitated by female passions; and Verina, the widow of Leo, claiming his empire as her own, pronounced a sentence of deposition against the worthless and ungrateful servant on whom she alone had bestowed the sceptre of the East. 8 As soon as she sounded a revolt in the ears of Zeno, he fled with precipitation into the mountains of Isauria, and [a.d. 475. her brother Basiliscus, already infamous by his African expedi- tion, 9 was unanimously proclaimed by the servile senate. But the reign of the usurper was short and turbulent. Basiliscus presumed to assassinate the lover of his sister; he dared to offend the lover of his wife, the vain and insolent Harmatius, who, in the midst of Asiatic luxury, affected the dress, the demeanour, and the surname of Achilles. 10 By the conspiracy of the malcontents, Zeno was recalled from exile ; the armies, [ 477 A. D< ] the capital, the person of Basiliscus were betrayed ; and his whole family was condemned to the long agony of cold and hunger by the inhuman conqueror, who wanted courage to encounter or to forgive his enemies. The haughty spirit of Verina was still incapable of submission or repose. She pro- voked the enmity of a favourite general, embraced his cause as soon as he was disgraced, created a new emperor in Syria and Egypt, raised an army of seventy thousand men, and [verina's persisted to the last moment of her life in a fruitless rebellion, 486 a ] th?AD which, according to the fashion of the age, had been predicted by Christian hermits and Pagan magicians. While the East was afflicted by the passions of Verina, her daughter Ariadne was distinguished by the female virtues of mildness and fidelity ; she followed her husband in his exile, and after his restoration she implored his clemency in favour of her mother. On the decease of Zeno, Ariadne, the daughter, the mother, and the of Anasta- widow of an emperor, gave her hand, and the Imperial title to I^iSisfipr. S1U6- A.D. 421-518, Ap 11, July 8 8 Theophanes (p. Ill) inserts a copy of her sacred letters to the provinces : tare 8ti QacrlXeiov rijxtTtpSv eo"ri . ■ . koX oti Trpoexeiprfa&neda. &affiea Tpa<TKa?<Ai(raiov, &0. Such female pretensions would have astonished the slaves of the first Cassars. [This notice of Theophanes comes from Malalas ; see the fragment in Hermes, vi. 371 (publ. by Mommsen).] 9 Above, p. 34 sqq. 10 Suidas, torn. i. p. 332, 333, edit. Kuster. [One of the chief causes of the fall of Basiliscus was his fatal policy of restoring the primacy in the Eastern Church to the see of Ephesus at the expense of Constantinople. This won for him the powerful opposition of the Patriarch Acacius. See Zacharias Myt., v. 3-5.]