Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

The death of their great enemy sent the Roman world into wild jubilation, but it did nothing to alleviate the true danger. Valens had let them inside the frontiers, Theodosius had allowed them to stay, and now the barbarians had turned both of Theodosius’s sons into puppet emperors. For the moment, the barbarians were content to stay behind the throne, but how long before they decided to rule on their own? If the emperors didn’t break free soon, the empire would dissolve from within into petty barbarian kingdoms.

The western emperor Valentinian III attempted to escape first. Flushed with excitement in the wake of the Hun’s departure, he rashly decided to assassinate his barbarian master, Flavius Aetius. He carried out the deed personally, naively assuming that his freedom could be purchased with a simple thrust of the sword. The barbarian yoke, however, couldn’t be thrown off so easily. The death of one man didn’t diminish the barbarian influence, and Valentinian hadn’t done anything to inspire his citizens’ loyalty. Early the next year, two of Aetius’s men angrily cut the emperor down in broad daylight while the imperial bodyguard just watched impassively.

The assassination threw Rome into an uproar, and, in the chaos, Valentinian’s widow made the terrible decision to appeal to the Vandals for help. Only too happy to come swooping down on the beleaguered city, the barbarians immediately appeared with a large army and demanded that the gates be opened. For the third time in four decades, the old capital was at the mercy of its enemies, and though Pope Leo once again trudged out to plead for mercy, this time he was in a far weaker position. As Arian Christians, the Vandals didn’t have the faintest intention of listening to a pope, but, after an extended negotiation, they did agree to spare the lives of the inhabitants. For two weeks, they sacked the city, methodically stripping everything of value that they could find, even the copper from the temple roofs.^*

When there was nothing left, they departed from the shattered city with their loot, carrying off the empress and her daughters for good mea sure, to their North African capital of Carthage.†

After the reverses of the past few years, this most recent sack of the city wasn’t quite as shocking as the first, but it did convince the watching eastern court of the dangers of trying to shake off their barbarian masters. It was a lesson that Aspar, the Sarmatian general who currently had Constantinople securely under his thumb, hoped his courtiers had learned well.‡

Aspar’s Arian religion had made him far too unpopular to seize the throne himself, but he’d found a tame proxy in the person of a rather bland, safely Christian lieutenant named Leo. The general had simply had him crowned and settled down to rule the empire from his perch behind the throne.§

Leo was the perfect choice for a puppet. Somewhat “elderly” at fifty-six, he was a deferential, undistinguished man with two daughters, but he had no son to follow him on the throne. His reign would most likely be short, and with no pesky heirs to challenge the general, he would serve as the perfect conduit for Aspar’s power. The barbarian general was well connected, with a long career of service to the empire, a glittering reputation, and personal control over half the army. Even had Leo wanted to, there seemed little chance that with only a worthless title, the emperor could pose a threat to the general’s authority.

Confident in his own security, Aspar failed to realize that he had dangerously miscalculated. Leo had both the ability and, more important, the will to lead, and he didn’t intend to remain a figurehead for long. The new emperor wasn’t rash enough to move against his master at once. Assassinating Aspar—even if it were possible—would only accomplish his own early death, and in any case, where one overlord was cut down, another would inevitably rise to take his place. What Leo needed was a permanent solution to be rid of barbarian masters forever, and for that he had to strike at the true source of Aspar’s power—his control of the army.

Looking around for a military counterbalance to his overpowerful general, Leo found a perfect candidate in a man named Tarasicodissa. He was the leader of a tough mountain people from southern Asia Minor called the Isaurians, and since he wasn’t a native of the capital, he depended completely on the emperor for advancement. Traveling with a small group of men to the capital, Tarasicodissa managed to find evidence of treason by Aspar’s son, providing the emperor a perfect opportunity to publicly scold his barbarian master. Tarasicodissa was rewarded with both the hand of Leo’s daughter and a post equal to Aspar’s. The suddenly respectable Isaurian mercifully Hellenized his name to the more acceptable Zeno and soon became the darling of Constantinople’s polite society.