87 ANTHEMIUS (c.52: r.467-472) (W)
Sea Battle: Cape Bon Tunisia Gaiseric/Basiliscus 468
The main invasion force numbering more than a thousand vessels and over fifty thousand troops set sail for Carthage while another force under Heraclius of Edessa (fl.468-474) was to defeat Vandal forces in Tripolitania before proceeding overland to reinforce Basiliscus’ landing. At the same time a fleet led by Marcellinus was to secure Sicily and Sardinia
While Basiliscus’ fleet lay idle in a small port located on Cape Bon east of Carthage, the Vandals took advantage of favourable winds and sent in fire ships that wreaked havoc on the Roman forces. The expedition ended in disaster and Basiliscus fled back to Constantinople. Accused of having accepted a bribe from Aspar, who was perhaps sympathetic towards the Vandals, Basiliscus fled to the altar of Sancta Sophia, and was saved from execution only through the influence of his sister the empress. Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, temporarily taken by the Romans, were recaptured by Gaiseric who remained in control of the Mediterranean. In that same year Marcellinus was murdered in Sicily. Meanwhile, Vandal ships plundered the coasts of Illyricum and Greece
Aspar (c.71; fl.424-471), Magister Militum (East)
In 457 when Leo became emperor, the magister militum per Orientem Aspar was unchallenged in the East. Aspar’s influence rested mainly on the support of Germanics and other barbarians serving in the army. Aspar himself was surrounded by a large bodyguard of Goths and Theodoric Strabo (fl.459-481), Aspar’s brother-in-law, was the leader of the Moesian Ostrogoths that had settled in Thrace in the 420s. From the mid-460’s Leo sought to counter Aspar’s power by recruiting soldiers from all over Anatolia. He especially focused on the highland Isaurians from south-central Anatolia and founded the Excubitors, an imperial guard unit of three hundred men.
The Isaurian leader Tarsicodissa, the future emperor 73Flavius Zeno (66; fl.464-491), was the Excubitors’ first leader. In 466 Aspar’s son Ardabur (cos.447) was dismissed from his military command after Zeno produced evidence that showed that Ardabur was in treasonable communication with Persia.
In 467 Zeno was appointed magister militum per Thracia and given Ariadne, (c.55; fl.467-515) the emperor’s daughter, in marriage In 468 Zeno was sent to Thrace and his troops, instigated perhaps by Aspar, tried to murder him. He managed to escape and in Thrace he was succeeded by Anagastes.
In 469 Anagastes defeated the Huns and killed Attila’s son Dengizich. The consulship that year was given to 74Flavius Jordanes (fl.466-470), the current magister militum per Orientem (?-469), who was replaced in the East by Zeno (469-471). Anagastes, angered at being overlooked after his defeat of the Huns, rebelled and captured a number of forts. But after meeting envoys from court he returned to allegiance and produced evidence that Ardabur had encouraged the revolt.
In 470 Leo, when pressed by Aspar, agreed to give his daughter Leontia (>22; 457-479+) in marriage to Aspar’s son 47Julius
Patricius (fl.459-471) and to elevate his future son-in-law to the rank of caesar, which would thus put him in line to become emperor. In 470 Zeno reported that Ardabur was plotting to win the Isaurians away from Leo. In 471 rumours of plots seem to have set off riots in Constantinople against Aspar, who had to withdraw to Chalcedon. Proposing a settlement, the emperor invited the general and his sons to the palace. There he had Aspar and Ardabur murdered.Some Ostrogoths troops under Aspar’s officer Ostrys tried to storm the palace, but were cut down by some Isaurian guards. Ostrys escaped to the Ostrogoths in Thrace and their leader Theodoric Strabo, Aspar’s brother-in-law, immediately raised a revolt. Leo having neither the money nor the forces to buy Strabo off initially rejected Strabo’s demands but eventually agreed to recognize him as the king of the Thracian Ostrogoths, appoint him magister militum praesentalis and grant him an annual subsidy of two thousand pounds of gold (473).
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