CHAPTER III THE EMPERORS AT CONSTANTINOPLE 476-527 Contrast between the fates of the Eastern and Western Empires—The East recovers its strength—Leo I. and the Isaurians—The Emperor Zeno and the rebellion against him—Wars of Zeno with the two Theodorics, 478-483—The ‘Henoticon’—Character of the Emperor Anastasius—Rebellion of the Isaurians—War with Persia, 503-5—The ‘Blue and Green’ Factions—Rebellion of Vitalian—Accession of Justin I. At Rome the emperors of the third quarter of the fifth century—all the ephemeral Caesars whose blood-stained annals fill the space between the death of Valentinian III. and the usurpation of Odoacer—had been the mere creatures of the barbarian, or semi-barbarian, ‘patricians’ and ‘masters of the soldiers,’ to whom they owed alike their elevations and their untimely ends. The history of those troubled years would be more logically arranged under the names of the Caesar-makers, Ricimer, Gundobad, Orestes, than under those of the unhappy puppets whom they manipulated. But, when we turn our eyes eastward to Constantinople, we are surprised to find how entirely different was the aspect of affairs. The Western Empire was rapidly falling to pieces, province after province dropping out of the power of the emperor, and becoming part of the realm of some Gothic, Burgundian, or Vandal prince, who paid the most shadowy homage, or no homage at all, to the ephemeral Caesar at Rome. [Sidenote: Contrast between Eastern and Western Empires.] The Eastern Empire, on the other hand, maintained its boundaries intact, and was slowly building up its strength for renewed activity in the next century. While nine emperors’ reigns filled no more than twenty-one years at Rome (455-476), two emperors were reigning for thirty-four years (457-491) on the Bosphorus. And the character of the rulers of East and West was as different as their fates: the short-lived Roman Caesars were either impotent nobodies raised to the throne by the caprice of the barbarian, or ambitious young soldiers who vainly dreamed that they might yet redeem the evil day, and save the State. Their contemporaries in the East, Leo, Zeno, and Anastasius, were three elderly officials, men of experience, if not of great ability, who followed each other in peaceable succession, and devoted their declining years to a cautious defensive policy, with the result that they left a full treasury, a strong and loyal army, and an intact realm behind them.