ed Augustae of the Eastern Empire--Eudoxia, Pulcheria and
Eudocia, and Theodora--we shall group into one chapter our brief
consideration of the lives and characters of the less renowned but no
less pronounced Augustae of the intervening periods--Verina, Ariadne,
Sophia, Martina, and Irene.

Verina and her daughter Ariadne, through their wickedness and ambition,
cast dark shadows over the otherwise bright history of the house of Leo
the Great. Verina, the imperial consort of Leo, was a woman of little
cultivation but of great natural gifts, fond of intrigue, ambitious of
power, and implacable in hatred and revenge. Of her two daughters,
Ariadne had married Zeno the Isaurian, one of the most illustrious and
able officials of the Empire. Leo, the offspring of this union, was
selected as the heir and successor of Leo I., but upon the death of the
lad, shortly after his accession, Zeno was raised to the throne, much to
the disgust of the empress-mother Verina. She fostered'a conspiracy for
the downfall of Zeno and the elevation of Patricius, her paramour, and
as a result of her intrigues Zeno had to forsake his throne and flee to
the mountain fastnesses of Isauria, his native country, together with
his wife Ariadne and his mother Lallis. Verina's brother, Basiliscus,
aspired to the throne, but she opposed his claims in order to win the
purple for Patricius. After Zeno's flight, however, the ministers and
senators elected Basiliscus as his successor, and the new emperor
entered upon a most unpopular and checkered reign of only twenty months.
His queen was named Zenonis, a young and beautiful woman, who soon
gained an unenviable reputation because of her manifest fondness for her
husband's nephew Harmatius, a young fop, noted for his good looks and
his effeminate manners. An ancient chronicler tells the story of this
intrigue:

"Basiliscus permitted Harmatius, inasmuch as he was a kinsman, to
associate freely with the empress Zenonis. Their intercourse became
intimate, and, as they were both persons of no ordinary beauty, they
became extravagantly enamored of each other. They used to exchange
glances of the eyes, they used constantly to turn their faces and smile
at each other, and the passion which they were obliged to conceal was
the cause of grief and vexation. They confided their trouble to Daniel,
a eunuch, and to Maria, a midwife, who hardly healed their malady by the
remedy of bringing them together. Then Zenonis coaxe