was succeeded by his
father Zeno, the son-in-law of the elder Leo. Zeno gave himself up at
once to debauchery and vice, while the empire was harassed on all sides
by the barbarians, and the provinces were roused into rebellion by the
cruelty of the prefects. The rebels at last found a head in Basilicus,
the brother-in-law of Leo. He declared himself of the Jacobite faith,
which was the faith of the barbarian enemies, of the barbarian troops,
and of the barbarian allies of the empire, and, proclaiming himself
emperor, made himself master of Constantinople without a battle, and
drove Zeno into banishment in the third year of his reign.

The first step of Basilicus was to recall from banishment Timotheus
AElurus, the late Bishop of Alexandria, and to restore him to the
bishopric (A.D. 477). He then addressed to him and the other recalled
bishops a circular letter, in which he repeals the decrees of the
council of Chalcedon, and re-establishes the Nicene creed, declaring
that Jesus was of one substance with the Father, and that Mary was the
mother of God. The march of Timotheus to the seat of his own government,
from Constantinople whither he had been summoned, was more like that
of a conqueror than of a preacher of peace. He deposed some bishops and
restored others, and, as the decrees of the council of Chalcedon were
the particular objects of his hatred, he restored to the city of Ephesus
the patriarchal power which that synod had taken away from it. Basilicus
reigned for about two years, when he was defeated and put to death by
Zeno, who regained the throne.

As soon as Zeno was again master of the empire, he re-established the
creed of the council of Chalcedon, and drove away the Jacobite bishops
from their bishoprics. Death, however, removed Timotheus AElurus before
the emperor's orders were put in force in Alexandria, and the Egyptians
then chose Peter Mongus as his successor, in direct opposition to the
orders from Constantinople. But the emperor was resolved not to be
beaten; the bishopric of Alexandria was so much a civil office that to
have given up the appointment to the Egyptians would have been to allow
the people to govern themselves; so he banished Peter, and recalled to
the head of the Church Timotheus Salophaciolus, who had been living at
Canopus ever since his loss of the bishopric.

But, as the patriarch of Alexandria enjoyed the ecclesiastical revenues,
and was still in appearance a teacher of religio