rician and master of the
soldiers, and granting him lands in Dacia and lower Moesia. These
concessions were made in consequence of the antagonism which had developed
between the emperor and his all-powerful minister Illus. This friction
culminated in 484 A. D. when Illus, who was master of the soldiers in the
Orient, induced the dowager empress Verina to crown a general, named
Leontius, as emperor. But outside of Isauria the movement found little
support and after a long siege in an Isaurian fortress the leaders of the
revolt were taken and put to death (488 A. D.). In the meantime Theoderic
the Amal had asked and received an imperial warrant for the conquest of
Italy, and with the departure of the Goths the eastern empire was
delivered from the danger of Germanic domination. Zeno died in April, 491
A. D.

*Anastasius, 491-518 A. D.* The choice of a successor was left to the
empress Ariadne, who selected as emperor and her husband an experienced
officer of the court, Anastasius. The first act of Anastasius was to
remove the Isaurian officials and troops from Constantinople. This led to
an Isaurian rebellion in southern Asia Minor which was not stamped out
until 498. In the struggle the power of the Isaurians was broken, their
strongholds were captured, part of their population transported to Thrace,
and they ceased to be a menace to the peace of the empire.

In the place of the Goths new enemies appeared on the Danubian border in
the Slavic Getae and the Bulgars who overran the depopulated provinces of
the northern Balkan peninsula. So extended were their ravages and so
utterly did the imperial troops fail to hold them in check that Anastasius
was obliged to build a wall across the peninsula, upon which the city of
Constantinople stands, for the protection of the capital itself.
Anastasius had also to cope with a serious Persian war which began with an
invasion of Roman Armenia and Mesopotamia by King Kawad in 502 A. D. After
four years of border warfare, in which the Persians gained initial success
but the fortune of the Roman arms was restored by the master of the
offices Celer, peace was reestablished on the basis of the _status quo
ante_.

The civil administration of Anastasius is noteworthy for the abolition of
the tax called the _chrysargyrum_ (498 A. D.), and his relief of the
_curiales_ from the responsibility for the collection of the municipal
taxes. A testimony of the increasing influences of Christian mora