Zeno (Byzantine emperor)

Zeno, who lived from around 425 to 9 April 491, served as eastern Roman emperor in two separate periods, from 29 January 474 to 9 January 475 and again from August 476 to 9 April 491. Born Tarasis in Isauria, he adopted the Greco-Roman name Zeno and rose to prominence through his 466 marriage to Ariadne, daughter of Emperor Leo I; their son Leo II became emperor at age seven after Leo I's death in 474, with Zeno appointed co-emperor. A conspiracy led by the dowager empress Verina forced Zeno to flee Constantinople in early 475, ceding power to the usurper Basiliscus, but Zeno reclaimed the throne in 476 after Basiliscus lost popular support. After the deposition of the western emperor Romulus Augustulus that same year, the Germanic leader Odoacer sent the imperial insignia to Constantinople, acknowledging Zeno as theoretical sole ruler of a reunified empire, and Zeno managed the ongoing Gothic threat by manipulating rival Ostrogothic leaders against each other. In 482 he issued the Henotikon, an attempt to reconcile the Chalcedonian and Miaphysite factions of Christianity, which ultimately failed and triggered the Acacian schism with Rome that lasted until 519. Zeno died without a male heir and was succeeded by Anastasius I, chosen by his widow Ariadne.