Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
In 476, barbarians laid waste to the city
of Rome and the West fell into a thousand
years of darkness where all knowledge was
forgotten and life became nasty, brutish and
short.
Well to that I say: (strained, frustrated
screaming) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!
This video was brought to you by Useful Charts.
Yes that Useful Charts!
I’ve been working with the owner Matt Baker
on his youtube channel for about a year and
a half, and on top of making some really cool
videos on family histories his charts were
like my only piece of decor in my college
apartment, I love getting ready in the morning
and being like “Ooh, I wonder who that person
is” I’ll be using one of his charts in
this video, and if you want to pick up a copy
you can go to usefulcharts.com or follow the
link in the description.
So the year is 450-ish and there’s two Romes
that are technically the same country, one
in the West with its capital in Ravenna for
some reason and one in the East with its capital
in Constantinople.
Ravenna’s on the fast-track to desolation
but Constantinople’s taking the scenic route.
The Eastern emperor dies and this guy Aspar
wants to be in charge, but he’s the wrong
kind of Christian so he’s not allowed to
be emperor, so he puts a couple old dudes
with no sons in charge so he can swap ‘em
out every couple years while he stays as the
real head honcho.
One of those emperors is named Leo, and in
addition to looking like a Ryan George thumbnail
he’s not cool with Aspar and his German
friends calling the shots, so he hires a bunch
of bodyguards from Asian Sparta and one of
them tattles on Aspar and his son, the two
of them get the axe and Leo says “Congratulations
my boy, what is your name!” and he says
“My name is Tarasis Kodisa Rousombladadiotes”
and Leo says “Holy shit no, how about Zeno?”
“That’s cool!” and Zeno marries the
emperor’s daughter.
So Zeno’s son takes over after Leo dies,
but then he dies and hey presto Asian Spartan
bodyguard man is now in charge of the Roman
Empire.
And he’s, like, decent, but everyone kind
of hates him because Asian Sparta was actually
this place here called Isauria, and everyone
thought the Isaurians were foreigners even
though they were part of the empire for 500
years, basically everybody thought he was
a hick.
So then a whole bunch of people lead a revolt
against him and this is usually the part where
everyone wants names and dates and has no
idea what’s going on, and that is where
this week our sponsor comes to save the day.
Behold!
A convenient chart to demonstrate the relationships
between members of the royal family that also
happens to include every single Roman emperor
between Augustus and Maurice, isn’t that
useful!
Charts.
Dot com.
So at the head of this revolt is Zeno’s
mother-in-law Verina.
She and her brother Basiliscus are working
together to take down Zeno and replace him
with - okay, here we go - and replace him
with Verina’s lover Patricius.
They also get two generals to help out - an
Isaurian named Illus and a guy named Theodoric
Strabo who was a Byzantine general but also
part of the Ostrogothic royal family - just
picture Aragorn and you’re good.
There was also another general but he doesn’t
really matter because this is getting complicated
enough as it is.
The plot ends up being successful because
Zeno has no friends, and then Basiliscus decides
to ruin literally everything and make so many
enemies I had to make a list.
Verina - kills her lover and takes the throne
for himself.
Then he lets a mob run through the city and
kill all the Isaurians, so there’s Ilus
pissed off, and then for Theodoric Basiliscus
decides that the best co-general for him would
be his nephew who had previously sent Theodoric
the severed hands of his comrades when he
rebelled a few years ago but whose most memorable
military accomplishment was parading around
town cosplaying as achilles.
So with everyone fighting each other and half
of Basiliscus’ friends switching sides,
by the time Zeno showed up at Constantinople
with an army in 476, the Senate just opens
the gates and invites him in.
Basiliscus runs to a church for shelter and
makes Zeno swear before Jesus that he won’t
spill his blood, and Zeno, being a compassionate
man, upholds his promise, by locking Basiliscus
in a cistern until he died of exposure.
Speaking of 476, within like two weeks of
becoming emperor again guess what the Western
Empire fell except guess what, hot take, not
exactly!
What actually happened is that one of the
generals got tired of a different general
taking over Italy every year and decided to
take over Italy.
Odoacer, the guy who took over?
He may have been a Goth, but he was living
in Italy and part of the Roman army!
In fact the Roman Senate, you know that thing
allegedly created by Romulus in 753 BC and
perhaps the only institution to survive in
some meaningful form throughout the entirety
of Rome’s existence?
They supported Odacer and in fact he made
them stronger!
The guy he replaced wasn’t even recognized
outside of Italy!
It’s not like everybody just stopped being
Roman as soon as a German took over, they’d
already had emperors born in Gaul and Africa,
the only thing that changed was that he technically
unified the empire by making Zeno the sole
emperor of Rome while Odoacer operated mostly
independently as a vassal.
Eventually he started using the word king,
which was a big no-no ever since the Republic,
but you know what else was a big no-no for
hundreds of years?
Christianity!
Anyway Zeno’s not super happy about it,
but there’s not a whole lot he can do because
right on his doorstep is a very powerful Ostrogothic
Kingdom that isn’t super friendly, ruled
by a man… also named Theodoric.
Well, since getting his enemies to fight each
other worked so well last time, Zeno sends
his own Theodoric out to fight him, except
when they run into each other they team up
and demand more land.
Zeno then falls back on the oldest strategy
known to Rome - pay your problems away!
He can’t bribe Theo 1 and Theo 2 to fight
each other, so he invites the Bulgars to do
it for him, but then Theodoric the general
wins and is about to open up a can of whoop-ass
on Zeno when he accidentally impales himself
with a spear.
So then Theo the King shows up and Zeno cries
“Do it to the West, not me!
Do it to Julia!” and it… kind of worked?
I mean Theodoric Red-Wedding’d Odoacer and
became twice as powerful but he actually left
the Eastern Empire alone!
Meanwhile Christianity is tearing itself apart
because no one understands the Trinity and
Zeno somehow manages to make things worse
by simultaneously picking a side while also
refusing to make any kind of meaningful theological
statement.
And then he died, and he had a brother who
was kinda sorta supposed to be next, but Zeno’s
wife hated him (and his brother) and so she
put this guy Anastasius in charge, but the
point is Zeno’s dead and that’s as far
as I can go before this episode gets way too
expensive.
But!
I already made a video on the Useful Charts
channel where I go through the entire history
of the Byzantine Empire!
Once again you can pick up a copy of this
beautiful Roman Emperors chart or this timeline
of world history or any other European or
Asian family tree, heck anything else from
the alphabet to the tree of life at usefulcharts.com.
Thanks for watching
