Everything about Leo I Of The Byzantine Empire totally explained
Flavius Valerius Leo (
401–
18 January 474), known in English as
Leo the Thracian or
Leo I, was a
Byzantine emperor who ruled from
457 to
474. He was known as
Magnus Thrax (the "Great Thracian") by his supporters, and
Leo the Butcher by his enemies.
Reign
Born Leo Marcellus in
Thrace in the year
401, he served in the
Roman army, rising through the ranks. He was the last of a series of emperors placed on the throne by
Aspar, the
Alan serving as commander-in-chief of the army, who thought Leo would be an easy
puppet ruler.
Leo's
coronation as emperor on
February 7 457, was the first known to involve the
Patriarch of Constantinople. Leo I made an alliance with the
Isaurians and was thus able to eliminate Aspar. The price of the alliance was the marriage of Leo's daughter to Tarasicodissa, leader of the Isaurians who, as
Zeno, became emperor in 474. In
469 Aspar attempted to assasinate Leo, and very nearly succeeded. In
471 Aspar's son
Ardabur was implicated in a plot against Leo and both were killed by palace
eunuchs acting on Leo's orders.
During Leo's reign, the
Balkans were ravaged time and again by the
East Goths and the
Huns. However, these attackers were unable to take
Constantinople thanks to the
walls which had been rebuilt and reinforced in the reign of
Theodosius II and against which they possessed no suitable
siege engines.
Leo's reign was also noteworthy for his influence in the
Western Roman Empire, marked by his appointment of
Anthemius as
Western Roman Emperor in
467. He attempted to build on this political achievement with an expedition against the
Vandals in
468, which was defeated due to the treachery and incompetence of Leo's brother-in-law
Basiliscus. This disaster drained the Empire of men and money. The expedition, which cost 130,000 pounds of gold and 700 pounds of silver, consisted of 1,113 ships carrying 100,000 men, but in the end lost 600 ships.
Leo's greatest influence in the West was largely inadvertent and at second-hand: the great
Goth king
Theodoric the Great was raised at Leo's court in Constantinople, where he was steeped in Roman government and military tactics, which served him well when he returned after Leo's death to become the Goth ruler of a mixed but largely Romanized people.
Leo died of
dysentery at the age of 73 on
January 18, 474.
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