General Notes

SOURCES the only approximation of a connected account of the life oftheemperor Anthemius i s found in a verse panegyric delivered to him inRomeon 1 January 468 by the Gaul Sidonius ap ollinaris, whose lettersalsodiscuss several of the events of his reign. the Life of St. Epiphanius byEnnodius of Pavia also includes a revealing vignette ofAnthemius. Andseveral source s, such as Procopius, provide rather fullaccounts of theVandal War of 468. Otherwise, Anthem ius is known fromterse referencesthat survive either in chronicles, such as those of theSpa niard Hydatiusand Count Marcellinus, or in extracts from writerswhose complete worksdo not s urvive, such as the Byzantine writersPriscus, Candidus, and Johnof Antioch. In addition, thr ee novellae ("newlaws") issued by Anthemiusare extant. Taken together, these sources makeAn themius, after Majorian,the best known of the "shadow emperors."

FAMILY BACKGROUND Anthemius was born in Constantinople, perhapsca.420.His maternal grandfath er was a powerful senator, likewisenamedAnthemius, who was Praetorian Prefect of the East fr om 405 to 414,consulin 405, and patrician. His father, Procopius, was Master ofSoldiers oft he East (422-424) and likewise a patrician; he was said tohave beendescended from the usurpe r Procopius (365). Hydatius claimsthatAnthemius had a brother, also named Procopius, but the re is nootherevidence for this and it probably is a mistake. Circa 453,Anthemiusmarried Ael ia Marcia Euphemia, the only daughter of the easternemperorMarcian (450-457). the couple ha d four known sons: Anthemiolus,Fl.Marcianus, Procopius Anthemius, and Romulus.

EARLY LIFE Like his father, Anthemius engaged in a military career. Hewasmade a military com es ("Count") after his marriage andworkedrefurbishing the defenses on the Danube frontier, w hich was in astate ofdisruption after the death of Attila the Hun in 453. He does notseem t ohave engaged in any combat. Upon his return to Constantinople in454,Marcian granted him hig h honors, making him Master of SoldiersandPatrician, and nominating him for the consulate, w hich he held in455with the western emperor Valentinian III ("hinc reduci datur omnishonos,e t utrique magister / militiae consulque micat, coniuncta potestas/patricii...": Sidonius Apo llinaris, Carmen 2.205-207). Thesehonors,along with his marriage, would suggest that Marcia n saw Anthemiusas alikely successor to the throne. Indeed, the Byzantine chroniclerJohnMala las believed that Marcian actually did make Anthemius emperor:

"Furthermore, Marcian gave to Anthemius in marriage his daughter fromanearlier marriage, an d he made him emperor in Rome. From her Anthemiushada daughter, whom he placed with the Mast er of Soldiers Ricimer...WhileLeo was ruling, Anthemius reigned at Rome, whom Marcian had ra isedto theimperial power" (Chron. 368-369).

Either Malalas was simply wrong, or it may be that Marcian had infacttoyed with the idea o f making Anthemius western emperor afterthedeposition of Avitus in October, 456, but that hi s death in January,457,prevented the plan from going any further.


After Marcian's death, any hopes that Anthemius may have had forimperialhonors were disappoi nted when the choice for the eastern thronefell uponLeo, a career soldier who held the rathe r modest rank of"Tribune of theMattiarii." Leo was the candidate of the powerfulbarbarian , and Arian,Master of Soldiers Aspar who, unable or unwillingto aspire to the thronehimself , hoped to name an undistinguishedcandidate whom he would be ableto manipulate, © la Ricime r in the west.Clearly, Anthemius was not inthis category. Under Leo, Anthemiuscontinued a s Master of Soldiers. InIllyricum, perhaps ca.460, hedefeated a group of Ostrogoths commande d byValamer. Several years later,circa the winter of 466/467, he subdued agroup of Huns unde r Hormidacwho had crossed the Danube and were raidingDacia.

ACCESSION Meanwhile, Leo was forced to contend with the Vandals. Foryearsthey had been raidi ng the coast of Italy, a circumstance that seemstohave caused little distress for the easter n court. But by 467 theVandalraids extended to Greece. the contemporary Byzantine historianP riscusreported,

"After the death of Valentinian [in 455], Gaiseric gained the supportofthe Moors, and ever y year at the beginning of spring he madeinvasionsinto Sicily and Italy, enslaving some of t he cities, razingothers to theground, and plundering everything; and when the land hadbecom e destituteof men and of money, he invaded the domain of theemperor of the east.And so he pl undered Illyricum and most of thePeloponnesus and of Greeceand all the islands that lie nea r it. Andagain he went off to Sicily andItaly, and kept plundering and pillagingall place s in turn..." (BellumVandalicum 5.22-24: Dewing trans., p.53)

Leo, to deal with this and other concerns, in the spring of 467nominatedAnthemius to be empe ror of the west, where there had been aninterregnumever since the death of Libius Severus i n 465.

Anthemius was dispatched with an army under the command ofMarcellinus,Master of Soldiers i n Dalmatia, and acclaimed emperor nearRome on 12April 467. Cassiodorus noted, "Anthemius wa s sent to Italy bythe emperorLeo; he assumed the emperorship at the third milestone from the City atthe place called Brontotas" ("Anthemius a Leone imp. ad Italiammittitur,qui terti o ab urbe miliario in loco Brontotas suscepitimperium": Chron.1283 s.a.467). Hydatius place d the event a few miles upthe road:"Anthemius is named the forty- sixth emperor at the eight hmilestone fromRome" ("Romanorum XLVI Anthemius, octavo milario de Roma,Augustusappellatur" : Chron. 235). And Count Marcellinus noted simply,"Leo sentthe patrician Anthemius to Rome a nd established him as emperor"("Leoimperator Anthemium patricium Romam misit imperatoremqu econstituit":Chron. s.a.467). the date is given by the Fasti vindobonensespriores(no.597, s .a.467): "his cons. levatus est imp. do.n. AnthemiusRomaeprid. idus Aprilis."

For Leo, the appointment of Anthemius not only would have rid him ofapotential rival, it als o placed an experienced general in charge ofthewestern phase of his proposed campaign agains t the Vandals. AsforGaiseric, it gave him a pretext for stepping up his coastalpillaging.Pr ocopius, for example, stressed the role played by theVandals inAnthemius' appointment:

"Now, before this time Leo had already appointed and sent Anthemiusasemperor of the west , a man of the senate of great wealth and highbirth,in order that he might assist him in th e Vandalic war. And yetGaiserickept asking and earnestly entreating that the imperial powe r begiven toOlybrius, who was married to Placidia, the daughter ofValentinian, andon accoun t of his relationship well-disposed toward him,and when hefailed in this he was still more a ngry and kept plunderingthe whole landof the emperor"(Bellum Vandalicum 6.9: Dewing trans. ,p.57).

the return to a dual emperorship was celebrated in Constantinople bythedelivery of a panegyr ic by Dioscorus, the teacher of Leo's daughters,whowas later rewarded by being made Praetori an Prefect of the East.

In general, relations between the eastern and western courts seem tohavebeen cordial through out Anthemius' reign. In 468, Anthemius wasaccordedthe signal honor of serving as sole consu l for the year (thisalso wouldhave matched Leo's sole consulate in 466), this being his secondconsulate. Anthemius' son Fl. Marcianus, moreover, not only heldtheconsulate in both 469 a nd 472 (although Bagnall et al., CLRE p.479,arguethat these are not the same person), but al so married Leo I'syoungerdaughter Leontia in 471. Throughout Anthemius' reign, moreover,eas t andwest each appointed one of the two consuls, and both consulswereregularly recognized th roughout the empire (see Bagnall et al.,CLRE,pp.466-479).

Anthemius was faced with several problems. Much of the west, ofcourse,was held by various ba rbarian peoples, and he really onlycontrolledItaly. As an easterner, moreover, his rule wa s resented insome westernquarters, and he was sometimes mocked for his Greek origin.He als o mayhave had pagan sympathies. Furthermore, the social andeconomic issuesfaced by Majoria n had not been solved, and, indeed, hadonly grown moreserious. And a crucial question was ho w well Anthemiuswould be able tocooperate with the powerful Patrician and Master ofSoldier s Ricimer, whohad become accustomed to making and unmakingwestern emperors, havingbeen respo nsible for the depositions of Avitus(455- 456), and Majorian(457-461), and for the elevatio n of Severus(461-465).

Anthemius sought to create a family bond with his barbarian general,andat the end of 467 a m arriage between Ricimer and Anthemius' onlydaughterAlypia was celebrated. the festivities we re described in aletter to afriend by Sidonius, who had just arrived at Rome on a missionfr om Gaul:

"As yet, I have not presented myself at the bustling gates of Emperororcourt official. For m y arrival coincided with the marriage ofthepatrician Ricimer, to whom the hand of the empero r's daughter wasbeingaccorded in the hope of more secure times for the state. Notindividual salone, but whole classes and parties are given up torejoicing... While Iwas writing these l ines, scarce a theatre,provision-market, praetorium,forum, temple, or gymnasium but echoed t othe cry of 'Talassio'! And evenat this hour the schools are closed, nobusiness is done, th e courts arevoiceless, missions are postponed; thereis a truce to intrigue, and allthe serio us business of life seems mergedin the buffooneries of thestage. Although the bride has bee n given away,although the bridegroomhas put off his wreath, the consular hispalm-broidere d robe, thebrideswoman her wedding gown, the distinguishedsenator his toga, and theplain ma n his cloak, yet the noise of the greatgathering has not diedaway in the palace chambers bec ause the bridestill delays to start forher husband's house. When this merrymaking hasrun ou t its course, youshall hear what remains to tell of myproceedings, if indeed thesecrowded ho urs of idleness to which the wholestate seems now surrenderedare ever to end, even when th e festivitiesare over"(Epist. 1.5.10-11:Dalton trans., 1.12-13)

Sidonius, therefore, hints that Alypia may not have been overjoyed attheprospect of an arran ged marriage with what she may have perceived asanuncouth barbarian general.


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