ANASTASIO I, EMPEROR OF THE EAST. — Born at Dyrrachium in 431 to a Manichaean mother, he himself was a Monophysite. He reigned from 491 to 518. We know little or nothing about him before his election to the throne. After Zeno’s death, the widowed empress Ariadne married him and had him crowned emperor by the patriarch Euphemius, with the promise that he would respect the Council of Chalcedon and plot nothing against the true faith. His internal policy was inspired by lofty humanitarian sentiments; and his numerous financial reforms, particularly the celebrated abolition of the vexatious tax on labor known as the “chrysargyron,” increased the prestige of the imperial crown. He undertook major defensive works on the Persian frontier and in the vicinity of Constantinople. An excellent diplomat, he succeeded in keeping the nascent Ostrogothic power at a distance by allying himself with the Franks and the Burgundians.
In his dealings with the Church, he concealed his sympathies for Monophysitism until an imprudence on the part of the patriarch Euphemius provoked an open struggle. Euphemius was exiled to Euchaita and succeeded by Macedonius. Attempts at religious peace were in vain. After the death of Pope Anastasius II (498), the situation worsened, and the emperor contributed powerfully to the triumph of Monophysite doctrine by exiling Flavian after having had him appointed patriarch of Antioch, and by having the Council of Chalcedon condemned at the Synod of Tyre in 513 (v. H. Gelzer, Josua Stylites, in Byz. Zeitschr., 1 [1892], p. 41 ff).
In 514 Vitalian, commander of the federated barbarians dismissed by A., rebelled in concert with the Huns and Bulgarians, proclaiming himself the defender of the Council of Chalcedon. The people followed him enthusiastically. Negotiations were initiated with the Pope, who was to preside over a general council at Heraclea; but when Vitalian’s power declined, A. decided to break definitively with the papal legates.
He died on 1 July 518, leaving behind him the seeds of the empire’s dismemberment.