Isauria

Instead of placating the people of Constantinople, however, Basilicus merely appeared weak, fickle, and eminently beatable.

Word of Basilicus' unpopularity in Constantinople had traveled far and wide, reaching the two generals in Assyria tasked with hunting down the ex-Emperor Zeno.

We don't know exactly what happened, but it seems that after they received an update on how things were going in Constantinople, Basilicus' generals made contact with Zeno and agreed to defect.

Zeno accepted the loyalty of these generals, but he still had a big problem: Theoderic Strabo, the Gothic chieftain who supported Basilicus.

In 483, Zeno demanded that Illus release his brother from captivity.

Illus refused, so by 484, Zeno fired Illus from all his official positions and confiscated his property in Constantinople.

However, the firing was purely symbolic, as Illus had fortified himself in Isauria with an army of men loyal to him personally rather than to the emperor.

Illus began preparing for war, but he knew that he was in a weak position.

This council really only addressed one major controversy, which was, uh, iconoclasm.

There had been a number of iconoclastic emperors in the Byzantine Isaurian dynasty.

We're looking at a very ugly period in Eastern Roman history.

Icons and religious art had a great deal of importance to many Christians at the time, both East and West.

Leo's son-in-law and successor, Zeno, then encouraged the Ostrogoth chief Theodoric, whose warriors were a threat to Byzantium, to attack Italy instead, where the Western Empire had already been brought to an end by the Germanic ruler Odoacer.

Zeno's people, the Isaurians, lived in the mountains of Asia Minor and had been enlisted as soldiers by the Byzantine emperors as a defense against invaders, and his accession to the throne provoked some resistance from people who felt that the emperor should be a Roman, a description which included speakers of Greek rather than an Isaurian or a Goth.

Byzantium was also embroiled in a conflict with Sassanian Persia to the east.

The country of Armenia served as a buffer between the two empires, just as it had during the height of the Roman Empire.

Martyr Memorials.

That of St. Thomas at Edessa is mentioned on page 32, that of St. Elpidius at Haran on page 37, of St. Thecla at Seleucia in Isauria on page 42, of St. Euphemia at Chalcedon on page 43, and of St. John at Ephesus on page 44.

Among the other churches and holy sites Etheria visited, besides those in the Sinai district, mention may be made of the Church of Melchizedek, page 28, the Garden of St. John Baptist at Aenon, page 27, and the grave of Job at Carneas, page 29.

She gives a full description on page 20 of the scheme of devotions she and her companions used on each occasion, the order followed being thus, prayer, reading, psalm, prayer.

Two.

For know, O most religious Augustus, that these things have been preached from the beginning, and that this faith was confessed by the fathers who assembled at Nicaea, and that it has the assent of all the churches in every place, those in Spain and Britain, and those of Gaul and of all Italy and Dalmatia and Dacia and Mysia, Macedonia and all Greece, and those in all Africa and Sardinia and Cyprus and Crete and Pamphylia and Lycia and Isauria, and those in Egypt and the Libyas and Pontus and Cappadocia and the churches near us, and those in the East, except a few who hold Arianism.

For we know by experience the minds of all the above-named, and we also possess letters of theirs, and you know, most religious Augustus, that even if some few persons contradict this faith, they cannot prejudice it, when all the world is holding the apostolic faith.

For those men, having long been infected with the Arian heresy, are now more contentious in their resistance to true religion.

For all this solicitude was then shown on account of the Arian heresy, in order that those who had fallen into it might be recovered, and those who had invented it might be exposed.

In this faith, then, the whole world long ago agreed, and now also many councils have been held.

All those in Dalmatia and Dardania, Macedonia, Epirus, Greece, Crete, and the other islands, Sicily and Cyprus and Pamphylia, Lycia, Isauria, and all Egypt and the Libyas, and very many in Arabia, have been reminded of and have recognized this creed.

And admired those who signed it.

Martyr Memorials.

That of St. Thomas at Edessa is mentioned on page 32, that of St. Elpidius at Haran on page 37, of St. Thecla at Seleucia in Isauria on page 42, of St. Euphemia at Chalcedon on page 43, and of St. John at Ephesus on page 44.

Among the other churches and holy sites Aetheria visited, besides those in the Sinai district, mention may be made of the Church of Melchizedek, page 28, the Garden of St. John Baptist at Aenon, page 27, and the grave of Job at Carniace, page 29.

She gives a full description on page 20 of the scheme of devotions she and her companions used on each occasion, the order followed being thus, prayer, reading, psalm, prayer.