Anastasius

(Ἀναστάσιος).

The life and date of the author are quite unknown, but he was probably a late writer. Potential Confusion with a physician named Anastasius

He is not to be confounded with a Greek physician of the same name, whose remedy for the gout, which was to be taken during a whole year, is quoted with approbation by Aetius (tetrab. iii. serm. 4.47, p. 609), and who must therefore have lived some tine during or before the fifth century after Christ. Works De Ratione Victus Salutaris post Incisam Venam et Emissum Sanguinem

The author of a Latin epigram of eighteen lines addressed to a certain Armatus, De Ratione Victus Salutaris post Incisam Venam et Emissum Sanguinem. Editions

This is to be found in several editions of the Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum. (e.g. Antverp. 1557, 12mo.) [W.A.G]

patriarch of Antioch. [ANASTASIUS SINAITA.]

patriarch of Antioch. [ANASTASIUS SINAITA.]

(Ἀναστάσιος), emperor of Constantinople, surnamed Dicorus (Δίκορος) on account of the different colour of his eye-balls, was born about 430 A. D., at Dyrrachium in Epeirus. He was descended from an unknown family, and we are acquainted with only a few circumstances concerning his life previously to his accession. We know, however, that he was a zealous Eutychian, that he was not married, and that he served in the imperial lifeguard of the Silentiarii, which was the cause of his being generally called Anastasius Silentiarius. The emperor Zeno, the Isaurian, having died in 491 without male issue, it was generally believed that his brother Longinus would succeed him; but in consequence of an intrigue carried on during some time, as it seems, between Anastasius and the empress Ariadne, Anastasius was proclaimed emperor. Shortly afterwards he married Ariadne, but it does not appear that he had had an adulterous intercourse with her during the life of her husband. When Anastasius ascended the throne of the Eastern empire he was a man of at least sixty, but though, notwithstanding his advanced age, he evinced uncommon energy, his reign is one of the most deplorable periods of Byzantine history, disturbed as it was by foreign and intestine wars and by the still greater calamity of religious troubles. Immediately after his accession, Longinus, the brother of Zeno, Longinus Magister Officiorum, and Longinus Selinuntius, rose against him, and being all natives of Isauria, where they had great influence, they made this province the centre of their operations against the imperial troops. This war, which is known in history under the name of the Isaurian war, lasted till 497, and partly till 498, when it was finished to the advantage of the emperor by the captivity and death of the ringleaders of the rebellion. John the Scythian, John the Hunchbacked, and under them Justinus, who became afterwards emperor, distinguished themselves greatly as commanders of the armies of Anastasius. The following years were signalized by a sedition in Constantinople occasioned by disturbances between the factions of the Blue and the Green, by religious troubles which the emperor was able to quell only by his own humiliation, by wars with the Arabs and the Bulgarians, and by earthquakes, famine, and plague. (A. D. 500.) Anastasius tried to relieve his people by abolishing the χρυσάργυρος, a heavy poll-tax which was paid indifferently for men and for domestic animals. Immediately after these calamities, Anastasius was involved in a war with Cabadis, the king of Persia, who destroyed the Byzantine army commanded by Hypacius and Patricius Phrygius, and ravaged Mesopotamia in a dreadful manner. Anastasius purchased peace in 505 by paying 11,000 pounds of gold to the Persians, who, being threatened with an invasion of the Huns, restored to the emperor the provinces which they had overrun. From Asia Anastasius sent his generals to the banks of the Danube, where they fought an unsuccessful but not inglorious campaign against the East-Goths of Italy, and tried, but in vain, to defend the passage of the Danube against the Bulgarians. These indefatigable warriors crossed that river in great numbers, and ravaging the greater part of Thrace, appeared in sight of Constantinople; and no other means were left to the emperor to secure the immediate neighbourhood of his capital but by constructing a fortified wall across the isthmus of Constantinople from the coast of the Propontis to that of the Pontus Euxinus. (A. D. 507.) Some parts of this wall, which in a later period proved useful against the Turks, are still existing. Clovis, king of the Franks, was created consul by Anastasius.

The end of the reign of Anastasius cannot well be understood without a short notice of the state of religion during this time, a more circumstantial account of which the reader will find in Evagrius and Theophanes cited below.

As early as 488, Anastasius, then only a Silentiarius, had been active in promoting the Eutychian Palladius to the see of Antioch. This act was made a subject of reproach against him by the orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, Euphemius, who, upon Anastasius succeeding Zeno on the throne, persuaded or compelled him to sign a confession of faith according to the orthodox principles laid down in the council of Chalcedon. Notwithstanding this confession, Anastasius continued an adherent to the doctrines of Eutychius, and in 496 he had his enemy, Euphemius, deposed and banished. It is said, that at this time Anastasius showed great propensities to the sect of the Acephali. The successor of Euphemius was Macedonius, who often thwarted the measures of the emperor, and who but a few years afterwards was driven from his see, which Anastasius gave to the Eutychian Timotheus, who opposed the orthodox in many matters. Upon this, Anastasius was anathematized by pope Symmachus, whose successor, Hormisdas, sent deputies to Constantinople for the purpose of restoring peace to the Church of the East. However, the religious motives of these disturbances were either so intimately connected with political motives, or the hatred between the parties was so great, that the deputies did not succeed. In 514, Vitalianus, a Gothic prince in the service of the emperor, put himself at the head of a powerful army, and laid siege to Constantinople, under the pretext of compelling Anastasius to put an end to the vexations of the orthodox church. In order to get rid of such an enemy, Anastasius promised to assemble a general council, which was to be presided over by the pope, and he appointed Vitalianus his commander-in-chief in Thrace. But no sooner was the army of Vitalianus disbanded, than Anastasius once more eluded his promises, and the predomination of the Eutychians over the orthodox lasted till the death of the emperor. Anastasius died in 518, at the age of between eighty-eight and ninety-one years. Evagrius states, that after his death his name was erased from the sacred "Diptychs" or tables.

Religious hatred having more or less guided modern writers as well as those whom we must consider as the sources with regard to Anastasius, the character of this emperor has been described in a very different manner. The reader will find these opinions carefully collected and weighed with prudence and criticism in Tillemont's " Histoire des Empereurs." Whatever were his vices, and however avaricious and faithless he was, Anastasius was far from being a common man. Tillemont, though he is often misled by bigotry, does not blame him for many actions, and praises him for many others for which he has been frequently reproached. Le Beau, the author of the "Histoire du Bas Empire," does not condemn him; and Gibbon commends him, although principally for his economy. (Evagrius, 3.29, seq.; Cedrenus, pp. 354-365, ed. Paris; Theophanes, pp. 115-141, ed. Paris; Gregor. Turon. 2.38.) [W.P]

emperor of Constantinople. The original name of this emperor was Artemius, and he was one of the ministers (Protoasecretis) of the emperor Philippicus, who had his eyes put out by the traitor Rufus, in the month of June A. D. 713. Artemius, universally esteemed for his character and his qualities, was chosen in his stead, and, although his reign was short and disturbed by troubles, he gave sufficient proofs of being worthy to reign. After having punished Rufus and his accomplices, he appointed the Isaurian Leo, who became afterwards emperor, his general in chief against the Lazes and other Caucasian nations, and himself made vigorous preparations against the Arabs, by whom the southern provinces of the empire were then continually harassed. He formed the bold plan of burning the naval stores of the enemy on the coast of Syria, stores necessary for the construction of a large fleet, with which the Arabs intended to lay siege to Constantinople. The commander of the Byzantine fleet was John, who combined the three dignities of grand treasurer of the empire, admiral, and dean of St. Sophia, and who left Constantinople in 715. But the expedition failed, and a mutiny broke out on board the ships, in consequence of which John was massacred, and Theodosius, once a receiver of the taxes, proclaimed emperor. It is probable that the rebel had many adherents in the Asiatic provinces; for while he sailed with his fleet to Constantinople, Anastasius, after having left a strong garrison for the defence of his capital, went to Nicaea for the purpose of preventing all danger from that side. After an obstinate resistance during six months, Constantinople was taken by surprise in the month of January 716, and Anastasius, besieged in Nicaea, surrendered on condition of having his life preserved. This was granted to him by the victorious rebel, who ascended the throne under the name of Theodosius III. Anastasius retired to a convent at Thessalonica. In the third year of the reign of Leo III. Isaurus (721), Anastasius conspired against this emperor at the instigation of Nicetas Xylonites. They hoped to be supported by Terbelis or Terbelius, king of Bulgaria; but their enterprise proved abortive, and the two conspirators were put to death by order of Leo. (Theophanes, pp. 321, &c., 335, ed. Paris; Zonaras, 14.26, &c. ; Cedrenus, p. 449, ed. Paris.) [W.P]

abbot of St. Eothymium in Palestine, about 741 A. D. Works Against the Jews

he wrote a Greek work against the Jews. A MS. of the original work is still extant. Editions Latin Editions

A Latin version of which by Turrianus is printed in Canisii Antiquar. Lect. iii. pp. 123-186. The translation is very imperfect. Further Information

Catal. Vindobon. pt. 1, cod. 307, num. 2, p. 420. [P.S]

a Graeco-Roman Jurist, who interpreted the Digest. He is cited in the Basilica (ed. Heimbach. ii. p. 10; ed. Fabrot. iv. p. 701, vii. p. 258), in which, on one occasion, his opinion is placed in opposition to that of Stephanus. Beyond this circumstance, we can discover in his fragments no very strong reason for supposing him to have been contemporary with Justinian; Reitz, however, considered it certain that he was so, and accordingly marked his name with an asterisk in the list of jurists subjoined to his edition of Theophilus. (Excurs. xx. p. 1234.) The name is so common, that it would be rash to identify the jurist with contemporary Anastasii; but it may be stated, that among more than forty persons of the name, Fabricius mentions one who was consul A. D. 517. Procopius (de Bell. pers. 2.4, 5) relates, that Anastasius, who had quelled an attempt to usurp imperial power in his native city Dara, and had acquired a high reputation for intelligence, was sent on an embassy to Chosroes, A. D. 540. This Anastasius was at first detained against his will by Chosroes, but was sent back to Justinian, after Chosroes had destroyed the city of Sura. [J.T.G]

metropolitan bishop of Nice (about 520-536 A. D.), wrote or dictated, in Greek, a work on the Psalms, which is still extant. (Bibl. Coislin. p. 389.) [P.S]

bishop of Rome, from 398 to his death in 402, took the side of Jerome in his controversy with Rufinus respecting Origen. He excommunicated Rufinus and condemned the works of Origen, confessing, however, that he had never heard Origen's name before the translation of one of his works by Rnfinus. (Constant, Epist. Pontif. Rom. p. 715.) Jerome praises him in the highest terms. (Epist. 16.) [P.S]

bishop of Rome from 496 to his death in 498, made an unsuccessful attempt to compose the quarrel between the Greek and Latin Churches, which had been excited by Acacius. There are extant two letters which he wrote to the emperor Anastasius on this occasion, and one which he wrote to Clovis, king of the Franks, in Baiuzius, Nov. Collect. Concil. p. 1457. [P.S]

(Ἀναστάσιος Σιναίτης). Three persons of this name are mentioned by ecclesiastical writers, and often confounded with one another.

1. Anastasius I., made patriarch of Antioch A. D. 559 or 561, took a prominent part in the controversy with the Aphthartodocetae, who thought that the body of Christ before the resurrection was incorruptible. He opposed the edict which Justinian issued in favour of this opinion, and was afterwards banished by the younger Justin. (570.) In 593 he was restored to his bishopric at Antioch, and died in 599.

2. Anastasius II., succeeded Anastasius I. in the bishopric of Antioch, A. D. 599. He translated into Greek the work of Gregory the Great, "de Cura Pastorali," and was killed by the Jews in a tumult, 609 A. D.

3. Anastasius, a presbyter and monk of Mt. Sinai, called by later Greek writers "the New Moses" (Μωσῆς νέος), lived towards the end of 7th century, as is clear from the contents of his " Hodegus." Confusion of various monks named Anastasius

There is some doubt whether the two patriarchs of Antioch were ever monks of Sinai, and whether the application of the epithet " Sinaita" to them has not arisen from their being confounded with the third Anastasius. Works Hodegus (ὁδηγὸς)

The Hodegus (ὁδηγὸς), or Guide, above mentioned, a work against the Acephali, and other heretics who recognized only one nature in the person of Christ, is a loose, illogical rhapsody, without any graces of style, and very inaccurate as to facts.

This work is ascribed by Nicephorus and other writers to Anastasius I., patriarch of Antioch; but events are mentioned in it which occurred long after his death. Others have thought that he was the author of the work originally, but that it has been greatly interpolated. It was, however, most probably the production of the third Anastasius. Editions

It was published by Gretser in Greek and Latin, Ingolstadt, 1606, 4to. Other Writings

An account of the other writings ascribed to these three Anastasii, and discussions respecting their authorship, will be found in Fabricius (Bibl. Graec. x. p. 571), and Cave. (Hist. Lit.) [P.S]