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Zeno, the epileptic emperor: historiography and polemics as sources of realia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Lawrence I. Conrad
Lawrence I. Conrad*
Affiliation:
Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine
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Abstract

Several Byzantine sources describe the emperor Zeno as suffering from epilepsy, which, although assigned to natural causes in Greek humoral medicine, was more widely explained in terms of demonic possession. The charge of epilepsy originated with the north Syrian historian Eustathius and comprised an extremist Chalcedonian attempt to discredit the ruler, probably for promulgation of the Henoticon in 482. It is ignored or contradicted by other Chalcedonian writers and by all Monophysite sources. The origins and growth of the legend affirm once again the great influence of confessional discord on historical perceptions; they also illustrate how a single author’s baseless polemic can eventually assume the form of an apparently secure and widely attested affirmation of simple fact, and highlight the crucial role of north Syria in producing the literature upon which modern scholarship on late antiquity must rely.

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Articles
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Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 24 , 2000 , pp. 61 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2000

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38. Historia ecclesiastica III.29; ed. Bidez and Parmentier, 125:6-7. More on this below.

39. Theophanes, Chronographia AM 5938; ed. de Boor, 135:31-33; trans. Mango and Scott, 208.

40. Allen, Evagrius Scholasticus, 106, 139.

41. Cf., for example, Historia ecclesiastica III.24 (ed. Bidez and Parmentier, 122:1-8), on Zeno’s murder of Armatus. As this is a summary of the account that Theophanes (Chronographia AM 5969; ed. de Boor, 125:2-13; trans. Mango and Scott, 192) has in much fuller form, one must conclude that the two had a common source. Cf. another case, concerning an earthquake in Antioch, discussed in Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, 171 n. 4.

42. See Hunger, Literatur, I, 458, 478.

43. The question of the passages cited by Theophanes is discussed in a series of notes in Mango and Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, 171 n. 4, 181 n. 4, 182 n. 2, 183 n. 1, 202 n. 11, 211 n. 4, 224 n. 7, 356 n. 1. The role of Eustathius is repeatedly confirmed as Theophanes’ source. Cf. also Gentz, Günter, Die Kirchengeschichte des Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopulus und ihre Quellen. Nachgelassene Untersuchungen, ed. Winkelmann, Friedhelm (Berlin 1966) 154-58Google Scholar.

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61. Ibid., 391:1-4; trans. E. Jeffreys, M. Jeffreys, and Scott, 219.

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63. Malchus of Philadelphia, Fragmenta, 85 no. 9.

64. John of Nikiu, Chronicle LXXXIX.97; trans. Charles, 121.

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75. Cf. the further remarks in my ‘Muhammad and the Charge of Epilepsy’, forthcoming.

76. Cf. Historia ecclesiastica V.l; ed. Bidez and Parmentier, 195:20-196:1. Here Justin I is also vilified for wanton pursuit of pleasures and perversions, greed, and blasphemous sale of religious offices to the highest bidder.

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78. Theophanes, Chronographia AM 5944; ed. de Boor, 105:21-106:14; trans. Mango and Scott, 163.

79. Ibid. AM 5976; ed. de Boor, 130:13-15; trans. Mango and Scott, 200.

80. Oracle of Baalbek, 18:156-57 (text), 27 (trans.).

81. Ibid., 19:159-61 (text), 27 (trans.).

82. See Frend, History of the Monophysite Movement, 190-220.

83. Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle, 30 (ad arm. 491).

84. This account survives in Agapius, Kitâb al-’unwân, 334:6-335:2.

85. Apud Theophanes, Chronographia AM 6122; ed. de Boor, 334:22-25; trans. Mango and Scott, 464.

86. Cf. n. 75 above.