Isaurian occupation of the imperial office ends…
491 CE
Isaurian occupation of the imperial office ends with Zeno's death from dysentery on April 9, 491.
After seventeen years on the throne, he has no sons to succeed him.
Longinus of Cardala is one of several Isaurians who occupy offices in the imperial civil and military administration, especially under emperor Zeno, who was an Isaurian himself.
It is said that Longinus was rich and bald.
Born in Cardala, he had been appointed magister officiorum in late 484.
After the death of the Isaurian emperor, there is a struggle for the succession that involves Zeno's brother, also named Longinus, and Anastasius , the candidate supported by empress dowager Ariadne.
The Illyrian-born Anastasius, a sixty-one-year-old palace official (silentiarius) and favored friend of the empress, is elevated to the throne by his predecessor's widow, who marries him shortly hereafter.
Anastasius has one eye brown and one eye blue (heterochromia) and for that reason he is nicknamed Dicorus (Greek: "two-pupiled").
His reign, though afterwards disturbed by foreign and internecine wars and religious distractions, commenced auspiciously.
He gains the popular favor by a judicious remission of taxation, and displays great vigor and energy in administering the affairs of the Empire.
His reign is initially disturbed by religious distractions and a civil war started by Longinus, brother of the late emperor Zeno.
After anti-Isaurian riots break out in the Hippodrome at Constantinople, Longinus and several other Isaurians, including general Longinus of Cardala, who had been removed from his office when Anastasius I was proclaimed emperor, are exiled to the Thebaid, in Egypt.
Many Isaurians are removed from the imperial administration.