Aspar

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For the village in Iran, see Aspar, Iran.
A detail of the Missorium of Aspar, depicting Aspar and his elder son Ardabur (c. 434).

Flavius Ardabur Aspar (c. 400 – 471) was an Eastern Roman patrician and magister militum ("master of soldiers") of Alanic-Gothic descent.[1] As the general of a Germanic army in Roman service,[2][3][4][5] Aspar exerted a great influence on the Eastern Roman Emperors for half a century, from the 420s to his death in 471, over Theodosius II, Marcian and Leo I, who, in the end, had him killed. His death led to the ending of the Germanic domination of Eastern Roman policy.[2]

Biography

Aspar was born the son of the magister Ardaburius,[6] and was of Alanic-Gothic descent.[1] The name Aspar (originally Aspwar or Aspidar) in Iranian languages means "Horse-master" or "Horse-rider".[7][8] Aspar played a crucial role in his father's expedition in 424 to defeat the Western usurper, Joannes of Ravenna, and to install Galla Placidia and her son, Valentinian III, in his place. He also helped to negotiate a peace treaty with Geiseric after the Vandal invasion of Africa.

Aspar attained the consulship in 434 after campaigning in Africa.[9] However, Aspar could not become emperor because of his Arian religion. Instead, he played the role of kingmaker with his subordinate, Marcian, who became emperor by marrying Theodosius II's sister Pulcheria.

On 27 January 457 Marcian died, and the political and military establishment figures of the Eastern court took eleven days to choose a successor. Despite the presence of a strong candidate to the purple, the magister militum and Marcian's son-in-law Anthemius, the choice was quite different. Aspar, who in this occasion was probably offered the throne by the senate but refused,[10] could have chosen his own son Ardabur, but instead selected an obscure tribune of one of his military units, Leo I.[11]

In 470, in an episode of the struggle for power between Aspar and the Isaurian general Zeno, Aspar persuaded the emperor to appoint his second son, Patricius, as caesar and give him in marriage his daughter Leontia. However, as for the clergy and people of Constantinople an Arian was not eligible to become an emperor, at the news of the appointment riots broke out in the city hippodrome, led by the head of the Sleepless Monks, Marcellus: Aspar and Leo had to promise to the bishops that Patricius would convert to Orthodoxy before becoming emperor, and only after the conversion he would have married Leontia.

In 471 an imperial conspiracy organized by Leo I and the Isaurians caused the death of Aspar and of his elder son Ardabur: it is possible that Patricius died on this occasion, although some sources report that he recovered from his wounds. His death led to the ending of the Germanic domination of Eastern Roman policy.[2]

Aspar was the teacher of Theodoric the Great, who later became King of the Ostrogoths. Aspar had another son, Ermanaric, with the sister of Theodoric Strabo.[12] Aspar's wife was an Ostrogoth, as the Ostrogoth King Theodoric was her nephew.[9] A cistern attributed to him still exists today in Istanbul.

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Williams, p. 45.
  7. ↑ Bachrach, Bernard S. 1973. A history of the Alans in the West; from their first appearance in the sources of classical antiquity through the early Middle Ages. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p.98
  8. ↑ Basirov, Oric: The Origin of the Pre-Imperial Iranian Peoples. in: SOAS, 26/4/2001
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Bunson, 38.
  10. ↑ The episode was told by Theodoric the Great at a synod held in Rome in 501; Aspar refused, cryptically stating, "I fear I would launch an imperial tradition", (Croke, p. 150).
  11. ↑ Croke, p. 150.
  12. ↑ Herwig Wolfram, p. 32.

References

  • Bunson, Matthew (1994). Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. New York: Facts on File Inc.
  • Croke, Brian, "Dynasty and Ethnicity: Emperor Leo and the Eclipse of Aspar", Chiron 35 (2005), 147-203.*Williams, Stephen, and Gerard Friell, The Rome That Did Not Fall, Routledge, 1999, ISBN 0-415-15403-0.
  • Wolfram, Herwig, History of the Goths, trans. Thomas J. Dunlap. University of California Press, 1988, ISBN 0-520-06983-8.

External links

Preceded by Consul of the Roman Empire
434
with Flavius Areobindus		 Succeeded by
Imp. Caesar Flavius Theodosius Augustus XV,
Imp. Caesar Flavius Placidus Valentinianus Augustus IV

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