On This Day In Roman History, January 12
Basiliscus is crowned Emperor of the Byzantine Empire in the Hebdomon Palace on January 12, 475 CE. Flavius Basiliscus Augustus came to power during a civil revolt which had previously forced Emperor Zeno the Isaurian out of Constantinople. Emperor Zeno was an unpopular leader with the people, often dubbed the "barbarian" successor to Leo. Writing by John of Antioch considered Basiliscus to be the uncle of Odoacer, but scholars tend to be skeptical of this since Basiliscus' foreign origins are a mystery.
Did you know?
Basiliscus was chosen to lead a military expedition against the Vandals, who were currently based out of Carthage at the time. This operation reportedly consisted of some 10,000 ships and 100,000 soldiers. The basis of the attack was to punish the Vandal king, Geiseric, for his earlier sacking of Rome in 455. Another reason for outcry against Geiseric was his actions against the Empress Licinia Eudoxia, who had been taken hostage during this sack of Rome.
Pictured Left: Cape Bon, in modern Tunisia, is the place where the Roman fleet led by Basiliscus landed to launch an attack upon the Vandal capital of Carthage By Fourat (http://www.panoramio.com/photo/4449570) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
In this assault at Cape Bon in 468, the Vandals negotiated with Basiliscus, asking for five days' time to come to some type of peace talks. During one of the negotiations, a surprise Vandal attack at sea surprised the Romans. The Vandals had control of the Imperial Roman fleet in Carthage and used it against the Romans by filling several of these ships with combustible material, essentially creating fire ships to surprise and overwhelm the Basiliscus' forces.
Opinion
Welcome to my daily opinion. First off, I would like to point out that the Vandals are in Africa. That's a crazy enough fact on its own, and quite a bit of walking on the Vandals part. I also found it interesting that the Eastern Romans even felt it necessary to take such actions against a now stagnant Vandal Kingdom, but would later not be bothered to march back on a foreign controlled Rome. The picture at this time was obviously less clear cut than this, but such an expensive expedition to punish the Vandal King, which costed some 64,000 pounds of gold and 700,000 pounds of silver, seems a bit frivolous to me personally. It could be considered even more frivolous considering Basiliscus had his rear end handed to him. That's all I have for today, and am excited to have made it through the first week of my posts. Only 51 more weeks left!
Sources
Gordon, C. D. (1960). The age of Attila: fifth-century Byzantium and the Barbarians. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Merrills, A. H. (2004). Vandals, Romans and Berbers: new perspectives on late antique North Africa. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Ostrogorski, G. (1969). History of the Byzantine state. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Further Reading:
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