Europe 476 918

ebellion of the Isaurians?War with Persia, 503-5?The ' Blue and Green' Factions?Rebellion of Vitalian?Accession of Justin I. At Rome the emperors of the third quarter of the fifth century?all the ephemeral Caesars whose blood-stained annals fill the space between the death of Valentinian m. and the usurpation of Odoacer?had been the mere creatures of the barbarian, or semi-barbarian, 'patricians' and 'masters of the soldiers,' to whom they owed alike their elevations and their untimely ends. The history of those troubled years would be more logically arranged under the names of the Caesar-makers, Ricimer, Gundobad, Orestes, than under those of the unhappy puppets whom they manipulated. But, when we turn our eyes eastward to Constantinople, we are surprised to find how entirely different was the aspect of affairs. The Western Empire was rapidly falling to pieces, province after province dropping out of the power of the emperor, and becoming part of the realm of some Gothic, Burgundian, or Vandal prince, who paid the most shadowy homage, or no homage at all, to the ephemeral Caesar at Period i. C Rome. The Eastern Empire, on the other hand, maintained Contrast be- its boundaries intact, and was slowly building I"d wfstern? UP its strength for renewed activity in the next Empires. century. While nine emperors' reigns filled no more than twenty-one years at Rome (455-476), two emperors were reigning for thirty-four years (457-491) on the Bosphorus. A...