Basiliscus succeeded in seizing power in 475, exploiting the unpopularity of Emperor Zeno, the " barbarian " successor to Leo, and a plot organised by Verina that had caused Zeno to flee Constantinople.

The " barbarian " origins of the Emperor caused antipathy towards Zeno among the people of Constantinople.

In 477, however, Zeno changed his mind, probably by instigation of Illus who would have gained by the fall of Armatus, and ordered Armatus ' death.

The struggle between Basiliscus and Zeno impeded the Eastern Empire's ability to intervene in the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which happened in early September 476.

Though during his own lifetime Odoacer maintained the legal fiction that he was actually ruling Italy as the viceroy of Zeno, historians mark 476 as the traditional date of the fall of the Roman Empire in the West.

Zeno was ruling in Constantinople during the " fall of Rome " in 476 ( the actual events generally thought of as " ending " the Roman Empire in the West actually occurred at Ravenna ), and both Odoacer and his over-thrower Theodoric of the Ostrogoths officially ruled Italy as Zeno's viceroys ; this suzerainty was purely theoretical, however, and Imperial control of Italy was not actually reasserted until the conquests of Justinian I's strategos Belisarius in the 530s.

Ariadne and Zeno had a son, Leo II, who succeeded his grandfather as Emperor in 474 ( and was convinced by his mother and grandmother to elevate his father to co-Emperor ); Leo II's death left his father sole Emperor in the East, producing the altogether curious spectacle of a grandson succeeding his grandfather without his father's predecease, and then in turn being succeeded by his own father.

* Zeno of Caunus ( 3rd century BC ), finance minister to the Ptolemies, whose papyri letters ( the " Zenon archive ") were discovered in the 1900s

Basiliscus, however, failed to fulfill the promises he made to the two generals ; furthermore, they received letters from some of the leading ministers at the court, urging them to secure the return of Zeno, for the city now preferred a restored Isaurian to a Miaphysite whose unpopularity increased with the fiscal rapacity of his ministers.

His successor, Pope Felix III zealously espoused the cause of Talaia and despatched two bishops, Vitalis and Misenus, to Constantinople with letters to Zeno and Acacius, demanding that the latter should repair to Rome to answer the charges brought against him by Talaia ( Felix, Epp.

In 1784, he was identified by Johann Reinhold Forster as possibly being the Prince Zichmni described in letters allegedly written around the year 1400 by the Zeno brothers of Venice, in which they describe a voyage throughout the North Atlantic under the command of Zichmni.

# That the letters and map ascribed to the Zeno brothers and published in 1558 are authentic.

Zichmni is the name of an explorer-prince who appears in a 1558 book by Nicolò Zeno of Venice, allegedly based on letters and a map dating to the year 1400 by the author's ancestors, brothers Nicolò and Antonio Zeno.

According to the book, the letters provided a first-hand account of a voyage of exploration undertaken in 1398 by Prince Zichmni, accompanied by the Zeno brothers.

Nicolò and Antonio are notable for a number of letters and map ( called the Zeno map ) published in the year 1558 by one of their descendants, also named Nicolò Zeno.

The letters and accompanying map are controversial and are regarded by at least one historian as a hoax, either by the Zeno brothers themselves or by their descendant who wrote a narrative which he said was based on what was left of letters that he had torn up as a boy.

The younger Zeno published the map, along with a series of letters, claiming he had discovered them in a storeroom in his family's home in Venice.

According to Zeno, the map and letters date from around the year 1400 and purportedly describe a long voyage made by the Zeno brothers in the 1390s under the direction of a prince named Zichmni.

A great contemporary figure of Cypriot letters was the philosopher Zeno who was born at Kition about 336 BCE and founded the famous Stoic School of Philosophy at Athens, where he died about 263 BCE.

A cache of over 2, 000 Greek and Demotic letters and documents written on papyri by Zeno were discovered in the 1900s and are referred to as the Zenon Archive or Zenon Papyri.

The controversial Zeno letters have been cited in support of a claim that Henry Sinclair, earl of Orkney, visited Nova Scotia in 1398.

Anthemios presented the Gospel to Emperor Zeno at Constantinople and received from him the privileges of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus, that is, the purple cloak which the Greek Archbishop of Cyprus wears at festivals of the church, the imperial sceptre and the red ink with which he affixes his signature.

In 478, during the reign of the Emperor Zeno, archbishop Anthemios of Cyprus announced that the hidden burial place of Barnabas had been revealed to him in a dream.

Upon his election, Zeno, the Venetian envoy, wrote the following description of him:

On being elected to the Papacy Julius raised the now 17-year old but still uncouth and quasi-illiterate Innocenzo to the cardinalate, appointed him cardinal-nephew, and showering the boy with benefices – Abbot commendatario of the abbeys of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, S. Zeno in Verona, June 1552, later of the abbeys of S. Saba, Miramondo, and of Grottaferrata, Frascati, and other appointments – to the point where his income was one of the highest in Europe.

Neither Zeno nor Basiliscus, the two generals fighting for the eastern throne at the time of Romulus ' accession, accepted him as ruler.

While Zeno told the Senate that Nepos was their lawful sovereign, he did not press the point, and accepted the imperial insignia brought to him by the senate.

At the time of the death of Zeno ( 491 ), Anastasius, a palace official ( silentiarius ), held a very high character, and was raised to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire by Ariadne, Zeno's widow, who preferred him to Zeno's brother, Longinus.

Subsequently, Byzantine Emperor Zeno gave him the title of Patrician and the office of Magister militum ( master of the soldiers ), and even appointed him as Roman Consul.

Zeno is said to have declined Athenian citizenship when it was offered to him, fearing that he would appear unfaithful to his native land Phoenicia, where he was highly esteemed.

A prolific writer, Chrysippus expanded the fundamental doctrines of Zeno of Citium, the founder of the school, which earned him the title of Second Founder of Stoicism.

In ecclesiastical history, Zeno is associated with the Henotikon or " instrument of union ", promulgated by him and signed by all the Eastern bishops, with the design of solving the monophysite controversy.

What happened was that Leo sent some of his personal soldiers with Zeno to protect him, but they were bribed by Aspar to actually capture him.

While living in Antioch with his family, Zeno sympathised with the Monophysite views of Peter the Fuller, and supported him against his opponent, the Chalcedonian bishop Martyrius.

Since Leo II was seven years old ( too young to rule himself ) Ariadne and her mother Verina prevailed upon him to crown Zeno, his father, as co-emperor, which he did on 9 February 474.

However, Verina decided to overthrow her son-in-law Zeno and replace him with her lover, the ex-magister officiorum Patricius, with the help of her brother Basiliscus.

Illus and Trocundes were sent to chase him, and Zeno was compelled to shut himself up in a fortress, where Illus besieged him, capturing also Zeno's brother, Longinus and keeping him as an hostage.

After his restoration, Zeno fulfilled his promises, letting Armatus keep his title of magister militum praesentalis ( possibly even raising him to the rank of patricius ) and appointing his son Basiliscus Caesar in Nicaea.

Zeno confiscated all of the properties of Armatus, deposed his son Basiliscus, and had him ordained as a priest.

Zeno fled to his native lands, bringing with him some of the Isaurians living in Constantinople, and the Imperial treasury.

By this act, Zeno hoped to placate the increasingly miaphysite provinces of Egypt, Palestine and Syria, which were under increasing attacks by the Persian Sassanid dynasty.