Anastasius

**Anastasius**, or Anastasius I Dicorus, was an emperor who reigned after the death of Zeno in 491 CE.

## Anastasius I

* BlueEyes
* BlackEyes
* Elder (BlueEyes)
* Elder (BlackEyes)

## Biographical information

### Religon

Chalcedonian Christian (former)Monophysite Christian

## In "Unbiased History"

### "Byzantium I - The Eastern Empire"

Anastasius was proclaimed as an emperor by Ariadne, the wife of Zeno who was buried alive during his illness. While Anastasius was competent and intelligent, he had demonic urges--which resulted in him having a single pitch-black eye and his blue eye--due to her mother's failure to purge all of Satan's essence when he cursed him in her womb. Nevertheless, Anastasius has proved himself to be a capable emperor, who cut down excessive spending on entertainment (even banning erotic dancing and animals in the circus), increased payment for the Roman army instead of unreliable barbarian mercenaries, abolished monopoly, lowered taxes on the peasantry, and trimming down the bloated bureaucracy. Furthermore, he also expanded coinage to the point that taxation in Roman Empire was also based on coins rather than products that Diocletian had adopted after the rampant inflation from the Crisis of the Third Century.

During his time, a conflict--also known as Anastasian War--occurred between him and the Persian Empire under Kavad over the payment to defend against the Huns in the Caucasus. Hypatius (his nephew), Vitalian (his general), and Justin (his royal guard captain) were participants in the war, which ended in a stalemate that resulted in peace negotiations. After the war, Anastasius would build fortifications in Dara.

As time passed, Anastasius began to side with the Monophysites and even replaced the Patriarch of Constantinople with a new one who shared his new beliefs. This went into full-fledge support when he touched the reverse chi-rho, which was left by Attila the Hun a century ago, on a tree outside of Constantinople. Vitalian revolted against him, who initially lost a battle but managed to hold his capital before driving him back. Fortunately, Anastasius regained his humane side. In the last decade of his reign, he attempted to find a successor. At first, he tried to see his nephews sit on chairs, one of which had a letter declaring his heir, but all three never sat on the chair with a secret letter. He then decided to go to sleep with a vow to announce whoever entered his chamber to be his successor. As he woke up, he saw the royal guard captain named Justin I, who was also the uncle of Justinian.

In 518, the 27th year of his rule, Anastasius died at 87. He left the treasure with 320,000 tonnes of gold thanks to his financial policies.

## "Trivia"

* Historically, based on coins and arts, Anastasius was clean-shaven and shown with bowl-cut hair.
* Anastasius started as Chalcedonian Christian but later embraced Monophysite after 512 after his successes against Persia.
	+ Even then, Anastasius had controversial and provocative opinions on religious matters. He was barred from Hagia Sophia, and he had to swear an oath of upholding the Chalcedonian Creed during his coronation.
* Anastasius was given the nickname "Dicorus," or two pupils in Greek, due to having one blue eye and one black eye from inheriting heterochromia.
* He was purportedly also a member of the Constantinian Dynasty through Gallus, the half-brother of Julian the Apostate.
* Although the series portrays that Anasthasius left the treasure with 320,000 tonnes of gold, this is hyperbolically more than the gold that was ever mined in the history of the world. Instead, Anastasius left the treasury with 420 tonnes of gold(320,000 pounds), which would still be a lot of gold even for the time.