Flavius Ardabur Aspar (

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

: Ἄσπαρ, fl. 400471) was an Eastern Roman patrician and ''

magister militum (Latin for "master of soldiers"; : ) was a top-level military command used in the late Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, the e ...

'' ("master of soldiers") of Alanic- Gothic descent. As the general of a Germanic army in Roman service, Aspar exerted great influence on the Eastern Roman Emperors for half a century, from the 420s to his death in 471, through the reigns of

Theodosius II Theodosius II ( ; 10 April 401 – 28 July 450), called "the Calligraphy, Calligrapher", was Roman emperor from 402 to 450. He was proclaimed ''Augustus (title), Augustus'' as an infant and ruled as the Eastern Empire's sole emperor after the ...

Marcian Marcian (; ; ; 392 – 27 January 457) was Roman emperor of the Byzantine Empire, East from 450 to 457. Very little is known of his life before becoming emperor, other than that he was a (personal assistant) who served under the commanders ...

and Leo I, who, in the end, had him killed. His death led to the ending of the Germanic domination of Eastern Roman policy.

Biography

Aspar was born the son of the magister Ardaburius, and was of Alanic- Gothic descent. The name Aspar (

Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...

: ''Aspari'') in

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means "Horse-rider". Aspar played a crucial role in his father's expedition in 424 to defeat the Western

usurper A usurper is an illegitimate or controversial claimant to power, often but not always in a monarchy. In other words, one who takes the power of a country, city, or established region for oneself, without any formal or legal right to claim it a ...

Joannes Joannes or John (; died 425) was Western Roman emperor from 423 to 425. On the death of the Western emperor Honorius, Theodosius II, the last remaining ruler of the Theodosian dynasty, did not immediately announce a successor. In the ''inter ...

Ravenna Ravenna ( ; , also ; ) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire during the 5th century until its Fall of Rome, collapse in 476, after which ...

and to install

Galla Placidia Galla Placidia (392/3 – 27 November 450), daughter of the Roman emperor Theodosius I, was the mother and a tutor and advisor to emperor Valentinian III. She was queen consort to Ataulf, King of the Visigoths from 414 until his death in 415, ...

and her son,

Valentinian III Valentinian III (; 2 July 41916 March 455) was Roman emperor in the Western Roman Empire, West from 425 to 455. Starting in childhood, his reign over the Roman Empire was one of the longest, but was dominated by civil wars among powerful general ...

, in his place. He also helped to negotiate a peace treaty with

Geiseric Gaiseric ( – 25 January 477), also known as Geiseric or Genseric (; reconstructed Vandalic language, Vandalic: ) was king of the Vandals and Alans from 428 to 477. He ruled over Vandal Kingdom, a kingdom and played a key role in the Fall of th ...

after the

Vandal The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vandal ...

invasion of

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. Aspar attained the

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states thro ...

ship in 434 after campaigning in Africa. However, Aspar could not become

emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

because of his

Arian Arianism (, ) is a Christological doctrine which rejects the traditional notion of the Trinity and considers Jesus to be a creation of God, and therefore distinct from God. It is named after its major proponent, Arius (). It is considered he ...

religion. Instead, he played the role of kingmaker with his subordinate

, who became emperor by marrying

'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 Procopius Anthemius (; died 11 July 472) was the Western Roman Empire, Western Roman emperor from 467 to 472. Born in the Byzantine Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, Anthemius quickly worked his way up the ranks. He married into the Theodosian dyna ...

, the choice was quite different. Aspar, who in this occasion was probably offered the throne by the senate but refused, could have chosen his own son Ardabur, but instead selected an obscure tribune of one of his military units, Leo I. The account of Leo's coronation ceremony records a "foremost patrician" sitting in the chariot with Leo during the procession and a "leading senator" offering him a golden crown at the Forum of Constantine. Aspar is suspected to be both of these. In 470, in an episode of the struggle for power between Aspar and the Isaurian general

Zeno Zeno may refer to: People * Zeno (name), including a list of people and characters with the given name * Zeno (surname) Philosophers * Zeno of Elea (), philosopher, follower of Parmenides, known for his paradoxes * Zeno of Citium (333 – 264 B ...

, Aspar persuaded the emperor to appoint his second son, Patricius, as '' caesar'' and give him in marriage his daughter

Leontia Leontia (, fl. 610) was an empress of the Eastern Roman Empire as the wife of Phocas. Empress Maurice reigned in the Byzantine Empire from 582 to 602. When he decreed that the Byzantine army was to spend the winter of 602/603 on the northern ...

. However, since the clergy and people of

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did not consider an Arian eligible to become 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 would he marry 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. Aspar had another son, Ermanaric, with the sister of Theodoric Strabo and daughter of Triarius.

Herwig Wolfram Herwig Wolfram (born 14 February 1934) is an Austrian historian who is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History and Auxiliary Sciences of History at the University of Vienna and the former Director of the . He is a leading member of the Vienna Schoo ...

, p. 32. Aspar's wife was an Ostrogoth, as the Ostrogoth King

Theodoric the Great Theodoric (or Theoderic) the Great (454 – 30 August 526), also called Theodoric the Amal, was king of the Ostrogoths (475–526), and ruler of the independent Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy between 493 and 526, regent of the Visigoths (511–526 ...

was her nephew.Bunson, 38. A cistern attributed to Aspar still exists today in

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

Notes

References

*Bleeker, R. A. '' Aspar and the Struggle for the Eastern Roman Empire, AD 421–71. '' London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2923. *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. *McEvoy, Meaghan
"Becoming Roman?: the not-so-curious case of Aspar and the Ardaburii"
''Journal of Late Antiquity'' 9.2 (2016), 483–511. *McEvoy, Meaghan, "Celibacy and survival in court politics in the fifth century AD", in S. Tougher (ed.),
The Emperor in the Byzantine World
' (London, 2019), 115–134. *Williams, Stephen, and Gerard Friell, ''The Rome That Did Not Fall'', Routledge, 1999, . * Wolfram, Herwig, ''History of the Goths'', trans. Thomas J. Dunlap. University of California Press, 1988, .

External links

* Profile of Aspar in the

Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire ''Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire'' (abbreviated as ''PLRE'') is a work of Roman prosopography published in a set of three volumes collectively describing many of the people attested to have lived in the Roman Empire from AD 260, the date ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aspar Year of birth unknown 471 deaths Byzantine generals Gothic warriors Magistri militum Alanic people Byzantine people of Gothic descent 5th-century Byzantine people 5th-century Arian Christians 5th-century western Roman consuls Assassinated Byzantine people