Flavius Procopius Anthemius (
floruit 469-515) was a politician of the
Eastern Roman Empire, son of Western Roman Emperor
Anthemius.
Biography
Procopius was the son of
Anthemius and of
Marcia Euphemia, daughter of the Easter Roman Empire. His brothers were
Anthemiolus,
Marcian and
Romulus; he also had a sister,
Alypia.
He lived at
Constantinople, at Easter Emperor
Leo I's court, while his father shortly ruled on the
Western Roman Empire (467-472), unsuccessfully trying to restore the Roman power in the Western provinces beyond Italy and Gaul. During this time, his brother Anthemiolus died while leading an attack against the
Visigoths (in 471) and his sister Alypia married the powerful
magister militum of barbarian origin
Ricimer.
In 474, Leo died. He had left no sons and two daughters, the elder
Ariadne, born before Leo was raised to the throne and married to the Isaurian general
Zeno, and the younger
Leontia, born when Leo was already emperor and married to Procopius' brother, Marcian.
The people of Constantinople despised the Isaurians, whom they considered barbarians; furthermore, Leontia's status as "
porphyrogenita" gave her some sort of precedence to the throne, according to the faction that opposed Zeno. For this reason Marcian tried to overthrow Zeno. With the help of Procopius and Romulus, he gathered in
Constantinople troops composed by both citizens and foreigners in the house of a Caesarius, south of the
Forum of Theodosius, and from there they marched...
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