Aelia Verina

410 – 484 · Generation XX

Aelia (AD 410 – AD 484). Married Leo I around AD 445. One of their children is recorded in this archive. Empress and serial kingmaker — she raised two rebellions against her own son-in-law Zeno. Her origins, like those of her brother Basiliscus, are unknown, though a Balkan background is thought likely. She married Leo, a Thracian officer whom the general Aspar raised to the throne in 457, and bore two daughters, Ariadne and Leontia, and a son who died in infancy in 463. When Leo died in 474, she and Ariadne persuaded the boy-emperor Leo II to crown his father Zeno as co-emperor; after the child’s death, however, she turned on Zeno, conspiring with her lover Patricius, Basiliscus and the general Illus, and by one account crowned her brother herself in 475. When Basiliscus had Patricius killed she plotted for Zeno instead. After an attempt on Illus’s life was traced to her, she was banished to Isaurian fortresses, until in 484 Illus released her to crown the rebel Leontius at Tarsus. She died early in the siege of Papyrius.

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Partners

• Married Leo I the Thracian (401 – 474) in 445 — one child together

Children

• Ariadne Aelia (450 – 515)

Life

• 410 — Born
• 445 — Married Leo I
• 484 — Died