Illus - Patronage of Pamprepius and Contrast With Verina

Patronage of Pamprepius and Contrast With Verina

It was perhaps his literary predilections that made him the friend and patron of Pamprepius, for whom he obtained a salary from the public revenue, and to whom also he made an allowance from his private resources. Pamprepius was a native of Thebes, or, according to others, of Panopolis in Egypt, an avowed heathen, and eminent as a poet, a grammarian, and especially for his skill in divining the future. Pamprepius was hated both by Zeno and by the dowager empress Verina, and during the absence of Illus, who had gone on some business into Isauria, they banished him on a charge of attempting to divine future events in favour of Illus and against the emperor. Illus, knowing that his intimacy with him had been the real cause of his banishment, received him into his household, and, on his return to the capital, took him with him. The date of these events is doubtful: it is possible that they occurred before Marcian's revolt, though a later date is on the whole more probable.

As the weakness of Zeno's character made him jealous of all persons of influence and talent, it is not wonderful that the commanding position and popular favour of Illus rendered him an object of suspicion, and that the emperor in various ways sought to rid himself of him. The ambitious Verina, the dowager empress, was also his enemy, and formed a plot against his life. The assassin, an Alan, employed by her, is said to have wounded Illus; but this is doubtful, as historians have confounded her plot with the later one of her daughter Ariadne. At any rate Verina's attempt was defeated, and Zeno, equally jealous of her and of Illus, banished her at the instance of the latter, and confined her in the fort of Papurius. There is some doubt as to the time of these events also. Candidus places the banishment of Verina before the revolt of Marcian, and Theodore Lector assigns as the cause of it her share in the revolt of Basiliscus. It is not unlikely, indeed, that this turbulent woman was twice banished, once before Marcian's revolt, for her connection with Basiliscus, and again after Marcian's revolt, for her plot against Illus. From her prison she managed to interest her daughter Ariadne, the wife of Zeno, in her favour, and Ariadne endeavoured to obtain her release, first from Zeno, and then from Illus, to whom the emperor referred her. Illus not only refused her request, but charged her with wishing to place another person on her husband's throne. This irritated her; and she, like her mother, attempted to assassinate Illus. Jordanes ascribes her hatred to another cause: he says that Illus had infused jealous suspicions into Zeno's mind which had led Zeno to attempt her life, and that her knowledge of these things stimulated her to revenge. The assassin whom she employed failed to kill Illus, but cut off his ear in the attempt. The assassin was taken, and Zeno, who appears to have been privy to the affair, was unable to prevent his execution.