Procopius Anthemius (Ancient Greek: Προκόπιος Ανθέμιος, romanized: Prokópios Anthémios; died 11 July 472) was the Western Roman emperor from 467 to 472. Born in the Eastern Roman Empire, Anthemius quickly worked his way up the ranks. He married into the Theodosian dynasty through Marcia Euphemia, daughter of Eastern emperor Marcian. He soon received a significant number of promotions to various posts, and was presumed to be Marcian's planned successor. However, Marcian's sudden death in 457, together with that of Western emperor Avitus, left the imperial succession in the hands of Aspar. He instead appointed Leo, a low-ranking officer, to the Eastern throne, probably out of fear that Anthemius would be too independent. Eventually, this same Leo designated Anthemius as Western emperor in 467, following a two-year interregnum that started in November 465.
Anthemius attempted to solve the two primary military challenges facing the remains of the Western Roman Empire: the resurgent Visigoths, under Euric, whose domain straddled the Pyrenees; and the unvanquished Vandals, under Geiseric, in undisputed control of North Africa. Anthemius's insistence on ruling independently placed him into direct conflict with the Gothic general Ricimer. Previously the real power behind the throne, Ricimer found that Anthemius's reign threatened his own interests. This eventually escalated into open warfare between the two, with the result that Anthemius lost not only his throne, but also his head, in 472.
Anthemius belonged to a noble family, the Procopii, which gave several high officers, both civil and military, to the Eastern Roman Empire. His maternal grandfather was Anthemius, praetorian prefect of the East (404–415) and Roman consul in 405. His father was Procopius, magister militum per Orientem from 422 to 424, who descended from Procopius, a cousin of Emperor Julian and a usurper against the Eastern emperor Valens (r. 365–366).
Born in Constantinople, he went to Alexandria to study in the school of the Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus; among his fellow students, there were Marcellinus (magister militum and governor of Illyricum), Flavius Illustrius Pusaeus (Praetorian prefect of the East and Consul in 467), Messius Phoebus Severus (Consul in 470 and praefectus urbi), and Pamprepius (pagan poet).
In 453, he married Marcia Euphemia, daughter of the Eastern emperor Marcian (450–457); after the marriage, he was elevated to the rank of comes and sent to the Danubian frontier with the task of rebuilding the border defences, neglected after Attila's death in 453. In 454, he was recalled to Constantinople, where he received the title of patricius in 454 or 455 and became one of the two magistri militum or magister utriusque militiae of the East. In 455, he received the honour of holding the consulate with the Western emperor Valentinian III as a colleague.
This succession of honourable events – the wedding with Marcian's daughter; a promotion to an important military rank, but with administrative rather than military tasks; the prestigious rank of patricius and the highest military position; the consulate held with an Emperor as a colleague – suggests that Marcian had selected Anthemius as a possible candidate for the Eastern or Western throne. This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that Anthemius's prestige misled the 6th-century historian John Malalas to state that Marcian had designated Anthemius as Western Emperor after Avitus.
In October 456, the Western emperor Avitus was deposed; Marcian probably considered Anthemius as his successor, but the Eastern emperor died in January 457 before choosing his colleague. Therefore, both empires had no emperor, and the power was in the hands of the Western generals, Ricimer and Majorian, and the Eastern Magister militum, the Alan Aspar. As Aspar could not sit on the throne because of his barbarian origin, he opposed Anthemius, whose prestige would have made him independent, and chose a low-ranking military officer, Leo; in the West, as his barbarian origin barred Ricimer from the throne, it was Majorian who received the purple.
Anthemius stayed in service under the new emperor; as magister militum, his task was to defend the Empire from the barbarian populations pressing on its border. Around 460, he defeated the Ostrogoths of Valamir in Illyricum. During the winter of 466/467, he defeated a group of Huns, led by Hormidac, who had crossed the frozen Danube and pillaged Dacia. The raiders had conquered Serdica, and Anthemius besieged the city until the starved Huns decided to accept open battle; despite the treachery of his cavalry commander (a Hun), Anthemius led his infantry to victory, and when Hormidac offered surrender Anthemius asked for the deserter to be given to him.
The newly elected Eastern Roman emperor, Leo I the Thracian, had a major foreign affairs problem: the Vandals of King Geiseric and their raids on the Italian coasts. After the death of Libius Severus in 465, the Western Empire had no Emperor. Gaiseric had his own candidate, Olybrius, who was related to Gaiseric because both Olybrius and a son of Gaiseric's had married the two daughters of emperor Valentinian III.
With Olybrius on the throne, Gaiseric would become the real power behind the throne of the Western Empire. Leo, on the other hand, wanted to keep Gaiseric as far as possible from the imperial court at Ravenna, and took time to choose a successor to Severus. To put Leo under pressure, Gaiseric extended his attacks on Sicily and Italy to the territories of the Eastern Empire, sacking and enslaving people living in Illyricum, the Peloponnese and other parts of Greece, so Leo was obliged to take action.
In 467, Leo I designated Anthemius as Western emperor and sent him to Italy with an army led by the Magister militum per Illyricum Marcellinus. On 12 April, Anthemius was proclaimed Emperor (augustus) at the third or twelfth mile from Rome. Anthemius's election was celebrated in Constantinople with a panegyric by Dioscorus.
By choosing Anthemius, Leo obtained three results: he sent a possible candidate to the Eastern throne far away; he repulsed Gaiseric's attempt to put a puppet of his own on the Western throne; and he put a capable and proven general with a trained army in Italy, ready to fight the Vandals.
Relationship with the Eastern Empire
The reign of Anthemius was characterised by a good diplomatic relationship with the Eastern Empire; for example, Anthemius is the last Western Emperor to be recorded in an Eastern law. Both courts collaborated in the choice of the yearly consuls, as each court chose a consul and accepted the other's choice. Anthemius had the honour of holding the consulate sine collega (without a colleague) in 468, the first year he started as Emperor, following a similar honour given to Leo in 466. The following year the two consuls were Anthemius's son, Marcian, and Leo's son-in-law, Flavius Zeno (later successor of Leo on the Eastern throne).
In 470 the consuls were Messius Phoebus Severus, Anthemius's old friend and fellow student at Proclus's school, and the Magister militum per Orientem Flavius Iordanes. In 471, the year in which Leo held his fourth consulate with the Praetorian prefect of Italy Caelius Aconius Probianus as colleague, the two emperors strengthened their bonds with a marriage between Anthemius's son, Marcian, and Leo's daughter, Leontia; Marcian was honoured with his second consulate the following year, this time chosen by the Eastern court.
Anthemius's matrimonial policy also included the marriage of his only daughter, Alypia, and the powerful Magister militum Ricimer. The poet Sidonius Apollinaris arrived in Rome on the occasion of the wedding at the end of 467 and described the celebrations in which all social classes were involved; he also hints that Alypia might have not liked her husband, a barbarian.
The Vandals were the major problem of the Western Empire. In late 467, Anthemius organised a campaign of the western Roman army, probably under the command of Marcellinus. The campaign to overthrow the Vandals was on a large scale, with more than 100,000 men. However, the war would end in failure: the bad weather obliged the Roman fleet to return to its base before completing the operation.