Zeno

Zeno was eastern Roman emperor for most of the period from 474 to 491. His reign faced usurpations, religious division and the end of western imperial rule; he recognised Odoacer’s position in Italy and later sent Theodoric the Ostrogoth west to challenge him.

In Ross Laidlaw’s Theoderic, Shaped by his youth as a hostage at Constantinople, Theoderic becomes both an Ostrogothic war leader and a Roman imperial officer, moving through the shifting politics and battlefields of the Balkans before Emperor Zeno directs him against Odoacer in Italy. Gary Jennings’s Raptor places Zeno within a narrative shaped by political ambition and government, military command and battlefield decision-making, and empire, conquest and resistance.