Verina

Aelia Verina (Greek: Βερίνα, died 484) was the Empress consort of Leo I of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a sister of Basiliscus. Her daughter Ariadne was Empress consort of first Zeno and then Anastasius I. Verina was the maternal grandmother of Leo II. Family The origins of Verina and her brother Basiliscus are unknown. They are considered likely to have ancestry in the Balkans but nothing more specific is known. They are assumed to have at least one sister as a hagiography of Daniel the Stylite names a brother-in-law of Verina and Basiliscus as Zuzus. Stefan Krautschick in his historical work Zwei Aspekte des Jahres 476 (1986) advanced a theory that the two siblings were related to Odoacer, the first barbarian King of Italy.<ref name="Ostrogothic Italy 2003 page 282">Patrick Amory, Passage of "People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554" (2003)], page 282</ref> The theory relies on passage 209.1 in the fragmentary chronicle of John of Antioch, a 7th-century monk. The chronicler has been tentatively identified with John of the Sedre, Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch from 641 to 648. The passage records the assassination of Armatus by Onoulphus. Based on interpretation Odoacer was brother to either Onoulphus alone or to both men. The second interpretation was introduced by Krautschick and has gained the support of (among others) Alexander Demandt and Patrick Amory. Armatus was identified as nephew of Verina and Basiliscus in other Byzantine sources, including a hagiography of Daniel the Stylite and the Suda. The theory would make both Onoulphus and Odoacer nephews of Verina and Basiliscus. However a counterargument to the theory is given by Penny Macgeorge in her own study Late Roman Warlords (2003), pages 284–285, based on the silence of both John Malalas and Malchus on a blood relation of Odoacer to the House of Leo. Both historians were chronologically closer to the recorded events than John of Antioch.