Illus rises against Zeno in the East
The Chronicle of Marcellinus Comes records under the consulship of Theodoric and Venantius (AD 484) that Illus, an Isaurian, master of offices, whose ear had been cut off at court, invaded the East as an enemy of Zeno and then seized usurped power together with Leontius.
What this does and does not establish
A Latin chronicle written at Constantinople c. 518-534, used through Mommsen's 1894 edition (MGH AA 11) as Internet Archive OCR text (page images not checked); the English is an AI working translation. OCR 'tyi-annidem' read as tyrannidem. Mommsen's apparatus gives 'comitem' (T) for 'comitatum', calling the reading uncertain, and 'leuntio' (S); his source note marks this item as repeated by Jordanes (Romana 349), who depends on Marcellinus. The chronicle reports the capture and beheading of Leontius and Illus under AD 488. The annal placement is retained for navigation. No absolute event year is assigned. The competing placement under 483 prevents treating the 484 entry as a settled date.
- Read through an AI working translation.
- Not listed under any year on this site.
- Region
- Western Asia
- Theme
- Politics and institutions
- Kind of record
- No year assigned. Something a source reports, with no single year established.
How it is dated
- Date reference
- Indiction/consul heading (OCR line 7845): '30 VII. THEODORICI ET VENANTII.'
- How we use it
- The event is excluded from annual counts.
The date reference is this project’s reading of the source’s date. It may give an era name, a reign or a calendar in a normalised form rather than in the source’s own words; the dating notes say what the source prints.
Dating notes from the research record
The original annal filing is retained as a source locator (484); this revision assigns no single event year.
File names and line numbers in these notes, and in the limits above, refer to the project’s retained copies of the cited sources. Names such as calendar_headers are the project’s calendar look-ups, and “the investigator” is the research step that prepared the record.
Sources and quoted text
Line and character numbers under “Location” refer to the project’s retained copy of the source. For database rows, “Edition” names the batch of rows that was fetched together.
Source 1 · Supports the statement
Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon (Latin), ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH Auctores antiquissimi 11 (Chronica minora II), 1894
Marcellinus Comes (6th-century, Constantinople); critical edition by Theodor Mommsen (1894)
Quoted text (Latin)
Illus natione Isaurus, dignitate magister officiorum, amputata apud comitatum au-
ricula Orientem Zenoni infestus invasit. porro cum Leontio tyi-annidem arripuit.AI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
Illus, an Isaurian by nation, master of offices in rank, having had his ear cut off at court, invaded the East as an enemy of Zeno. Then with Leontius he seized tyranny.
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Source: Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon, ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH AA 11 (1894), Internet Archive OCR text. English renderings are AI working translations from the Latin.
Exact source version
e805805fe7b68265bd53e46c3152420178fa7275b1ed420804dfd243bfc628c9Checks and changes
Source checked 2026-11-05. An independent AI evidence review supports this bounded, attributed wording. That review does not guarantee historical truth. How records are checked
This is a corrected version of this record. During research, before this release, an earlier version was withdrawn after independent review and replaced by this one.
Revision s601_repair_s1h_484_marc_1
Exact revision fingerprint
003626712c21c83c7efe62dfed3d6d17652ed3a0c6b4a2f2e02c4bd8635a5f68