Verina - Family

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. 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.

If accepted the theory of Krautschick would give Verina a barbarian origin. Her ancestry would still be uncertain due to contradictory accounts on the ancestry of Odoacer. Various sources have identified him as one of the Goths, the Rugians, the Scirii and the Thuringii. All four were Germanic peoples, with the Goths, Rugians and Scirii grouped by ethnologists within the East Germanic tribes. His father Edeko was leader of the Scirii but it is unclear if he was born in the tribe or married into it. Other sources identify Edeko as one of the Huns, possibly because of his service under Attila the Hun. According to Amory, the varying ethnographic identities of both men may reflect both their mixed ancestry and their political association with the various groups.

The presence of Verina in the Roman court has been attributed by Demandt to "the osmosis of the late Roman and Germanic aristocracies". In other words the practice of intermarriage between the Roman military aristocracy and the dynasties derived from it on the one hand and various Germanic families of foederati.