Aspar

[8][9] Aspar played a crucial role in his father's expedition in 424 to defeat the Western usurper Joannes of Ravenna and to install Galla Placidia and her son, Valentinian III, in his place.

On 27 January 457 Marcian died, and the political and military establishment figures of the Eastern court took eleven days to choose a successor.

Aspar, who in this occasion was probably offered the throne by the senate but refused,[11] could have chosen his own son Ardabur, but instead selected an obscure tribune of one of his military units, Leo I.

However, since the clergy and people of Constantinople did not consider an Arian eligible to become emperor, at the news of the appointment riots broke out in the city hippodrome, led by the head of the Sleepless Monks, Marcellus: Aspar and Leo had to promise to the bishops that Patricius would convert to Orthodoxy before becoming emperor, and only after the conversion would he marry Leontia.

In 471 an imperial conspiracy organized by Leo I and the Isaurians caused the death of Aspar and of his elder son Ardabur.