MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipoten tiary to Denmark.
LEO, le o, the name of six rulers of the Byzantine empire, as follows: LEO I (surnamed THRAx, MAGNUS and MAKELLES), emperor: b. Thrace, about 400; d. 474. He was a military tribune at the death of Marcian in 457, was raised to the throne through the influence of Aspar, com mander of the military forces, and was recog nized as emperor by both Senate and clergy. Aspar, despite his great power, could not be come emperor because of his being an Arian, but thought to rule through Leo. Leo, how ever, refused to be dominated. He steadily followed the leading of his predecessor in an effort to decrease the powers of the great nobles; defied Aspar, changing his bodyguard from the Germanic one formed to uphold Aspar's power to Isaurian; confirmed the de crees of the Council of Chalcedon and sternly suppressed thr. Etttychian heresy in Egypt. He
repelled the Hun invasions of Dacia in 466 and 468, and in 467 had one of his generals, Authemius, elected emperor of the West. To gether they equipped an expedition to conquer the pirate Vandals of Africa, sending 1,100 ships and I00,000 men; but the fleet was prised by the Vandal king, Genseric, and nearly half of it destroyed. Leo seized upon the defeat as an excuse for having Aspar put to death as a traitor, the Vandals also being of Arian stock The Goths, to revenge the fate of Aspar, laid waste the country as far as the walls of Constantinople. He was sometimes called Leo the Elder to distinguish him from his infant grandson, who succeeded him; and his surname Magnus was given him by the Orthodox, while the Arians called him Makelles (butcher). Consult Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire); 'Cambridge Mediaeval History' (Vol. I, 1911).