[Zeno,] emperor of the Romans. [It was he] who, wanting to leave his son Zeno as successor, advanced him at quite an early age through the offices and bid him exercise his body in order to add to his youthful vigor. And the imperial officers, as they were in authority over the spending of public funds, seduced him into drinking luxuriantly; and, encouraging him in his vices,[1] they taught him, contrary to custom, to madly desire his fellow youths in accord with the loves of males. And so, when he became accustomed to the good of a life situated amidst delusional pleasure, he displayed on his face the arrogance that burned from within him because he expected to inherit the imperial title, and he began to walk proudly, to lift his neck up high, and--to speak shortly--to be imperious to everyone as if to slaves. But the overseer of all, having seen his inborn and his educated baseness, deemed it best that, after having a stomach ailment and diarrhoea[2] and relieving himself in bed in his unconciousness, he depart then prematurely from human things.
[It is said that[3]] the emperor Zeno, when he discovered the defeat of his forces, fled into a fort situated on a hill, which the inhabitants call Constantinopole. Realizing this, he groaned to those with him, "God's joke", he said, "yes, that's what man is,[4] if truly the divine loves thus to mock even me, for the prophets maintained their prophecy for me that in the month of July I must be in Constantinople. And I thought that I would come back into Constantinople. But now, a fugitive bereft of everything, I have come onto a hill, discovering--wretch that I am--that it has the same name [as the city]."