There was a major coinage reform in 491 A.D. and we, numismatists and historians in general, kind of take the reign of Emperor Anastasius as the start of the Byzantine era. He thought of himself as the Roman Emperor and so did all his successors in that line of rulers.
There are descendants of the last Byzantine Emperor. They represent themselves as the heirs of the Roman Empire, never mind they have no territory. As far as they’re concerned Istanbul belongs to them, or I suppose, the entire Roman Empire at its greatest extent. If they could somehow get it back, they would have “deserved” it, by ancient right.
So Zeno, the last “Roman” Roman Emperor, died. He was the one who had responded to the deposition by Odoacer of the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus, by appointing that same Odoacer as Magister Militum in Italy. There was nothing else to do.
Anyway, Zeno had a reign of problems. Roman government at that time was a mostly functional bureaucracy with criminals of various kinds killing each other at the top. They would persecute and kill their enemies and jockey for power. Meanwhile, the bureaucracy would keep things going as best it could.
There was a rebellion
