principle that it is not meet for a woman to speak among men. Those
whose dearest interests are in the presence of extreme danger are
justified in thinking only of the wisest course of action. Now, in my
opinion, Nature is an unprofitable tutor, even if her guidance bring us
safety. It is impossible for a man when he has come into the world not
to die; but for one who has reigned it is intolerable to be an exile.
May I never exist without this purple robe, and may I never live to see
the day on which those who meet me shall not address me as Queen. If you
wish, O Emperor, to save yourself, there is no difficulty; we have ample
funds. Yonder is the sea, and there are the ships. Yet reflect whether,
when you have once escaped to a place of security, you will not prefer
death to safety. I agree with an old saying that 'Empire is a fair
winding-sheet.'"
By these courageous words the resolution of Theodora saved the throne of
Justinian. Her firmness conquered the weakness and the pusillanimity of
the court. Belisarius triumphantly led his forces against the
revolutionists in the Hippodrome. A ruthless massacre followed, in which
thirty-five thousand persons perished. The power of the factions was
forever broken, and henceforth Justinian enjoyed absolute sovereignty
without a protest. The important public buildings which had been
destroyed in the conflagrations incident to the riot were restored on a
more magnificent scale, and the still standing Saint Sophia is a
monument to the genius and splendor of the reign of Justinian and
Theodora.
One can readily understand what a dominating influence such a woman
would maintain over the indecisive Justinian. The passion with which she
had inspired the prince was preserved up to the last moment of her life;
and his devotion and regard ever increased and after her death took the
form of reverential awe, so influenced was he by her superior abilities.
She was to him, in the words of a contemporary historian, "the sweetest
charm"; or, as he himself says in a legal enactment, "the gift of
God"--a play upon her name. After her death, when he would make a solemn
promise, he swore by the name of Theodora. He withheld from her none of
the emoluments, none of the realities, of joint and equal sovereignty:
her name figured with his in the inscriptions placed upon the facades of
churches or the gates of citadels; her image was associated with his in
the decorations of the royal palace, as in the mosaics of San Vitale.
Her name appeared by the side of his on the imperial seal. A multitude
of cities and a newly created province bore her name. In every regard
she shared the sovereignty with the emperor. Magistrates, bishops,
generals, governors of provinces, swore by all that was sacred to render
good and true service to the very pious and sacred sovereigns, Justinian
and Theodora.
When Theodora journeyed, a royal cortege accompanied her, consisting of
patricians, high dignitaries, and ministers, and an escort of four
thousand soldiers as guard. Her orders were received with deference
throughout the Empire; and when officials found them in contradiction
with those of the emperor, they often preferred the instructions of
Theodora to those of Justinian. Functionaries knew that her patronage
assured a rapid promotion in royal power and that her good will was a
guarantee against possible disgrace. Royal strangers sought to flatter
her vanity and to win her good graces.
All the chroniclers record that in state papers on important affairs
Theodora was the collaborator with Justinian. The emperor gladly
acknowledged his indebtedness to her, and we read in one of his
ordinances: "Having this time again taken counsel of the most sacred
spouse whom God has given us...." Theodora likewise on occasion gave
evidence of her authority. She once ordered Theodatus to submit to her
the requests he wished to address to the emperor, and in a communication
to the ministers of the Persian king, Chosroes, she stated: "The emperor
never decides anything without consulting me." She was the regulating
power in both State and Church, appointing or disgracing generals and
ministers, making or unmaking patriarchs and pontiffs, raising to
fortune her favorites, and unsettling the power and position of her
opponents.
Theodora's comprehension of the necessities of imperial politics was
something marvellous, and the wise moves of Justinian were due largely
to her counsel. Yet, though so superb a queen, she was all the more a
woman-fickle, passionate, avaricious of authority, and intensely jealous
of preserving the power she had. Apparently without scruples, she would
get rid of all influence which threatened to counterbalance her own, and
she brushed aside without pity all opposition which seemed to infringe
on her authority. In the intrigues of the palace she ever came off the
victor. Vainly did favorites and ministers who fancied themselves
indispensable attempt to ruin her credit with the emperor. The secretary
Priscus, whom the favor of Justinian had raised to office as count of
the bed-chamber, paid dearly for the insults which he addressed to
Theodora. He was exiled, imprisoned, and finally driven to take orders,
and his enormous fortune was confiscated.
The history of John of Cappadocia is more significant still; at the same
time that it gives insight into the intrigues and plots of the Byzantine
courts, it throws a glowing light on the ambitious nature, the
unscrupulous energy, the vindictive spirit, and the perfidious
cleverness of the Empress Theodora.
For six years John of Cappadocia occupied the exalted position of
praetorian prefect, which made him at the same time minister of finance
and minister of the interior, as well as the first minister of the
Empire. By his vices, his harshness, and his corruption he justified the
proverb:
"The Cappadocian is bad by nature; if he attains to power he is worse;
but if he seeks to be supreme, he is the most detestable of all." But in
the eyes of Justinian he had one redeeming virtue: he furnished to every
request of the prince the funds which the vast expenditures of his reign
demanded. At the price of what exactions, of what sufferings of his
subjects, he obtained these admirable results, the emperor did not
inquire, or perhaps he ignored these considerations. At all events, the
prefect was a great favorite of the prince, and the court aides envied
the success of his administration. Having a dominating influence over
the emperor, possessing riches beyond the dreams of avarice, John
attained to the very apex of fortune. Superstitious by nature, the
promises of wizards had aroused in him the hope of attaining to the
supreme power, as the colleague or successor of Justinian. As a step
toward this he attempted to ruin the credit of Theodora with the
emperor. This was an offence which the haughty empress could not pardon.
The prefect was not ignorant how powerful an adversary he had aroused;
but, conscious of his influence with the emperor and of the state of the
finances which he alone could administer, he regarded himself as
indispensable. But he did not correctly gauge the subtlety of Theodora.
She first endeavored to convince the emperor of the sufferings which the
prefect inflicted on his subjects and then to arouse his suspicions as
to the dangers with which the throne was menaced by the ambition of
John: but the emperor, like all feeble natures, hesitated to separate
from himself a counsellor to whom by long habit and association he had
become attached. Then Theodora conceived a Machiavelian plot.
Theodora's most intimate friend was Antonina, the wife of Belisarius,
whom Procopius describes as a woman "more capable than anyone else to
manage the impracticable." The two clever women devised an unscrupulous
bit of strategy which, if successful, would surely cause the downfall of
the much execrated minister of finance. Antonina, at Theodora's
suggestion, cultivated the friendship of John's daughter, Euphemia, and
intimated to her that her husband Belisarius was seriously disaffected
toward the emperor, because of the poor requital which his distinguished
services had received, but that he could not attempt to throw off the
imperial yoke unless he was assured of the sympathy and support of some
one of the important civil officials. Euphemia naturally told the news
to her father, who, seeing in the circumstance an opportunity to ascend
the throne with the aid of the powerful general, easily fell into the
trap. To perfect the plot the Cappadocian arranged a secret interview at
Rufinianum, one of the country seats of Belisarius. The empress arranged
to have two faithful officials, Marcellus and Narses, concealed in the
villa, with orders to arrest John if his treason became manifest, and,
if he resisted, straightway to put him to death. They overheard the
treasonable plot, but the minister succeeded in escaping arrest and fled
to the inviolable asylum of Saint Sophia. He was, however, exiled in
disgrace to Cyzicus; but the ruthless hatred of Theodora followed him,
and, after all his ill-gotten gains had been confiscated, he was exiled
to Egypt, where he remained until the death of the empress. He finally
returned to Constantinople, but Justinian had no further need of the
services of his quondam counsellor, and the latter, in the rude garb of
a priest, died upon the scene of his former triumphs.
In her ruthless persecution of her opponents, as illustrated by this
incident, there seems to have been in this remarkable woman a singular
absence of the moral sense.
True it is that she passionately loved power and luxury and wealth;
true, that she exercised her authority at times in a ruthless and
unscrupulous manner. Yet the hardness of her nature is offset by many
sympathetic qualities which show that, together with the sternness of an
empress, she had the heart of a woman.
She showed a sympathetic interest in the welfare of her own family. She
married her sister Comito to Sittas, an officer of high rank. Her niece
Sophia was united in marriage with the nephew of Justin, heir
presumptive to the Empire. All her life she regretted that she did not
have a son to mount the throne: she had buried an infant daughter, the
sole offspring of her marriage.
One of the most pleasing traits of her character was the large tolerance
and substantial sympathy she showed to fallen women. Severe on men, she
manifested for women a solicitude rarely equalled. On the Asiatic coast
of the Bosporus she converted a palace into a spacious and stately
monastery, known as the Convent of the Metanoia, or Repentance, and
richly endowed it for the benefit of her less fortunate sisters who had
been seduced or compelled to embrace the trade of prostitution. In this
safe and holy retreat were gathered hundreds of women, collected from
the streets and brothels of Constantinople; and many a hapless woman was
filled with gratitude toward the generous benefactress who had rescued
her from a life of sin and misery.
Are we to see in this tender solicitude an exemplification of the words
of the poet, _Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco_, or were her
endeavors merely the outcome of the religious exaltation of a pure and
noblewoman "naturally prone to succor women in misfortune," as a
Byzantine writer says of her? At any rate, this practical sympathy
exerted its influence also in enactments of the Justinian Code relating
to women; such as the ordinance tending to increase the dignity of
marriage and render it more indissoluble, or that to give to seduced
maidens recourse against their seducers, or that to relieve actresses of
the social disbarment which attended their calling. All these measures
were doubtless due to the inspiration of Theodora.
She also carried her strict ideas as to the sanctity of marriage into
the life of the court, as is shown by the manner in which she pitilessly
spoiled the romance which would have united one of the most brilliant
generals of the Empire to a niece of Justinian.
Præjecta, the emperor's niece, had fallen into the hands of Gontharis, a
usurper who had slain her husband, Areobindus. She had given up all as
lost when an unexpected savior appeared in the person of a handsome
Armenian officer, Artabanes, the commander in Africa, who overthrew the
usurper and restored her to liberty. From gratitude, Præjecta could
refuse her deliverer nothing, and she promised him her hand. The
ambitious Armenian saw in this brilliant marriage rapid promotion to the
height of power. The princess returned to Constantinople, and the Count
of Africa hastened to surrender his honorable office and sought a recall
to Constantinople to join his prospective bride. He was lionized in the
capital; his dignified demeanor, his burning eloquence and his unbounded
generosity won the admiration of all. To remove the social distance
between him and his fiancée he was loaded down with honors and
dignities. All went well until an unexpected and troublesome obstacle to
the nuptials presented itself. Artabanes had overlooked or forgotten the
fact that years before he had espoused an Armenian lady. They had been
separated a long time, and the warrior had never been heard to speak of
her. So long as he was an obscure soldier his wife was contented to
leave him in peace; but not so after his unexpected rise to fame.
Suddenly she appeared in Constantinople, claiming the rights of a lawful
spouse, and as a wronged woman she implored the sympathetic aid of
Theodora.
The empress was inflexible when the sacred bonds of marriage were at
stake, and she forced the reluctant general to renounce all claims to
the princess and to take back his forsaken wife. By way of precaution,
she speedily married Præjecta to John, the grandson of the emperor
Anastasius, and the pretty romance was at an end.
With equal regard to the sanctity of marriage, Theodora employed
numerous devices to reconcile Belisarius, the celebrated general, with
his wife Antonina, to whom the scandal of the _Secret History_
attributes serious lapses from moral rectitude, though the charge cannot
be regarded as proved.
A portrait of the Byzantine empress would be incomplete if it did not
speak of her religious sentiments and the prominent part she took in
ecclesiastical politics. In religious matters we see not only the best
side of Theodora's nature, but also the supreme exhibition of her
influence in the affairs of the Empire. Like all the Byzantines of her
time, she was pious and devoted in her manner of life. She was noted for
her almsgiving and her contributions to the foundations established by
the Church. Chroniclers cite the houses of refuge, the orphanages, and
the hospitals founded by her; and Justinian, in one of his ordinances,
speaks of the innumerable gifts which she made to churches, hospitals,
asylums, and bishoprics.
Yet, in spite of these many exhibitions of inward piety, Theodora was
strongly suspected by the orthodox of heresy. She professed openly the
monophysite doctrine,--the belief in the one nature in the person of
Jesus Christ. She also endeavored to bring Justinian to her view, and,
with an eye to the interest of the state, she entered upon a course of
policy which reconciled the schismatics--but disgusted the orthodox
Catholics, who were in unison with Rome. The people of Syria and Egypt
were almost universally Monophysites and Separatists. Theodora, with a
political finesse far greater than that of her husband, saw that the
discontent in the Orient was prejudicial to the imperial power, and she
endeavored by her line of policy to reconcile the hostile parties and to
reestablish religious peace in the Empire. She recognized that the
centre of gravity of the government had passed permanently from Rome to
Constantinople, and that consequently the best policy was to keep at
peace the peoples of the East.
Justinian, on the other hand, misled by the grandeur of Roman tradition,
wished to establish, through union with the Roman See, strict orthodoxy
in the restored empire of the Cæsars. Theodora, with greater acumen,
observed the irreconcilable lines of difference between East and West,
and recognized that to proscribe the learned and powerful party of
dissenters in the Orient would alienate important provinces and be fatal
to the authority of the monarchy. She therefore threw her influence into
the balance of heresy. She received the leaders of the Monophysites in
the palace, and listened sympathetically to their counsels, their
complaints, their remonstrances. She placed men of this faith in the
most prominent patriarchal sees--Severius at Antioch, Theodosius at
Alexandria, Anthimius at Constantinople. She transformed the palace on
Hormisdas into a monastery for the persecuted priests of Syria and Asia.
When Severius was subjected to persecution, she provided means for him
to escape from Constantinople; and when Anthimius was deposed from the
metropolitan see, she extended to him, in spite of imperial orders, her
open protection, and gave him an asylum in the palace. Her boldest coup,
however, consisted in placing on the pontifical seat at Rome a pope of
her own choice, pledged to act with the Monophysites.
For this rôle she found the man in the Roman deacon Vigilius, for some
years apostolic legate at Constantinople. Vigilius was an ambitious and
clever priest who had won his way into the confidence of Theodora, and
the empress thought to find in him, when elevated to the pontifical
chair, a ready instrument for her purposes. It is recounted that, in
exchange for the imperial protection and patronage, Vigilius engaged to
reestablish Anthimius at Constantinople, to enter into a league with
Theodosius and Severius, and to annul the Council of Chalcedon. Upon the
death of the presiding pope, Agapetus, Vigilius set out for Rome with
letters for Belisarius, who was then at the height of his power in
Italy, and these letters were such that they did not admit of objection.
Apparently, in this affair Justinian had secretly assented to the plans
of the empress, seeing perhaps in the movement a solution which would
bring about the unity which he desired and place the Roman pontiff in
accord with the Orientals. But it was not without trouble that Vigilius
was installed. Immediately upon the death of Agapetus, the Roman party
had provided a successor in Silverius; and to seat Vigilius in the chair
of Saint Peter, they must first make Silverius descend. Belisarius was
charged with this repugnant task. With manifest reluctance, he undertook
his part in the questionable intrigue. He first suggested to Silverius a
dignified way of settling the affair by making the concessions which the
emperor desired of Vigilius. Silverius indignantly refused to make any
such compromise. Thereupon, under the imaginary pretext of treason, he
was brutally arrested, deposed, and sent into exile. Vigilius was at
once ordained pope in his stead. Theodora seemed to have conquered.
But when securely installed, Vigilius, in spite of the threats of
Belisarius, deferred the fulfilment of his promises. Finally, however,
he was compelled to make important concessions to the empress. This was
the last triumph of Theodora; and toward the close of her life, in the
growing progress of the Eastern Church, and in the declining influence
of the pope, she had reason to believe that the dreams of her religious
diplomacy were realized.
Theodora's advocacy of the cause of the dissenters accounts for much of
the vituperation heaped upon her by orthodox Catholics. In the eyes of
the Cardinal Baronius, the wife of Justinian was "a detestable creature,
a second Eve too ready to listen to the serpent, a new Delilah, another
Herodias, revelling in the blood of the saints, a citizen of Hell,
protected by demons, inspired by Satan, burning to break the concord
bought by the blood of confessors and of martyrs." It is worthy of note
that this was written before the discovery of the manuscript of the
_Secret History_. What would the learned cardinal have said had he known
of the alleged adventures of the youth of this woman, classed by pious
Catholics as one of the worst enemies of the Church?
Perhaps, after all, we are to find in Theodora's religious defection the
source of all the scandal which has attached to her name. Damned in the
eyes of pious churchmen because of her religious faith that Christ's
nature was not dual, it was easy for the tongue of scandal regarding her
early life to gain credence. Had Theodora followed the orthodox in the
belief in the two natures, she might have committed worse offences than
were charged to her, and no such vituperation would have been uttered by
any member of the orthodox Church; but her position in the religious
controversies of the sixth century will certainly, in the twentieth
century, do her memory little harm.
Theodora's health was always delicate. After these years of stormy
dissension, as her strength began to fail, she was directed to use the
famous Pythian warm baths. Her progress through Bithynia was made with
all the splendor of an imperial cortege, and all along the route she
distributed alms to churches, monasteries, and hospitals, with the
request that the devout should implore Heaven for the restoration of her
health. Finally, in the month of June, A. D. 548, in the twenty-fourth
year of her marriage and the twenty-second of her reign, Theodora died
of a cancer. Justinian was inconsolable at her loss, which rightly
seemed to him to be irreparable. His later years were lacking in the
energy and finesse that had characterized him during her lifetime, and
it was doubtless her loss which clouded his spirits and removed from him
the chief inspiration of his reign. Some years after Theodora's death, a
poet, desiring to gratify the emperor, recalled the memory of the
excellent, beautiful and wise sovereign, "who was beseeching at the
throne of grace God's favor on her spouse."
We can hardly think of Theodora as a glorified saint, yet her goodness
of heart and her charity may atone for many of the serious defects in
her character. We know not whence she came nor the story of her early
life; but as an empress she exhibited all the defects of her qualities.
She was a woman cast in a large mould, and her faults stand out in equal
prominence with her virtues. She was at times cruel, selfish, and proud,
often despotic and violent, utterly unscrupulous and pitiless when it
was a question of maintaining her power. But she was resourceful,
resolute, energetic, courageous; her political acumen was truly
masculine; in a critical moment she saved the throne for Justinian, and
during all her lifetime she was his wise Egeria, by her counsel enabling
him to succeed in great movements; when her influence ceased to exercise
itself a decadence began which continued during the remaining years of
Justinian's reign.
As a woman, she was capricious, passionate, vain, self-willed, but
sympathetic to the unfortunate and infinitely seductive. Truly imperial
was she in her vices, truly queenly in her virtues. Whatever may have
been her youth, her career on the throne is the best refutation of the
scandal of the _Secret History_, and she deserves a place in the records
of history as one of the world's greatest, most intelligent, most
fascinating empresses.
XII
OTHER SELF-ASSERTING AUGUSTÆ--VERINA, ARIADNE, SOPHIA, MARTINA, IRENE