Theodora (6th century)

The main historical sources for her life are the works of her contemporary Procopius. The historian offered three contradictory portrayals of the Empress. The Wars of Justinian, largely completed in 545, paints a picture of a courageous and influential empress who saved the throne for Justinian.

Later, he wrote the Secret History, which survives in only one manuscript suggesting it was not widely read during the Byzantine era. The work has sometimes been interpreted as representing a deep disillusionment with the emperor Justinian, the empress, and even his patron Belisarius. Justinian is depicted as cruel, venal, prodigal and incompetent; as for Theodora, the reader is treated to a detailed and titillating portrayal of vulgarity and insatiable lust, combined with shrewish and calculating mean-spiritedness; Procopius even claims both are demons whose heads were seen to leave their bodies and roam the palace at night. Alternatively, scholars versed in political rhetoric of the era have viewed these statements from the Secret History as formulaic expressions within the tradition of invective.

Procopius' Buildings of Justinian, written about the same time as the Secret History, is a panegyric which paints Justinian and Theodora as a pious couple and presents particularly flattering portrayals of them. Besides her piety, her beauty is praised within the conventional language of the text's rhetorical form. Although Theodora was dead when this work was published, Justinian was alive, and perhaps commissioned the work.[1]

Her contemporary John of Ephesus writes about Theodora in his Lives of the Eastern Saints and mentions an illegitimate daughter.[2]

Various other historians presented additional information on her life. Theophanes the Confessor mentions some familial relations of Theodora to figures not mentioned by Procopius. Victor Tonnennensis notes her familial relation to the next empress, Sophia.

Michael the Syrian, the Chronicle of 1234 and Bar-Hebraeus place her origin in the city of Daman, near Kallinikos, Syria. They contradict Procopius by making Theodora the daughter of a priest, trained in the pious practices of Miaphysitism since birth. These are late Miaphysite sources and record her depiction among members of their creed. The Miaphysites have tended to regard Theodora as one of their own and the tradition may have been invented as a way to improve her reputation and is also in conflict with what is told by the contemporary Miaphysite historian John of Ephesus.[3] These accounts are thus usually ignored in favor of Procopius.[2]

Theodora, according to Michael Grant, was of Greek Cypriot descent.[4] There are several indications of her possible birthplace. According to Michael the Syrian, her birthplace was in Mabbug, Syria;[5] Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos names Theodora a native of Cyprus, while the Patria, attributed to George Codinus, claims Theodora came from Paphlagonia. She was born c. 500 AD. Her father, Acacius, was a bear trainer of the hippodrome's Green faction in Constantinople. Her mother, whose name is not recorded, was a dancer and an actress.[6] Her parents had two more daughters, the eldest named Comito and the youngest Anastasia.[7] After her father's death, when Theodora was four,[8] her mother brought her children wearing garlands into the hippodrome and presented them as suppliants to the Blue faction. From then on, Theodora would be their supporter.

According to Procopius, (in his Secret History) Theodora followed her sister Comito's example from an early age and worked in a Constantinople brothel serving low-status customers; later, she performed on stage.[9] Theodora, in Procopius's account, made a name for herself with her salacious portrayal of Leda and the Swan.[10] Employment as an actress at the time would include both "indecent exhibitions on stage" and providing sexual services off stage. During this time, she met the future wife of Belisarius, Antonina, who would become a part of the women's court led by Theodora.

At the age of 16, Theodora traveled to North Africa as the concubine of a Syrian official named Hecebolus when he went to the Libyan Pentapolis as governor.[11] She stayed with him for almost four years before returning to Constantinople. Abandoned and maltreated by Hecebolus, on her way back to the capital of the Byzantine Empire, she settled for a while in Alexandria, Egypt. She is speculated by some to have met Patriarch Timothy III in Alexandria, who was Miaphysite, and it may be at that time that she converted to Miaphysite Christianity. From Alexandria, she went to Antioch, where she met a Blue faction's dancer, Macedonia, who was perhaps an informer of Justinian.

When Justinian sought to marry Theodora, he could not: a Roman law from Constantine's time prevented anyone of senatorial rank from marrying actresses. In 524, Justin passed a new law, which decreed that reformed actresses could thereafter legally marry outside their rank if approved by the emperor. The same law stated that daughters of these actresses would also be free to marry a man of any rank, which would have allowed her illegimate daughter (whose name has been lost) to marry one of the previous emperor Anastasius' relatives. In the near future, Justinian married Theodora.[11]

Depiction of Justinian from a contemporary portrait mosaic in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna

When Justinian succeeded to the throne in 527, two years after the marriage, Theodora was crowned Augusta and became empress of the Eastern Roman Empire. She shared in his plans and political strategies, participated in state councils, and Justinian called her his "partner in my deliberations."[12] She had her own court, her own official entourage, and her own imperial seal.

She was often present when the Emperor held court, and even held court independently when the Emperor was unwell. She was given charge of his imperial seal, implying that her perusal and consent were necessary before any document or order received legal validity. The Emperor sought her views on most matters before issuing orders. Other Eastern Roman empresses to command such devotion from her husband included Theodora's niece Sophia.

Saint Theodora
Empress Theodora and attendants (mosaic from Basilica of San Vitale, 6th century)
Empress
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church Eastern Catholicism Oriental Orthodox Church
Major shrine	Church of the Holy Apostles, Constantinople modern day Istanbul, Turkey
Feast	14 November
Attributes	Imperial Vestment

Theodora worked against her husband's support of Chalcedonian Christianity in the ongoing struggle for the predominance of each faction.[20] As a result, she was accused of fostering heresy and thus undermined the unity of Christendom.

In spite of Justinian being Chalcedonian, Theodora founded a Miaphysite monastery in Sykae and provided shelter in the palace for Miaphysite leaders who faced opposition from the majority of Chalcedonian Christians, like Severus and Anthimus. Anthimus had been appointed Patriarch of Constantinople under her influence, and after the excommunication order he was hidden in Theodora's quarters for twelve years, until her death. When the Chalcedonian Patriarch Ephraim provoked a violent revolt in Antioch, eight Miaphysite bishops were invited to Constantinople and Theodora welcomed them and housed them in the Hormisdas Palace adjoining the Great Palace, which had been Justinian and Theodora's own dwelling before they became emperor and empress.

In Egypt, when Timothy III died, Theodora enlisted the help of Dioscoros, the Augustal Prefect, and Aristomachos the duke of Egypt, to facilitate the enthronement of a disciple of Severus, Theodosius, thereby outmaneuvering her husband, who had intended a Chalcedonian successor as patriarch. But Pope Theodosius I of Alexandria, even with the help of imperial troops, could not hold his ground in Alexandria against Justinian's Chalcedonian followers. When he was exiled by Justinian along with 300 Miaphysites to the fortress of Delcus in Thrace, Theodora rescued him and brought him to the Hormisdas Palace. He lived under her protection and, after her death in 548, under Justinian's.

When Pope Silverius refused Theodora's demand that he remove the anathema of Pope Agapetus I from Patriarch Anthimus, she sent Belisarius instructions to find a pretext to remove Silverius. When this was accomplished, Pope Vigilius was appointed in his stead.

In Nobatae, south of Egypt, the inhabitants were converted to Miaphysite Christianity about 540. Justinian had been determined that they be converted to the Chalcedonian faith and Theodora equally determined that they should be Miaphysites. Justinian made arrangements for Chalcedonian missionaries from Thebaid to go with presents to Silko, the king of the Nobatae. But on hearing this, Theodora prepared her own missionaries and wrote to the duke of Thebaid that he should delay her husband's embassy, so that the Miaphysite missionaries should arrive first. The duke was canny enough to thwart the easygoing Justinian instead of the unforgiving Theodora. He saw to it that the Chalcedonian missionaries were delayed. When they eventually reached Silko, they were sent away, for the Nobatae had already adopted the Miaphysite creed of Theodosius.

Theodora's death is recorded by Victor of Tonnena, with the cause uncertain but the Greek terms used are often translated as "cancer." The date was 28 June 548 at the age of 48.[21] Later accounts frequently attribute the death to breast cancer, although it was not identified as such in the original report where the use of the term "cancer" probably referred to "a suppurating ulcer or malignant tumor".[21] Other sources report that she died at 51.[22] Her body was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles, in Constantinople. During a procession in 559, Justinian visited and lit candles for her tomb.[23]

Both Theodora and Justinian are represented in mosaics that exist to this day in the Basilica of San Vitale of Ravenna, Italy, which was completed a year before her death.

The Miaphysites believed her influence on Justinian to be so strong that after her death, when he worked to bring harmony between the Monophysites and the Chalcedonian Christians in the Empire, and kept his promise to protect her little community of Monophysite refugees in the Hormisdas Palace, the Miaphysites suspected Theodora's memory to be the driving factor. Theodora provided much political support for the ministry of Jacob Baradaeus, and apparently personal friendship as well. Diehl attributes the modern existence of Jacobite Christianity equally to Baradaeus and to Theodora.[24]

Olbia in Cyrenaica renamed itself Theodorias after Theodora. (It was a common event that ancient cities renamed themselves to honor an emperor or empress.) The city, now called Qasr Libya, is known for its splendid sixth-century mosaics.

• Hans-Georg Beck: Kaiserin Theodora und Prokop: der Historiker und sein Opfer. Munich 1986, ISBN 3-492-05221-5.
• Henning Börm: Procopius, his predecessors, and the genesis of the Anecdota: Antimonarchic discourse in late antique historiography. In: Henning Börm (ed.): Antimonarchic discourse in Antiquity. Stuttgart 2015, pp. 305–346.
• James A. S. Evans: The empress Theodora. Partner of Justinian. Austin 2002.
• James A. S. Evans: The Power Game in Byzantium. Antonina and the Empress Theodora. London 2011.
• Lynda Garland: Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium, AD 527–1204. London 1999.
• Hartmut Leppin: Theodora und Iustinian. In: Hildegard Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum (ed.): Die Kaiserinnen Roms. Von Livia bis Theodora. Munich 2002, pp. 437–481.
• Mischa Meier: Zur Funktion der Theodora-Rede im Geschichtswerk Prokops (BP 1,24,33-37). In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 147 (2004), pp. 88ff.
• David Potter: Theodora. Actress, Empress, Saint. Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-974076-5.
• Procopius, The Secret History at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook
• Procopius, The Secret History at LacusCurtius

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Empress Theodora (6th century).

• Ancient History Encyclopedia – Empress Theodora
• Gibbons' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: The Fall of the Roman Empire in the East
• Discussion of mosaics by Janina Ramirez and Bettany Hughes: Art Detective Podcast, 21 December 2016