Theodora: Empress of Byzantium (Mark Magowan Books) (26 page)

Such a vast project required time and attention, but more urgent matters took precedence more often than Justinian would have liked. Foreign policy was one example, but the events that needed attention were not the ones that Justinian hoped for, such as the recapture of the West or the resurrection of Rome’s glory. Instead he heard the din of weapons clashing along the eastern side of the empire’s long borders. The One-Hundred-Year Peace made in 422 between the Roman Empire and the Persian kingdom had already been breached during the reign of Anastasius, and hostilities continued under Justinian. Instead of deploying his best young generals to recapture the West, as he longed to do, Justinian was forced to dispatch them to the Asian border to protect the empire. His new era was slow to begin, and history seemed to repeat itself.

Nisibis, Callinicum, Zenobia, Palmyra, and Edessa were among the legendary cities and strongholds that were forever being conquered, defended, and lost along caravan routes running through the heart of the Middle Eastern deserts as far as the banks of the Euphrates, the watershed between the two empires. In those distant regions, the only intelligible Latin words were the officers’ clipped orders to the “Roman” soldiers. What language here could possibly express the universalistic,
hegemonic claim of the Catholic Church and the Holy Orthodox faith, the alliance between the empire and the clergy?

What is more, every pronouncement was sure to bring a myriad of protests, a real Levantine sandstorm of options, alternatives, and exceptions exploding from combative theological schools, from the infinite stratifications of the Christian religious idea. Given a choice between their idea of Christ and a “Roman” empire trying to make them worship a different Christ, locals would choose the former, even under the Persian king if necessary. Doing so would take resources, men, and property away from the Romans. In the end, the restoration project might self-destruct.

Theodora had had a “direct vision,” she had seen for herself: she knew those places and the character of their peoples, while Justinian knew only what he had read of them. Sensing that it was possible to avoid a clash of faiths over the nature of Christ, the Incarnate Word, she pointed out that he needed to search for common roots. Insistence on theological opposition could turn the age-old enemy, Persia, into a haven; the Roman subjects might become Persian taxpayers. This would be unacceptable, especially because Justinian’s program created a heavy fiscal burden.

In this context, Theodora seems not unlike Anastasius, the Monophysite ruler who had given lip service to the lofty demands of Rome’s “venerable Church” but maintained a down-to-earth understanding that many papal demands unfortunately could be met only “with much shedding of human blood.”
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But her attempt to “reconcile” the options on Christ makes her seem also like the western “barbarian” ruler, Theodoric (her near-homonym), the Italian Ostrogoth king who tried to reconcile local ethnic groups with the Germanic tribes before he died in 526.
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Just as a great and successful artist is rarely an isolated genius, any great political figure owes much of his fortune to a circle of collaborators. Early on, Justinian realized that he could rely on Theodora’s advice and her life experience, and the empress in turn understood that within the palace, the courtiers who revolved around her had to be
shaped to suit her needs. Her needs were clear: to guarantee continuity of power for Justinian and therefore for herself. While Justinian tended toward expansionism, Theodora’s realism was primarily defensive. Her court had to obey and protect her.

She soon had the opportunity to test the loyalty and discretion of those who were at her service, in an episode that took place around the time her daughter was married. The child she bore before meeting Justinian was fifteen or sixteen years old in 530 and 531 and was, therefore, of age to marry according to the customs of the time. The sources refer vaguely to a high-ranking groom for her, someone from the family of the deceased emperor Anastasius—maybe a son of the emperor’s nephew, Probus, a well-known Monophysite sympathizer (just like Caesaria, that other relative of Anastasius whom Theodora presumably met during her years in Alexandria). Theodora’s daughter was spared the need for safety that had driven her mother to Pentapolis, and she married well. Soon the empress was a grandmother, the most admired grandmother in the civilized world; but she still hoped to be a mother again, providing sons for Justinian. In the meantime, her first grandson was, significantly, named Anastasius.

Theodora had ladies in waiting, chamberlain eunuchs, noneunuch dignitaries such as messengers, and high-ranking ushers who were charged with keeping and maintaining silence in the presence of the Augusti. Behind the chamber doors or vela (curtains), her entourage maintained a sacred confidentiality about the empress’s famous meetings, audiences that unexpectedly made the women’s quarters into a parallel court. (The empress was careful that this parallel court never cause conflict with the emperor.)

Once in a while, she allowed her servants some lighthearted moments. Her training as empress had not erased the part of Theodora’s character that was famously “clever and full of gibes.”

One day she graciously granted an audience to an older patrician. He prostrated himself in homage to the empress and made his case in refined terms, the product of many years at the service of the empire and of a proven expertise in matters of protocol. He had lent substantial sums of money to an attendant in Her Majesty’s service, but the
borrower was not returning the loan. And so he had run into liquidity problems that might be understandable for others but, he noted, were not appropriate for someone in such a lofty position. “Mistress, it is a grievous thing for a man of patrician rank to be in need of money.” Hence his appeal, his supplication, his prayer, that she might intervene with this debtor in her service who—he added, with an obsequious allusion—was decidedly “not a patrician.”

Theodora’s eunuchs were ranged in a circle around the dignitary. After a brief moment of silence, the empress spoke. But instead of a speech, she practically chanted: “Oh Patrician,” and spoke his name (which the
Secret History
did not reveal, “so as not to perpetuate the offense”). Even before the suppliant could exclaim in surprise, the eunuchs continued the song with, “It’s a large hernia you have!” playing on the phonetic assonance between the Greek words
kêlê
(hernia) and
koilê
(hole), and even prompting another double entendre: “How great is your hole!” (in your finances, and perhaps not only there). The patrician persisted, repeating his speech, and received the same refrain in response. There was nothing for him to do but kneel again before his singing Majesty and take his leave, humiliated both personally and financially. He never collected on the debt. But the actress had unexpectedly surfaced again, on the palace stage.
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Theodora sought reference points among those who knew her well, starting with her family. While we have no information about her younger sister, the empress undoubtedly turned to the older sister, Comito, who had been her teacher onstage. We already noted that in 528–29 Comito had married Sittas, “a capable warrior, and a general second to none.”
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So we see that the families of the imperial couple—the emperor’s provincial and military family and the empress’s urban and show-business family—immediately started working to strengthen one another and build a new ruling elite bound closely to the throne. Years later, a similar arrangement would bind Comito’s daughter Sophia in marriage to Justin, son of one of Justinian’s sisters. The wedding was arranged and approved by Theodora before she died.

There is no evidence that Theodora used Comito for political affairs. The elder sister might have started the younger on the stage, but the younger one did not introduce the elder to the inner chambers of power. Theodora mostly used her as a confidante, as a representative, and in moments of pomp. More than cold politics, it was the warmth of life that united them.

General Sittas’s marriage to Theodora’s sister put him in the circle of “friendly” military. The situation was different for Germanus, Justinian’s brilliant cousin. His wife, one of those elect souls beloved by conservatives, was not happy to march behind the former actress in processions. Her antipathy (or, at best, indifference) was probably reciprocated.

A third military officer just emerging at the time was to become essential not only to the outcome of Justinian’s restoration program and to Theodora’s personal life, but to sixth-century history on three different continents. More than most other characters appropriated by literary fantasists, Belisarius has become a legend remodeled to suit various times and places. Belisarius has been called Roman or Slavic (could his name come from
beli tsar
, the “white prince”?), or even Germanic.
¹⁷
The literature has described him in a variety of ways: as flawless or irresolute or even—in a late-Byzantine poem—ruined and disgraced. He was about the same age as Theodora: he was born around the year 500 to a family of landowners and he grew into an accomplished and vigorous knight. He began his career as an officer with an important victory against the Persians, enabling the Romans to dominate Mesopotamia for the first time in decades. The populace of the capital, and beyond, began to rally around Belisarius. Such success pleased Theodora, but it also alarmed her. Belisarius, like Germanus, could pose a threat to Justinian and, therefore, to herself. She needed to control him, and the tool she selected for this was a woman, Antonina. We might even conjecture that Theodora and Justinian “arranged” Antonina’s marriage to Belisarius, so that they could be privy to every aspect of this skillful general’s life.

Certainly Antonina was not the bride one would expect for Belisarius.
She was at least ten years his senior and she was a widow (her husband may have been an Antioch merchant) with children, both legitimate and illegitimate. The
Secret History
reports that her father was “a charioteer who had given exhibitions of his skill” in the Hippodrome, and her mother was “one of the prostitutes attached to the theater”
¹⁸
(drawing the usual connection between prostitute and actress). It was a background uncannily similar to Theodora’s: the two women had probably known each other for a long time. These details add more weight to the theory that the imperial couple (especially the empress) had a hand in this marriage, especially because the wedding took place around the year 530, when the empress’s court was starting to acquire its own identity.

It is possible that Theodora suggested Antonina to Justinian, who had the authority to suggest that Belisarius marry her. Justinian must have declared that the woman was a good choice for the general: older, but experienced and still attractive, and especially careful in managing the wealth that the general would probably acquire in the service of the emperor and of his own ambitions.

Antonina is an extraordinary character in the
Secret History
, where she is subjected to biting criticism. Procopius spent many long years in the service of Belisarius, so he was in a unique position to observe the wife: he knew her far better than he knew the empress. His description of Antonina’s exploits (especially her erotic exploits) are so graphically detailed and precise that they seem reliable. At the same time, Antonina must have been expert in the magic art of “love potions”; according to Procopius, she had “consorted much with the cheap sorcerers who surrounded her parents … having thus acquired the knowledge of what she needed to know”
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to deceive Belisarius. On one occasion, he discovered her in a basement with a lover who had “loosened … the belt which supported [his] drawers … [that] covered his private parts,”
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and yet Belisarius believed his wife when she told him that she was conducting a delicate financial audit.

Moreover, Theodora kept her eye on Antonina: the empress did not allow any extramarital liaisons that might disturb her universe. This made Antonina often restless, because “she dreaded the punishment
the empress might inflict. For Theodora was all too prone both to storm at her and to show her teeth in anger.”
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Anger on the throne? More than anything, this report shows the bond between the two women, a relationship that evolved with time into a very useful political alliance. On several occasions Theodora used Antonina as her right arm to eliminate prominent adversaries, while Belisarius remained in the background. The general had a direct bond with Justinian, and through Antonina he was subject to Theodora.

The military officers who executed plans for Justinian, the “least military of men,” could become dangerous, so Theodora kept their wives close by. But she did not surround herself only with women: she depended on her eunuchs, particularly one named Narses. While his castration made him ineligible for the throne, he still had power and prestige. Besides, he was approximately the same age as Justinian and was therefore an ideal interlocutor for the young Augusta. He offered her all kinds of confidential information. Narses had immediately understood that Theodora’s arrival would not harm his position as chief of the legendary eunuch “chamberlains with the sword” and might even improve it.

Narses came from Persarmenia in Asia Minor, the historical birthplace of the Roman Empire’s eunuchs. He shared Theodora’s Levantine aura, her cunning, her attention to detail, and her almost crude realism stripped of any archaic, mythological illusions. He had had an extraordinary career, fighting on the battlefield and participating in ambushes and massacres. He was as comfortable with palace intrigues as he was in the open country, at home in the city and in the woods. He saw everything, and he saw more of what happened than anyone else in Justinian and Theodora’s era, because he outlived everyone. He was nearly one hundred when he died in Italy, a land he had helped to “liberate”—at great cost—from the “barbaric” Goths, as the emperor desired.