Theodora: Empress of Byzantium (Mark Magowan Books) (38 page)

Witigis thought to stall the offensive in Italy by inducing the Persian king to take up arms again against Justinian. So he craftily sent messengers to the White Palace, the royal residence of Ctesiphon, Khosrow’s beloved labyrinth city. The Byzantine court regarded Khosrow as the most greedy, hypocritical, and sardonic of men: he had even dared to ask Justinian for a share of the spoils seized in Africa, on the ground that “the emperor would never have been able to conquer in the war with the Vandals if the Persians had not been at peace with him.”
⁷

Culturally and historically, Khosrow was the anti-Justinian. While the emperor of Constantinople idolized a Rome that he didn’t have, Khosrow considered himself a living idol in lands that were his and his alone. One was a scholar who carefully scrutinized data; the other was a hunter, a scoffing man who sought opportunities, who jumped at his main chance, who took liberties. One lived like a monk or a recluse in the palace; the other was a man of the great outdoors, of battlefields, of big-game hunting. Even their ideas about power differed. For Justinian it was a responsibility that kept him up at night; for Khosrow it was a license for fun. Khosrow scorned the exclusive tie that bound Justinian to Theodora; he also mocked their religion. The only thing the two men had in common was their enjoyment of splendor.

It is easy to understand that Khosrow was already bored by the Endless Peace of 532, even though his treasury benefited from it. As he was looking for a pretext to breach the pact, and as he had other designs on the eastern front, Khosrow responded eagerly to the message from the Gothic ambassadors. In the early spring of 540, when the ice on the Anatolian peaks was beginning to melt, the Persian king attacked Antioch, making the great Eastern metropolis suffer another great disaster. He set fire to it and razed it, but instead of killing thousands of imperial subjects like a barbarian would have done, he shrewdly chose to deport them and make them
his
taxpayers. Persian legends tell of the wonders of the city of Rumagan, known as “Khosrow’s Antioch”:
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it was a splendid copy of Antioch built on the banks of the Tigris River in Persia by the original inhabitants of that city.

This is not what one expected from the other Great Eye of the Ecumene; nor did it correspond to the seductive promises of the seventh eon. The learned citizens of Constantinople asked themselves whether this new calamity was somehow related to the “swordfish” comet, also called “the bearded star,”
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that had crossed the sky months earlier. Interpretations of the phenomenon differed, as they so often did at the time.

To conquer Italy, Justinian had chosen to sacrifice Monophysitism to a pope whose days turned out to be numbered. Faced with the new
emergency on the eastern front, the emperor consulted with Theodora, who was all too ready to remind him of the several traps he had tumbled into as he reached for Rome: the traps of Agapetus, of Khosrow, and now of Witigis. Constantinople had once been considered very shrewd, but now that seemed no more than a distant memory. Finally, Justinian called Belisarius—the man who had proved the most successful and trustworthy of his generals—back from Italy, and put him in charge of operations in the East. Theodora, who had not forgotten Belisarius’s conduct before Pope Silverius’s removal, must have warned her husband to keep the general under tight rein.

Justinian most likely countered Theodora’s arguments with facts: she could not deny that between 535 and 539 Belisarius had conquered or defended a large number of Italian cities. (This is proof that urban life continued substantially unchanged on the Italian peninsula, and that 476—the date that marks the end of the Western Roman empire—was not the dramatic break that the history books would have us believe.) On a map, Belisarius’s series of victories look like the itinerary of some traveler on the Grand Tour, with the evocative name “Rome” set like a jewel among the names of delightful Italian cities big and small, such as Palermo, Naples, Cuma, Rimini, Urbino, and Fermo. These victories and other military operations that showed his energy, cunning, and caution earned him the respect of his soldiers, of the subject populations, and even of his enemies.

This was Belisarius’s most valuable asset, even more important than the legendary riches Antonina managed. Antonina, by the way, continued her fling with Theodosius; meanwhile, the split deepened between Belisarius and the other generals, who were perhaps shrewder and more diplomatic in dealing with the Augusti. The Augusti, who had forced Belisarius to kneel to them even on the day of his triumph over the Vandals, were begrudging him reinforcements: they did not want to be outshined by him. Theodora and John the Cappadocian each had had their reasons for urging Justinian to let Belisarius handle the Italian question by himself.

Five years after the outbreak of hostilities in Italy, the developments on the Persian front caused the emperor and empress to decide that
their geopolitical policy in the East should be a model for the Italian peninsula. In their plan, the Po River in northern Italy would act as the frontier and watershed, just as the Euphrates did in the Near East. Witigis would rule over the lands north of the Po, including the city of Milan, while the rest of Italy would go to Justinian, together with half of the Gothic king’s treasure. These were the conditions listed in the official correspondence, conditions that Witigis and the Goths could accept, and which even historians have approved of in hindsight, as they understood the defensive implications of Justinian’s militarism. What is more, even Theodora could accept this solution as the lesser of two evils, given her interest in having the center of the empire shift eastward.

But Belisarius objected to the plan, for he was sure that he could win the war on the battlefield “to the advantage of the emperor”
¹⁰
and bring Witigis back in chains to the capital, as he had done with Gelimer. The court feared that Belisarius would use the occasion to stir up the populace against Justinian in another urban uprising. Still others, however, recalled that Belisarius had sworn loyalty to the emperor, and concluded that he would never rebel.

The reaction of the Goths in Ravenna was quite different. Alarmed by Belisarius’s firm strength (he had besieged their capital), they proposed an unexpected solution. They offered Belisarius sovereignty over all of Italy, Goths and indigenous Italic populations both, putting an end to the bloodshed and enthroning him like a new Theodoric or, better, a new monarch of the West.

To Belisarius it seemed a dream come true: the Gothic capital was surrendering to him, like an oyster opening to reveal a pearl. And because he had lost neither his military cunning nor his duplicity, he pretended to accept the offer; but as soon as he entered the city with his army, he put Witigis and the Gothic nobility under guard. He openly proclaimed that he acted only on behalf of Emperor Justinian. The generals and the ambassadors of Constantinople were rendered speechless by his stratagem. The Goths felt betrayed and bewildered: they could not understand why Belisarius preferred to be the slave of a faraway emperor instead of being their king.

Belisarius had conquered Ravenna for the second Rome without losing even one man, and the women of Ravenna, as they watched the imperial soldiers march through the city, “[A]ll spat upon the faces of their husbands, and pointing with their hands to the victors, reviled them for their cowardice.”
¹¹
The conquering army turned out not to be the forest of giants that people had feared. Procopius was there, and he wrote: “And while I watched the entry of the Roman army into Ravenna at that time, an idea came to me, to the effect that it is not at all by the wisdom of men or by any other sort of excellence on their part that events are brought to fulfillment, but that there is some divine power which is ever warping their purposes and shifting them in such a way that there will be nothing to hinder that which is being brought to pass.”
¹²
He knew his general’s weaknesses; he did not mythologize Belisarius, even though he had worked for the general.

Soon the victorious general left other officers in charge of the Italian lands beyond the Po River and returned to Constantinople with Witigis, king of the Goths, in chains. Witigis’s wife was among the captives, as were local notables and soldiers and Matasuntha, who was Amalasuntha’s daughter and thus a descendant of the great Theodoric. He also brought back another “barbarian” treasure. Belisarius was beloved in the capital because of his victory and his lack of arrogance. But the court thought a second triumph would be inappropriate. On the one hand, John the Cappadocian urged the court to limit its expenses; on the other, Theodora suggested that her husband not encourage the cult of Belisarius’s personality, especially because the general’s brilliant initiative in Ravenna was essentially an act of insubordination. Justinian agreed with her, and found a balanced solution.

The Gothic treasure was displayed, but inside the palace. There was no sequel to the triumphal procession of 534. The victories were celebrated, but only artistically: a mosaic representing the general returning from his victorious wars was commissioned for the ceiling of the Chalkê (the palace vestibule). His armies intact, he delivers treasure, spoils, and captives, including the kings of the Vandals and the Goths, to Justinian and Theodora, both depicted with “exultation on their very
countenance.”
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It was a prestigious but atypical representation, for while it celebrated Belisarius it also confirmed his dependence on
both
of the Augusti. The couple was shown in the act of rejoicing, with facial expressions that would have been unthinkable for the solemn emperors of ancient times. But Justinian and Theodora were not ancient rulers. They quickly dispatched Belisarius to the Persian front to begin military operations in the spring of 541.

This time, Antonina did not follow him right away. She must have met repeatedly with Theodora. The empress continued to criticize her open liaison with Theodosius, but appreciated her efficiency in removing Pope Silverius from office. Theodora must have questioned Antonina about the possibility that a Gothic revival in Italy might disrupt the status quo, just as the frequent raids by Berber guerrillas disrupted the emperor’s rule over the African lands he had captured from the Vandals. The Augusta must also have asked her how she interpreted Pope Vigilius’s reticence and slowness.

Antonina probably replied as best she could. She feared that Theodora might secretly be planning to confiscate the wealth that Belisarius had accumulated in more than seven years spent away from Constantinople, which she managed together with her lover Theodosius. So perhaps she turned the conversation to other topics. She might have pointed out that Belisarius had never received sufficient money, supplies, or soldiers in the wars that he had fought. That he had written many letters to the Most Serene Augustus, but that John the Cappadocian had continued to skimp on resources. Antonina might have also reminded the empress of all the instances when she, a perfect Christian wife, had given concrete aid to her husband. John the Cappadocian, however, had supplied the troops sailing against the Vandals with spoiled, moldy food that was unfit to eat.
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All because he wanted to contain costs—a weak excuse considering the enormous riches that he had accumulated.

“Weaver of deceit”
¹⁵
as she was, Antonina kept hammering away at John the Cappadocian, pointing him out as prey for what she recognized as Theodora’s long-postponed hunger for recognition. But, most
important, she diverted the Augusta’s attention away from her wealth and that of Belisarius.

For years—ever since Justinian had yielded to Pope Agapetus—events and people had no longer followed their predictable course or obeyed Theodora’s will. With Antonina at her side, she understood that she might be able to get rid of the Cappadocian. He owed her his life, at the very least, for in 532 the Nika rebels had been ready to slaughter him; yet in spite of that he did not give her the homage she was due. He disliked being obligated to her. He criticized Theodora in front of Justinian, accusing her of reducing the great policies of the empire to personal issues or, even worse, to intrigues among women or among priests. He accused her of being interested only in increasing her personal wealth, her
domus divina
.

John also found it intolerable that some of Justinian’s laws that were addressed to him as praetorian prefect contained explicit, atypical references to the emperor’s love for Theodora. They were warnings about the real balance of power, of course, but John did not see that, or he refused to heed them. The Cappadocian considered her a worthless woman, yet he feared that she might plot to have him killed, so he slept poorly at night (like Justinian, but for different reasons). Waking up one morning, John confided to someone that one day he would be the emperor. He had received a vague prediction.

In the city, the slanderous rumors about John kept growing, perhaps fomented by people close to Theodora. It’s also possible that John’s group disseminated many stories about the empress, some of which were reported in Procopius. Bitter rivals often have much in common, and so did the empress and the minister. They both had humble births. They loved power and money. They had free access to the emperor. They had both been disappointed by others (as is often the lot of people close to power and money). But the Cappadocian misjudged Justinian’s feelings for Theodora, and the fascinating theological speculation in which she knew how to engage the emperor, satisfying a deep longing in his soul.

John was also envious and angry about Belisarius’s victories in
Africa and Italy. He tried to undermine the general’s position with the Augustus by accusing him of tax evasion in the form of embezzling and procedural irregularities. He insinuated that Belisarius was better suited to conquering capitals than winning wars, and he presented the emperor with accounts showing the cost of repressing Berber guerrilla warfare in North Africa, which Belisarius had failed to really subdue. He estimated that Justinian would probably have to spend similar sums to subdue Italy, which was far bigger and which the general had insisted on capturing, disobeying the emperor’s instructions.