Theodora: Empress of Byzantium (Mark Magowan Books) (53 page)

Careful observation of the ritual procession in the Ravenna basilica (our closing recessional that takes us out of this story) reveals that it has all the elements typical of a stage. The eunuch who raises the
curtain can be seen, metaphorically, as the man who closes the curtain on the mime actress who became a lady and an empress.

So,
exit Theodora
.

She made an offering—a splendid chalice—in the temple of a capital that she never visited; and here she also played her last, secret performance: in that temple, she underwent her final metamorphosis and became a sacred icon.

1
. Since the times of the Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 485–425
B.C.
), ancient historiography has insisted on the importance of “direct vision” (
autopsia
in Greek; see Glossary), seeing for oneself, being an eyewitness to events.

2
. Procopius,
The Anecdota or Secret History
, trans. H. B. Dewing (London and Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb Classical Library, 1935).

3
. The earliest reference to the text is found in a Byzantine encyclopedia of the tenth century, which uses the Greek term
Anekdota
(literally, “unpublished items”); this continued to be the prevalent term in philological and specialist literature. But most translations into modern languages lean instead toward the concept of a “secret history.”

4
. It is the
psogos
(“blame” in Greek) genre, a critical deformation of “reality,” antithetical to the encomiastic genre (from the Greek
enkômion
, “praise”).

5
.
Secret History
1.10; 10.1–3.

6
. We are applying the terminology used by Hans-Georg Beck in his memorable
Kaiserin Theodora und Prokop: Der Historiker und sein Opfer
(Empress Theodora and Procopius: The Historian and His Victim) (Munich: Piper, 1986).

7
.
Secret History
10.1.

8
. With the sole exception of Ammianus Marcellinus (c.
A.D.
330–400).

9
.
Paideia
in Greek (see Glossary).

10
. Procopius,
History of the Wars
, 6 vols., trans. H. B. Dewing (London and New York: Loeb Classical Library, 1914–28), I, 24.33.

1
.
Secret History
9.2.

2
.
Canti di Pianto e d’amore dall’antico Salento
(Songs of Love and Woe from Ancient Salento), ed. B. Montinaro (Milan: Bompiani, 1994), p. 45.

3
.
The Life of St. Andrew the Fool,
ed. L. Rydén (Uppsala: Almgrist & Wiksell, 1995), vol. II, 204 (l. 2954 foll.); cf.
I Santi Folli di Bisanzio
(The Holy Fools of Byzantium), Italian trans. (Milan: Mondadori, 1990), p. 204.

4
. As in the salvation acronym
ichthys
(“fish”),
I
êsous
Ch
ristos
Th
eou H
y
o
s
. Sôtêr,
Sybilline Oracles
8.217.

5
. Plato,
Phaedo
109b.

6
. For Constantinople as the “new Jerusalem” and “second Rome,” see Gilbert Dagron,
Naissance d’une capitale. Constantinople et ses institutions de 333 à 451
(Paris: PUF, 1974).

7
.
Life of St. Andrew
, op. cit., II, p. 260 (l. 3820 foll.); cf.
I Santi Folli,
op. cit., p. 237.

8
. Seneca,
Moral Letters
III, 2.4. What Romans called
res severa,
“the weighty matter” of life. See Glossary.

9
. Palladius,
Dialogus de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi
, 5 (Migne,
Patrologia Graeca
, vol. XLVII, col. 20).

10
. For sources, see F. Halkin,
Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca
, II (Brussels, 1957), p. 1743.

11
.
Secret History
9.4.

12
. See, for example, St. John Chrysostom,
In Matthaeum Homilia
VI (Migne,
Patrologia Graeca
, vol. LVII, col. 71 foll.), XXXVII (ibid., col. 427).

13
.
The Greek Anthology
, trans. W. R. Paton (Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb Classical Library, 1916–18; reprint 1993–98), XV 47.

1
. The
curia
in Latin (see Glossary).

2
. For this purpose see Theophylactus Simocatta;
Historiae
IV 11.2 foll. (p. 169, 19 foll. De Boor-Wirth).

3
. Gregory of Nyssa,
De deitate Filii et Spiritus Sancti
(Migne,
Patrologia Graeca
, vol. XLVI, col. 557).

4
. The emperor’s absolute power was expressed by the Greek word
autokratôr
(see Glossary).

5
. Cf., for example, Eustathios of Thessalonica,
Oratio
III, p. 49, 18 Regel.

6
.
Deuteronomy
32.10;
Psalms
16(17).8.

7
. Cf.
Secret History
14.14. Also Pollux,
Onomasticon
IX 110; Suvetonius,
Nero
35.9.

8
.
Acts of the Apostles
22.25–27.

9
.
Secret History
9.5.

10
. Ibid.

11
. Ibid. 7.4.

12
. Homer,
The Odyssey
XIX 547, passim. Homer made a distinction between
onar
(a mere dream) and
hypar
(a nocturnal vision foreshadowing
a reality that later comes true). The notion of these two different types was still current in the Byzantine world.

13
.
Matthew
20.23.

14
. Late antiquity disdained the special arrogance of the powerful, which was identified by the Greek term
hybris
(see Glossary). For
hubris
, see Glossary.

15
.
Secret History
9.7.

16
.
Matthew
7.7;
Luke
11.9.

17
. In Greek,
metabolê
(see Glossary).

18
.
Métal du coeur
, as in Proust’s
Jean Santeuil.

19
.
Secret History
30.26.

1
. See Glossary (
curia, curialis
).

2
. Proclus,
Comment to Plato’s Alcibiades,
248C Creuzer.

3
.
Greek Anthology
XVI 283.1 (Leontius Scholasticus): “Rhodoclea is the tenth Muse and fourth Grace.”

4
. Homer,
The Odyssey
XII 246.

5
.
Secret History
9.8.

6
. Ibid.

7
. Ibid. 9.9. Here I depart from Dewing’s Loeb Classical Library translation (otherwise used throughout, for the convenience of my readers); the Greek text has “slave boy,” but Dewing translated it as “slave girl” in 1935.

8
. Cassiodorus,
Variae
IV 51.

9
. Coricius,
Apologia Mimorum
I (p. 345, 8 foll. Foerster).

10
.
Greek Anthology
XVI 283.3 foll. (Leontius Scholasticus).

11
. Ibid. V 250 (Paulus Silentiarius).

12
. Ibid. V 258 (Paulus Silentiarius).

13
. St. John Chrysostom,
De Lazaro
, II (Migne,
Patrologia Graeca
, vol. XLVIII, col. 986); VI (ibid., col. 1034 foll.).

14
. Legend has it that Plato died with his head lying on a mime text by Sophron of Syracuse (fifth century
B.C.
).

15
. M. Bonaria, in
Dizionario degli scrittori greci e latini
(Dictionary of Greek and Latin Authors), vol. II, ed. F. Della Corte (Settimo Milanese: Marzorati, 1987), under entry “Mimografi” (Mimes), p. 1363.

16
. Aristophanes,
Clouds
2.

17
.
Secret History
9.10.

18
. See H.-G. Beck, op. cit., and note supra, in introduction.

19
. Cf. Saint Augustine,
De Ordine
II, 4.12 (Migne,
Patrologia Latina
, vol. XXXII, col. 1000).

20
. For
vir romanus
, see Glossary.

21
. For the other-/inner-directed opposition as applied to Byzantine art by
Ernst Kitzinger especially, see David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denney,
The Lonely Crowd
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1950).

1
.
Secret History
9.10.

2
. Ibid. 9.9.

3
. See F. Bornmann, “Su alcuni passi di Procopio” (On Selected Procopius Passages),
Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica
(N.S. 50, 1978), p. 34.

4
.
Secret History
9.13 foll.

5
. H.-G. Beck, op. cit. Beck has brought out some affinities between Eva Perón’s career and that of Theodora.

6
. Gabriele D’Annunzio,
La nave
(The Ship) (Rome, 1943), p. 121.

7
.
Secret History
9.15 foll.

8
. See Maria Bellonci,
Lucrezia Borgia: La sua vita e i suoi tempi
(The Life and Times of Lucrezia Borgia) (Milan, 1940), p. 171.

9
.
Daimon
in Greek (see Glossary).

10
.
Secret History
9.17.

11
. Ibid. 9.26.

12
.
Thymos
in Greek, the soul’s emotional function, the “seat of joy, of pleasure, of love, of compassion, of anger.” See Bruno Snell,
The Discovery of the Mind
, trans. T. G. Rosenmeyer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953).

13
.
Secret History
9.17.

14
. Ibid. 9.25.

15
. Ibid. 9.24.

1
. I am indebted to Andrea Ferrari for the
Anna Christie
quotation.

2
.
Secret History
9.18.

3
.
Auxêsis
in Greek.

4
. See F. Bornmann, op. cit., p. 32.

5
. Edward Gibbon,
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, vol. 4 (London: Methuen, 1909), chap. 40, p. 228, n. 26.

6
. Baronio,
Annales ecclesiastici
, anno 535, LXIII. The “names given to the Furies in Hell” were Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone: this is a remarkable anachronistic use of pagan netherworld mythology in a Catholic Counter-Reformation tract.

7
.
Secret History
9.15

8
. Ibid. 10.11.

9
. See Fernanda de’ Maffei, “La mimesi dal tardoantico al bizantino nei ritratti imperiali” (Mimesis from Late Antiquity to the Byzantine Period in Imperial Portraits), in
La mimesi bizantina
(Byzantine Mimesis), ed. F. Conca and R. Maisano (Naples, 1998), pp. 81–84.

10
.
Secret History
15.8.

11
. Ibid. 9.20–23.

12
. F. Bornmann, op. cit., p. 31.

13
.
Secret History
10.3; 9.19.

14
. Ibid. 17.16–18.

15
. Ibid. 17.21.

16
. Ibid. 5.9.

17
. It’s Saint Thomaides of Lesbos (tenth century). See
Acta Sanctorum, Novembris
, IV, ed. by H. Delehaye and P. Peeters (Brussels, 1925), p. 235 E.

18
. Alice-Mary Talbot, “La donna” (Woman), in
L’uomo bizantino
(Byzantine Man), ed. G. Cavallo (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1992), p. 180.

1
. Joseph Conrad,
The Shadow Line
I.

2
.
Secret History
9.27.

3
.
Hecebolus
is from the Greek
Hekebolos
, maybe derived from
hekôn ballein
, “to reach one’s goal,” or perhaps from
hekas ballein
, “to throw (an arrow) at a great distance.” In either case, the two destinies prophesied in his name came true, for he obtained the beautiful Theodora and he went far away, to remote Pentapolis, on the Mediterranean shores of Africa.

4
. See Herocles,
Synekdemos
, V.631.3 (935 city); see Cyril Mango,
Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
(London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1980).

5
. The
dux
(see Glossary),
Lybiae Pentapoleos.