Part 19

Thus passed the first decade and a half of Eudocia's reign. Finally in 438 occurred an event of momentous interest to the entire Roman world--the marriage of the princess Eudoxia with Valentinian III., Emperor of the West. As it seemed likely that Eudocia would never bear a son to Theodosius, the union of the two reigning houses meant possibly the reunion of the Empire under one emperor, should a son be born to the newly married couple. Possibly feeling lonely after the marriage and departure of her daughter; possibly tiring of the intrigues of the court, Eudocia, with the concurrence of the emperor, shortly afterward undertook a solemn pilgrimage to Jerusalem to discharge her vows and to return thanks to the Deity for the welfare of her daughter.

Attended by a royal cortege of courtiers and eunuchs and slaves, the Empress Eudocia set out on her journey. Her ostentatious progress through the East hardly seems in keeping with the spirit of Christian humility. One of the most impressive events of her journey was the sojourn in Antioch, the metropolis of the Far East. Here she pronounced to the senate, from a throne of gold, studded with precious gems, an eloquent Greek oration, which was regarded as a marvel of Hellenic rhetoric. In Antioch, probably far more than in Constantinople or Alexandria, there was a hearty appreciation of Greek culture and art, and many of the renowned rhetoricians of the day had in this city their lecture halls, to which thronged enthusiastic students; and to the most cultivated audience of the metropolis was granted the presence of an empress glorying in her Athenian nativity, trained in all the rhetorical art of the Greek, and combining in her own personality all that was most pleasing in both pagan and Christian culture. The last words of Eudocia's address--a quotation from Homer--are said to have occasioned prolonged applause:

tautês toi geneês te kai aimatos euchonai einai--Iliad Z 211.

"I boast to be of your own race and blood."

Eudocia was also generous in her gifts to the city. She induced the emperor to enlarge its walls, and herself bestowed upon it a donation of two hundred pounds of gold to restore the public baths. She graciously accepted the statues which were decreed to her in gratitude for her munificence--a statue of gold erected in the Curia, and one of bronze in the museum. To the empress, with her earlier love of the sacred traditions of the city of the violet crown, her enthusiastic reception in the most thoroughly Hellenized city of the Orient must have been a most gratifying occurrence.

From Antioch the empress probably followed the pilgrims highway to the Holy Land. There with doubly chastened soul the cultivated convert visited the places hallowed by the Saviour's sufferings and glory. From Bethlehem, where the Mother found shelter in a stable, and therein "in a manger laid" the newborn Redeemer, to receive the adoration of the shepherds, on through the country which the Lord travelled in His mission, till finally she beheld Mount Calvary and looked upon the place of the Sepulchre, now marked by the Christian temple raised by Helena. Her presence brings to mind the visit of this Helena, the Emperor Constantine's mother, one hundred years before, but the Greek matron must have beheld it with very different emotions. She had been reared in the philosophers' gardens of Athens, amid the glories of the Parthenon and the many wonderful works of art which the Greek genius had created, and in her new home in Constantinople she had not been altogether weaned from the traditions of her youth. In glowing contrast to ancient Athens she now saw a city whose prized monuments were the chapels erected on spots rendered sacred by the footsteps of the Christ and the relics of saints and martyrs. To this city she came as a Christian pilgrim, and her devoutness of spirit showed that her heathen culture, in which she took a pardonable pride, had been consecrated to the religion she professed, and her endeavor to relieve the sufferings of the poor and the unfortunate proved that she had learned the lesson of caring for others from the example of the Master.

Her alms and pious foundations in the Holy Land exceeded even those of the great Helena; and the destitute of the land had reason to be grateful to the empress for her unbounded liberality. In return for her zeal, she had the conscious satisfaction of returning to Constantinople with some of the most sacred relics of the Church--the chains of Saint Peter, the relics of Saint Stephen, and a portrait of the Virgin Mary, reputed to be from the brush of Saint Luke. The first martyr's relics were deposited with great ceremony in the chapel of Saint Laurence, and the piety of the empress won for her the loving admiration of the devout populace.

But this pilgrimage to Jerusalem, with its many tokens of the affection of her subjects, and her triumphal return to the capital city, marks the termination of the glory of the Athenian maiden as empress of the East. Then began the rivalries and conflicts which finally brought about Eudocia's downfall. To understand these we must first of all take into consideration the difference of temperament of the two empresses. Pulcheria was essentially Roman; Eudocia was essentially Greek. Pulcheria belonged to the orthodox party which strictly condemned everything which savored in the least degree of paganism; Eudocia encouraged Greek art and letters and lent a friendly ear to the heresies which were the product of Greek speculation. Pulcheria was puritanical and austere in her manner of life, while Eudocia had a fondness for dress and for the innocent gayeties of life which characterized the women of her race. It was utterly impossible for two women of such marked difference of temperament to live in perfect harmony under the same roof.

Furthermore, during Eudocia's absence a new factor had entered prominently into the life of the palace. The influence of the eunuchs, which had been so marked during the reign of Arcadius, had not made itself felt during the earlier years of Theodosius's reign, because of the ascendency of the two women, but it gathered strength by degrees as years passed. Antiochus was the first chamberlain to make himself powerful, and upon his fall, the eunuch Chrysaphius, because of his personal beauty and winning manner, won the favor of Theodosius and acquired the art of bending the emperor to his will. Chrysaphius knew also how to play the two empresses off against each other, so as to gain his own ends.

It seems altogether probable that immediately after her return from Jerusalem, the spouse of the emperor more than ever dominated the court at Constantinople. An important indication of this was the prominence of one of her favorites during the years 439-441--Cyrus of Panopolis, who was a poet of renown, a "Greek" in faith, and a student of art and literature. He won great popularity during his long tenure of office as prefect of the city. He restored Constantinople on so magnificent a scale, after it had experienced a disastrous earthquake, that the people once cried out in the circus: "Constantine built the city, but Cyrus renewed it."

The type of culture represented by Cyrus and Eudocia, and the manifest sympathy between them, greatly offended the strictly orthodox, who regarded it in the light of a Christian duty to sever all connection with paganism, and who considered all tolerance of the Muses and Graces of a more beautiful past to be a heinous sin. This religious party found their ideal and their inspiration in Pulcheria, and she in consequence became their natural leader. Hence, both their natural proclivities and the zeal of their followers forced the two empresses into an attitude of rivalry which could only be settled by the retirement or fall of one or the other of them.

Shortly after her return it seems that Eudocia, in union with Chrysaphius, succeeded in lessening the influence of Pulcheria. So thoroughly did she control her weak but fond husband that Pulcheria withdrew from the palace to the retirement of her villa at Hebdomon, and it has even been asserted that Theodosius, at the request of his wife, meditated making his sister take orders as a deaconess, so that she would have to relinquish her secular power. Thus for a time Eudocia experienced the keen delight of sole and uncontested power. But the retirement of the Augusta, who had for so many years exercised the paramount influence in the court, was the very step to arouse the orthodox and to lead them to undertake every form of intrigue for the ruin of Eudocia and the return of Pulcheria. The result was that, after enjoying for a brief period the sole supremacy, Eudocia fell from the loftiest heights of supreme authority into the deepest depths of humiliation and sorrow.

The orthodox party, with a cleverness which discounted the aims of the nobility, utilized the jealousy of Theodosius as the lever to overturn the beautiful and talented empress. Paulinus had been the boyhood friend of Theodosius, and their intimacy had grown with the passing of the years. He had ardently approved the prince's determination to make the Athenian maiden his wife, and had acted as his best man in the wedding festivities. Owing to the affectionate relations between the two men, Paulinus had enjoyed a free association with both emperor and empress, unhindered by the restricting bonds of court etiquette; and his relations with Eudocia were always of the most friendly and open-hearted character. These relations the enemies of Eudocia seized upon for the attainment of their ends, and their attempt succeeded only too well. It is fitting to tell the story in the words of John Malalas, the earliest chronicler who records it:

"It so happened," says the chronicler, "that as the Emperor Theodosius was proceeding to the church _In Sanctis Theophaniis_, the master of offices, Paulinus, being indisposed on account of an ailment in his foot, remained at home and made an excuse. But a certain poor man brought to Theodosius a Phrygian apple, of enormously large size, and the emperor was surprised at it, and all his court. And straightway the emperor gave one hundred and fifty nomismata to the man who brought the apple, and sent it to Eudocia Augusta; and the Augusta sent it to Paulinus, the master of offices, as being a friend of the emperor. But Paulinus, not being aware that the emperor had sent it to the empress, took it and sent it to the Emperor Theodosius, even as he was entering the palace. And when the emperor received it, he recognized it and concealed it. And having called Augusta, he questioned her, saying:

"'Where is the apple that I sent you?' And she said, 'I ate it.'--Then he caused her to swear the truth by his salvation, whether she ate it or sent it to some one; and she swore, 'I sent it unto no man, but ate it.' And the emperor commanded the apple to be brought, and showed it to her. And he was indignant against her, suspecting that she was enamored of Paulinus, and sent him the apple and denied it. And on this account Theodosius put Paulinus to death. And the Empress Eudocia was grieved, and thought herself insulted, for it was known everywhere that Paulinus was slain on account of her, for he was a very handsome young man. And she asked the emperor that she might go the holy place to pray; and he allowed her; and she went down from Constantinople to Jerusalem to pray."

In the opinion of Gregorovius, Eudocia's apple of Phrygia eludes interpretation as completely as Eve's apple of Eden, but Bury explains the story as an example of Oriental metaphor. He recalls a parallel to it in the Arabian Nights, and fancies that its germ may have been an allegorical mode of expression in which someone covertly told the story of the suspected intrigue. In Hellenistic romance the apple was a conventional love gift, and when presented to a man by a woman signified a declaration of love. Hence, as the basis of the tale was presumed to be the amorous intercourse of Paulinus and the empress, we can conceive one accustomed to Oriental allegory saying or writing that Eudocia had given her precious apple to Paulinus, symbolizing thereby that she had surrendered her chastity.

Such is the legend of the fall of the empress. All we know for certain is that about this time a marked discord between husband and wife was apparent, and that Paulinus, the emperor's boyhood friend and most trusted confidant, was put to death by imperial order during the year 440.

History seems entitled to draw the conclusion that it was probably a charge, whether true or false, of a criminal attachment between Eudocia and Paulinus that led to the disgrace of the empress and the execution of the minister; but the probabilities are all in favor of the innocence of the Augusta. Eudocia had passed the age of forty when the breach with her husband occurred, and Paulinus was an official of mature years. The conduct of both had always been above reproach, and it was almost inconceivable that either would have acted unbecomingly at this late date.

For two or three years after the execution of Paulinus the empress remained at court, under what circumstances and in just what relation to the emperor we are not informed. It is evident, however, that her power was gone. Feeling herself more and more relegated to the background, and ever watched by hostile eyes, it was natural that she should find life at Constantinople unbearable, and should long for a place where, far from the turmoils and intrigues of the world, she might devote herself to retirement and to pious practices. She therefore asked permission of the emperor to be allowed to retire to Jerusalem and there pass the rest of her life. After the tender bond of love which had for twenty years united the Athenian maiden and the royal prince had once been violently broken, there was no reason why her petition should be denied, and Eudocia was granted the privilege of retiring to the sacred scenes whose solitude and religious atmosphere had already appealed to her.

So, some years after her first visit to the holy city, Eudocia withdrew thither for a permanent abode. But what a contrast had a few years wrought! With what different emotions did she now visit the sacred shrines! Then a beloved wife, a happy mother, an all-puissant empress! Now a voluntary exile, a discredited wife, an empress but in name! Theodosius left her her royal honors and abundant means for her station, so that she could not only have a moderate establishment at Jerusalem, but could also adorn the city with charitable institutions. Yet even here the hatred of her enemies and the jealousy of the emperor followed her. Though so far from Constantinople, court spies watched and reported her every movement, and in their malignity they recounted to the emperor such a slanderous picture of her life and doings that he, in the year 444, with newly awakened jealousy, had two holy men--the presbyter Severus and the deacon John, who had been favorites of Eudocia in Constantinople and had followed her to Jerusalem--executed by the order of Saturninus, her chamberlain. This cruel deed, however, did not remain unavenged, for Eudocia did not interfere when Saturninus, in a monkish riot, or at the hands of hired murderers, lost his life. Theodosius punished her for this with undue severity, by removing all the officers who attended her and reducing her to private station.

The remainder of the life of Eudocia, sixteen long years, was spent in retirement and in holy exercises. Troubles heaped themselves upon her. Her only daughter, whose future at her marriage with Valentinian had looked so promising, also lost her royal station and was led a captive from Rome to Carthage. She had to endure all the insults which could fall to one who from supreme power had been reduced to private station. But in the consolation of religion and in self-sacrificing devotion to others more unfortunate, Eudocia found solace in her grief. Finally, in the sixty-seventh year of her age, after experiencing all the vicissitudes of human life, the philosopher's daughter expired at Jerusalem, protesting with her dying breath her faithfulness to her marriage vows and expressing forgiveness of all those who had injured her.

In Constantinople, Eudocia's fall and exile had brought Pulcheria and the orthodox party again to the front. The poetry-loving Cyrus, the head of the Greek party, was deprived of his office and compelled to take orders; and there was a return to the austerity which had characterized the earlier years of Pulcheria's supremacy. Pulcheria and orthodoxy from this time on controlled the court life and dominated the Empire. Finally, in 450, Theodosius was fatally wounded while hunting, and upon his demise Pulcheria was unanimously proclaimed Empress of the East. Her first official act was one of popular justice as well as private revenge--the execution of the crafty and rapacious eunuch, Chrysaphius. In obedience to the murmur of the people, who objected to a woman being sole ruler of the Empire, she selected an imperial consort in Marcian, an aged senator who would respect the virginal vows and superior rank of his wife. He was solemnly invested with the imperial purple, and proved in every way equal to the demands of his exalted station.

Three years later, Pulcheria passed away. Because of her austerity of life, her deeds of charity, her advocacy of orthodoxy, she won the eulogies of the Church; but her controlling attribute had been a love of power, which had wrought much evil. Our sympathies are naturally with the beautiful and gifted Athenais, a Greek by birth, by temperament and by culture, but yet a Christian in religious fervor and pious practices, whose personal fascination had given her the authority she richly merited, until the stronger nature of Pulcheria, by despicable means, had wrought her downfall.

For four years after the death of Pulcheria, Marcian continued to hold supreme power; finally, in 457, he too came to his end, and with Marcian the house of Theodosius the Great ceased to reign in new Rome.

XI

THE EMPRESS THEODORA

There are few stranger episodes in literary history than the fate of Theodora, the celebrated consort of the Emperor Justinian. To us in this day she is a Magdalene elevated to the throne of the Cæsars, a beautiful and licentious actress suddenly raised by a freak of fortune to rule the destinies of the Roman Empire. All this is due to the remarkable discovery made by Nicholas Alemannus, librarian of the Vatican, toward the end of the seventeenth century, of the Secret History of Procopius, a work which purported to reveal the private life of the Byzantine court in the days of Justinian. Before the publication of this work Theodora was in public opinion chiefly remarkable for the prominent place she occupied in Justinian's reign. Of her early life nothing was known, but from the date of her accession to the throne she had exercised a sovereign influence over the emperor. In an important crisis she had exhibited admirable firmness and courage. She had taken an active part in the court intrigues and religious controversies of the epoch, and to her sagacity the emperor attributed many of his happiest inspirations in legislation. The ecclesiastical historians accused her of serious lapses into heresy and of having laid violent hands on the sacred person of a pope; but, with all their vituperation, there never was in circulation a calumny affecting her personal character. Such is a brief resume of the history of Theodora as handed down unassailed for a thousand years.

Then suddenly a startling revelation was made to the world concerning the previously unknown period of Theodora's life. Alemannus disinterred from the archives of the Vatican library, where it had long lain forgotten, an Arcana Historia which purported to be from the pen of the celebrated historian of the Wars and the Edifices of Justinian. Edited with a learned commentary by a hostile critic, the work immediately attained wide circulation and universal credence. For the first time the character of the illustrious empress was presented in the blackest colors. The world, it seemed, had been really mistaken in its estimate. Theodora's antecedents and early life had been of the vilest character, and her public life signalized by cruelty, avarice, and excess. From the date of the publication of this _chronique scandaleuse_, and thanks to Gibbon's trenchant paraphrase of its vilest sections, Theodora was condemned. Her name became the connotation for all the depraved vices known in high life. The silence of eleven centuries was overlooked, and the garish picture of the Secret History has formed the modern world's estimate of Rome's most illustrious empress.

It becomes, therefore, an important problem to attempt to distinguish the Theodora of history from the Theodora of romance. We must inquire whether the startling "anecdotes" of the _Secret History_ justly supersede the estimate and tradition of so long a period. Was Theodora the grand courtesan she is represented to be in the modern drama, or was she a great empress, worthy of the respect and admiration of Justinian and of succeeding ages? To answer these questions we must first briefly review the legendary history of Theodora, and then dwell more at length on the authentic history of the empress. This will merit a recital, for she appears to be a personality singularly original and powerful, possessing both the qualities of a statesman and the unique traits of a woman, a character of much complexity and of rare psychological interest. During the first years of the sixth century there lived in Constantinople a poor man, by name Acacius, a native of the isle of Cyprus, who had the care of the wild beasts maintained by the green faction of the city, and who, from his employment, was entitled the Master of the Bears. This Acacius was the father of Theodora. Upon his death, he left to the tender mercies of the world a widow and three helpless orphans, Comito, Theodora, and Anastasia, the eldest being not yet seven years of age. At a solemn festival these three children were sent by their destitute mother into the theatre, dressed in the garb of suppliants. The green faction scorned them; but the blues had compassion and relieved their distress, and this difference of treatment made a profound impression on the child Theodora, which had its influence on her later conduct. As the maidens increased in age and improved in beauty, they were trained by their mother for a theatrical career. Theodora first followed Comito on the stage, playing the rôle of chambermaid, but at length she exercised her talents independently. She became neither a singer nor a dancer nor a flute player, but she figured in the _tableaux Vivants_, where her beauty freely displayed itself, and in the pantomimes, where her vivacity and grace and sprightliness caused the whole theatre to resound with laughter and applause. She was, if the panegyrists may be believed, the most beautiful woman of her age. Procopius, the best historian of the day, says that "it was impossible for mere man to describe her comeliness in words or to imitate it in art." "Her features were delicate and regular; her complexion, though somewhat pale, was tinged with a natural colour; every sensation was instantly expressed by the vivacity of her eyes; her easy motions displayed the graces of a small but elegant figure; and either love or adulation might proclaim that painting and poetry were incapable of delineating the matchless excellence of her form." It is unfortunate that we have no likeness which portrays her exquisite beauty. The famous mosaic in San Vitale at Ravenna is the best authentic representation of the empress, but a mosaic can give but little idea of the original.