Part 21

Theodora's most intimate friend was Antonina, the wife of Belisarius, whom Procopius describes as a woman "more capable than anyone else to manage the impracticable." The two clever women devised an unscrupulous bit of strategy which, if successful, would surely cause the downfall of the much execrated minister of finance. Antonina, at Theodora's suggestion, cultivated the friendship of John's daughter, Euphemia, and intimated to her that her husband Belisarius was seriously disaffected toward the emperor, because of the poor requital which his distinguished services had received, but that he could not attempt to throw off the imperial yoke unless he was assured of the sympathy and support of some one of the important civil officials. Euphemia naturally told the news to her father, who, seeing in the circumstance an opportunity to ascend the throne with the aid of the powerful general, easily fell into the trap. To perfect the plot the Cappadocian arranged a secret interview at Rufinianum, one of the country seats of Belisarius. The empress arranged to have two faithful officials, Marcellus and Narses, concealed in the villa, with orders to arrest John if his treason became manifest, and, if he resisted, straightway to put him to death. They overheard the treasonable plot, but the minister succeeded in escaping arrest and fled to the inviolable asylum of Saint Sophia. He was, however, exiled in disgrace to Cyzicus; but the ruthless hatred of Theodora followed him, and, after all his ill-gotten gains had been confiscated, he was exiled to Egypt, where he remained until the death of the empress. He finally returned to Constantinople, but Justinian had no further need of the services of his quondam counsellor, and the latter, in the rude garb of a priest, died upon the scene of his former triumphs.

In her ruthless persecution of her opponents, as illustrated by this incident, there seems to have been in this remarkable woman a singular absence of the moral sense.

True it is that she passionately loved power and luxury and wealth; true, that she exercised her authority at times in a ruthless and unscrupulous manner. Yet the hardness of her nature is offset by many sympathetic qualities which show that, together with the sternness of an empress, she had the heart of a woman.

She showed a sympathetic interest in the welfare of her own family. She married her sister Comito to Sittas, an officer of high rank. Her niece Sophia was united in marriage with the nephew of Justin, heir presumptive to the Empire. All her life she regretted that she did not have a son to mount the throne: she had buried an infant daughter, the sole offspring of her marriage.

One of the most pleasing traits of her character was the large tolerance and substantial sympathy she showed to fallen women. Severe on men, she manifested for women a solicitude rarely equalled. On the Asiatic coast of the Bosporus she converted a palace into a spacious and stately monastery, known as the Convent of the Metanoia, or Repentance, and richly endowed it for the benefit of her less fortunate sisters who had been seduced or compelled to embrace the trade of prostitution. In this safe and holy retreat were gathered hundreds of women, collected from the streets and brothels of Constantinople; and many a hapless woman was filled with gratitude toward the generous benefactress who had rescued her from a life of sin and misery.

Are we to see in this tender solicitude an exemplification of the words of the poet, _Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco_, or were her endeavors merely the outcome of the religious exaltation of a pure and noblewoman "naturally prone to succor women in misfortune," as a Byzantine writer says of her? At any rate, this practical sympathy exerted its influence also in enactments of the Justinian Code relating to women; such as the ordinance tending to increase the dignity of marriage and render it more indissoluble, or that to give to seduced maidens recourse against their seducers, or that to relieve actresses of the social disbarment which attended their calling. All these measures were doubtless due to the inspiration of Theodora.

She also carried her strict ideas as to the sanctity of marriage into the life of the court, as is shown by the manner in which she pitilessly spoiled the romance which would have united one of the most brilliant generals of the Empire to a niece of Justinian.

Præjecta, the emperor's niece, had fallen into the hands of Gontharis, a usurper who had slain her husband, Areobindus. She had given up all as lost when an unexpected savior appeared in the person of a handsome Armenian officer, Artabanes, the commander in Africa, who overthrew the usurper and restored her to liberty. From gratitude, Præjecta could refuse her deliverer nothing, and she promised him her hand. The ambitious Armenian saw in this brilliant marriage rapid promotion to the height of power. The princess returned to Constantinople, and the Count of Africa hastened to surrender his honorable office and sought a recall to Constantinople to join his prospective bride. He was lionized in the capital; his dignified demeanor, his burning eloquence and his unbounded generosity won the admiration of all. To remove the social distance between him and his fiancée he was loaded down with honors and dignities. All went well until an unexpected and troublesome obstacle to the nuptials presented itself. Artabanes had overlooked or forgotten the fact that years before he had espoused an Armenian lady. They had been separated a long time, and the warrior had never been heard to speak of her. So long as he was an obscure soldier his wife was contented to leave him in peace; but not so after his unexpected rise to fame. Suddenly she appeared in Constantinople, claiming the rights of a lawful spouse, and as a wronged woman she implored the sympathetic aid of Theodora.

The empress was inflexible when the sacred bonds of marriage were at stake, and she forced the reluctant general to renounce all claims to the princess and to take back his forsaken wife. By way of precaution, she speedily married Præjecta to John, the grandson of the emperor Anastasius, and the pretty romance was at an end.

With equal regard to the sanctity of marriage, Theodora employed numerous devices to reconcile Belisarius, the celebrated general, with his wife Antonina, to whom the scandal of the _Secret History_ attributes serious lapses from moral rectitude, though the charge cannot be regarded as proved.

A portrait of the Byzantine empress would be incomplete if it did not speak of her religious sentiments and the prominent part she took in ecclesiastical politics. In religious matters we see not only the best side of Theodora's nature, but also the supreme exhibition of her influence in the affairs of the Empire. Like all the Byzantines of her time, she was pious and devoted in her manner of life. She was noted for her almsgiving and her contributions to the foundations established by the Church. Chroniclers cite the houses of refuge, the orphanages, and the hospitals founded by her; and Justinian, in one of his ordinances, speaks of the innumerable gifts which she made to churches, hospitals, asylums, and bishoprics.

Yet, in spite of these many exhibitions of inward piety, Theodora was strongly suspected by the orthodox of heresy. She professed openly the monophysite doctrine,--the belief in the one nature in the person of Jesus Christ. She also endeavored to bring Justinian to her view, and, with an eye to the interest of the state, she entered upon a course of policy which reconciled the schismatics--but disgusted the orthodox Catholics, who were in unison with Rome. The people of Syria and Egypt were almost universally Monophysites and Separatists. Theodora, with a political finesse far greater than that of her husband, saw that the discontent in the Orient was prejudicial to the imperial power, and she endeavored by her line of policy to reconcile the hostile parties and to reestablish religious peace in the Empire. She recognized that the centre of gravity of the government had passed permanently from Rome to Constantinople, and that consequently the best policy was to keep at peace the peoples of the East.

Justinian, on the other hand, misled by the grandeur of Roman tradition, wished to establish, through union with the Roman See, strict orthodoxy in the restored empire of the Cæsars. Theodora, with greater acumen, observed the irreconcilable lines of difference between East and West, and recognized that to proscribe the learned and powerful party of dissenters in the Orient would alienate important provinces and be fatal to the authority of the monarchy. She therefore threw her influence into the balance of heresy. She received the leaders of the Monophysites in the palace, and listened sympathetically to their counsels, their complaints, their remonstrances. She placed men of this faith in the most prominent patriarchal sees--Severius at Antioch, Theodosius at Alexandria, Anthimius at Constantinople. She transformed the palace on Hormisdas into a monastery for the persecuted priests of Syria and Asia. When Severius was subjected to persecution, she provided means for him to escape from Constantinople; and when Anthimius was deposed from the metropolitan see, she extended to him, in spite of imperial orders, her open protection, and gave him an asylum in the palace. Her boldest coup, however, consisted in placing on the pontifical seat at Rome a pope of her own choice, pledged to act with the Monophysites.

For this rôle she found the man in the Roman deacon Vigilius, for some years apostolic legate at Constantinople. Vigilius was an ambitious and clever priest who had won his way into the confidence of Theodora, and the empress thought to find in him, when elevated to the pontifical chair, a ready instrument for her purposes. It is recounted that, in exchange for the imperial protection and patronage, Vigilius engaged to reestablish Anthimius at Constantinople, to enter into a league with Theodosius and Severius, and to annul the Council of Chalcedon. Upon the death of the presiding pope, Agapetus, Vigilius set out for Rome with letters for Belisarius, who was then at the height of his power in Italy, and these letters were such that they did not admit of objection. Apparently, in this affair Justinian had secretly assented to the plans of the empress, seeing perhaps in the movement a solution which would bring about the unity which he desired and place the Roman pontiff in accord with the Orientals. But it was not without trouble that Vigilius was installed. Immediately upon the death of Agapetus, the Roman party had provided a successor in Silverius; and to seat Vigilius in the chair of Saint Peter, they must first make Silverius descend. Belisarius was charged with this repugnant task. With manifest reluctance, he undertook his part in the questionable intrigue. He first suggested to Silverius a dignified way of settling the affair by making the concessions which the emperor desired of Vigilius. Silverius indignantly refused to make any such compromise. Thereupon, under the imaginary pretext of treason, he was brutally arrested, deposed, and sent into exile. Vigilius was at once ordained pope in his stead. Theodora seemed to have conquered.

But when securely installed, Vigilius, in spite of the threats of Belisarius, deferred the fulfilment of his promises. Finally, however, he was compelled to make important concessions to the empress. This was the last triumph of Theodora; and toward the close of her life, in the growing progress of the Eastern Church, and in the declining influence of the pope, she had reason to believe that the dreams of her religious diplomacy were realized.

Theodora's advocacy of the cause of the dissenters accounts for much of the vituperation heaped upon her by orthodox Catholics. In the eyes of the Cardinal Baronius, the wife of Justinian was "a detestable creature, a second Eve too ready to listen to the serpent, a new Delilah, another Herodias, revelling in the blood of the saints, a citizen of Hell, protected by demons, inspired by Satan, burning to break the concord bought by the blood of confessors and of martyrs." It is worthy of note that this was written before the discovery of the manuscript of the _Secret History_. What would the learned cardinal have said had he known of the alleged adventures of the youth of this woman, classed by pious Catholics as one of the worst enemies of the Church?

Perhaps, after all, we are to find in Theodora's religious defection the source of all the scandal which has attached to her name. Damned in the eyes of pious churchmen because of her religious faith that Christ's nature was not dual, it was easy for the tongue of scandal regarding her early life to gain credence. Had Theodora followed the orthodox in the belief in the two natures, she might have committed worse offences than were charged to her, and no such vituperation would have been uttered by any member of the orthodox Church; but her position in the religious controversies of the sixth century will certainly, in the twentieth century, do her memory little harm.

Theodora's health was always delicate. After these years of stormy dissension, as her strength began to fail, she was directed to use the famous Pythian warm baths. Her progress through Bithynia was made with all the splendor of an imperial cortege, and all along the route she distributed alms to churches, monasteries, and hospitals, with the request that the devout should implore Heaven for the restoration of her health. Finally, in the month of June, A. D. 548, in the twenty-fourth year of her marriage and the twenty-second of her reign, Theodora died of a cancer. Justinian was inconsolable at her loss, which rightly seemed to him to be irreparable. His later years were lacking in the energy and finesse that had characterized him during her lifetime, and it was doubtless her loss which clouded his spirits and removed from him the chief inspiration of his reign. Some years after Theodora's death, a poet, desiring to gratify the emperor, recalled the memory of the excellent, beautiful and wise sovereign, "who was beseeching at the throne of grace God's favor on her spouse."

We can hardly think of Theodora as a glorified saint, yet her goodness of heart and her charity may atone for many of the serious defects in her character. We know not whence she came nor the story of her early life; but as an empress she exhibited all the defects of her qualities. She was a woman cast in a large mould, and her faults stand out in equal prominence with her virtues. She was at times cruel, selfish, and proud, often despotic and violent, utterly unscrupulous and pitiless when it was a question of maintaining her power. But she was resourceful, resolute, energetic, courageous; her political acumen was truly masculine; in a critical moment she saved the throne for Justinian, and during all her lifetime she was his wise Egeria, by her counsel enabling him to succeed in great movements; when her influence ceased to exercise itself a decadence began which continued during the remaining years of Justinian's reign.

As a woman, she was capricious, passionate, vain, self-willed, but sympathetic to the unfortunate and infinitely seductive. Truly imperial was she in her vices, truly queenly in her virtues. Whatever may have been her youth, her career on the throne is the best refutation of the scandal of the _Secret History_, and she deserves a place in the records of history as one of the world's greatest, most intelligent, most fascinating empresses.

XII

OTHER SELF-ASSERTING AUGUSTÆ--VERINA, ARIADNE, SOPHIA, MARTINA, IRENE

It is a noteworthy feature in the history of the Eastern Roman Empire that periods in which empresses figure prominently in the affairs of state alternate with periods in which the Augustæ are mere ciphers. Eudoxia, the wife of Arcadius, marks the early limit of feminine predominance in the independent history of the eastern section of the Roman Empire. The Empress Irene, who reigned at first with her son Constantine and afterward alone, marks the later limit of the Roman, as distinguished from the strictly Byzantine Empire, since during her reign, at the beginning of the ninth century, the Empire of the West was completely dissevered from all connection with Constantinople through the crowning of Charlemagne as Emperor of the West by Pope Leo. Thus a masterful woman was the predominating influence at the beginning and at the end of the existence of the Eastern Roman Empire as a separate entity.

In the interval between these two limits the most important reign was that of Justinian and the most remarkable woman was, of course, the Empress Theodora. Following Eudoxia were the rival Empresses Pulcheria and Eudocia, celebrated for their beauty, their culture, and their piety.

When the house of Theodosius ceased to exist with Pulcheria and Marcian, the Roman Empire in the East was safely guided through the stormy times which saw its extinction in the West by a series of three men of ability, Leo I. (457-474), Zeno (474-491), and Anastasius (491-518). During this period two Augustæ--Verina and Ariadne--took a part in imperial politics, and made up in wickedness and intrigue what they lacked in culture and piety. Next followed the house of Justin, which produced two remarkable women in Theodora and her niece Sophia, the latter, though not the equal of her aunt in strength of character, yet leaving her mark on the history of her times.

Following the death of Sophia there was for nearly forty years a break in the predominance of self-asserting Augustæ. Of the wives of Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas, we know merely the names--respectively, Anastasia, Constantina, and Leontia Augusta. Heraclius's memorable reign was shared with two empresses, the first of whom, Eudocia, did nothing to win publicity, while the career of the second--Martina--recalls the wickedness and the intrigue of Verina and Sophia. But the spouses of the successors of Heraclius did not follow Martina's ignoble example, but were women of whom nothing was recorded either of praise or blame. We do not even know the name of the wife of Constans II., who entered upon a long reign after the exile of Heracleonas, son of Martina. Anastasia, the spouse of Constantine IV., Theodora, queen of the second Justinian, Maria, spouse of Leo III., the Isaurian, and Irene, Maria, and Eudocia, the three wives of Constantine V., played so little part in political affairs that they are hardly better known than the nameless wives of the emperors who filled up the interval between the second Justinian and Leo the Isaurian (695-716).

This brief resume brings us to the reign of the Empress Irene, who in energy, in wickedness, and in ambition made up for all the deficiencies of her predecessors. Having devoted separate chapters to the most celebrated Augustæ of the Eastern Empire--Eudoxia, Pulcheria and Eudocia, and Theodora--we shall group into one chapter our brief consideration of the lives and characters of the less renowned but no less pronounced Augustæ of the intervening periods--Verina, Ariadne, Sophia, Martina, and Irene.

Verina and her daughter Ariadne, through their wickedness and ambition, cast dark shadows over the otherwise bright history of the house of Leo the Great. Verina, the imperial consort of Leo, was a woman of little cultivation but of great natural gifts, fond of intrigue, ambitious of power, and implacable in hatred and revenge. Of her two daughters, Ariadne had married Zeno the Isaurian, one of the most illustrious and able officials of the Empire. Leo, the offspring of this union, was selected as the heir and successor of Leo I., but upon the death of the lad, shortly after his accession, Zeno was raised to the throne, much to the disgust of the empress-mother Verina. She fostered'a conspiracy for the downfall of Zeno and the elevation of Patricius, her paramour, and as a result of her intrigues Zeno had to forsake his throne and flee to the mountain fastnesses of Isauria, his native country, together with his wife Ariadne and his mother Lallis. Verina's brother, Basiliscus, aspired to the throne, but she opposed his claims in order to win the purple for Patricius. After Zeno's flight, however, the ministers and senators elected Basiliscus as his successor, and the new emperor entered upon a most unpopular and checkered reign of only twenty months. His queen was named Zenonis, a young and beautiful woman, who soon gained an unenviable reputation because of her manifest fondness for her husband's nephew Harmatius, a young fop, noted for his good looks and his effeminate manners. An ancient chronicler tells the story of this intrigue:

"Basiliscus permitted Harmatius, inasmuch as he was a kinsman, to associate freely with the empress Zenonis. Their intercourse became intimate, and, as they were both persons of no ordinary beauty, they became extravagantly enamored of each other. They used to exchange glances of the eyes, they used constantly to turn their faces and smile at each other, and the passion which they were obliged to conceal was the cause of grief and vexation. They confided their trouble to Daniel, a eunuch, and to Maria, a midwife, who hardly healed their malady by the remedy of bringing them together. Then Zenonis coaxed Basiliscus to grant her lover the highest office in the city."

This palace intrigue was soon brought to an end, however, by the fall of Basiliscus and the restoration of Zeno in 477, in spite of the intrigues of Verina. After Zeno's return, his most powerful minister, the Isaurian Illus, became the object of Verina's enmity and machinations. She even formed a plot to assassinate him, which he was fortunate enough to discover and frustrate. Recognizing that his power would not be secure so long as Verina was at large, he begged Zeno to consign to him the dangerous woman; and the emperor, doubtless glad to be rid of his redoubtable mother-in-law, gave her over into his hands. Illus first compelled her to take the vows of a nun at Tarsus, and then placed her in confinement in Dalisandon, an Isaurian castle.

But Illus had only got rid of one female foe to find a more bitter antagonist in the latter's daughter, the empress Ariadne. She made the second attempt on his life in 483, and used all her arts of intrigue to estrange from him the Emperor Zeno. Finally, realizing that his life was not safe in Constantinople, Illus withdrew from the court, and later attached himself to the cause of the rebel Leontius, who sought to overthrow Zeno. In support of the rebel's cause, Illus turned to his quondam enemy Verina, the empress-mother, who from her prison castle was glad to seize the opportunity to deal a blow to her ungrateful son-in-law. To give the semblance of legitimacy to the cause of Leontius, Verina was induced to crown him at Tarsus, and she also issued a letter in his interest, which was sent to various cities and exerted a marked influence on the disaffected. Leontius established an imperial court at Antioch, but was speedily overthrown by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. The two leaders of the conspiracy, with Verina, took refuge in the Isaurian stronghold of Papirius, where they stood a siege for four years, during which time Verina died. The fortress was finally taken through the treachery of Illus's sister-in-law, and Illus and Leontius were slain.

After the death of Zeno, Anastasius was in 491 proclaimed emperor through the influence of the widowed empress Ariadne, who married him about six weeks later and continued to be an influence in politics during Anastasius's long and successful reign.