Depending on when you last
learned about the history of the Roman Empire, you may have learned that the
Roman Empire collapsed in 400-something at the hands of the Barbarians at the
Gates. Or, you might have learned that the Barbarians at the Gates only
succeeded in destroying the Western half of the Roman Empire, plunging Western
Europe into the Dark Ages while the Eastern half of the empire went on kicking
until the walls of Constantinople (now Istanbul) fell to Ottoman cannons in
1453.
Whatever the case, the people
we call the Byzantines thought of themselves as Roman, although their Empire
featured some key differences from the traditional Roman Empire. Number one:
they spoke Greek, not Latin. Number two: the paganism of the Old Empire was
dead and the religion of Byzantium was Christianity.
Much like its progenitor, the Byzantine
Empire was highly patriarchal but in the 6th century, the Byzantine
world was rocked by one historical babe:
a woman who the contemporary historian Procopius sometimes called “Theodora
from the Brothel.”
Theodora was probably born around
500 CE and was raised in Constantinople’s Hippodrome as part of a family of
entertainers. As a teenager, she was a renowned burlesque dancer and prostitute,
who probably had at least one child out of wedlock, and possibly a few
abortions. Her scandalous past would be used by some (such as the
aforementioned Procopius) to defame and discredit her accomplishments later on.
At 18, tired of life in the Hippodrome, Theodora took a trip to North Africa
with her sugar daddy (the governor of Libya) but soon parted ways with him and joined
an order of religious rebels known as the Monophysites (more about them later).
After returning to Constantinople
from her sojourn in Africa, Theodora met and fell in love with the
heir-apparent to the Emperor, Justinian – who himself had a rather squalid past
as a peasant from Serbia. Justinian and Theodora had a rather unusual relationship
for their day, most sources seeming to show that they regarded each other as
confidants and intellectual equals rather than just lovers. Justinian expressed
interest in marrying Theodora, but it was illegal for a patrician like him to
marry an actress scumbag like her. So, Justinian took up the issue with his
doting Uncle Justin, then the Emperor.
Initially, Justinian’s hopes
of having the law changed were dashed by his aunt, the Empress Euphemia, who herself
had once been a prostitute and didn’t like the idea of some other former prostitute sullying her position.
(Mm. Dat post-classical cat fight.) After Euphemia’s death, Emperor Justin yielded
to Justinian’s wishes, and changed the law so that Theodora (and other reformed
actresses) could marry. After Justin died, Justinian ascended to the throne and
Theodora played a more active role in helping him rule than was customary for
Byzantine Empresses.
Theodora lived before the
Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches split and before Islam arrived on
the scene, but the Mediterranean of Theodora’s day was rife with a theological
conflict of its own: mainly between Monophysite and Chalcedon Christians. Put
simply, early Christians had a lot of debates to sort out amongst themselves,
which resulted in many councils among the big wigs of the Church to decide what
would be considered Orthodox and what would be considered heresy, and often as
not, they couldn’t come up with an agreement that everyone was willing to live
with. The dispute between the Monophysites and the rest of Christendom at the
time was over the nature of Jesus Christ. Mainstream Christianity declared that
he had two natures: one divine, the other human (with all sorts of hairs to
split about how those two natures coexisted) while the Monophysites believed that
Jesus had one nature that was purely divine. Even though they were persona non
grata in the empire, Theodora was a devout Monophysite, while Justinian towed
the party line. Their theological differences and the political implications of
these differences never seemed to trouble their marriage. Theodora was an
important friend to the Monophysites, and may have helped them survive. She
even eroded Justinian in the end, and he converted to Monophysitism near the
end of his life, long after his beloved wife had died.
Religion was not all that divided
Byzantine society and even though Theodora left the Hippodrome behind her as a
teenager, it continued to play an important role in Byzantine society, and
therefore, in her reign. Think of the Hippodrome as a hybridization of circus,
theatre, sports arena, and political forum. The Hippodrome was dominated by two
main factions: the Blues, who represented Orthodoxy and the elite, and the
Greens, who represented the people and Monophysites. Imagine that the Republicans
and Democrats were football teams as well as political parties – or that the
Giants and the Steelers helped run political campaigns – and you have some idea
of how influential (and divisive) the Blues and the Greens were.
Theodora’s father had been a
bear-keeper for the Greens, but after he died and Theodora’s mother remarried,
the Greens refused to give Theodora’s step-father the job. Sensing an opportunity
to enhance their image, the Blues gave him a job and Theodora’s loyalties
switched. Needless to say, Justinian and Theodora showed blatant favoritism to
the Blues until an inflammatory little incident
in 532: The Nika Riot.
Justinian was obsessed with
restoring the glories of the Roman Empire and though his campaigns of re-conquest
were largely successful, they were also expensive. Expensive wars equals higher
taxes – and no one in the history of
the world has ever liked paying taxes. After a minor incident
where a Blue and a Green slated for execution were miraculously saved by a collapsing
scaffold and then were not pardoned
by Justinian, the Blues and the Greens temporarily decided to agree on hating
Justinian’s guts.
As a result, when Justinian
showed his mug at a chariot race at the Hippodrome the Greens and Blues rioted,
yelling, “Nika! Nika!” (Win! Win!) and proceeded to destroy much of
Constantinople in the process. Justinian was ready to cut and run, but Theodora
insisted on staying and facing the rebels, ultimately convincing Justinian to
stay as well. He sent his generals to lock the rioters in the Hippodrome and
slaughter – oh – 30,000 or so of them, perhaps as much as ten percent of the
city’s population.
That quieted things down.
Despite the bloody legacy of
the Nika Riot, there are also some positive changes associated with Justinian
and Theodora’s rule, mainly in legal changes for women. Although the laws are
in Justinian’s name, Theodora probably had a hand in putting them together –
laws that closed brothels and sent prostitutes to live in convents, and
punished pimps rather than prostitutes. Anti-rape legislation was passed to
have incarcerated women kept in nunneries instead of in male-guarded prisons
where they might be assaulted. Women’s property rights were expanded and widows
could maintain the guardianship of their children if there was no suitable male
guardian available. Men could no longer murder their adulterous wives, and laws
were passed to help prevent female infanticide and abandonment of female
children. Certainly, things were not all sunshine and roses for women in the
empire after that, but it was a start.
Theodora died in 548 of cancer,
having lived through a meteoric rise in social status and enjoying a short, but
fairly successful political career.
What a babe.
Sources:
