THEODORA, BYZANTINE EMPRESS (1)

Wife of Justinian I; b. Constantinople (Paphlagonia or Syria in later sources) c. 497; d. Constantinople, June 28, 548, perhaps of gangrene or cancer; buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles. The main source on her life, the Anecdota or Secret History of procopius of caesa rea, is a hostile account, which tends to obscure historical truth. Allegedly the second of three daughters of Akakios, bearkeeper of the Green faction, she was at an early age sent by her widowed mother onto the stage, at the beginning as an aide to her elder sister Comito. Being an actress, she participated in obscene displays and was typically considered a prostitute by her contemporaries. She is said to have followed a certain governor of Pentapolis named Hecebolus to Libya. After he rejected her, she spent some time as an actress in Alexandria and the eastern provinces. Finally she returned to Constantinople, where she met justinian and became his mistress. He conferred on her the title of a patrician, but the marriage became possible only after the death of the emperor Justin I's wife Euphemia, who opposed it, and the passage of a special law enabling former actresses to marry into

the highest rank of society. They married probably c. 524, and remained devoted to each other until the end. Justinian, who never remarried, commemorated her on various occasions after her death. After a victory in 559, he had his triumphal procession detour to the Holy Apostles, so candles could be lit before her tomb. The emperor also had her mentioned in an inscription on the church of St. Catherine's at Mt. Sinai. She had a daughter from an earlier liaison and two or three grandsons. The existence of an illegitimate son, whom she is said to have mistreated, is apocryphal.

Although Justinian had always been a supporter of Chalcedon, Theodora was a convinced Monophysite, perhaps as a result of her stay in Alexandria. The nature of their collaboration on ecclesiastical policy has been a matter of debate ever since Procopius. Justinian was sincerely interested in bridging the gap between the Chalcedonians and the Monophysites, and Theodora acted within the limits of imperial policy, aiming especially at the relaxation, although temporary (531–36), of the official persecution of the Monophysites, as well as at the philanthropic mitigation of its effects. With Justinian's knowledge, she kept many Monophysite monks and clergy loyal to the empire by sheltering them in her palace of Hormisdas. She was an intimate of severus of anti och, and in 535 she briefly succeeded in having the originally Chalcedonian anthimus, who afterwards changed his views, appointed patriarch of Constantinople and the Monophysite Theodosius named patriarch of Alexandria. With Justinian's approval she even sent troops headed by Narses to Alexandria to support the election of Theodosius, who continued to enjoy her protection after he had moved to the capital. Subsequently, Theodora unsuccessfully attempted to have the anathemata of 536 against the Monophysite leaders revoked. To this end she worked for the appointment of the complaisant deacon vigilius, the papal legate in Constantinople, as pope (537) in place of the suddenly deceased Agapitus. She also instructed Belisarius to remove Pope Silverius, who had been elected in the meantime. His imprisonment suited her religious agenda, but she probably believed that Silverius was guilty of treason as well. The extensive official conversion of pagans in Asia Minor was accomplished by her favorite, the Monophysite John of Ephesus. He is said to have agreed to work in the interests of the official Chalcedonian policy, but it is doubtful that the pagans were really converted. One case in which Theodora opposed the policy of Justinian was in their dispatch of separate Monophysite and Chalcedonian missionaries to Nubia, where the former prevailed in the end. Her response in 542 to an official request for bishops addressed to her by the Monophysite Ghassanid Arab allies of the empire also had lasting consequences. Justinian allowed the consecration of two bishops, including Jacob Baradaeus (Bar’Addai) as titular bishop of Edessa, who was subsequently instrumental in the establishment of a rival Monophysite ecclesiastical structure. It is no surprise, therefore, that she is praised by John of Ephesus and a pious version of her early life appears in later Syriac sources. Nonetheless, she is mentioned together with her husband in Orthodox establishments, such as the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. She naturally supported the emperor's edict (544) condemning as Nestorian the Three Chapters, that is certain writings of the deceased theologians Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ibas of Edessa, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus, but she died before its final approval by the Fifth Ecumenical Council.

Theodora was particularly active as a social worker, though in no systematic way. She founded the Convent of Repentance for the rehabilitation of former prostitutes, and she supported women who were abused, forced into prostitution, or suffered other injustice. Her name, mostly together with her husband's, was associated with various buildings and charitable foundations in the capital and elsewhere. Her only certain extant portrait is the wall mosaic in St Vitale, Ravenna, dedicated in 547/8 shortly before her death.

Bibliography: procopius of caesarea, Historia quae dicitur arcana, ed. j. haury and g. wirth (Leipzig 1963), tr. h. b. dewing (Cambridge, Mass. 1935); g. a. williamson (Harmondsworth 1966) (both with reprints). john of ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints, Syriac text ed. and tr. by e. w. brooks, Patrologia Orientalis 17/1, 18/4, 19/2 (1923–25; repr. 1974). c. diehl, Théodora impératrice de Byzance (Paris n.d. [before 1904]). e. stein, Histoire du Bas-Empire II (Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam 1949). b. rubin, Das Zeitalter Justinians I (Berlin 1960) 98–121. a. cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (London 1985; repr. 1996) 49–83. r. browning, Justinian and Theodora (2d ed. London 1987). h.-g. beck, Kaiserin Theodora und Prokop (Munich-Zurich 1986) 89–158. j. r. martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire III (Cambridge 1992) 1240 f. j. a. s. evans, The Age of Justinian (London, New York 1996). l. garland, Byzantine Empresses (London, New York 1999) 11–39. The Cambridge Ancient History XIV. Late Antiquity. Empire and Successors a.d. 425–600, ed. a. cameron et al. (Cambridge 2000) esp. 64–82.

[t. antonopoulou]