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.
In Verina and Ariadne we see a mother and a daughter exceedingly alike
in character, but frequently at cross purposes with each other because
of their similar traits. Both were ambitious, both fond of intrigue, and
both ready to commit any crime when it answered their purpose. Verina,
pleased at the accession of her grandson Leo, whom she could control,
was chagrined and disappointed when upon the lad's death his masterful
father was elevated to the throne; and, continuing her intrigues, she
lost first her royal station and then her freedom and her life in her
endeavor to do an injury to her son-in-law. Ariadne quickly grasped the
power which her mother had lost, and has the unusual record of choosing
her husband's successor on the throne and of being the imperial consort
of two rulers in succession.
We pass now to the dynasty of Justin and to a consideration of the niece
of the great Theodora, Sophia, empress of Justin the Younger, nephew and
successor of Justinian.
The poet Corippus gives a dramatic account of the elevation of Justin
and Sophia. During Justinian's long illness the two were faithful
attendants at his bedside and ministered to his every want. Finally, one
morning, before the break of day, Justin was awakened by a patrician and
informed that the emperor was dead. Soon after, the members of the
Senate entered the palace and assembled in a beautiful room overlooking
the sea, where they found Justin conversing with his wife Sophia. They
greeted the royal pair as Augustus and Augusta; and the twain, with
apparent reluctance, submitted to the will of the Senate. They then
repaired to the imperial chamber, and gazed, with tearful eyes, upon the
corpse of their beloved uncle. Sophia at once ordered to be brought an
embroidered cloth, on which was wrought in gold and brilliant colors the
whole series of Justinian's labors, the emperor himself being
represented in the midst with his foot resting upon the neck of the
Vandal giant. The next morning, Justin and his imperial consort
proceeded to the church of Saint Sophia, where they made a public
declaration of the orthodox faith.
In taking this step, Sophia showed that she had the ambition but not the
political acumen of her aunt Theodora. Like the latter, she had been
originally a Monophysite; but a wily bishop had suggested that her
heretical opinions stood in the way of her husband's promotion to the
rank of Cæsar, and in consequence she found it advisable to join the
ranks of the orthodox. Unfortunately, by this step the balance of the
religious parties, which Theodora had so successfully maintained, was
broken, and the later years of Justin's reign were disgraced by the
persecution of the Monophysites, so that great disaffection toward the
throne was created throughout the East.
The religious ceremony was soon followed by the acclamations of the
populace in the Hippodrome, which were made all the more hearty through
the act of Justin in discharging the vast debts of his uncle Justinian;
and, before three years had elapsed, his example was imitated and
surpassed by the empress, who delivered many indigent citizens from the
weight of debt and usury--an act of benevolence which won for her the
gratitude and adoration of the populace.
Thus auspiciously began the reign of Justin and Sophia, which the royal