Empire: World History - 136. Empress Theodora: From the Brothel to the Throne

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Placed by her mother into a brothel when she was just a child, Theodora was born into the most brutal of worlds. It was a Constantinople riven with division, whether due to theology or circus factions it was always ready to boil over. As befitting a Christian saint, Theodora managed to rise above all of this; she escaped working in a brothel, became the model of a reformed woman, and married the future emperor, Justinian. Then, in 527, when he was declared Emperor, Theodora was brought forward and revealed as Empress of the Roman Empire. Listen as William and Anita are once again joined by Peter Sarris to discuss this tale of star-crossed lovers and how it facilitated the improbable rise of Theodora. For bonus episodes, ad-free listening, reading lists, book discounts, a weekly newsletter, and a chat community. Sign up at https://empirepod.supportingcast.fm/ Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producer: Anouska Lewis Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. Brought up in a circus family, as soon as she was old enough, she joined the women on the stage and promptly became a courtesan, but she was not a flautist or a harpist. She wasn't even qualified to join the core of dancers, but she merely sold her attractions to anyone who came along, putting her whole body at his disposal. There was not a particle of modesty in the little hussy. She complied with the most outrageous demands without the slightest hesitation.

She'd throw off her clothes and exhibit naked to all and sundry, those regions both in front and behind, which the rules of decency require to be kept veiled and hidden. from masculine eyes, in the theatre, in full view of all the people, she would spread herself out and lay face upwards on the floor, servants on whom the task had been imposed would sprinkle barley grains all over her private parts and geese trained for the purpose, used to pick them off one by one with their bills and swallow them. She used to tease her lovers by keeping them waiting and by constantly playing about with the novel methods of intercourse, she could always bring the lascivious to her feet. So far from waiting to be invited by anyone she encountered, by cracking dirty jokes and wiggling her hip suggestively, she would invite all who came her way,

especially if they were still in their teens. Never was anyone so completely given over to unlimited self-indulgence. Often she would go to a dinner party and would love to love. with all her fellow diners, in turn, the whole night long. Well, I mean, it's an interesting way to start a podcast with a bit of porn. Well, it's a new development. It's a new direction. We may get a whole new listenership. You know, William, you sent me the seconds before we were due to record,

and my eyes, I mean, popped out on stalks. The thing is I'd read it in the brilliant book of our special guest today, but this is a quote by Procopius. And it just, I mean, either it proves that he's very good at porn. or he's a bitch, or she was a wrong and, but we are talking about one of the most interesting women I think we've talked about in this podcast. Who we should also say straight up is now a saint of the Orthodox Church. There is that. I mean, I feel like there should be a badoom tch at the end of because it's so unlikely. Look, we welcome again to this podcast. He was so brilliant and so popular

last time. Peter Saris, Professor of Late Antique Medieval Byzantine Studies at the University of Cambridge. and you are here to tell us the truth and the not so truthful about this incredible woman, Theodora. I mean, remarkable. She is remarkable. You're very excited to talk about her, aren't you? Yeah, great to be back to talk about one of the most fascinating and arresting characters in history, I think, and particularly one of the most important characters of the extraordinary age of the 6th century, which is by far the best recorded period in the entirety of Roman history, and a pivotal one for the dawn of the Middle Ages and the formation of Christendom. And Theodora was right at the heart of it.

Okay, can we start with one tiny thing? Is Procopius, as I suspect, just a real cow of a man? Just writing really bitchily. What's his issue? You should say that he also writes volume after volume of official history, where Theodora is treated with the utmost respect and deference. Focopius is a very complicated and interesting character. So he is a private secretary to one of the first.

of Justinian's closest military advisers, the General Belisarius, who will achieve many of the Emperor's greatest military conquests. And so he knows intimately one of the Emperor's closest allies and is a direct source, really, for a lot of the politics of the court. He leaves us three works, an official history of Justinian's wars, drawing on his own experience on the military front line, a celebratory work describing Justinian's buildings in Constantinople and beyond. and then this scandalous text which will be known to posterity as the secret history, in which he turns on both Justinian and Theodora lambasting them as demons sent to destroy mankind, and in particular as drawn out in that quotation, lambasting the empress for her voracious sexual appetites.

Now, that work isn't circulated in Pocopis's lifetime or Justinian's lifetime, and I think it's meant for circulation after the emperor and the emperor, are dead. And I think what we're seeing as an author who is initially quite excited about the programme of imperial renewal which Justinian will spearhead, but who becomes increasingly disillusioned with it, and in particular becomes disillusioned, and what he regards as the tyranny of Justinian and Theodora in their effectively joint rule of the Roman Empire. And for him, for a woman to exercise the degree of political influence that Theodora will do, breaks all the rules of political decorum in the Roman world. And do we just read this as intense misogyny?

It is intense misogyny. And in the depiction of Theodora, what he is partly doing is taking the ideal of the Roman matron and turning it on its head. So the ideal Roman woman is meant to be chased. Theodora is an infamaniac. The ideal Roman matron is meant to be a loving mother. He accuses Theodora of trying to murder her illegitimate son, who she probably never has, by the way. The ideal Roman matron is meant to be demure. Theodora is such a hussy. She even bursts out laughing in public, which no proper Roman lady would ever be seen to do. So there's a literary game there, but he very rarely completely makes stuff up. And the emphasis he places on her active role in government, we have lots of external evidence for, but also crucially, the claim that early on in her life, she was forced to work as a prostitute, not of her own volition, but forced to, is something we find. repeated not just by sources hostile to Justinian and Theodora, but also sources that are very devoted to Theodora. There is so much to unpack here. I mean, I was excited when you talked about Helena.

That's nothing compared to this story. My God. Let's start off. This is quite a wonderful relay race through history, because the last time we had you on, you were telling us about this wonderful matriarch mother of Constantine, who, you know, he loves his mum. I can't deny, he loves his mum, and he sort of helps to elevate her stature in history and in theology until now she is known as a saint. We were at that point when Constantine, we have now Constantinople, and you gave us a really wonderful portrait of the city at that time that he was creating around him. What happens between then and the time of Theodora and Justinian that changes in Constantinople? Talk us through some of the morphing. So we left, as it were, the world of Constantine with the foundation of Constantinople and a shift in the centre of gravity and authority in the Roman world eastwards.

Now, what crucially happens later in that fourth century is that we have an unprecedented reconfiguration of power across the Eurasian steppe, the landmass that connects what is now Ukraine out eastwards to Manchuria. This is the realm of step nomads in antiquity. And in the late 4th century, a group known to posterity as the Huns begin a rapid expansion westwards from Central Asia towards Roman territory and the Mediterranean world. They end up in very considerable numbers and it's like there's a snowball effect. They gather more and more subject peoples as their power expands. This will place unprecedented military pressure on the Roman world in the late 4th and in the 5th centuries, such that across the 5th century, the west. Roman Empire would fragment and ultimately disappear through a combination of internal crisis and external military pressure. So over the 5th century, the Western Roman Empire comes to be replaced by a series

of barbarian successor kingdoms, by a series of kingdoms ruled by non-Roman rulers, leaving Constantinople and the emperor there and the eastern territories of the Roman Empire as all that is left of the Roman world. So we have a world in crisis. During the Roman Empire, although today we're used to thinking of Europe as the center of, quote, civilization, the rich center of the world. During the Roman period, it was always the East. It was Syria, Egypt and Eastern Turkey that were the rich and sophisticated parts of the world. Yes, the most intellectually sophisticated part of the Roman world with the Eastern Mediterranean, and that is the world that Constantinople remains in control of. So Theodore is born into a world in crisis,

by virtue of this disappearance of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Also, during the period of Hunnic expansion, the Romans and the Persians had stopped fighting each other and had collaborated against the Huns. At the start of the 6th century, warfare with the Persians re-errupt on a massive scale. So you have crisis to the West and a new crisis to the East. The establishment of Christianity, by the time we get to the 6th century, Christianity has now been established as the official religions of Roman state, but from the mid-5th century, the Imperial Church has found itself increasingly divided over key issues of faith and theology, and there's a growing sense of the imminence of divine judgment and growing apocalyptic expectations.

Now, you're going to have to hold our hands and talk us very simply through this, because the major division. I mean, to me, sort of reading it, it's kind of potato-potato, but, you know, it seems very, very important at a time. Just describe and name these two schools of thought. The most sort of arcane of distinctions of theological definitions cause riots. Hundreds of the people are killed. The main problem is that the Gospels tell us that Jesus was believed to be the son of God. But what does that mean? Was he just a very holy man?

Was he part of God? Was he both God? These are issues the early church has to thrash out because the Gospels are so vague on it. By the time we get to the mid-fifth century, there's a general consensus that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. But how did the human and divine within him relate? That's the big issue that people are debating over. Now, this might strike us as quite academic, but the crucial point is that the church had this intense belief derived from scripture,

that erroneous belief closed the pathway to salvation. So unless you got your understanding of these issues right, your soul could not be saved. And that's why people who were presented with what they were told were erroneous doctrines were willing to riot, were willing to fight, were willing to kill in order to defend what their faction would come to regard as the true faith. And this is spinning out of control as we move into the fifth and early six centuries. We also have a fourth aspect of the crisis at the time, which is there's also growing lawlessness

at the grassroots of imperial society as East Roman society has come to be dominated by an increasingly avaricious and tax-shy aristocracy. Okay, but these two different scores of thought, as you say, which it seems to us now very academic and something that ought to be confined to a debating chamber is spilling out on the street. But the two major factions. Now, I want to say this right, but I won't. Diophocytes, is that one school of thought? Have I said that correctly? Diophysites or do officesites and miaphytes or monophysites. You can call them either. Monophyset, right. Okay. Crystallise, what is their beef with each other?

Well, they're more anxious about the possible errors that could emerge from each other's emphasis. So often there's not a huge amount dividing them. Essentially, the two names, school, as it were, believe that within the person of Christ, he has both a divine nature and a human nature. And the reason why they emphasise the separation of these natures is that Christ has to be fully like us in his humanity for his resurrection to be our resurrection. And he has to be fully like God in his divinity for him to be able to be resurrected into heaven. And there worry is that if you over-emphasise the unity of the human and divine in Christ, you get a Christ who is neither fully divine nor fully human,

but a sort of a mix. It's just as white wine mixed with water is neither wine nor water. It's a spritzer. It's a spitzer, exactly. They could have done with you there at the Council of Nicaea. His death and resurrection have to be opening the pathway to salvation for all mankind, so he has to be fully like us in his humanity. The other side are worried that if you emphasize the separation, this is the monophysites or meephasisites,

if you emphasize separation between human and divine, they're anxious that after Christ's ascension into heaven that some of his humanity may be left behind. And so his humanity has to be entirely underpinned by and subsumed by his divinity for Christ's resurrection to open the pathway to salvation. So they're not entirely disagreeing with each other. They're worried about how over-emphasis on each other's formulae can lead to a ronement. belief. And Peter, give us a picture of the kind of intense violence and thuggishness of the early church councils, Cyril of Alexandria, turning up with effectively sort of mafiosi monks. And a huge

amount of bribes to distribute to members of the other parties. If we go back earlier to the Council of Nicaea over which the Emperor Constantine is supposed to preside, or did preside, Nicholas, on whom the genial figure of Father Claus is based, supposedly, we don't think this is but supposedly turned up to the council and slapped one of the other bishops around the face. He disagreed with his theological position so much. You don't get that in a Christmas carol. In the early 6th century, the Emperor Anastasius is trying to forge a compromise formula. There's a count of Calcedon in 451, which establishes the two-nature model,

which is then the basic imperial model moving forward. Anastasius tries to establish compromise, and so angry are the pro-Calcedonian faction on the street of Constantinople, that when they get hold of a, a holy man who supports the one nature model, they chop his head off and carry it around on the street or a stick. Good Lord. I mean, this sounds to me a little bit like that Monty Python people's front of Judea, Judean people's front kind of situation. I think it engages a much, it has the capacity to engage a much broader body of the population than we sometimes think. And I say the anxiety over if we believe correctly, if we pray correctly, we can have eternal life. That is capable

of mobilising a lot of the population. And on top of that, we, We've got a whole separate, more secular division in society, or certainly division in Constantinople society, between the circus factions, the blues and the greens, who also take part in these theological debates. And we should clarify, circus is not the, we're talking about sort of racing around colosseums. I mean, for those people are not familiar with the term. Although they do have a bit of the, the, da, da, da, da, da, da, as well.

Okay. When Constantine builds Constantinople as this great center of imperial power, In the heart of the city, adjacent to the palace, he builds a huge hippodrome. In the Roman Empire, people are chariots racing crazy. And you have, in every city of the Roman Empire, imagine there are only four football teams in the world, as it were. In every city of the Roman Empire, you have a major city, you have a hippodrome, where you have four teams, the greens, the blues, the reds and the whites.

And in Constantinople, the two most popular teams are the greens and the blues. Now, these teams have sort of supporters clubs, which are known as circus fans. actions. And these factions build up a big membership amongst the male population of the city, the young men who are allowed to go out in public without losing their decorum. And these associations, these factions thus become very important point of contact between upper class young men who are chariot race crazy and working class young men who are chariot race crazy. And as a result of this cross-class point of contact, the circus faction starts to develop a political role. when these posh young men who are in the Senate or whose fathers are in the Senate

start paying the poorer members to riot against policies that they don't approve of or ultimately to riot against ecclesiastical policies they don't approve of. The circus factions start to be manipulated by members of the elite in Constantinople to apply political pressure on the establishment, on emperors, on church policy, on economic policy, on every aspect of policy. I mean, this is extraordinary to me. So you've got almost a football hooligan model where you can sort of rent out your tribe, you're red, you're a blue, you're a green, whatever it is.

But you could mobilize them for something on a very narrow theological point, such as the one that you were discussing before, you know. So if you've got Manchester United involved in Brexit? Well, the things about Berlusconi and Forte Italia. You know, my father was from Cyprus. And Cyprus, the football teams were a very strong, different political associations. They were left-wing teams and right-wing teams, something they used to be. Or Celtic and Rangers.

Indeed, yeah, yeah. And also they get built into the ceremonial life of the city. So, for example, the Roman emperor in Constantinople, when he were appointed, was meant to be acclaimed by the Senate, the army, and the people. In imperial ceremonial, the people come to be represented ceremonially by the circus factions. So they get sort of built into the ceremonial and constitutional life of the city and the empire as well. But these factions exist across the empires. If you remember the green faction in Constantinople and you go to Antioch or Alexandria, You can stay with the green faction there. You can dine with them. You can go and riot with them. That's your tribe. They're your people. And as you say, so you've told us about diophocytes and the myapocytes. The diaphocytes are largely the blues.

I mean, the blues identify and that myphocytes are the greens in this. And never the turquoise shall meet. These teams just do not like each other at all. Very nice, Anita. Very good one. It's sometimes a bit messier than that. But by the time we get into the early 6th century, that is generally the way it's works out, yeah. So the lads are rampaging. Let's come back to Theodora, who is born around 490 AD.

What do we actually, let's forget about sort of the bitchy historian, but let's talk about what do we actually know about where she was born and how she was born? Well, I'm afraid we can't do that without the bichy historian because the trouble is that Pocopius, he's not the only source, but he is a very important source. But he gives us our most detailed account, and there is some external cooperation for aspects of it. So she's probably born in Constantinople. Other places will claim her. There will be rumours that she's from Cyprus, rumours that she's from Syria. There's no reason to believe she's not from Constantinople. Her father, we are told a guy called Acacius, who is keeper of the bears for the green faction in Constantinople. So a lot of the funding for the games and the

celebrations and the festivities at the hippodrome and associated with chariot races are actually paid for by the factions themselves. So each faction has mimes, they have clowns, they have animals that they put on display. And there are bears who are trained to fight and to dance. and her dad is trained for the bears for the green faction. Is this geographically decided? I mean, do the Blues have an area of Constantinople with their own buildings and their own stables and bear pens and stuff? Yes, there does seem to be an element of that, yeah, indeed.

Now, when she is very young, her father dies. She has an older sister, Cometo and a younger sister, Anastasius. Comito is probably no more than seven, so Theodora is very young. And her mother, in a desperate attempt to save the family from poverty, we are told, remarries hoping that her new husband will get her old husband's job. So the family's great disadvantage. They find the jobs been given to someone else. But the blue faction takes pity on them and gives her new husband the job as looking after their bears.

So she moves, as it were, from the greens to the blues. So, you know, there is some flexibility there. What then happens is the girls are very pretty. And this is where we get into, I'm afraid, a quite distressing world and part of the story, and back to the world of the opening quotation. We're told that the girls are pretty, and so the mother has them enlisted in the troops of dancers who performed around the hippodrome, and the best of whom later on in life will end up performing on the main stage of the hippodrome.

Lots of celebrations and theatrical performances, as well as minds and clowns associated with the hippodrome. And Procopius tells us, that from that point on, I'm afraid, and before she had reached sexual maturity, she was basically forced into prostitution. Oh God, it's child trafficking. It's the muckiest of all stories. I'm told that she's, he says she's traded in the brothel, as it were. Once she becomes mature, she starts dancing and acting on the main stage. Fricopius then accuses her of starting to work as a prostitute in her own right. Now, it's easy to just dismiss all this, but, We have a churchman, John of Ephesus, who will be very devoted to Theodora and who will receive a great

deal of patronage from her and who will regard her as a great model of redeemed womanhood once she finds Christianity. He himself says that she came from the brothel. And the fact that John says that, I think, means that there is an element of truth here. Right. And can I just ask about our girl Theodora? And there is no judgment here, because as we've learned in the Ottoman series as well, you know, women had so few options. If you're poor and you were a woman, not the greatest place to be in the social strata. But what do her parents, I mean, are they complicit in this? Just trying to get a sense of, you know, sort of the family here.

The implication is the mother is complicit. I think what is clear is that she is forced into it. What role the family plays? But she is forced into prostitution. And she then, as it were, tries to create a life for herself in those objective circumstances that are forced upon her. She's a dancer on the main stage. She's performing theatrical shows of a burlesque,

sort. I think that account, for example, of the geese, which you opened with. That's probably a reference to is probably that she was engaged in some sort of burlesque, or famous for some sort of burlesque performance of the mythological story from Greek mythology of Ladra and the swan, yeah. I thought it might be that, right. For those that don't know that story, do you want to make that link? Whereby the Greek, the father of the gods, Zeus, adopts the form of a swan and either seduces or rapes Spartan queen. And their progeny is Helen of Troy. So many violent stories in Greek mythology. We're told that she's then paid to dance at private dinner parties for aristocratic young men associated with the blue faction.

And whilst doing that, she seems to make a connection with a young man called Hicubulus, who is made governor of Libya and who takes her with him there as his concubine. So rather similar to the relationship between, probably between Helena and Constantius. Do you know, it's a very good point to take a break. This is almost feels sort of liberation from that, being taken by a concubine, at least not being passed around to lots of sweaty men. Let's take a break there and come back and see what happens after Theodora has managed to extricate her from what sounds like a really wretched start in life. So welcome back. When we left just before the break, Peter Saris was telling us how Theodora manages to escape the world. world of circus prostitution and is taken off by a patron to Libya. Peter, what happens next? There she seems to get pregnant and they have a daughter who would have been regarded as illegitimate. We don't know her name, unfortunately. And it seems at this point, her short run of luck falls out again, as it were, and he sets her aside. So she is abandoned, essentially, in Libya.

With her baby, with her baby. And she then has to get herself back. basically to Constantinople. Copious claims that she does so by working her way back, by reverting to prostitution. We have other sources, however, which suggested as she made her way back to Constantinople via Alexandria in Egypt and then Antioch, she discovers religion. The Egyptians claim it's in Alexandria, don't they? Exactly. There's an Egyptian source which claims that in Alexandria she discovers Christian faith. Do they say how? Is it like sort of beam of light, choir of angels? I mean, do they go into what happens? An encounter with a holy man.

Like an Indian guru today or something. There's only one source that says that, but certainly by the time she gets back to Constantinople, we know that she is very interested in matters of religion, has seemed to become very pious, and crucially has become devoted to followers of the one nature, Miafisite doctrine. Now, what colour were they again? Remind me,

were they the greens? Were they the greens? Predominantly green, yeah. So I just want to get my Manchester United and Manchester City thing sorted out. She goes back via Alexandria, to Antioch to Constantinople. She's now probably about 30 years old. And whilst there, she is introduced to and forms a clearly romantic relationship with Justinian, who is the son of the recently appointed

Emperor Justin I. She's about 30. He's about 40. Which is old by Byzantine. People were marrying at 15, 16. Yeah, but of course she has a child. She's been, you know, she's given her best life to the governor of Libyos, then cast her off. She turns up in Constantinople with this daughter, but she then forms this relationship with Justinian, who more to the point, our sources, both pro and anti-Justinian agree he's good-looking, but he's knocking 40 and he's unmarried. Now, I mean, William will laugh, but we're going to dwell for a minute on the good-looking Justin Hill. We never do this, but in mosaics and in writing, they say he's rounder-faced, sort of barrel-chested. You know, they go into some detail that he's a fine physique of a man.

Fair-skinned, curly-haired, round-faced, handsome, with receding hair, a florid complexion with his hair grey. And I'm just scratching my beard, does I read this? You're very pretty as well. You're very pretty, too. That's okay, dear. It's actually really interesting. I've seen, you know, when you dive into a rabbit hole of nonsense, the old mosaics of Justinian and Theodora, they are. I mean, they're by mosaic standards, very good looking.

that somebody's done some kind of rendering of what they would look like in real life. Have you seen it? I won't name him, but actually the rendering of Justinian makes him look scarcely like one of my Byzantine history colleagues, but we don't... Really? I won't pay him the compliments of saying who he is. Are you referring to Peter Frankapad by any chance? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not. Peter's far taller than Justinian. And he doesn't have a great beard, exactly.

So Justinian's the adopted son of the Emperor Justin I first. been his nephew, and Justin I then adopts him as his son. What Justinian and Justin have in common, clearly, are good looks and a romantic streak, because Justin had made his way to Constantinople from the impoverished Balkans in the late 5th century, had been a swineherd, we're told, turns up, and his good looks catch the eye of the recruiting sergeant for the Imperial Guard, and Justin the first gets, as a result, recruited into the Imperial Guard and makes his way up through the hierarchy there until he's able to manoeuvre himself onto the throne. And crucially, he marries, through his position of court, he could find himself a very posh wife. Instead, he marries a girl

of barbarian origin, an ex-slave girl to whom he is completely devoted and whom he chooses to marry. And it's the way in which both Justin and Justinian marry characters from very low down the social spectrum, seemingly for love, I think, is part of a sort of a family streak. I think it's delightful. And it's a sign of confidence and a sign of independence? I think it's very personal. I don't think confidence will ever characterise Justinian and Theodore's relationship with the Byzantine elite, because eventually when Justinian succeeds his uncle, his adopted father, as emperor in 527, he will be very conscious that he and his wife are surrounded by much more blue-blooded claimants to imperial power

who regard them as semi-barbarbarious parvenus and upstarts with no real claim to the throne. and there will be a constant need to try to legitimate their power in the face of these opposing factions. So ethnic Balkans? Yes, so just, well, Theodora comes from Constantinople. Justinian and his uncle, they come from the countryside. Justinian would turn his home village into a city called Justiniana Prima, Saaricengrad in southern Serbia, which you can visit, a remarkable site. But they are coming from what is the most war-torn, least urbanized,

and most impoverished part of the Roman world in the fifth century. this kind of mirroring of their experiences, both Justin and Justinian, when Justinian introduces Theodora to Justin, does Justin sort of throw his arms open and say, welcome, welcome, kindred spirits and, you know, marry and be happy and, okay, you're a bit old to have children yourselves, live long and prosper. So they're together by about 520 and by about 5-2-1, they are living together in Justinian's palace, a palace known as the Hormezdas Palace. But it looks like they can't marry at that point because whatever Justin might think, his wife, the former slave girl, hates Theodora. She wants a much better match for her husband, but still unmarried nephew-stroke son.

And it's interesting that so they are not able to marry for two reasons. One, the opposition of the Empress Euphemia. And secondly, because also by this point, Justinian as the son of the emperor has been given senatorial status, and it's actually illegal in Roman law for man of senatorial status to marry a woman who's been involved in a dishonorable profession, such as being on the stage. So he has the aunt's opposition and the law's in the way. So first of all, the aunt has to die, which she seemed to do in about 522, and then Justin has to be persuaded to change the law to allow men of senatorial status to marry such women, which he does.

I mean, this is clearly beneath you because you're a very clever man. Just for a moment, Willie and I, I mean, isn't this kind of Nouveau-Rishi story of, you know, Euphamia who's gone exactly the same route as Theodora, but who will not see herself in somebody she is comfortable calling less, you know, and just won't make bend that way. It just seems bonkers, doesn't it? I'm rather fond of the Empress Euphemia. Her original name when Justin meets her is Leapiechina. The closest English translation would be something like Foxy, yeah? She's obviously herself quite good-looking, and Justin as a young officer, falls in love with her. And we have, for example, correspondence between her and the Pope in Rome, where she is so excited to be getting a letter from the Pope. She says how giddy she is with excitement.

She comes across as a very sweet character. If one were to have a film of the court of Justinian and his rise to power, I'd have liked Euphemia to be played by Barbara Windsor. Yeah, I think she's got that sort of character. You see, I love this. I thought this was beneath you. You're all over this. You're one of us, Peter.

I don't think she's being a new very rich about it. I think Barbara wins her empress of concert. She genuinely wants a better match for her son. And she's probably heard about Theodora having quite a shady past. And she probably wants grandchildren. Now, they will get married in 522. Justinia will succeed as emperor in 527. We have some external evidence.

They are trying for children down to around the year 530. So in 530, a really rather vicious. churchman called St. Sabah turns up at court and tells Theodora that the reason that she can't have any more children is because God won't bless her womb because her theology is wrong. Oh, really? Yeah. So that suggests they're still trying down to about 5.30, which is interesting. So it's not for want of effort. And does the Holy Man get his head cut off? No. In other ways, he's quite an important figure for aspects of Justinianic monastic policy in certain respect. Because Theodora, in the height of her power, has her own secret police and has her own

dungeons, and we meet all sorts of monastic characters who are exiled. Yeah, I think the dungeons and the secret police are probably Procopius getting over-excited, but I think, as we'll say, but that she uses her power to try to marginalise figures who she regards the threat to her husband is, I think, going to be very important. Okay, okay, you threw me with the dungeons, Procopius, he's a one, isn't he? But they are married after Euphemia is dead and out of the way. The law has changed, so they can be married. At what point does he ascend to the highest level of emperor, or rather it's co-emperor? That's a fairer way of putting it, isn't it? So Justinian's rise to power isn't entirely straightforward. Justin's very careful not to just make him his appointed air.

And Justinian has to sort of machinate his rise to the top, reaching out to supporters and the circus factions. He builds a connection with the blues. That's probably his initial connection to Theodora. He's reaching out to elements in the church. He's reaching out to elements in the army, elements in the Senate. He himself is having one of his chief rivals probably assassinated. By 525, his uncle, getting old, appoints Justinian his deputy, his Caesar. And then as he's falling very frail, in the April of 527, he makes him co-emperor. And then finally he dies in August the 527, and that's when Justinian becomes sole emperor in his own right. Is it unusual to have a co-emperor? I mean, I've not heard of that before.

So under Diocletian, in the late 3rd and early 4th century, Diocletian introduces this system whereby you have a senior emperor known as the Augustus, and then a deputy emperor known as the Caesar. So, for example, Constantine's father, Constantius, had been Caesar in the West and then Augustus in the west. So this is a system introduced by the emperor Diocletian during Rome's third century crisis or in response to that crisis. And when Justinian is made the sole emperor by the death of Justin, is Theodora formerly brought forward at that point an acclaimed empress? Yes, she is, yes. We have a very interesting Byzantine compilation of imperial ceremonial that alludes to this. Yay, can I do a yay? That's amazing. That's amazing. First of all, just a minute, that's amazing.

From sort of unwilling child prostitute to being acclaimed empress. That's a huge. Yeah, what does that mean? Does she have a... executive power? Can she pass laws declare war? No, she's not supposed to. But what is very interesting, and this is one of the aspects that really alienates conservative critics of the regime, such as, propious, is that from the start, really, although he is emperor, he effectively treats her as a co-ruler and will expressly in his legislation make it clear that he is consulting her on key aspects of imperial policy. And this is very striking. Until her death, there is in many ways a period of effectively joint rule where his regime has given focus

and sometimes backbone by means of the support he gets from this remarkable character. You gave us the quotation from Pocopius where he's very rude about her. He also gives us quite a vivid description of what she looked like as well. Where again, I mean, I think it's where sometimes when sources that hate us are quite polite about us, we know they might be telling the truth, as it were. And interestingly, the procopious, although despising Theodora, again, regards her as attractive, in regards her as having a sharp intelligence and a ready wit. And clearly she has remarkable capacity for loyalty to both people and causes, and enormous reserves of determination, whilst being entirely vindictive if you choose to cross her.

but she's, we've told she's short, but she's got powerful eyes and a remarkable glance, which can instill fear in her opponents. Was it normal for a woman to be an empress? I mean, we don't really think of the other emperors as having empresses attached, and yet we always think of Justin and Theodora as a pair, not least because of those mosaics in Ravenna. Over the course of the 5th century, there had been a series of empresses who had come to play an increasingly important role in the sort of factional politics of Constantinople,

but largely by virtue of presiding over sort of literary salons through which influence could be exerted and networks built up. What is remarkable about Justinian and Theodora is it really from the moment he comes to the throne, he presents his rule as effectively a period of joint rule with his wife. And that is really quite remarkable. And this is something that really offends conservative critics of the regime such as Procopius. And we will see him, for example, in his legislation, expressly making it clear that he has consulted her on matters of legislation, often consulting her before he's consulted his chief ministers. And the way in which, until her death in 548, he presents her, effectively as a co-ruler, really is quite extraordinary.

Well, I mean, look, we're going to leave it here. But the next episode of this, we're going to find out what this sort of co-rulership looks like and what it does. It's such a thrilling story. If you can't wait to hear Peter tell the next part of the story, you can listen to it right now. If you're a member of the Empire Club, you get that early. Or perhaps you just want to buy his excellent biography of the Emperor Justinian. You can get it at a discount if you are a friend of this podcast.

And all you need to do, join Empire Club, EmpirePoduk.com and sign up over there. Until the next time we meet is goodbye from me, Anita Arnon. And goodbye from me, William Drupu.