Empress Theodora
Let us now marvel at a lady who achieved one of the most impressive glow ups in the thousand-plus-years of history of the Byzantine Empire: Empress Theodora. If you don’t know what a glow up is, you’re about to find out.
Theodora was born in 500 AD to modest circumstances: her mother was an actress and a dancer, and her father was a bear-keeper for Constantinople’s centre of debauchery, the Hippodrome – a job which, though awesome, didn’t exactly make them rich.
But the Hippodrome was a place for more than bear-related debauchery, and it was there that Theodora and her sisters were put to work as ‘entertainers’ after the death of their bear-wrangling father. In those times, being an actress was basically the same thing as being a prostitute, though being a prostitute was perhaps less of a big deal than it is nowadays.
By the age of 15, Theodora was an acting ~star of the Hippodrome. As well as her, private performances, she would dance for audiences with only a ribbon to cover her lady bits.
Is this true? Well, what we know of her is mostly recorded in the Matious histories of one contemporary historian, Procopius, who may have kind of hated her and her future husband. He said that she had many lovers, all at once, and that she wished she had more sexy bits in order to sleep with more man at the same time.
Procopius, who frankly sounds jealous, may have meant to posthumously slander her name.
After her early teenage years spent in a series dancing. She’d eventually had a religious turn, and then move back to Constantinople in 522.
She came back a reformed, pious woman, and replaced her former line of entertainment work.
But Theodora’s life was only about to get more exciting. She managed to catch the eye of the emperor-to-be, Justinian.
Theodora was, as the Byzantines used to say, well fit. Procopius, in a more generous mood, said that ‘painting and poetry’ were insufficient to capture her ravishing beauty.
Theodora became Justinian’s concubine. But Justinian was so smitten that he wanted to marry her. Justinian’s aunt, the current empress, knew of Theodora’s less-than-salubrious past, and needless to say, didn’t see her as marriage material. But unfortunately for her, she died, so they married anyway.
Theodora became empress in 527, and adorned herself with magnificent dresses, furs, and jewellery. She bedecked herself in
purple, visited hot springs and treated herself to luxurious beauty reatments, enjoying the rare gifts that Justinian brought her from across the empire. If officials forgot to kiss her feet, or otherwise falled to treat her with all due respect, they risked exile.
Justinian sought Theodora’s advice in all stately affairs, and viewed her as an equal.
Under their reign, they won wars which reconquered far lands from Vandals and Ostrogoths and health goths and sport goths and skateboarding hooligan types. They rewrote Roman legal codes, some aspects of which survive in civil codes today.
Things were going well across the empire, but there was trouble brewing at home. In order to fund their imperial exploits, Justadora, as we will refer to Justinian and Theodora jointly, raised taxes on the wealthy. And if there’s anything the wealthy don’t like, it’s sharing.
At this point in history, Constantinople was divided into two: Those who thought that Christ had a human and a divine nature and those who thought Christ had only one nature.
Theodora was firm supporter of those who thought that Christ had a human and Devine nature as they had helped out her family in the past. The others weren’t happy about the raised taxes.
Things were looking pretty grim, and Justinian was about ready to get the abdicate. The empress literally stood in his way, and gave him a speech about how not to fight back.
‘If you my lord, wish to save your skin,’ she proclaimed, ‘you will have no difficulty in doing so. We are rich, there is the sea, and there too are our ships. But consider first whether, when you reach safety, you will regret that you did not choose death in preference. As for me, I stand by the ancient saying: the purple is the noblest winding sheet.!
I have no idea what a purple winding sheet is, or why it is noble, however, the speech clearly worked, because Justinian decided to stay and fight it out.
He ordered his troops to see off Hypatius, and took out another 30,000 demonstrators for good measure. This indirectly gives Theodora the highest kill count of any woman.
In any case, if it weren’t for Theodora’s intervention, Justinian would have been surely overthrown.
In the rest of the time they ruled together, Justadora completed the Hagia Sophia, which was the largest in the world for nearly a millennium.
Theodora also founded a monastery to house 500 women who had ended up in prostitution, and lobbied to reform the law to make it easier for women to bring suits against men, divorce, and own property.
Theodora died at 48 years old. Her life, friends, was a glow up for the ages. Should you ever find yourself fallen on hard times, perhaps sitting beside a lake, looking upon a goose and considering your options – remember Theodora, who rose from the lowliest station to become one of the two most powerful people in an empire at the height of its glory.
Source ~ 100 Nasty Women of History ~ Hannah Jewell
