Theodora: Empress of Byzantium (Mark Magowan Books) (24 page)

23. Gold marriage belt, late 6th to 7th century. Both Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, D.C.

The wedding ritual was a magic spell that they cast across the entire world, the object of their feelings both as potentates and as Christians. Its whole population—the furnace worker melting metal for imperial coins, the fisherman on the windy Propontis Sea, the stylite hermit watching the world from atop a pillar in Syria, the soldier standing watch in his fortress near the border with Persia—would be affected by the marriage of Justinian and Theodora.

The marriage was celebrated by court prelates who were probably Dyophysites, as a mark of religious reconciliation between Constantinople and Rome. Justinian’s beliefs on the matter were further bolstered at the end of the same year, when John I, the Roman pope, visited Rome-on-the-Bosphorus. He probably wanted to welcome and give his Latin blessing to the wife of a man who was so learned in theology and so busy on behalf of the empire.

While Theodora might well have begun her career “backstage with slaves,” now she was probably the only person in all of Christendom to have been blessed both by the “pope” of Alexandria (her favorite Monophysite, Timothy) and by the Roman pope, as well as by the patriarch of Constantinople. An imperial crown awaited her; meanwhile she
wore a crown of blessings. And around her waist there shone, perhaps, a precious belt of gold coins [
fig. 23
], an exquisite wedding present gracing the belly that still had not given Justinian the heir he expected from her.

The nephew kept putting pressure on his uncle the emperor. In 526, Justinian became a
nobilissimus
: this was the highest rank, created specifically for him. Although he wielded great power, his coronation kept being postponed. Justin felt threatened by the biological nephew he had raised as a son, and he clung to life as a person does when his life is ending. He would shake his purple mantle and say that it was not meant for young men (although at the time the
nobilissimus
was almost forty-five).

The emperor was also hesitating because his more traditional advisors were pushing another nephew of his during Justinian’s illness. Germanus, the other nephew, had always chosen the broader horizons of military life over the narrow confines of libraries or the palace archives. He had a serene attitude toward command and a sober, analytical mind. He always set aside time for leisure for himself and his retinue. Instead of tumbling into matrimony with former actresses, he had married into an aristocratic family. He was therefore a serious candidate deserving of Justin’s attention, and choosing him would still keep the power in the family.

Nevertheless, Germanus did not act like an alternative to Justinian: he never opposed him; he always recognized his cousin’s primacy. But whether he meant to or not, he became the first cloud in the horizon after Theodora’s marriage. She immediately warned her husband about it. She exhorted him to move cautiously but act resolutely.

Thus we see the first signs of a mechanism that appeared throughout their marriage. It has been written that “they did nothing whatever separately in the course of their life together.”
²¹
It is doubtful that Justinian consulted Theodora about the technical aspects of legislative and military matters, but she undoubtedly advised him with respect to his collaborators and his entourage, the people who represented him. With her keen eye and her experience, Theodora assessed people and
situations, just as Justinian assessed books and documents. It was important to her that he assert his
person
, his power, even more than his
program.
And so she observed people and their movements and decided what was needed to ensure continuity for her husband’s precious, irreplaceable power.

“They did nothing whatever separately in the course of their life together,” we are told, and yet there is no evidence that Theodora accepted the theory or the ideology of Justinian’s grandiose restoration program. It is unlikely she did, for Justinian’s Western, nostalgically Roman leanings contrasted with her personal experience in the East, where she had had a different set of religious and linguistic experiences.
²²

Justinian had a formidable education and he was terrible in his anger; yet he was rendered unusually hesitant and indecisive by Uncle Justin’s procrastination and the possible threat from Germanus. It was Theodora who drove him to action, to finally grab the imperial power. She reminded him that he had actually been holding the reins of power for years. That sometimes he even left their bed at night to attend to pressing government issues. And that only by possessing all the power would he succeed in fulfilling his plans and the promises they had made to one another. It was time for him to assert himself, either directly or through pressure from other quarters.

When his uncle finally died, the least uncertainty about succession would be disastrous for them. Something similar had happened to the candidates officially favored to succeed Anastasius in July 518, when no one considered Justin a candidate; history might repeat itself. The anti-Blue measures promulgated during Justinian’s illness had been a warning. And if a son was born, it would be all the more necessary to lock in the institutional dynasty. Now Justinian grasped Theodora’s working vocabulary: tactics, practice, experience, seeing for himself.

Emergencies struck the eastern provinces of the empire in 526, and it was imperative that the palace respond with a strong signal. Ephesus, the city where Mary the Virgin had passed to Heaven in her sleep, was flooded; Palestine was in the throes of an unbearable drought; Antioch was hit by a devastating earthquake that killed hundreds of
thousands of people in and around the city. This avalanche of disasters made such an impression that the elderly Justin appeared in the church of the Holy Wisdom in dark robes without his imperial mantle or his crown.

All the disasters appeared to be signs of divine displeasure. According to the Monophysites in Egypt and the provinces, with whom Theodora must have kept in touch, God wanted to punish the Dyophysite persecutors who were sitting on the throne. The devout faithful of the Orient pleaded for Theodora to intercede with the man who had all the power.

Finally Justin relented; he was nearly eighty and had a gangrened leg from the illness that would kill him. He agreed to let Justinian ascend to the throne during Holy Week of the year 527. It turned out to be about a hundred days before the death of the old soldier from Vederiana: Justin died on August 1, his timing as perfect as in a theater performance.

Holy Thursday of the year 527, April 1, in the Sacred Palace of Constantinople: in the Triclinium of the Nineteen Couches, the vast hall where the emperor gave gala dinners, the members of the Senate and the Council, the empire’s “government,” were standing in dress uniform. Before the triclinium, in the Delphax Court, the emperor’s palace honor guard and military escort were lined up. They shouted their ritual Latin cheer: “Tu vincas!” (“Victory to you!”). They shouted “Hooray!” three times in Greek. And the golden imperial crown was placed on the head of Justinian. The coronation was done either by Uncle Justin or by Patriarch Epiphanios, who recited prayers of blessing and good omens.

Dressed in the purple imperial chlamys, Justinian must have kept a waking vigil from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday. He most likely took part in religious functions, asked for edifying readings, and fasted. It was a deliberate effort, an offering to the Passion of Christ, an earthly sacrifice marking the achievement of his life’s goal, of what was to be a “passage” (in the wording used for the Easter celebration) to a new era for him and the people he felt were his. When he finally appeared in
the gallery of the Hippodrome—the Kathisma—for public acclamation, his face was perhaps rested and fresh, as if he were himself renewed.

Justinian had reached the summit of power at the age of forty-five, in the second half of what was to be his long life. He came to it later than most: the illustrious ancient rulers such as Alexander the Great or Octavian Augustus started young. Only Julius Caesar had been older, and he was always Justinian’s favorite; Justinian once wrote: “Caesar, our dearest, who gave a good beginning to our monarchy.”
²³

Just before Easter, the emperor’s encounters with Theodora must have been rare, brief, and chaste, not only because of a ceremonial duty or precept, but from a shared inner need for self-examination. She probably reminded him of the vast studies in which he had absorbed the great heritage of the past, a long and elaborate history that had become more complex than it once was. He was the worthiest of all. The strongest. With him, the world could rest easy in the long seventh eon. Their eon.

We do not know whether she was counseled in the days before Easter by the same spiritual fathers who advised Justinian. Perhaps they were not seeking the same advisors in their shared honor. The Monophysites that she preferred spoke more intimately and contemplatively, but were officially banished from the capital. Maybe from Alexandria she received a letter with blessings, joy, and wishes for a radiant future. She probably lived the days marking Christ’s Passion without much rigorous fasting or vigils. If she received any visits, it must have been for concrete reasons: fittings for her robes; discussions of whether it would be more suitable to move immediately into the imperial apartments or to await Justin’s passing; consideration of the meals to be prepared by the court chefs, or the order of precedence in her retinue.

Sunday, April 4, 527: Easter. Historians and Theodora’s biographers have called this day “the best performance of her entire career,”
²⁴
comparing politics to the stage yet again. They have imagined spectacular patriarchal coronations, processions from the ancient church of the Holy Wisdom to the Hippodrome, the applause for the two sovereigns
who jointly greeted the celebrating crowds, the glance of complicity exchanged by the new rulers, and the excitement in Theodora’s soul: she who had once probably danced or stood naked in the same arena, now dressed in a ruler’s ceremonial robes of rich gold and brocade. But those who have carefully read the sources conclude that “we have no information about it.”
²⁵

Probably the ceremony took place in a hall of the palace (perhaps the Augustaeum) before dignitaries, the patriarch, and Theodora’s chamber retinue. Prayers were recited by the light of torches or candles. Petite, majestic Theodora made her entrance covered in a veil, which was then removed so that she too might wear the purple chlamys, the traditional regal mantle. Then the patriarch blessed a second crown and offered it to Justinian to place on his spouse’s head. We can imagine that there were no shouts, no cheers; only an immense silence. The masses in the outdoor theaters had once applauded in a different way, but today, a select audience paid respectful homage to the woman who was becoming empress, an Augusta.

As the purple chlamys settled heavily on her shoulders, we might picture the images that flashed through her mind, snapshots from the bewildering mystery of her life. The purple fabric was from Tyre, as Hecebolus had been. The bright scrap of cloth she might have treasured as a child in the Kingdoms Game had magically become the completely real mantle she now wore. The colors of her troubled past—purple, green, blue—had given way to her imperial purple, which was hers to wear until she died. The chlamys flowed around her shoulders, its hue as deep and intense as blood.

Now her pace as she walked through the palace was slower, because of the weight of the robes that only they, the Augusti, had the right to wear, symbolizing that the whole world was with them and upon them. But the couple was also lighter and taller than everyone around them. Having “received imperial power”
²⁶
together, they could consider themselves closer to God than anyone else. When he appeared before the people in the Kathisma gallery of the Hippodrome, the first thing Justinian did was make the sign of the cross. It was no casual coincidence that this took place on the happy day of Easter. God had
spoken through men to elect him emperor, and the emperor had chosen God’s day to appear before his subjects, who were, therefore, the chosen people.

Now Theodora was more than a lady: she was an Augusta, something that had been by no means inevitable. In the two centuries since the founding of the empire of Constantinople, from 324 to 527, there had been twenty-six emperors and a total of thirty wives. Only nine of these wives had been made Augustae, and not one of them from the very start like Theodora. (Three or four other women became Augustae because they were mothers or sisters of emperors.) Why had fate been so kind to her? The answer lay in her personal qualities, in the obstacles she had surmounted, and in her ties with the Orient, at least as much as it lay in Justinian’s soul and his immense ego.