Theodora: Empress of Byzantium (Mark Magowan Books) by Cesaretti Paolo

Author:Cesaretti, Paolo [Cesaretti, Paolo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABRAMS
Published: 2012-01-31T23:00:00+00:00

HE VICTORY OVER the rebels was a grand statement from the couple in power, but it also isolated them terribly. Probably they consulted with their closest military and civilian advisors, and with their spiritual fathers both Orthodox and Monophysite, who urged them to pray. For despite the silence and deference that surrounded them, they knew that they were responsible for the violent deaths of tens of thousands of their Christian brethren. They wondered if unknown enemies still wished them dead. And they might have tried to discover when they themselves would die. How many years did they have left to accomplish the task (both divine mimesis and everyday governance) for which only the groundwork had been laid? Justinian was fifty years old, Theodora a little over thirty. And so they must have decided to consult not just military, civilian, and religious advisors but also the astrologers and magicians that their laws had failed to drive away.

It was an age when people believed that only a saint could foretell the day and hour of his death.1 Such illumination was denied to other living creatures, whether they were peasants or emperors; so these people turned to astrology, which was strongly censored and yet still widely practiced.

Thus on some moonless night, or perhaps by the pale light of a silvery full moon, the rulers might have appeared in disguise on the seashore or riverbank. Perhaps they asked about themselves and their destiny, using roundabout allusions to avoid revealing their identities.

The astrologers might have told the emperor an allegory of a palm tree that rises in the desert and draws water from the deepest springs. He might have deduced that his glory would extend far and wide. He might have been pleased, without stopping to think about the desert evoked in the image. The astrologers might have told the empress an allegory about a diamond, treasure of the East, star of the night, whose adamantine power triumphs over everything. Theodora might have heard these words as a reflection of her role in the Nika events, and a sign of her invincibility as a lady and mistress. She might not have considered that the brilliance of the diamond remains hidden in a jewel case unless it is set in gold. When it stands alone, it is static.

In 532, Theodora stepped into the final, intense third of her life, her last sixteen years. Only now did she see the hidden, nocturnal face of the power that she had longed for “from the depth of her heart,”2 which had once gleamed up ahead. The purple robe, which turned out not to be a burial shroud during the rebellion, lay securely on her shoulders but represented the heavy burden of maintaining the continuity of Roman power throughout the civilized world.

New and momentous challenges kept arising, knotty problems requiring wise answers that could only come from deep reflection—but the answers were needed immediately. Everything moved slowly across the vast expanses separating the thousand cities of the empire. By the

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