As for the manner in which she treated Belisarius, Photius, and
Buzes, I have already spoken of it at the commencement of this work.
Two Cilicians, belonging to the Blue faction, during a mutiny, laid
violent hands upon Callinicus, governor of the second Cilicia, and slew
his groom, who was standing near him, and endeavoured to defend his
master, in the presence of the governor and all the people. Callinicus
condemned them to death, since they had been convicted of several other
murders besides this. When Theodora heard of this, in order to show her
devotion to the party of the Blues, she ordered that the governor,
while he still held office, should be crucified in the place where the
two offenders had been executed, although he had committed no crime.
The Emperor, pretending that he bitterly lamented his loss, remained at
home, grumbling and threatening all kinds of vengeance upon the
perpetrators of the deed. He did nothing, however; but, without
scruple, appropriated the property of the dead man to his own use.
Theodora likewise devoted her attention to punishing those women who
prostituted their persons. She collected more than five hundred
harlots, who sold themselves for three obols in the market-place,
thereby securing a bare subsistence, and transported them to the other
side of the Bosphorus, where she shut them up in the Monastery of
Repentance, with the object of forcing them to change their manner of
life. Some of them, however, threw themselves from the walls during the
night, and in this manner escaped a change of life so contrary to their
inclinations.
There were at Byzantium two young sisters, illustrious not only by
the consulships of their father and grandfather, but by a long descent
of nobility, and belonging to one of the chief families of the Senate.
They had married early and lost their husbands. Theodora, charging them
with living an immoral life, selected two debauchees from the common
people and designed to make them their husbands. The young widows,
fearing that they might be forced to obey, took refuge in the church of
St. Sophia, and, approaching the sacred bath, clung closely to the
font. But the Empress inflicted such privations and cruel treatment
upon them, that they preferred marriage in order to escape from their
immediate distress. In this manner Theodora showed that she regarded no
sanctuary as inviolable, no spot as sacred. Although suitors of noble
birth were ready to espouse these ladies, they were married against
their will to two men, poor and outcast, and far below them in rank.
Their mother, who was a widow like themselves, was present at the
marriage, but did not venture to cry out or express her sorrow at this
atrocious act. Afterwards, Theodora, repenting of what she had done,
endeavoured to console them by promoting their husbands to high offices
to the public detriment. But even this was no consolation to these
young women, for their husbands inflicted incurable and insupportable
woes upon almost all their subjects, as I will describe later; for
Theodora paid no heed to the dignity of the office, the interests of
the State, or any other consideration, provided only she could
accomplish her wishes.
While still on the stage, she became with child by one of her
friends, but did not perceive her misfortune until it was too late. She
tried all the means she had formerly employed to procure abortion, but
she was unable prematurely to destroy the living creature by any means
whatsoever, since it had nearly assumed the form of a human being.
Therefore, finding her remedies unsuccessful, she abandoned the
attempt, and was obliged to bring forth the child. Its father, seeing
that Theodora was at a loss what to do, and was indignant because, now
that she had become a mother, she was no longer able to traffic with
her person as before, and being with good reason in fear for the
child's life, took it up, named it John, and carried it away with him
to Arabia, whither he had resolved to retire. The father, just before
his death, gave John, who was now grown up, full information concerning
his mother.
John, having performed the last offices for his dead father, some
time afterwards repaired to Byzantium, and explained the state of
affairs to those who were charged with the duty of arranging admission
to an audience with the Empress. They, not suspecting that she would
conceive any inhuman designs against him, announced to the mother the
arrival of her son. She, fearing that the report might reach the ears
of the Emperor, ordered her son to be brought to her. When she saw him
approaching, she went to meet him and handed him over to one of her
confidants, whom she always intrusted with commissions of this kind. In
what manner the unfortunate youth disappeared I cannot say. He has
never been seen to this day—not even after his mother's death.
At that time the morals of women were almost without exception
corrupt. They were faithless to their husbands with absolute licence,
since the crime of adultery brought neither danger nor harm upon them.
When convicted of the offence, they escaped punishment, thanks to the
Empress, to whom they immediately applied. Then, getting the verdict
quashed on the ground that the charges were not proved, they in turn
accused their husbands, who, although not convicted, were condemned to
refund twice the amount of the dower, and, for the most part, were
flogged and led away to prison, where they were permitted to look upon
their adulterous wives again, decked out in fine garments and in the
act of committing adultery without the slightest shame with their
lovers, many of whom, by way of recompense, received offices and
rewards. This was the reason why most husbands afterwards put up with
unholy outrages on the part of their wives, and gladly endured them in
silence in order to escape the lash. They even afforded them every
opportunity to avoid being surprised.
Theodora claimed complete control of the State at her sole
discretion. She appointed magistrates and ecclesiastical dignitaries.
Her only care and anxiety was—and as to this she made the most careful
investigation—to prevent any office being given to a good and
honourable man, who might be prevented by his conscience from assisting
her in her nefarious designs.
She ordered all marriages as it were by a kind of divine authority;
men never made a voluntary agreement before marriage. A wife was found
for each without any previous notice, not because she pleased him (as
is generally the case even amongst the barbarians) but because Theodora
so desired it. Brides also had to put up with the same treatment, and
were obliged to marry husbands whom they did not desire. She often
turned the bride out of bed herself, and, without any reason, dismissed
the bridegroom before the marriage had been consummated, merely saying,
in great anger, that she disapproved of her. Amongst others whom she
treated in this manner was Leontius the “referendary,” and Saturninus,
the son of Hermogenes the late Master of Offices, whom she deprived of
their wives. This Saturninus had a young maiden cousin of an age to
marry, free-born and modest, whom Cyrillus, her father, had betrothed
to him after the death of Hermogenes. After the bridal chamber had been
made ready and everything prepared, Theodora imprisoned the youthful
bridegroom, who was afterwards conducted to another chamber, and
forced, in spite of his violent lamentations and tears, to wed the
daughter of Chrysomallo. This Chrysomallo had formerly been a dancer
and a common prostitute, and at that time lived with another woman like
her, and with Indaro, in the palace, where, instead of devoting
themselves to phallic worship and theatrical amusements, they occupied
themselves with affairs of State together with Theodora.
Saturninus, having lain with his new wife and discovered that she
had already lost her maidenhead, informed one of his friends that his
wife was no virgin. When this reached the ears of Theodora, she ordered
the servants to hoist him up, like a boy at school, upbraiding him with
having behaved too saucily and having taken an unbecoming oath. She
then had him severely flogged on the bare back, and advised him to
restrain his talkative tongue for the future.
In my former writings I have already related her treatment of John
of Cappadocia, which was due to a desire to avenge personal injuries,
not to punish him for offences against the State, as is proved by the
fact that she did nothing of the kind in the case of those who
committed far greater cruelties against their subjects. The real cause
of her hatred was, that he ventured to oppose her designs and accused
her to the Emperor, so that they nearly came to open hostilities. I
mention this here because, as I have already stated, in this work I am
bound to state the real causes of events. When, after having inflicted
upon him the sufferings I have related, she had confined him in Egypt,
she was not even then satisfied with his punishment, but was
incessantly on the look out to find false witnesses against him. Four
years afterwards, she succeeded in finding two of the Green faction who
had taken part in the sedition at Cyzicus, and were accused of having
been accessory to the assault upon the Bishop. These she attacked with
flattery, promises, and threats. One of them, alarmed and inveigled by
her promises, accused John of the foul crime of murder, but the other
refused to utter falsehoods, although he was so cruelly tortured that
he seemed likely to die on the spot. She was, therefore, unable to
compass the death of John on this pretext, but she caused the young
men's right hands to be chopped off—that of the one because he refused
to bear false witness; that of the other, to prevent her intrigue
becoming universally known, for she endeavoured to keep secret from
others those things which were done in the open market-place.