Volume 3 / Part 2 — WOMEN OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE (continued 2)

A western chronicler, however, of the eleventh century, Aimoin de Fleury, recounts a legend which has something of the flavor of the Secret History. According to this story, Justinian and Belisarius, two young men and intimate friends, encountered one day two sisters, Antonia and Antonina, sprung from the race of Amazons, who, taken prisoners by the Byzantines, were reduced to dire straits. Belisarius was enamored of the latter, Justinian of the former. Antonia, presaging the future destiny of her lover, made him promise that, if ever he became emperor, he would take her as his wife. Their relations were interrupted, but not before Justinian gave to Antonia a ring, as an assurance of his promise. Years passed: the prince became emperor; and one day there appeared at the gate of the palace, demanding audience, a woman in rich attire and of wonderful beauty. Presented before the sovereign, Antonia was not at first recognized; but she showed the ring and recalled his promise, and Justinian, his love for her renewed, proclaimed straightway the beautiful Amazon as his empress. The people and the senate expressed some surprise at the impromptu marriage, but Antonia shared without protest the throne of Justinian.

Thus the marvellous destiny of Theodora was embellished by legend and romance, and, whether good or bad, severely correct or profligate, she has become one of the most remarkable figures of history and fiction.

Questions as to the early life of Theodora, however, are secondary in importance. We are interested not in the courtesan but in the empress, and, for the incidents and the influence of her reign, we have fortunately other information than that of the Secret History.

Sardou's drama Theodora represents its heroine as preserving on the throne the manners of the courtesan, as delighting in the life of the theatre, as leaving the palace by night to frequent the streets of Constantinople, as having an amorous intrigue with the beautiful Andreas, as being in fact another, but baser and more voluptuous, Messalina. But even the Secret History represents Theodora, after she mounted the throne, as being, with all her faults, the most austere, the most correct, the most irreproachable of women in her conjugal relations.

Whatever her origin and her early life, Theodora adapted herself most readily to the status and the duties of an imperial sovereign. She loved and partook fully of the amenities which attended supreme authority. In her apartments of the royal palace, and in her sumptuous villas and gardens on the Propontis and the Bosporus, she availed herself of all the luxuries and refinements of the royal station. Ever womanly and vain of her physical charms, she took extreme care of her beauty. To make her countenance reposeful and delicate, she prolonged her slumbers until late in the morning; to give her figure sprightliness and grace, she took frequent baths, to which succeeded long hours of repose. Not content with the meagre fare which satisfied Justinian, her table was always supplied with the best of Oriental dishes, which were served with exquisite and delicate taste. Every wish was immediately gratified by her favorite ladies and eunuchs. Like a true parvenue, she delighted in the elaborate court etiquette. She made the highest dignitaries prostrate themselves before her, imposing on those who wished audience long and humiliating delays. Every morning one could see the most illustrious personages of Byzantium crowded in her antechamber like a troop of slaves, and, when they were admitted to kiss the feet of Theodora, their reception depended altogether upon the humor of the moment. These details show with what facility, with what complaisance, Theodora adapted herself to the conditions of her rank.

One must not infer, however, that the Theodora of history was a woman merely captivated by the outward pomp of royalty. She possessed all the intellectual and moral gifts which should attend absolute power, and her rigid enforcement of Oriental etiquette was merely to impress upon others her supreme authority, and was in conformity to the demand of her age. Her salient characteristics were a spirit despotic and inflexible, a will strong and passionate, an intelligence clever and subtle, a temperament by turns frigid and sympathetic; and by these gifts she dominated Justinian without intermission from the moment of her marriage to her death, and impressed upon all those about her the knowledge that she was in every sense an absolute sovereign.

Furthermore, she possessed a calm courage, a masculine inflexibility, which showed itself in the most difficult circumstances. One can never forget the most ominous moment in the history of the Eastern Empire, when the courage and firmness of Theodora saved the throne of Justinian. This was during the celebrated revolt of 532, known as "The Nika Riot." The factions of the "Blues" and the "Greens" were really the political parties of the day; irritated to madness by the oppression of certain officials, they momentarily united their forces and raised an insurrection against the government, choosing Nika (Conquer!) as their watchword, which has become the technical designation of the riot. During five days, the city was a scene of conflict and witnessed all the horrors of street warfare. Justinian yielded so far as to depose the obnoxious officials, but the secret machinations of the "Green" faction, who wished to place on the throne a nephew of Anastasius, a former emperor, kept up the conflict. On the fateful morning of the 19th of January, Hypatius, one of the nephews of Anastasius, was publicly crowned in the Forum of Constantinople, and was then seated in the cathisma of the Hippodrome, where the rebels and the populace saluted him as emperor. Meanwhile, Justinian shut himself up in the palace with his ministers and his favorites. Much of the city was in flames, the tumult outside grew ever louder, and the rebels were preparing for an attack on the palace. All seemed lost. The clamor of victory and the cries of "Death to Justinian," reached the hall where the emperor, utterly unnerved, was taking counsel of his ministers and generals. The prefect John of Cappadocia and the general Belisarius recommended flight to Heraclea. In haste, by the gardens which led to the sea, vessels were loaded with the imperial treasures, and all was ready for the instant flight of the emperor and empress. This was the decisive moment. Flight meant the safety of their persons, but the abandoned throne was surely lost, and the gigantic movements that had been started would collapse. The prince was hesitating, and all his counsellors shared his feebleness. Up to this time, the empress had said nothing. At length, indignant at the general languor, Theodora thus called to their duty the emperor and the ministers who would forsake all for personal safety:

"The present occasion is, I think, too grave to take regard of the principle that it is not meet for a woman to speak among men. Those whose dearest interests are in the presence of extreme danger are justified in thinking only of the wisest course of action. Now, in my opinion, Nature is an unprofitable tutor, even if her guidance bring us safety. It is impossible for a man when he has come into the world not to die; but for one who has reigned it is intolerable to be an exile. May I never exist without this purple robe, and may I never live to see the day on which those who meet me shall not address me as Queen. If you wish, O Emperor, to save yourself, there is no difficulty; we have ample funds. Yonder is the sea, and there are the ships. Yet reflect whether, when you have once escaped to a place of security, you will not prefer death to safety. I agree with an old saying that 'Empire is a fair winding-sheet.'"

By these courageous words the resolution of Theodora saved the throne of Justinian. Her firmness conquered the weakness and the pusillanimity of the court. Belisarius triumphantly led his forces against the revolutionists in the Hippodrome. A ruthless massacre followed, in which thirty-five thousand persons perished. The power of the factions was forever broken, and henceforth Justinian enjoyed absolute sovereignty without a protest. The important public buildings which had been destroyed in the conflagrations incident to the riot were restored on a more magnificent scale, and the still standing Saint Sophia is a monument to the genius and splendor of the reign of Justinian and Theodora.

One can readily understand what a dominating influence such a woman would maintain over the indecisive Justinian. The passion with which she had inspired the prince was preserved up to the last moment of her life; and his devotion and regard ever increased and after her death took the form of reverential awe, so influenced was he by her superior abilities. She was to him, in the words of a contemporary historian, "the sweetest charm"; or, as he himself says in a legal enactment, "the gift of God"--a play upon her name. After her death, when he would make a solemn promise, he swore by the name of Theodora. He withheld from her none of the emoluments, none of the realities, of joint and equal sovereignty: her name figured with his in the inscriptions placed upon the facades of churches or the gates of citadels; her image was associated with his in the decorations of the royal palace, as in the mosaics of San Vitale. Her name appeared by the side of his on the imperial seal. A multitude of cities and a newly created province bore her name. In every regard she shared the sovereignty with the emperor. Magistrates, bishops, generals, governors of provinces, swore by all that was sacred to render good and true service to the very pious and sacred sovereigns, Justinian and Theodora.

When Theodora journeyed, a royal cortege accompanied her, consisting of patricians, high dignitaries, and ministers, and an escort of four thousand soldiers as guard. Her orders were received with deference throughout the Empire; and when officials found them in contradiction with those of the emperor, they often preferred the instructions of Theodora to those of Justinian. Functionaries knew that her patronage assured a rapid promotion in royal power and that her good will was a guarantee against possible disgrace. Royal strangers sought to flatter her vanity and to win her good graces.

All the chroniclers record that in state papers on important affairs Theodora was the collaborator with Justinian. The emperor gladly acknowledged his indebtedness to her, and we read in one of his ordinances: "Having this time again taken counsel of the most sacred spouse whom God has given us...." Theodora likewise on occasion gave evidence of her authority. She once ordered Theodatus to submit to her the requests he wished to address to the emperor, and in a communication to the ministers of the Persian king, Chosroes, she stated: "The emperor never decides anything without consulting me." She was the regulating power in both State and Church, appointing or disgracing generals and ministers, making or unmaking patriarchs and pontiffs, raising to fortune her favorites, and unsettling the power and position of her opponents.

Theodora's comprehension of the necessities of imperial politics was something marvellous, and the wise moves of Justinian were due largely to her counsel. Yet, though so superb a queen, she was all the more a woman-fickle, passionate, avaricious of authority, and intensely jealous of preserving the power she had. Apparently without scruples, she would get rid of all influence which threatened to counterbalance her own, and she brushed aside without pity all opposition which seemed to infringe on her authority. In the intrigues of the palace she ever came off the victor. Vainly did favorites and ministers who fancied themselves indispensable attempt to ruin her credit with the emperor. The secretary Priscus, whom the favor of Justinian had raised to office as count of the bed-chamber, paid dearly for the insults which he addressed to Theodora. He was exiled, imprisoned, and finally driven to take orders, and his enormous fortune was confiscated.

The history of John of Cappadocia is more significant still; at the same time that it gives insight into the intrigues and plots of the Byzantine courts, it throws a glowing light on the ambitious nature, the unscrupulous energy, the vindictive spirit, and the perfidious cleverness of the Empress Theodora.

For six years John of Cappadocia occupied the exalted position of praetorian prefect, which made him at the same time minister of finance and minister of the interior, as well as the first minister of the Empire. By his vices, his harshness, and his corruption he justified the proverb:

"The Cappadocian is bad by nature; if he attains to power he is worse; but if he seeks to be supreme, he is the most detestable of all." But in the eyes of Justinian he had one redeeming virtue: he furnished to every request of the prince the funds which the vast expenditures of his reign demanded. At the price of what exactions, of what sufferings of his subjects, he obtained these admirable results, the emperor did not inquire, or perhaps he ignored these considerations. At all events, the prefect was a great favorite of the prince, and the court aides envied the success of his administration. Having a dominating influence over the emperor, possessing riches beyond the dreams of avarice, John attained to the very apex of fortune. Superstitious by nature, the promises of wizards had aroused in him the hope of attaining to the supreme power, as the colleague or successor of Justinian. As a step toward this he attempted to ruin the credit of Theodora with the emperor. This was an offence which the haughty empress could not pardon. The prefect was not ignorant how powerful an adversary he had aroused; but, conscious of his influence with the emperor and of the state of the finances which he alone could administer, he regarded himself as indispensable. But he did not correctly gauge the subtlety of Theodora. She first endeavored to convince the emperor of the sufferings which the prefect inflicted on his subjects and then to arouse his suspicions as to the dangers with which the throne was menaced by the ambition of John: but the emperor, like all feeble natures, hesitated to separate from himself a counsellor to whom by long habit and association he had become attached. Then Theodora conceived a Machiavelian plot.

Theodora's most intimate friend was Antonina, the wife of Belisarius, whom Procopius describes as a woman "more capable than anyone else to manage the impracticable." The two clever women devised an unscrupulous bit of strategy which, if successful, would surely cause the downfall of the much execrated minister of finance. Antonina, at Theodora's suggestion, cultivated the friendship of John's daughter, Euphemia, and intimated to her that her husband Belisarius was seriously disaffected toward the emperor, because of the poor requital which his distinguished services had received, but that he could not attempt to throw off the imperial yoke unless he was assured of the sympathy and support of some one of the important civil officials. Euphemia naturally told the news to her father, who, seeing in the circumstance an opportunity to ascend the throne with the aid of the powerful general, easily fell into the trap. To perfect the plot the Cappadocian arranged a secret interview at Rufinianum, one of the country seats of Belisarius. The empress arranged to have two faithful officials, Marcellus and Narses, concealed in the villa, with orders to arrest John if his treason became manifest, and, if he resisted, straightway to put him to death. They overheard the treasonable plot, but the minister succeeded in escaping arrest and fled to the inviolable asylum of Saint Sophia. He was, however, exiled in disgrace to Cyzicus; but the ruthless hatred of Theodora followed him, and, after all his ill-gotten gains had been confiscated, he was exiled to Egypt, where he remained until the death of the empress. He finally returned to Constantinople, but Justinian had no further need of the services of his quondam counsellor, and the latter, in the rude garb of a priest, died upon the scene of his former triumphs.

In her ruthless persecution of her opponents, as illustrated by this incident, there seems to have been in this remarkable woman a singular absence of the moral sense.

True it is that she passionately loved power and luxury and wealth; true, that she exercised her authority at times in a ruthless and unscrupulous manner. Yet the hardness of her nature is offset by many sympathetic qualities which show that, together with the sternness of an empress, she had the heart of a woman.

She showed a sympathetic interest in the welfare of her own family. She married her sister Comito to Sittas, an officer of high rank. Her niece Sophia was united in marriage with the nephew of Justin, heir presumptive to the Empire. All her life she regretted that she did not have a son to mount the throne: she had buried an infant daughter, the sole offspring of her marriage.

One of the most pleasing traits of her character was the large tolerance and substantial sympathy she showed to fallen women. Severe on men, she manifested for women a solicitude rarely equalled. On the Asiatic coast of the Bosporus she converted a palace into a spacious and stately monastery, known as the Convent of the Metanoia, or Repentance, and richly endowed it for the benefit of her less fortunate sisters who had been seduced or compelled to embrace the trade of prostitution. In this safe and holy retreat were gathered hundreds of women, collected from the streets and brothels of Constantinople; and many a hapless woman was filled with gratitude toward the generous benefactress who had rescued her from a life of sin and misery.

Are we to see in this tender solicitude an exemplification of the words of the poet, Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco, or were her endeavors merely the outcome of the religious exaltation of a pure and noblewoman "naturally prone to succor women in misfortune," as a Byzantine writer says of her? At any rate, this practical sympathy exerted its influence also in enactments of the Justinian Code relating to women; such as the ordinance tending to increase the dignity of marriage and render it more indissoluble, or that to give to seduced maidens recourse against their seducers, or that to relieve actresses of the social disbarment which attended their calling. All these measures were doubtless due to the inspiration of Theodora.

She also carried her strict ideas as to the sanctity of marriage into the life of the court, as is shown by the manner in which she pitilessly spoiled the romance which would have united one of the most brilliant generals of the Empire to a niece of Justinian.

Præjecta, the emperor's niece, had fallen into the hands of Gontharis, a usurper who had slain her husband, Areobindus. She had given up all as lost when an unexpected savior appeared in the person of a handsome Armenian officer, Artabanes, the commander in Africa, who overthrew the usurper and restored her to liberty. From gratitude, Præjecta could refuse her deliverer nothing, and she promised him her hand. The ambitious Armenian saw in this brilliant marriage rapid promotion to the height of power. The princess returned to Constantinople, and the Count of Africa hastened to surrender his honorable office and sought a recall to Constantinople to join his prospective bride. He was lionized in the capital; his dignified demeanor, his burning eloquence and his unbounded generosity won the admiration of all. To remove the social distance between him and his fiancée he was loaded down with honors and dignities. All went well until an unexpected and troublesome obstacle to the nuptials presented itself. Artabanes had overlooked or forgotten the fact that years before he had espoused an Armenian lady. They had been separated a long time, and the warrior had never been heard to speak of her. So long as he was an obscure soldier his wife was contented to leave him in peace; but not so after his unexpected rise to fame. Suddenly she appeared in Constantinople, claiming the rights of a lawful spouse, and as a wronged woman she implored the sympathetic aid of Theodora.

The empress was inflexible when the sacred bonds of marriage were at stake, and she forced the reluctant general to renounce all claims to the princess and to take back his forsaken wife. By way of precaution, she speedily married Præjecta to John, the grandson of the emperor Anastasius, and the pretty romance was at an end.

With equal regard to the sanctity of marriage, Theodora employed numerous devices to reconcile Belisarius, the celebrated general, with his wife Antonina, to whom the scandal of the Secret History attributes serious lapses from moral rectitude, though the charge cannot be regarded as proved.

A portrait of the Byzantine empress would be incomplete if it did not speak of her religious sentiments and the prominent part she took in ecclesiastical politics. In religious matters we see not only the best side of Theodora's nature, but also the supreme exhibition of her influence in the affairs of the Empire. Like all the Byzantines of her time, she was pious and devoted in her manner of life. She was noted for her almsgiving and her contributions to the foundations established by the Church. Chroniclers cite the houses of refuge, the orphanages, and the hospitals founded by her; and Justinian, in one of his ordinances, speaks of the innumerable gifts which she made to churches, hospitals, asylums, and bishoprics.

Yet, in spite of these many exhibitions of inward piety, Theodora was strongly suspected by the orthodox of heresy. She professed openly the monophysite doctrine,--the belief in the one nature in the person of Jesus Christ. She also endeavored to bring Justinian to her view, and, with an eye to the interest of the state, she entered upon a course of policy which reconciled the schismatics--but disgusted the orthodox Catholics, who were in unison with Rome. The people of Syria and Egypt were almost universally Monophysites and Separatists. Theodora, with a political finesse far greater than that of her husband, saw that the discontent in the Orient was prejudicial to the imperial power, and she endeavored by her line of policy to reconcile the hostile parties and to reestablish religious peace in the Empire. She recognized that the centre of gravity of the government had passed permanently from Rome to Constantinople, and that consequently the best policy was to keep at peace the peoples of the East.

Justinian, on the other hand, misled by the grandeur of Roman tradition, wished to establish, through union with the Roman See, strict orthodoxy in the restored empire of the Cæsars. Theodora, with greater acumen, observed the irreconcilable lines of difference between East and West, and recognized that to proscribe the learned and powerful party of dissenters in the Orient would alienate important provinces and be fatal to the authority of the monarchy. She therefore threw her influence into the balance of heresy. She received the leaders of the Monophysites in the palace, and listened sympathetically to their counsels, their complaints, their remonstrances. She placed men of this faith in the most prominent patriarchal sees--Severius at Antioch, Theodosius at Alexandria, Anthimius at Constantinople. She transformed the palace on Hormisdas into a monastery for the persecuted priests of Syria and Asia. When Severius was subjected to persecution, she provided means for him to escape from Constantinople; and when Anthimius was deposed from the metropolitan see, she extended to him, in spite of imperial orders, her open protection, and gave him an asylum in the palace. Her boldest coup, however, consisted in placing on the pontifical seat at Rome a pope of her own choice, pledged to act with the Monophysites.

For this rôle she found the man in the Roman deacon Vigilius, for some years apostolic legate at Constantinople. Vigilius was an ambitious and clever priest who had won his way into the confidence of Theodora, and the empress thought to find in him, when elevated to the pontifical chair, a ready instrument for her purposes. It is recounted that, in exchange for the imperial protection and patronage, Vigilius engaged to reestablish Anthimius at Constantinople, to enter into a league with Theodosius and Severius, and to annul the Council of Chalcedon. Upon the death of the presiding pope, Agapetus, Vigilius set out for Rome with letters for Belisarius, who was then at the height of his power in Italy, and these letters were such that they did not admit of objection. Apparently, in this affair Justinian had secretly assented to the plans of the empress, seeing perhaps in the movement a solution which would bring about the unity which he desired and place the Roman pontiff in accord with the Orientals. But it was not without trouble that Vigilius was installed. Immediately upon the death of Agapetus, the Roman party had provided a successor in Silverius; and to seat Vigilius in the chair of Saint Peter, they must first make Silverius descend. Belisarius was charged with this repugnant task. With manifest reluctance, he undertook his part in the questionable intrigue. He first suggested to Silverius a dignified way of settling the affair by making the concessions which the emperor desired of Vigilius. Silverius indignantly refused to make any such compromise. Thereupon, under the imaginary pretext of treason, he was brutally arrested, deposed, and sent into exile. Vigilius was at once ordained pope in his stead. Theodora seemed to have conquered.

But when securely installed, Vigilius, in spite of the threats of Belisarius, deferred the fulfilment of his promises. Finally, however, he was compelled to make important concessions to the empress. This was the last triumph of Theodora; and toward the close of her life, in the growing progress of the Eastern Church, and in the declining influence of the pope, she had reason to believe that the dreams of her religious diplomacy were realized.

Theodora's advocacy of the cause of the dissenters accounts for much of the vituperation heaped upon her by orthodox Catholics. In the eyes of the Cardinal Baronius, the wife of Justinian was "a detestable creature, a second Eve too ready to listen to the serpent, a new Delilah, another Herodias, revelling in the blood of the saints, a citizen of Hell, protected by demons, inspired by Satan, burning to break the concord bought by the blood of confessors and of martyrs." It is worthy of note that this was written before the discovery of the manuscript of the Secret History. What would the learned cardinal have said had he known of the alleged adventures of the youth of this woman, classed by pious Catholics as one of the worst enemies of the Church?

Perhaps, after all, we are to find in Theodora's religious defection the source of all the scandal which has attached to her name. Damned in the eyes of pious churchmen because of her religious faith that Christ's nature was not dual, it was easy for the tongue of scandal regarding her early life to gain credence. Had Theodora followed the orthodox in the belief in the two natures, she might have committed worse offences than were charged to her, and no such vituperation would have been uttered by any member of the orthodox Church; but her position in the religious controversies of the sixth century will certainly, in the twentieth century, do her memory little harm.

Theodora's health was always delicate. After these years of stormy dissension, as her strength began to fail, she was directed to use the famous Pythian warm baths. Her progress through Bithynia was made with all the splendor of an imperial cortege, and all along the route she distributed alms to churches, monasteries, and hospitals, with the request that the devout should implore Heaven for the restoration of her health. Finally, in the month of June, A. D. 548, in the twenty-fourth year of her marriage and the twenty-second of her reign, Theodora died of a cancer. Justinian was inconsolable at her loss, which rightly seemed to him to be irreparable. His later years were lacking in the energy and finesse that had characterized him during her lifetime, and it was doubtless her loss which clouded his spirits and removed from him the chief inspiration of his reign. Some years after Theodora's death, a poet, desiring to gratify the emperor, recalled the memory of the excellent, beautiful and wise sovereign, "who was beseeching at the throne of grace God's favor on her spouse."

We can hardly think of Theodora as a glorified saint, yet her goodness of heart and her charity may atone for many of the serious defects in her character. We know not whence she came nor the story of her early life; but as an empress she exhibited all the defects of her qualities. She was a woman cast in a large mould, and her faults stand out in equal prominence with her virtues. She was at times cruel, selfish, and proud, often despotic and violent, utterly unscrupulous and pitiless when it was a question of maintaining her power. But she was resourceful, resolute, energetic, courageous; her political acumen was truly masculine; in a critical moment she saved the throne for Justinian, and during all her lifetime she was his wise Egeria, by her counsel enabling him to succeed in great movements; when her influence ceased to exercise itself a decadence began which continued during the remaining years of Justinian's reign.

As a woman, she was capricious, passionate, vain, self-willed, but sympathetic to the unfortunate and infinitely seductive. Truly imperial was she in her vices, truly queenly in her virtues. Whatever may have been her youth, her career on the throne is the best refutation of the scandal of the Secret History, and she deserves a place in the records of history as one of the world's greatest, most intelligent, most fascinating empresses.

XII

OTHER SELF-ASSERTING AUGUSTÆ--VERINA, ARIADNE, SOPHIA, MARTINA, IRENE

It is a noteworthy feature in the history of the Eastern Roman Empire that periods in which empresses figure prominently in the affairs of state alternate with periods in which the Augustæ are mere ciphers. Eudoxia, the wife of Arcadius, marks the early limit of feminine predominance in the independent history of the eastern section of the Roman Empire. The Empress Irene, who reigned at first with her son Constantine and afterward alone, marks the later limit of the Roman, as distinguished from the strictly Byzantine Empire, since during her reign, at the beginning of the ninth century, the Empire of the West was completely dissevered from all connection with Constantinople through the crowning of Charlemagne as Emperor of the West by Pope Leo. Thus a masterful woman was the predominating influence at the beginning and at the end of the existence of the Eastern Roman Empire as a separate entity.

In the interval between these two limits the most important reign was that of Justinian and the most remarkable woman was, of course, the Empress Theodora. Following Eudoxia were the rival Empresses Pulcheria and Eudocia, celebrated for their beauty, their culture, and their piety.

When the house of Theodosius ceased to exist with Pulcheria and Marcian, the Roman Empire in the East was safely guided through the stormy times which saw its extinction in the West by a series of three men of ability, Leo I. (457-474), Zeno (474-491), and Anastasius (491-518). During this period two Augustæ--Verina and Ariadne--took a part in imperial politics, and made up in wickedness and intrigue what they lacked in culture and piety. Next followed the house of Justin, which produced two remarkable women in Theodora and her niece Sophia, the latter, though not the equal of her aunt in strength of character, yet leaving her mark on the history of her times.

Following the death of Sophia there was for nearly forty years a break in the predominance of self-asserting Augustæ. Of the wives of Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas, we know merely the names--respectively, Anastasia, Constantina, and Leontia Augusta. Heraclius's memorable reign was shared with two empresses, the first of whom, Eudocia, did nothing to win publicity, while the career of the second--Martina--recalls the wickedness and the intrigue of Verina and Sophia. But the spouses of the successors of Heraclius did not follow Martina's ignoble example, but were women of whom nothing was recorded either of praise or blame. We do not even know the name of the wife of Constans II., who entered upon a long reign after the exile of Heracleonas, son of Martina. Anastasia, the spouse of Constantine IV., Theodora, queen of the second Justinian, Maria, spouse of Leo III., the Isaurian, and Irene, Maria, and Eudocia, the three wives of Constantine V., played so little part in political affairs that they are hardly better known than the nameless wives of the emperors who filled up the interval between the second Justinian and Leo the Isaurian (695-716).

This brief resume brings us to the reign of the Empress Irene, who in energy, in wickedness, and in ambition made up for all the deficiencies of her predecessors. Having devoted separate chapters to the most celebrated Augustæ of the Eastern Empire--Eudoxia, Pulcheria and Eudocia, and Theodora--we shall group into one chapter our brief consideration of the lives and characters of the less renowned but no less pronounced Augustæ of the intervening periods--Verina, Ariadne, Sophia, Martina, and Irene.

Verina and her daughter Ariadne, through their wickedness and ambition, cast dark shadows over the otherwise bright history of the house of Leo the Great. Verina, the imperial consort of Leo, was a woman of little cultivation but of great natural gifts, fond of intrigue, ambitious of power, and implacable in hatred and revenge. Of her two daughters, Ariadne had married Zeno the Isaurian, one of the most illustrious and able officials of the Empire. Leo, the offspring of this union, was selected as the heir and successor of Leo I., but upon the death of the lad, shortly after his accession, Zeno was raised to the throne, much to the disgust of the empress-mother Verina. She fostered'a conspiracy for the downfall of Zeno and the elevation of Patricius, her paramour, and as a result of her intrigues Zeno had to forsake his throne and flee to the mountain fastnesses of Isauria, his native country, together with his wife Ariadne and his mother Lallis. Verina's brother, Basiliscus, aspired to the throne, but she opposed his claims in order to win the purple for Patricius. After Zeno's flight, however, the ministers and senators elected Basiliscus as his successor, and the new emperor entered upon a most unpopular and checkered reign of only twenty months. His queen was named Zenonis, a young and beautiful woman, who soon gained an unenviable reputation because of her manifest fondness for her husband's nephew Harmatius, a young fop, noted for his good looks and his effeminate manners. An ancient chronicler tells the story of this intrigue:

"Basiliscus permitted Harmatius, inasmuch as he was a kinsman, to associate freely with the empress Zenonis. Their intercourse became intimate, and, as they were both persons of no ordinary beauty, they became extravagantly enamored of each other. They used to exchange glances of the eyes, they used constantly to turn their faces and smile at each other, and the passion which they were obliged to conceal was the cause of grief and vexation. They confided their trouble to Daniel, a eunuch, and to Maria, a midwife, who hardly healed their malady by the remedy of bringing them together. Then Zenonis coaxed Basiliscus to grant her lover the highest office in the city."

This palace intrigue was soon brought to an end, however, by the fall of Basiliscus and the restoration of Zeno in 477, in spite of the intrigues of Verina. After Zeno's return, his most powerful minister, the Isaurian Illus, became the object of Verina's enmity and machinations. She even formed a plot to assassinate him, which he was fortunate enough to discover and frustrate. Recognizing that his power would not be secure so long as Verina was at large, he begged Zeno to consign to him the dangerous woman; and the emperor, doubtless glad to be rid of his redoubtable mother-in-law, gave her over into his hands. Illus first compelled her to take the vows of a nun at Tarsus, and then placed her in confinement in Dalisandon, an Isaurian castle.

But Illus had only got rid of one female foe to find a more bitter antagonist in the latter's daughter, the empress Ariadne. She made the second attempt on his life in 483, and used all her arts of intrigue to estrange from him the Emperor Zeno. Finally, realizing that his life was not safe in Constantinople, Illus withdrew from the court, and later attached himself to the cause of the rebel Leontius, who sought to overthrow Zeno. In support of the rebel's cause, Illus turned to his quondam enemy Verina, the empress-mother, who from her prison castle was glad to seize the opportunity to deal a blow to her ungrateful son-in-law. To give the semblance of legitimacy to the cause of Leontius, Verina was induced to crown him at Tarsus, and she also issued a letter in his interest, which was sent to various cities and exerted a marked influence on the disaffected. Leontius established an imperial court at Antioch, but was speedily overthrown by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. The two leaders of the conspiracy, with Verina, took refuge in the Isaurian stronghold of Papirius, where they stood a siege for four years, during which time Verina died. The fortress was finally taken through the treachery of Illus's sister-in-law, and Illus and Leontius were slain.

After the death of Zeno, Anastasius was in 491 proclaimed emperor through the influence of the widowed empress Ariadne, who married him about six weeks later and continued to be an influence in politics during Anastasius's long and successful reign.

In Verina and Ariadne we see a mother and a daughter exceedingly alike in character, but frequently at cross purposes with each other because of their similar traits. Both were ambitious, both fond of intrigue, and both ready to commit any crime when it answered their purpose. Verina, pleased at the accession of her grandson Leo, whom she could control, was chagrined and disappointed when upon the lad's death his masterful father was elevated to the throne; and, continuing her intrigues, she lost first her royal station and then her freedom and her life in her endeavor to do an injury to her son-in-law. Ariadne quickly grasped the power which her mother had lost, and has the unusual record of choosing her husband's successor on the throne and of being the imperial consort of two rulers in succession.

We pass now to the dynasty of Justin and to a consideration of the niece of the great Theodora, Sophia, empress of Justin the Younger, nephew and successor of Justinian.

The poet Corippus gives a dramatic account of the elevation of Justin and Sophia. During Justinian's long illness the two were faithful attendants at his bedside and ministered to his every want. Finally, one morning, before the break of day, Justin was awakened by a patrician and informed that the emperor was dead. Soon after, the members of the Senate entered the palace and assembled in a beautiful room overlooking the sea, where they found Justin conversing with his wife Sophia. They greeted the royal pair as Augustus and Augusta; and the twain, with apparent reluctance, submitted to the will of the Senate. They then repaired to the imperial chamber, and gazed, with tearful eyes, upon the corpse of their beloved uncle. Sophia at once ordered to be brought an embroidered cloth, on which was wrought in gold and brilliant colors the whole series of Justinian's labors, the emperor himself being represented in the midst with his foot resting upon the neck of the Vandal giant. The next morning, Justin and his imperial consort proceeded to the church of Saint Sophia, where they made a public declaration of the orthodox faith.

In taking this step, Sophia showed that she had the ambition but not the political acumen of her aunt Theodora. Like the latter, she had been originally a Monophysite; but a wily bishop had suggested that her heretical opinions stood in the way of her husband's promotion to the rank of Cæsar, and in consequence she found it advisable to join the ranks of the orthodox. Unfortunately, by this step the balance of the religious parties, which Theodora had so successfully maintained, was broken, and the later years of Justin's reign were disgraced by the persecution of the Monophysites, so that great disaffection toward the throne was created throughout the East.

The religious ceremony was soon followed by the acclamations of the populace in the Hippodrome, which were made all the more hearty through the act of Justin in discharging the vast debts of his uncle Justinian; and, before three years had elapsed, his example was imitated and surpassed by the empress, who delivered many indigent citizens from the weight of debt and usury--an act of benevolence which won for her the gratitude and adoration of the populace.

Thus auspiciously began the reign of Justin and Sophia, which the royal pair had proclaimed was to be an new era of happiness and glory for mankind; but, though the sentiments of the emperor were pure and benevolent and it was the ambition of the empress to surpass her aunt Theodora, neither had the intellectual gifts equal to the task, and during their reign the Empire was subjected to disgrace abroad and to wretchedness at home.

Much the same ingratitude which Belisarius had experienced at the hand of his imperial mistress was visited upon his eminent successor, Narses, by the new empress. She sent Longinus, as the new exarch, to supersede the conqueror of Italy, and in most insulting language recalled the eunuch Narses to Constantinople. "Let him leave to men," she said, "the exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of the palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the hands of the eunuch." "I will spin her such a thread as she shall not easily unravel!" is said to have been the indignant reply of the hero, who alone had saved Italy to the Empire. Instead of returning to the Byzantine palace, he returned to Naples and later dwelt at Rome, where he passed away and with him the only military genius great enough to ward off the invasion of the Lombards.

After a reign of a few years the faculties of Justin, which were impaired by disease, began to fail, and in 574 he became a hopeless lunatic. The only son of the imperial pair had died in infancy, and the question of a successor now became a serious one. The daughter, Arabia, was the wife of Baduarius, superintendent of the palace, who vainly aspired to the honor of adoption as the Cæsar. Domestic animosities turned the empress elsewhere.

The artful empress found a suitable successor in Tiberius, the young and handsome captain of the guards, and, in one of his sane intervals, Justin, at her instance, created him a Cæsar. During the few remaining years of Justin's life, Tiberius showed himself to both his adopted parents a filial and grateful son, and meekly submitted to all the exactions of his empress-mother. Though relying on Tiberius for the sterner duties of the imperial office, Sophia retained all her authority and sovereignty as Augusta and would not submit to the presence of another queen in the palace. Tiberius was already a husband and father. In a sane moment, Justin, with masculine good nature and blindness to feminine foibles, blandly suggested that Ino, the wife of the Cæsar, should dwell with Tiberius in the palace, for, he added, "he is a young man and the flesh is hard to rule." But Sophia immediately put her foot down. "As long as I live," said she, "I will never give my kingdom to another"--words that were possibly a reminiscence of the celebrated saying of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, "I am a queen; and as long as I live I will reign." Consequently, during the lifetime of Justin, Ino and her two daughters lived in complete retirement in a modest house not far from the palace. Her social status aroused considerable interest among the ladies of the court circle, who found it difficult to decide whether or not they should call on the wife of the Cæsar. At tables and firesides this question was gravely discussed, but no one would take the initiative of visiting Ino without first consulting the wishes of Sophia. Finally, when one of the ladies, with considerable trepidation, ventured to ask the empress, she was scolded for her pains; "Go away and be quiet," responded the imperious Sophia, "it is no business of yours."

When, however, a few days before the death of Justin, Tiberius was inaugurated emperor, he at once installed his wife in the palace, to the chagrin of the empress-mother, and had her recognized by the factions of the Hippodrome. A conflict arose as to what should be her Christian name as empress: the Blues wished to change her pagan name to "Anastasia," while the Greens urged stoutly the adoption of the name of the sainted "Helena." Tiberius decided with the Blues, and as Anastasia Ino was crowned Empress of the East.

During the long apprenticeship of Tiberius, Sophia had held the purse strings and had kept the young Cæsar on an allowance which seemed too small to comport with his imperial prospects. Upon becoming emperor, however, Tiberius quickly rid himself of the dictation of his patroness. He gave her a stately palace in which to live, and surrounded her with a numerous train of eunuchs and courtiers; he paid her ceremonious visits on formal occasions and always saluted the widow of his benefactor with the title of mother. But it was impossible for Sophia to overcome her disappointment at being deprived of power, and she set on foot numerous conspiracies to dethrone Tiberius and to bring about the elevation of some one whom she could control. The chief of these plots centred about the young Justinian, the son of Germanus of the house of Anastasius. Upon the death of Justin a faction had asserted the claims of Justinian; but Tiberius had freely pardoned the youth for aspiring to the purple and had given him the command of the Eastern army. Sophia seized upon the acclamation which the renown of his victories inspired to start a conspiracy in his interests, but Tiberius heard in time of the intended uprising and by his personal exertions and firmness suppressed the conspiracy. He once more forgave Justinian, but he realized the necessity of restraining the activity of the rapidly aging, but still clever and intriguing, ex-empress. Sophia was deprived of all imperial honors and reduced to a modest station, and the care of her person was committed to a faithful guard who should frustrate any further attempts on her part to play a part in the game of imperial politics. Thus the ambitious niece of Theodora passed off the stage of action after a career which, beginning with every promise of brilliant success and high renown, had, after many vicissitudes, ended in humiliation and disgrace.

Heraclius's long and memorable reign, from 610 to 641, was characterized by much domestic infelicity. Upon the day of his coronation he celebrated his marriage with the delicate Eudocia, who bore him two children, a daughter, Epiphania, and a son, Heraclius Constantine, the natural successor to the throne. Heraclius's second wife was his own niece Martina, the marriage being considered incestuous by the orthodox and becoming the cause of much scandal. The curses of Heaven too seemed to be upon the union; of the children, Flavius had a wry neck and Theodosius was deaf and dumb; the third, Heracleonas, had no pronounced physical deformity, but was lacking in intellectual power and in moral force. The physical sufferings of Heraclius in his last years were also looked upon as retribution for his sin.

Martina's influence upon her aged husband in his declining years was unbounded. Full of ambition and intrigue, she induced him upon his deathbed to declare her son Heracleonas joint heir with Constantine, hoping thus herself to wield imperial power. "When Martina first appeared on the throne with the name and attributes of royalty, she was checked by a firm, though respectful opposition; and the dying embers of freedom were kindled by the breath of superstitious prejudice. 'We reverence,' exclaimed the voice of a citizen, 'we reverence the mother of our princes; but to those princes alone our obedience is due; and Constantine, the elder emperor, is of an age to sustain in his own hand the weight of the sceptre. Your sex is excluded by nature from the toils of government. How could you combat, how could you answer, the barbarians who, with hostile or friendly intentions, may approach the royal city? May Heaven avert from the Roman Republic this national disgrace which would provoke the patience of the slaves of Persia!' Martina descended from the throne with indignation and sought a refuge in the female apartment of the palace."

But, though deprived of the outward prerogatives of supreme power, she determined all the more to wield the sceptre through the power of her son. The reign of Constantine III. lasted only one hundred and three days, and at the early age of thirty he expired. The belief was prevalent that poison was the means used by his inhuman stepmother to bring him to his untimely end. Martina at once caused her son to proclaim himself sole emperor. But the public abhorrence of the incestuous widow of Heraclius was only increased by this deed, for Constantine had left a son, Constans, the natural heir. Both Senate and populace rose in indignation, and compelled Heracleonas to comply with their demand that Constans be made his colleague. His submission saved him for only a year. In 642 he was deposed by the Senate, and he and his mother Martina were sent into exile. So violent was the popular rage that the tongue of the mother and the nose of the son were slit--the first instance of the barbarous Oriental custom being applied to members of the royal house.

Martina was always looked upon by the devout of her age as "the accursed thing." She had by intrigue won the hand of her widowed uncle, by intrigue exerted a dominating influence over the emperor even up to his dying moments, and by intrigue tried to determine the destiny of her son and her stepson. But the intriguing widow reaped in public abhorrence the natural results of her offences. For a time the people endured the abomination of her unnatural crimes, but at last they visited upon her a well-merited punishment.

The reign of the empress Irene is noteworthy because of her restoration of the images banished by Leo the Isaurian and his successors, and because it marks the end of all union between the Eastern and Western Empires and the beginning of the Byzantine Empire strictly so called. Hence, it deserves more minute attention than the other reigns we have briefly sketched, and some mention must be made of the history of the religious movement with which Irene's name is so intimately connected.

Leo III., the Isaurian, the most remarkable of the Byzantine emperors since the days of the great Justinian, made his long reign from 717 to 740 memorable by his victories over the Saracens and his long and bitter conflict against the image worship and relic worship which had developed rapidly throughout the Empire and had assumed the aspect of fetichism.

The early Christians, owing to their Jewish proclivities, had felt an unconquerable repugnance to the use of images, and their religious worship was uniformly simple and spiritual. As the Greek influence spread throughout the Church, however, there developed a veneration of the Cross and of the relics of the saints. Then it was thought that if the relics were esteemed, so much the more should be the faithful copies of the persons of the saints, as delineated by the arts of painting and sculpture. In course of time, by a natural development, the honors of the original were transferred to the copy, and the Christian's prayer before the image of the saint ceased to distinguish between the counterfeit presentment and the saint it was designed to portray. As healing power was attributed to many of the images and pictures, the popular adoration of them grew. Thus, by the end of the sixth century the worship of images was firmly established, especially among the Greeks and Asiatics. Many pious souls began to see that this idolatry of the Christians hardly differed from the idolatry of the Greeks, and that they had no potent arguments against the assertions of Jews and Mohammedans that Greek Christianity was but a continuation of Greek paganism. Consequently, a reaction began, which reached its culmination in the reign of Leo the Isaurian, who, because of his active hostility to images, was surnamed Leo the Iconoclast. His measures were severe, and he introduced a movement which involved the East in a tremendous conflict of one hundred and twenty years.

Leo's son, Constantine V.,--Copronymus,--was a more cruel and determined iconoclast than his father; but into his own family circle he was destined to introduce a member who was to set at naught the efforts of father and son and restore the worship of images to its former flourishing estate. Copronymus himself had had three wives, the most prominent of whom was a barbarian, the daughter of a khan of the Chazars; but for the wife of his son and heir, Leo IV., he selected an Athenian virgin, an orphan of seventeen summers, whose sole endowment consisted in her beauty and her personal charms. As in the case of Athenais, nothing is known of the antecedents of Irene. Who her parents were, what was her education, how many years she lived in her native city--these are questions of idle speculation.--Her imperial career shows that she was a woman of remarkable beauty and fascination, of highly trained intellectual gifts and Hellenic temperament, and from this we are led to infer that she had in her youth the best instruction her native city afforded.

The nuptials of Leo and Irene were celebrated with imposing splendor, and the new princess rapidly became an important influence in the life of the palace, winning the regard of her father-in-law and acquiring an indisputable ascendency over her feeble husband. Irene, though a Christian, inherited the idolatry and the love of images and ritual of her ancestors; but during the remaining years of the reign of Copronymus and the four short years in which her husband occupied the throne she repressed her zeal, and by clever dissimulation hid her devotion to the cause of the image worshippers.

Leo left the Empire to his son Constantine VI., a lad of ten years, with the empress-dowager Irene as sole regent and guardian of the Roman world. During the minority of her son Irene discharged with vigor and assiduity all the duties of public administration and enjoyed to the full the irresponsible power of her office of regent. She took advantage of her power to restore the worship of images and thus won the favor of a large faction of the populace and the clergy. She endeavored to bring up her son in such a way that he should continue to be subservient to her, and as he approached the age at which he should assume the reins of government, Irene showed no disposition to yield up her power.

Even when Constantine became of age, he was excluded from state affairs. He had been betrothed to Rotrud, daughter of Charlemagne; but Irene, for the sake of her own power, had broken off the match and compelled him to marry one of her favorites, who was distasteful to him. The maternal yoke, which he had so patiently borne, finally became grievous, and Constantine listened eagerly to the favorites of his own age who urged him to assert his rights. He was finally persuaded to do so, and succeeded in seizing the helm of state. His mother vigorously resisted, but was overcome and compelled to go into seclusion for a time; but Constantine at length pardoned her and restored her former dignity. Irene, however, had by no means relinquished her ambition for sole power, and availed herself of every opportunity to discredit the prince and enhance her own popularity.

Constantine became enamored of one of his mother's maids of honor, Theodota. With the insidious purpose of making him odious to the clergy, who discountenanced divorce and second marriage, Irene encouraged him to put away his wife, Maria, and marry Theodota. The patriarch Tarasius, a creature of the empress-mother, acquiesced in the emperor's wishes, and, though he would not perform the ceremony himself, he ordered one of his subordinates to celebrate the unpopular bans. The affair created great scandal among the monks and was injurious to the prestige of the emperor.

A powerful conspiracy was secretly organized for the restoration of the empress. At length the emperor, suspecting his danger, escaped from Constantinople with the purpose of arousing the provinces and the armies so that he might return to the city with sufficient force to overwhelm the conspirators and establish beyond question his power. By this flight the empress was left in danger, because of the possible exposure of the plot and the indignation of the populace. She acted with her customary shrewdness and duplicity. Among those about the emperor were some who were involved in the conspiracy; so, while appearing to be making ready to implore the mercy and beg the return of her son, she sent to these men a secret communication in which she veiled the threat that if they did not act, she would reveal their treason. Fearing for their lives, they acted at once with the boldness of desperate criminals. Seizing the emperor on the Asiatic shore, they conveyed him across the Hellespont to the porphyry apartment of the palace, the chamber in which he was born. The son was now completely in the power of the mother, in whom ambition had stifled every maternal emotion. In the bloody council called by the traitors she urged that Constantine should be rendered incapable of holding the throne. Her emissaries blinded the young prince and immured him in a monastery. As a blind monk Constantine survived five of his successors; but his memory was revived among men only by the marriage of his daughter Euphrosyne with the Emperor Michael the Second.

For five years Irene enjoyed all the delights and experienced all the bitterness of absolute power. Her crime called down upon her the execration of all the best among mankind, but dread of her cruelty prevented any open outbreak against her. She carried on the movement for the restoration of images, and by her outward piety she caused men to overlook the heinous nature of her crimes. Her reign was noted for its external splendor and the strong influence she exerted on all affairs of state. She offered marriage to the Emperor Charlemagne of the West, but he repelled with repugnance all overtures from the unnatural mother and reminded her that her intrigues had prevented the union of his daughter with the Emperor Constantine. In fact, her accession brought about the final severing of all bonds of union between the eastern and western divisions of the Roman world. Pope Leo regarded a female sovereign as an anomaly and an abomination in the eyes of all true Romans, and he brought to an end all claims the Byzantine dynasty might have on Italy at least, by creating Charlemagne Emperor of the West.

These years of power were troublous ones to the wicked queen, because of rebellions abroad and palace intrigues at home. She had surrounded herself with servile patricians and eunuchs, whom she enriched and elevated to the highest offices of state; but her own example had fostered in them ingratitude and duplicity, and, while they showed her every outward mark of deference, they secretly conspired for her downfall and their own elevation. The grand treasurer, Nicephorus, won over the leading eunuchs and courtiers about the person of the empress, and the decision was reached that he should be invested with the purple. Never was Irene more queenly than in the manner with which she received the intelligence of her fall. When the conspirators informed her that she must retire from the palace, she addressed them with becoming dignity, recounting the revolutions of her life, and accepting with composure her fate. She gently reproached Nicephorus for his perfidy and reminded him that he owed his elevation to her, and she requested the proper recognition of her imperial standing and asked for a safe and honorable retreat. But the greed of Nicephorus would not grant this last request; he deprived her of all her dignities and wealth, and exiled her to the Isle of Lesbos, where she endured every hardship and gained a scanty subsistence by the labors of her distaff. Irene survived the change of her fortune for only one year, and in 803 died of grief--destitute, forsaken, and lonely.

Because of her wickedness Irene's name is perpetuated in history among the Messalinas and the Lucrezia Borgias. Because of her religious orthodoxy she was canonized as a saint,--a striking instance of how outward conformity to religion covers a multitude of sins.

XIII

BYZANTINE EMPRESSES--THEODORA II., THEOPHANO, ZOE, THEODORA III.

The Iconoclastic controversy was far from being extinguished with the fall (in the person of Irene) of the house of Leo the Isaurian. It was destined to continue for over half a century longer and to be finally settled by another empress whose career bore marked similarity to that of the image-loving Irene; and it then remained settled because the second image-loving queen was succeeded by a royal house sprung from one of the European themes which was in sympathy, accordingly, with the Church of the West, rather than with the religious sentiment of the people of the Orient.

But a greater change had come over the Eastern Empire with the exile and death of Irene. Her elevation had, as we have seen, severed the connection between East and West and led to the appointment of a Western emperor in the person of Charlemagne. Hence, from this time onward the interests and sympathies of the two sections of the later Roman Empire diverge more and more, and the government at Constantinople becomes ever more Oriental in its proclivities. It is, therefore, more appropriate to use the adjective Byzantine for the remaining centuries of the history of Constantinople to its conquest by the Turks in 1453.

The careers of Irene and her successor, Theodora, the two image-worshipping empresses, in the contrast of the vicissitudes of their lives with the rapidity of their rise and the splendor of their power, offer materials for romance more truly than for sober history. Each was born in private station; and in each case it must have required rare beauty and fascination and high intellectual gifts to fill so successfully the exalted position of Empress of the Romans, and to overturn the iconoclastic reforms of their predecessors on the throne. Each of them, too, when regent, was grossly neglectful of the son over whose youth she presided, and whom she should have fitted for the high station to which he was destined. Yet herein lies the marked difference between the two queens: Irene finally expelled her son from his royal station, and sent him to pass his life as a blinded monk in a secluded cell; Theodora, finding she could no longer control the wild nature of her son, whose training she had neglected, retired from the court and sought relief in a life of penitence. For their pious acts, both empresses were canonized as orthodox saints, but Irene must ever be regarded as a demon at heart, while Theodora must pass as a misguided and self-deceived woman, who, in the performance of her religious duties, overlooked the most important task just at hand. But we are anticipating our consideration of Theodora, the second Irene.

The iconoclastic controversy was renewed by Nicephorus, who usurped the throne of Irene, as he was of Oriental extraction and therefore in sympathy with the so-called heretics. Neither Nicephorus nor his successor during a period of political anarchy came to a peaceful end, but Michael II., in 829 died a natural death in the royal palace, still wearing the crown he had won, and leaving the throne to his son Theophilus, destined to rank as the Haroun Al Raschid of Byzantine romance and story. Michael had married Euphrosyne, the daughter of Irene's son, Constantine VI., and the last scion of Leo the Isaurian. Euphrosyne had already taken the veil, but, to bring about a union which might probably continue the line of Leo, the patriarch absolved her from her vows, and she passed from the convent to the palace as Empress of the East. Yet, so far as we know, there was no issue of the marriage, and Michael's son--Theophilus--by a former wife succeeded his father on the throne. Euphrosyne remained for a time in the palace as empress-dowager, and seems to have been on the best of terms with her stepson, whom she at length assisted in the important but difficult task of selecting a consort.

Theophilus, since the time of Constantine VI., was the first prince to be brought up in the purple, and his education was the best the age afforded. The ninth century was an age of romance, both in action and in literature, and Theophilus was inspired with many of the ideas of Oriental monarchs. His reign, therefore, furnishes a series of anecdotes and tales like to those of the Arabian Nights, and was surrounded with an Oriental glamour and mystery. And, like his predecessors, he was a pronounced iconoclast.

Theophilus was unmarried when he ascended the throne, and the matter of choosing a wife presented many difficulties to the absolute ruler who could have his choice from among the daughters of the aristocratic families of Constantinople, or even from the provinces of his dominions. He finally took counsel with the attractive empress-dowager Euphrosyne, and between them they devised a plan which would permit of a wide range of choice and yet possess all the romance of mythical times.

The empress-dowager one day assembled at her levee all the most beautiful and accomplished daughters of the nobles of the capital. While the maidens were engaged in the interchange of friendly greetings, Theophilus suddenly entered the room, carrying, like Paris of old, a golden apple in his hand. He cast his eyes over the room, and there was a flutter in many a feminine heart over the object of his coming and the possible recipient of the golden apple. Struck by the beauty and grace of the fair Eikasia, one of the noted belles of the day, he paused before her to address a word to her. Already in the heart of the proud beauty there were anticipations of an imperial career. But Theophilus found no better topic to commence a conversation than the ungallant remark: "Woman is the source of evil in the world;" to which the young lady quickly replied: "Woman is also the cause of much good." Either the ready retort or the tone of her voice jarred on the captious mind of the monarch, and he passed on. His eye then fell on the modest features and graceful figure of the young Theodora, a rival beauty, and to her, without risking a word, he handed the apple. The shock was too severe for the slighted Eikasia, who had for a moment felt the thrill of gratified ambition, and was conscious of the possession of the endowments that would adorn the throne. She straightway retired to a monastery which she founded, and devoted her time to religious practices and intellectual pursuits. Many hymns were composed by her, which continued long in use in the Greek Church.

Perhaps it would have been better for Theophilus had he chosen Eikasia. Theodora, with all her modest demeanor, was self-assertive and proud, and as a devoted iconodule she caused her husband many an unhappy hour during his lifetime; and as soon as he was dead she set to work to undo his policy. The Empress Euphrosyne too soon realized the masterful spirit of the new empress as did Theodora's own mother, Theoktista, and the two dowagers retired into the monastery of Gastria, which afforded them an agreeable retreat from the intrigues of the court.

Theodora is the heroine of another tale which illustrated an unbecoming trait in her character and the love of justice of Theophilus. It was the practice of money-loving officials to engage secretly in trade and to avoid the payment of custom duties by engaging the empress, or members of the imperial family, in commercial adventures. By these practices, gross injustice was done the merchants, and the revenues of the state suffered. Theophilus learned that the young empress had lent her name to one of these trading speculations, and he determined to handle the matter in such a way that, in future, a repetition would be impossible. He ascertained the time when a ship laden with a valuable cargo in the empress's name was about to arrive in Constantinople. He assembled his whole court on the quay to witness its arrival, and when the captain of the ship demanded free entry in the empress's name, Theophilus compelled him to unload and expose his precious cargo of Syrian merchandise, and then publicly burn it; then, turning to his wife, he remarked that never in the history of man had a Roman emperor or empress turned trader, and added the sharp reproach that her avarice had degraded the character of an empress into that of a merchant.

Theophilus died in 842, leaving the throne to his three-year-old son, Michael. His mother, Theodora, as she had been crowned empress, was regent in her own right, and she quickly proved herself one of the most self-assertive of Byzantine princesses. As Theophilus and his predecessors overturned the work of Irene, so Theodora immediately began to undo the iconoclastic policy of her deceased husband; and as her successors continued her policy, the regency of Theodora marks the end of iconoclasm and the permanent establishment of image worship in the churches of the East, as of the West.

Within the first month of the commencement of the new reign, images had appeared once more in the churches of Constantinople, and the banished image worshippers were recalled from their places of exile. John the Grammarian, the patriarch who had served Theophilus, was deposed because he refused to convoke a synod for the repeal of iconoclastic decrees, and Methodius was appointed in his stead. A council of the church was held the same year at Constantinople, composed largely of the lately exiled bishops, abbots, and monks who had distinguished themselves as confessors in the cause of image worship. All the prominent bishops who had held iconoclastic opinions were expelled from their sees, and their places were filled by the orthodox. The practices and doctrines of the Iconoclasts were formally anathematized and banished forever from the orthodox church.

While the synod was being held, in the heart of Theodora a conflict was going on between her love of image worship and her affection for her deceased husband. She did not waver in her zeal for the orthodox church, but she did dread to think of her husband as consigned, as a heretic, to the pangs of hell. Consequently, she presented herself one day to the assembled clergy, and requested the passage of a decree to the effect that her deceased husband's sins had all been pardoned by the Church, and that divine grace had effaced the record of his persecutions of the saints. Deep dissatisfaction showed itself on the faces of all the clergy when she made this singular request, and when they hesitated to speak she uttered, with innocent frankness, a mild threat that if they did not act favorably on her petition, she would not exert her influence as regent to give them the victory over the Iconoclasts, but would leave the affairs of the Church in their present status. The patriarch Methodius finally found his voice to tell her that the Church could use its office to release the souls of orthodox princes from the pains of hell, but unfortunately the prayers of the Church were of no avail in obtaining forgiveness from God for those who died without the pale of orthodoxy; that the Church was intrusted with the keys of heaven only to open and shut the gates of salvation to the living, while the dead were beyond its help.

Theodora, however, was determined all the more to secure salvation for her deceased husband. She declared that in his last moments the dying Theophilus had tenderly grasped and kissed an image she had laid on his breast. Although the probabilities were that the soul of Theophilus had already sped ere such an event took place, the wily Methodius saw in the statement an escape from the dilemma that faced the synod; and upon his recommendation the assembled clergy consented to absolve the dead emperor from excommunication and to receive him into the bosom of the orthodox church, declaring that, as his last moments were spent in the manner Theodora certified in a written attestation, Theophilus had found pardon with God.

Like her more celebrated predecessor Irene, Theodora exhibited a masterful ability in governing, and, in spite of her persecuting policy toward the Iconoclasts, she preserved the tranquillity of the Empire and enhanced its prestige. Like Irene, too, she became so engrossed in things religious and political that she shamefully neglected the education of her son. It is a sad commentary on the history of the Church that in the long series of emperors from Theodosius to Basil only two were utterly unfit for the high station to which they fell heir, and these were the sons of the two empresses whose names figure so largely in the triumph of the image worshippers,--Irene's son, Constantine VI., and Theodora's son, Michael III.

Theodora, absorbed in imperial ambition, abandoned the training of her child to her brother Bardas, of whose profligate life she could not have been ignorant. Bardas reared the young Michael in the most reckless and unconscientious manner, permitting him to neglect his serious studies, and teaching him his own vices of drunkenness and debauchery. Michael proved to be an apt pupil in profligacy, and before he reached his majority had become a confirmed dipsomaniac. Meanwhile, his mother, with the aid of her minister, Theoktistus, arrogated to herself the sole direction of public business, and viewed with indifference her brother's corruption of the principles of her son. Perhaps she saw in his ruin the continuance and perpetuation of her own power; perhaps she feared that his influence would be cast with the Iconoclasts, as had been his father's before him, and that only by his wild career could he be prevented from overturning the cherished plans of her heart.

In spite of his irregular life, however, Michael manifested a strong will of his own, and, as the time of the attainment of his majority approached, he came to an open quarrel with his mother. He had fallen violently in love with Eudocia, the daughter of Inger, of the powerful family of Martinakes, and Theodora and her ministers saw in an alliance with this house the probability of a potent opposition to their own political influence. Theodora realized that she must in some manner prevent this marriage, and she exerted her maternal influence so strongly that she compelled the lad of sixteen to marry another lady named Eudocia, the daughter of Dekapolitas--thus repeating the unfortunate policy of Irene on a similar occasion. The young roué, however, balked in his purpose to make Eudocia Ingerina his wife, straightway made her his mistress, and thus brought public disgrace on the court life of the day. His marriage also incensed him against the regency; and at the first opportunity, he asserted his majority, sanctioned the murder of the prime minister Theoktistus, and grew weary of the presence of his mother.

He succeeded in dismissing his mother and sisters from the palace, and even attempted to persuade the patriarch to give them the veil. With the hope of regaining her power over her son, Theodora formed a plot to assassinate her brother Bardas; but the plot was discovered, and Michael compelled her to retire to the monastery of Gastria, the usual residence of the ladies of the imperial family who were secluded from the world. Yet, the empress-mother never descended to the baseness of Irene, so as to seek the injury of her ungrateful son.

Meanwhile, Michael selected as his boon companion the courtier Basil, who had begun his career as a groom in the stables of some nobleman of the court. The two gave their time to debauchery and lust; and as a token of his favor, Michael compelled Basil to marry his discarded mistress, Eudocia Ingerina.

In the solitude of the cloister, Theodora deplored the ingratitude, the vices, and the inevitable ruin of her worthless son, and, repenting of her earlier folly in neglecting his bringing up, endeavored to make amends for the mistake of her past life. Finally, after the death of her brother, Theodora regained some of her maternal influence and was permitted to reside at the palace of Saint Mamas, where occurred the last sad tragedy of her career.

Basil, who in spite of all carousals could always keep his head, observed how his friend Michael had thrown away the high privileges of his station and had become an object of contempt in the eyes of all good men. His overweening ambition to mount the throne overcame every noble sentiment, and he plotted to assassinate the emperor and to usurp supreme power. The tragedy occurred in the palace of the empress-mother. Basil and his wife, Eudocia Ingerina, were invited by her to a feast at her house, where Michael was present. An orgy ensued; Michael was carried to his room in a state of intoxication, and Basil and his conspirators succeeded in despatching him in his drunken sleep. Basil mounted the throne, and was destined to found the longest dynasty in the annals of the Empire. Theodora, bowed down with sorrows, and distressed beyond measure at the cruel destiny of her first-born, died in the first year of the reign of Basil I.

Theodora, because of her zeal for image worship, was eulogized as a saint by the ecclesiastical writers of both the Western and the Eastern Church, and is honored with a place in the Greek Calendar. Had her devotion to her children equalled her self-sacrificing loyalty to church affairs, she might have changed the course of Byzantine history. But, failing in her maternal duties, her name shared the ignominy as well as the glory of Irene, and, while not possessing the wickedness of the latter, she must rank as a queen who in neglecting her son brought disgrace on the Empire.

Basil I. was one of those remarkable men who after a career of infamy are sobered by great responsibilities and perform well the part which it was destined for them to play. But in his relations with women he had to endure the natural outcome of his earlier licentiousness. His first wife, whom he married at the beginning of his career, had lived but a few years, leaving him a son, Constantine, whom he associated with him on the throne, but who died after a lapse of ten years. Eudocia Ingerina, whom Michael had compelled him to marry, had a son, Leo, who succeeded Basil on the throne, but the emperor was ever haunted with the suspicion that this lad was the son not of himself but of Michael. The adventures of this empress and of Michael's sister, Thekla, who also shared imperial honor, are sad proofs of the corruption of morals of the age. With her brother's consent, Thekla had become the concubine of Basil, and after he had assassinated Michael and ascended the throne, Thekla consoled herself with other lovers. On one occasion it happened that an attendant employed in the household of Thekla was waiting on the emperor, when the latter asked the shameless question: "Who is living with your mistress at present?" The attendant imprudently told the name of the successful lover; Basil's jealousy was aroused, and he ordered the paramour of the woman he had put aside to be seized, scourged, and immured for life in a monastery. It is even said that he ill treated Thekla and confiscated part of her property. But the Empress Eudocia Ingerina avenged the unfortunate princess in a manner more pardonable in the mistress of a besotted debauchee than in the wife of an emperor. When her amours were discovered, the empress was prudent enough to avoid scandal by merely compelling her lover to retire privately to a monastery.

In pleasing contrast to the story of these licentious princesses, revealing the absence of any shame in the high life of Constantinople, is that of the widow Danielis who played the lady bountiful to Basil in his earlier years, and to whom he delighted to show his gratitude after he had mounted the throne.

Once when he was an attaché of the courtier Theophilitzes, whom Theodora had sent on public business into the Peloponnesus, he fell sick at Patras. A wealthy widow, Danielis by name, who had been struck with the handsome looks of the gallant attaché, had him removed to her house and carefully nursed him through his illness. When he recovered, she made Basil a member of her family, by uniting him with her own son John in those spiritual ties of brotherhood sanctioned by the Greek Church with peculiar rites; also she bestowed on him considerable wealth so that from that time on he could play well the part of a courtier, and had the means to make himself the boon companion, friend, and colleague of the erratic Michael.

The lasting friendship between the widow and the emperor constitutes the most interesting episode in the checkered career of Basil. When he became emperor, he displayed his gratitude by sending for the son of his former benefactress and making him protospatharios, or chief of the guards. He also urged the widow to visit him, and see her adopted son seated on the throne. The account of her journey to Constantinople, is a most valuable commentary on the life of Greek women in the ninth century, and shows how vast was the wealth of the few on Greek soil, and what an important part a wealthy widow could play in the affairs of state; the story is as follows:

"The lady Danielis set off from Patras in a litter or covered couch, carried on the shoulders of ten slaves; and the train which followed her, destined to relieve these litter bearers, amounted to three hundred persons. When she reached Constantinople, she was lodged in the palace of Magnaura, appropriated for the reception of princely guests. The rich presents she had prepared for the emperor astonished the inhabitants of the capital, for no foreign monarch had ever offered gifts of equal value to a Byzantine sovereign.

"The slaves that bore the gifts were themselves a part of the present, and were all distinguished for their youth, beauty, and accomplishments. Four hundred young men, one hundred eunuchs and one hundred maidens, formed the living portion of this magnificent offering; while there were in addition, a hundred pieces of the richest colored drapery, one hundred pieces of soft woollen cloth, two hundred pieces of linen, and one hundred of cambric, so fine that each piece could be enclosed in the joint of a reed. To all this, a service of cups, dishes, and plates of gold and silver was added. When Danielis reached Constantinople, she found that the emperor had constructed a magnificent church as an expiation for the murder of his benefactor, Michael III. She sent orders to the Peloponnesus to manufacture carpets of unusual size, in order to cover the whole floor, that they might protect the rich mosaic pavement, in which a peacock with outspread tail astonished, by the extreme brilliancy of its coloring, every one who beheld it. Before the widow quitted Constantinople, she settled a considerable portion of her estate in Greece on her son, the protospatharios, and on her adopted child, the emperor, in joint property.

"After Basil's death, she again visited Constantinople; her own son was dead, so she constituted the Emperor Leo VI. her sole heir. On quitting the capital for the last time, she desired that the protospatharios, Zenobius, might be dispatched to the Peloponnesus, for the purpose of preparing a register of her extensive estate and immense property. She died shortly after her return; and even the imperial officers were amazed at the amount of her wealth; the quantity of gold coin, gold and silver plate, works of art in bronze, furniture, rich stuffs in linen, cotton, wool and silk, cattle and slaves, palaces and farms, formed an inheritance that enriched even an Emperor of Constantinople. The slaves of which Emperor Leo became the proprietor were so numerous that he ordered three thousand to be enfranchised and sent to the theme of Longobardia (as Apulia was then called), where they were put in possession of land which they cultivated as serfs. After the payment of many legacies, and a division of part of the landed property, according to the disposition of the testament, the emperor remained possessor of eighty farms or villages."

This narrative furnishes a curious glimpse into the condition of society in Greece during the latter part of the ninth century, which is the period when the Greek race began to recover a numerical superiority and prepare for the consolidation of its political ascendency over the Slavonian colonists in the Peloponnesus.

It seems almost incredible that such wealth and power could be concentrated in the hands of one woman; and only when we consider the grinding poverty of the masses of the population through the extortions of the rich and the oppressions of the governing classes can we account for the resources which permitted the lavish luxuries of the aristocrats.

The fourscore years succeeding the death of Basil the Macedonian were taken up by the two long reigns of Leo VI.--reputed to be the son of Basil, but in all probability the son of Michael,--and Leo's son, Constantine Porphyrogenitus. These years were important for literature, as both son and grandson of the founder of the dynasty were authors of renown; but in historical interest and especially as regards the story of Byzantine womanhood they were the most uneventful and monotonous in the many centuries of the Empire's existence.

Constantine Porphyrogenitus was the child (by his fourth wife) of Leo's old age, and was only seven years old when he fell heir to the Empire. He was brought up under the tutelage of guardians; and so devoted was he to the composing of books and the painting of pictures, that he was forty years of age before he assumed entire control of the reins of government; yet, twenty years of supreme power fell to his lot.

In his works, we have a beautiful picture of his domestic life. We do not know much of his wife, Helena, but he was devoted to his son Roman us, a gay, pleasure-loving prince, and to his daughters, of whom the youngest, Agatha, was his favorite secretary and the constant companion of his studies. "Seated by his side, she read to him all the official reports of the ministers; and when his health began to fail it was through her intermediation that he consented to transact public business. That such a proceeding created no alarming abuses and produced neither serious complaints nor family quarrels is more honorable to the heart of the princess than is her successful performance of her task to her good sense and ability."

The most interesting figure about him, however, was his daughter-in-law Theophano, who was destined to play a fatal part in the story of the Basilian house. Theophano was lowly born, and her beauty and grace could never win the court circle and the public to pardon a low alliance which disgraced the majesty of the purple. Hence, the vilest scandals were circulated about her, which must be taken with some degree of allowance.

According to the chroniclers, she was wildly ambitious and utterly lacking in natural affection, charming in manner, but cruel in heart. She and Romanus made a most striking couple as they appeared together in the court or took part in the public processions. Romanus was conspicuous for his beauty and strength, tall and erect, fair and florid in complexion, with aquiline nose and sparkling eyes. Theophano was of the pure Greek type in features, yet small of stature and of infinite ease of manner and movement. According to the Byzantine writers, she craved eagerly for supreme power, and poisoned her father-in-law to hasten her husband's elevation to the throne. Constantine did not take enough of the beverage administered by her hand to end his life, but his constitution was weakened, and after a short period of time he passed away. Romanus's name was also embraced in the story, he having been induced, through the wiles of his wife, to enter into a conspiracy against their father and benefactor. But Constantine's picture of his own family life is so amiable, that it is as difficult to give credence to the accusation brought against Romanus and Theophano as it is to Procopius's tales regarding Theodora Justinian.

Romanus II. had held the throne but five years when he too sickened and died, and it was rumored that Theophano had mingled for him the same deadly draught which she had prepared for her father-in-law. The young empress was left as regent of her two little sons, Basil, aged seven, and Constantine, who was only two. She aspired first to reign alone; but soon realizing the Byzantine dislike for feminine rule, she found a protector and a guardian for her sons in Nicephorus, the most valiant soldier of the Empire. He was given the hand of the beautiful empress-dowager, and was crowned as the colleague of the two young Cæsars. His personal ugliness and deformity rendered it impossible for Theophano to love him, and the match was one of interest rather than of affection. But Nicephorus proved himself a most affectionate co-regent, and paid scrupulous regard to the rights of the young princes. Much of his time was spent in the field, and many were the victories which he won for the Byzantine arms. But even his great achievements could not enchain the heart of the capricious empress.

Theophano, during the absence of her grim and ugly husband, had become enamored of his favorite nephew, John Zimisces, who was also a warrior of note. John listened to the voice of the tempter, not so much for lust as for ambition, and conspired with the empress against his uncle and benefactor. The treacherous murder was accomplished one December night in the year 969, in the imperial apartments of the palace.

Some of the conspirators had been concealed in the chamber of Theophano. John Zimisces and his principal companions crossed the Bosporus in a small boat, landed under the palace walls, and in the darkness of night silently ascended a ladder of ropes which was cast down by the handmaidens of the empress. Nicephorus, as was his custom, was sleeping on a bearskin on the floor of his chamber, when he was awakened by the noisy entrance of the conspirators. Their daggers were drawn, and, at the word from John, were plunged into the body of the valiant general, who exclaimed in his death agony: "Oh, God! grant me thy mercy." Though by this base deed John came to the throne, he showed deep contrition for the slaughter of his uncle; and through the connivance of the patriarch and treachery toward his friends, he avoided marriage with the partner of his guilt.

"On the day of his coronation, he was stopped on the threshold of Saint Sophia by the intrepid patriarch, who charged his conscience with the deed of treason and blood, and required as a sign of repentance that he should separate himself from his more criminal associate. This sally of apostolic zeal was not offensive to the prince, since he could neither love nor trust a woman who had violated the most sacred obligation; and Theophano, instead of sharing his imperial throne, was dismissed with ignominy from his bed and palace." Deprived of her place as regent, and repudiated by her sons on whom she had brought shame, Theophano passed the remaining years of her life in a monastery.

Of the two sons of Theophano, Basil II., after a long reign of over half a century,--963-1025,--distinguished by his many victories over the Bulgarians, died childless, and was succeeded by his brother, Constantine IX., who was destined to be the last male of the Macedonian house. After his short reign of three years, the story of the remaining twenty-nine years of the Basilian dynasty gathers itself about the names of his two elderly daughters, Zoe and Theodora, and the series of princes who owed their position on the throne solely to them. It is a period of decadence, and the reader cannot help but pity the two sisters who were endeavoring to uphold a decaying dynasty in the midst of corruption and folly. Zoe constitutes the central figure of the period; but Theodora was vastly her superior, and casts a sort of glamour about the closing years of the house of Basil the Macedonian.

Zoe, however, was notable not so much for her ability to govern as for her extraordinary vanity and love of adulation. Yet, for some reason, she had reached the age of forty-eight before she found a husband. Upon his deathbed, Constantine summoned Romanus Argyrus, an aged nobleman, to the palace and informed him that he had been selected to mount the throne, but that he must divorce his wife and marry one of the imperial princesses. Romanus hesitated, not that he cared not for the throne, but because the conditions were too severe; he loved his wife, and he did not fancy joining his lot with one of the elderly maidens. But he was told that he must either obey or lose his eyesight. To relieve the situation, his wife, with self-sacrificing devotion, took the veil and entered a monastery. Constantine destined Theodora, the younger and more capable of his daughters, for the throne as spouse to Romanus, but through religious compunctions she refused to marry the husband of another woman, and consequently Zoe was chosen as bride and empress at the tender age of forty-eight. Romanus was sixty when he ascended the throne.

Zoe never forgave her sister Theodora the fact that because of her more stable character their father had offered his younger daughter the throne; Romanus had no love for her because she had refused him. Consequently, spies were set over her movements, and every effort was made to connect her with the various plots of courtiers who had designs upon the throne. Finally, accused of being privy to the plans of one of the most hostile of the courtiers, Theodora was driven from her palace and imprisoned in the monastery of Petrion; sometime after, Zoe, upon a visit to the monastery, compelled her sister to assume the monastic habit.