IX

THE EMPRESS EUDOXIA

From the story of Christian Womanhood in Old Rome on the Tiber we pass naturally to the story of Christian Womanhood in that New Rome on the Bosporus, where Constantine the Great had established an imperial city which was destined to be the centre of the religious and political life of the civilized peoples of the East for over a thousand years, and to keep alive during the Dark Ages the torch of civilization.

The victories of the CÆsars in the extensive domain Hellenized by Alexander the Great had been surpassed only by the victories of the Christ, and in Constantinople the authority of Church and State blended in one inseparable union and determined the destinies of millions of men and women in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

As Greek culture was ever an important factor in the eastern half of the Roman Empire, the story of the Christian women of the East is but a continuation of the story of Greek women. Hence, it is our task to consider how Hellenized womanhood was affected by that new principle which had entered into the world.

Christianity, with its emphasis on the affections, naturally appealed to women, who, says Aristotle, "are creatures of passion, as opposed to men, who are capable of living by reason." And from the days of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the women of antiquity accepted in large numbers the new teaching. They found that their lives were uplifted by it, their activities enlarged, their influence among men strengthened.

The status of woman among Oriental peoples was consequently considerably changed. The recognition, so slowly won, that women had immortal souls equalized them with the other sex, and with the permeation of Christianity into the life of paganism began the real emancipation of the female sex. Functions beyond those of housewifery and maternity were conceded to woman. Chrysostom, in a letter to a Roman lady, after speaking of the division of duties assigned by nature to men and women, says that the Christian life had extended woman's sphere beyond the duties of the home, and had given her an important part to perform in the work and struggles of the Church for the elevation of mankind. Her chief function, in his opinion, was that of consoler and ministering angel. Thus woman was acknowledged to have a mission--a view that has prevailed through all the Christian ages. In the pursuit of this idea, many of the loveliest and most highly endowed women of ancient times devoted themselves to the relief of sickness and suffering and extended the influence of the Church by this exhibition of the spirit of humanity.

Christianity was gradually transforming the spirit of the ancient world. But these earlier centuries of the Christian era were a season of twilight during which light and darkness mingled. Paganism and Christianity were waging a silent but determined warfare, and the latter, by absorbing the best that was in the former, left it but a hollow shell, the connotation of worldliness and unbelief. The ethical philosophy of the Greeks and the moral teachings of the Stoics and the Epicureans had found their logical end in the philosophical doctrines of Christianity and had prepared the way for the acceptance of the latter. Christianity continued the idea of conformity to the divine government of the world taught by the Stoics, and the insistence on friendship and brotherly love emphasized by the Epicureans, and had given life to these doctrines by the presentation of a divine example. This evolution of the highest ethical ideas of the ancients in the nobler spirit of Christianity had its logical outcome in the prevailing institutions of the Christian world. Stoicism developed into the asceticism that appealed so strongly to many consecrated men and women, and Christian Epicureanism showed itself in the many brotherhoods and sisterhoods which labored for the betterment of humanity in the care of the sick and the unfortunate.

One of the effects of the Stoical idea combined with the new conception of the mission of woman was the prevalence of celibacy. Many women chose to devote their time to good works rather than to the cares of family life. Furthermore, "the horror of unchastity--the desecration of the body, the temple of the soul--which had taken possession of the age with a sort of morbid excess led to vows of perpetual virginity."

This emphasis on the unmarried life was unfortunate for the race, as it conduced to degeneracy and depopulation; but it produced many examples of consecrated and devoted women, who have merited the homage bestowed on them by later ages.

As regards the relation of the sexes, the greatest contrast lay in the Christian conception of a purified spiritual love, as compared with the carnal and sensual love of the pagan peoples. This is illustrated by the popularity of the celebrated legend of Cyprian and Justina, which was later versified by the Empress Eudoxia.

Justina was a young and beautiful maiden of Corinth, who was passionately loved by a handsome pagan youth, Aglaides. Every effort to win the maiden's affections, which were given to Christ, proving of no avail, Aglaides determined to enlist in his cause the powers of darkness. To this end he engaged the services of a powerful magician, Cyprian by name, who was versed in all the magic lore of the Chaldeans and the Egyptians. The wizard's art devised every form of temptation, but the demons who were called up to accomplish the maiden's ruin fled at the sign of the Cross which she made; and Justina emerged from the ordeal pure and spotless, untainted by all the arts of the Evil One. Cyprian, overcome by the beauty and innocence and unbounded faith of the maiden, was himself inspired with the purest and most intense love for Justina, and, renouncing all his arts, was converted to Christianity. The devoted pair suffered martyrdom in the persecutions of Diocletian.

Such Christian ideals, opposing all that was basest in paganism, naturally developed a new and an exceedingly high type of womanhood. Of the women of the provinces we know almost nothing, for the records of the Eastern Empire centre about the capital city. We may be sure, however, that throughout the Orient Christian womanhood exhibited its characteristic traits of piety and unselfishness. In Constantinople, though an intensely religious city, paganism for centuries continued to exert a marked influence, and the type of woman there varied in accordance with the proportions of the two ingredients--Christianity and paganism--in the mental and spiritual aggregate of the individual woman. Some, to avoid the vanities and temptations of the world, lived lives of retirement in secluded monasteries; others, often of prominent social position, partook not of the gay life of the city, but gave themselves up to good works, ministering to the sick, providing for the poor, uplifting the fallen; while others, chiefly in the court circles, knew how to combine with their devotion to all the vanities and frivolities of high life a strict attention to the external duties of Christianity. The religious sisters of the day were an important factor in the society of Constantinople, and the exercise of their spiritual duties often brought them before the public in a manner inconsistent with the prevailing ideas of female retirement. A popular priest or bishop became the target of admiration on the part of enthusiastic women, who would gather about him and espouse his cause in a way that was often more embarrassing than helpful. As Jerome in Old Rome, so Chrysostom in New Rome was the centre of such a spiritual circle.

These various types of Christian womanhood present themselves in the reign of Arcadius, the first independent emperor of the Eastern Empire so called, and we are indebted to the sermons of the patriarch Chrysostom for many glimpses into their lives. Far more than in Old Rome the influence of women made itself felt in the government at Constantinople, and under almost every dynasty and throughout the centuries of its existence we find remarkable ladies of the imperial house playing a prominent part in politics as well as in religion.

The keynote of this new departure was struck by Eudoxia, empress of Arcadius, and the influence of her personality and her example upon her successors was marked. Hence, her career and that of the women of her time constitute the initial stage in the prominence of Christian women of the East.

Owing to the intellectual weakness of Arcadius, who inherited the eastern half of the Empire upon the death of Theodosius the Great in 395, the administration really fell into the hands of his minister, Rufinus, a vicious and avaricious man. Having the entire control of the army and an unbounded influence over the emperor, Rufinus cherished the hope that he might himself become a wearer of the purple as the colleague of Arcadius. To facilitate this end he fostered the scheme of uniting Arcadius in marriage to his only daughter; once the emperor's father-in-law, it would be but a step further to become a sharer of the purple.

While Rufinus, in secret with his confidants, nurtured this idea, the wily head of the opposite party of the court, getting an inkling of it, set everything in motion to turn the eyes of the inexperienced youth toward another maiden. The eunuch Eutropius, the grand chamberlain of the palace, a bold old man with Oriental craftiness, determined that to himself, and not to Rufinus, should the emperor be bound. Hence, while the old warrior was on a journey to Corinth avenging a private injury, Eutropius fixed the attention of the emperor upon Eudoxia, a maiden of singular beauty, the daughter of Bauto, a distinguished Frankish general, and reared since her father's death by the family of the sons of Promotus, an ancient Roman patrician. Eudoxia was at that time at the dawn of perfect womanhood. Her education had been received under the auspices of her rich and noble patrons, and in native gifts, as well as in beauty, she seemed destined by the Fates to be the consort of an emperor. Eutropius, by showing him her portrait and by glowing descriptions of her charms, inflamed the heart of the young ruler with his first passion, and he entered eagerly into the plans of Eutropius to make Eudoxia his wife.

Rufinus meanwhile returned, and prepared the ceremonies of the royal nuptials, as he fancied, of his daughter. "A splendid train of eunuchs and officers issued, in hymeneal pomp, from the gates of the palace, bearing aloft the diadem, the robes and the inestimable ornaments of the future empress. The solemn procession passed through the streets of the city, which were adorned with garlands and filled with spectators; but when it reached the house of the sons of Promotus, the principal eunuch (Eutropius) respectfully entered the mansion, invested the fair Eudoxia with the imperial robes and conducted her in triumph to the palace and bed of Arcadius." The particulars of the ceremony show that the hymeneal rites of the ancient Greeks, in which the bride was, as it were, forcibly conducted to the house of her husband, were still practised, though without idolatry, by the early Christians.

The secrecy and success of the conspiracy brought great chagrin to the overconfident Rufinus. He felt keenly the insult to himself and his daughter, and he feared the growing power of Eutropius and the new empress. Yet he merely tightened his grip upon the government and continued to be a formidable factor in the intrigues of the palace.

The Empress Eudoxia rapidly adapted herself to her new life and displayed a superiority of sense and spirit which enabled her to maintain over her fond and youthful husband the ascendancy that her beauty had at first created. She soon made it evident that she would be under the control of no intriguing courtier, but that she herself would be a dominant factor in the life of the court. Rufinus continued his plots against the throne of Arcadius, but was constantly thwarted by the empress, assisted by Eutropius, and their counterplays finally brought about the minister's assassination.

After the murder of Rufinus, the empress endeavored to hold the balance of power between the three political parties of the day--the German party, headed by Gainas the Goth, which largely embraced the military forces of the Empire; the party of Eutropius, who had under his control the civil officers of the state; and the senatorial party, under the leadership of the prefect Aurelian, who abhorred alike the growing influence of the Goths and the bed-chamber administration of Eutropius. Eudoxia naturally inclined to the third of these parties: she strenuously opposed the Germans, who, under the leadership of Gainas, demanded freedom for Arian worship, and she sought to overcome the influence of her quondam benefactor Eutropius, that she herself might have absolute dominion over her imperial husband. Hence, these three, the empress, Eutropius, and Gainas, as Hodgkin remarks, "kept up a vivid game of court intrigue and disputed with varying success for the chief place in that empty chamber which represented the mind of the emperor."

Eudoxia first combined with Gainas to get rid of their powerful rival Eutropius, though she owed her own position to the machinations of the wily chamberlain. Gainas instigated a revolt among the Ostrogoths under their commander Tribigild, and when sent out against them he took no active measures to suppress their incursions; the Goths, at the instigation of Gainas, finally sent word to the emperor demanding the death of Eutropius as the condition of their retiring. Eudoxia, from the palace, joined in the demand and presenting her infant children, Flacilla and Pulcheria, to their father, with a flood of forced tears, implored his justice for some real or imaginary insult which she attributed to the audacious eunuch. The tears of the empress succeeded where the demand of Tribigild had only caused hesitation, and Arcadius signed the death warrant of his favorite. The people rejoiced at the downfall of the minister, whose venality and injustice had aroused the public hatred. Eutropius fled for refuge to the Church of Saint Sophia, where he was protected by the patriarch Chrysostom. So good an opportunity, however, for impressing the lesson of the fatuity of human greatness was not to be lost, and while the cowering chamberlain lay in humiliation before the altar, Chrysostom preached to a crowded congregation from the text: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," illustrating every argument of his sermon by pointing to the fallen Eutropius--yesterday prime minister of the emperor--to-day a hounded criminal. Chrysostom finally gave him up on condition that he be not put to death, and Eutropius was banished to Cyprus; but the empress and his enemies would not be satisfied with anything less than his death, and he was later recalled and executed at Chalcedon in A. D. 399.

Not long afterward, Gainas met with a like evil destiny, and Eudoxia was left without a rival to dispute her control over the emperor. The weak Arcadius was permitted to spend the remaining years of his life in ease and tranquillity under her mild but absolute control. Henceforth the empress was the most conspicuous figure of the court. Possessing limitless power, it was natural that she should become haughty and rapacious. Endowed with rare beauty and remarkable cleverness, she gave the tone to the court society of Arcadius's reign. Unfortunately, she was fond of all the frivolities of life, and sought at the same time to promote worldliness and religion. Hence, her influence on the ladies of the court was such as to bring upon her the censure of the austere Patriarch of Constantinople, Chrysostom, to whom we are indebted for many glimpses into the life and manners of the fifth century.

The empress was surrounded in the royal palace by a splendor which rivalled that of Persia. Oriental richness and luxury characterized all its appointments. We find exhibited in the court life of the day a blending of the voluptuousness of the East with the refinement of the Greeks and the luxury of the Romans. Thousands of eunuchs, parasites and slaves, carried out the wishes of the empress. In her royal apartments "the doors were of ivory, the ceilings lined with gold, the floors inlaid with mosaics, or strewed with rich carpets; the walls of the halls and bedrooms were of marble, and wherever commoner stone was used the surface was beautified with gold plate. The beds were of ivory or solid silver, or, if on a less expensive scale, of wood plated with silver or gold. Chairs and stools were usually of ivory, and the most homely vessels were often made of the most costly metal; the semicircular tables or sigmas were so heavy that two youths could hardly lift one. Oriental cooks were employed; and at banquets the atmosphere was heavy with the perfumes of the East, while the harps and pipes of the musicians delighted the ears of the feasters."

Equal attention was paid to the details of dress. The empress was renowned for the gorgeousness of her toilets, which enhanced her personal charms and made her appear the most fascinating lady of her court. Her imperial robes were of the richest character, consisting of purple fabrics, embellished with gold and precious gems.

Such was the external splendor of the court. The Bishop Synesius censures the elaborate court etiquette which surrounded the emperor and empress, keeping them from the knowledge of outside affairs and making them the victims of eunuchs and courtiers. He criticises severely the sensual retirement in which they lived and attributes it to the desire to appear semi-divine.

Some idea of the importance of the empress in affairs of state and of the court etiquette which attended an audience with her can be gained from the extant narrative of Marcus the deacon, who recounts incidents in the visit of Porphyrius, Bishop of Gaza, when he and others came to Constantinople to seek redress from the emperor for injuries inflicted by the heathen on the Christians in Palestine. Knowing that the empress was the real power, the bishop appealed to her, and the narrative tells of his audiences with her and how she obtained for him a favorable answer to his petition. As nothing is more effective in conveying an idea of the ways and manners of an age than the actual words of a contemporary writer, I present a rather free translation of Marcus's narrative.

Upon their arrival at Byzantium, the bishop and his party were honorably received by the Patriarch John Chrysostom, who expressed regret that he could not in person present them to the emperor, because of the royal indignation the empress had excited against him. But he secured the services of the eunuch Amantius, chamberlain of the empress, who arranged for them an audience with Eudoxia.

Amantius took the two bishops and introduced them to the empress, and when she saw them she saluted them first and said: "Give me your blessing, fathers," and they did obeisance to her. Now she was sitting on a golden sofa, and she said to them: "Excuse me, priests of Christ, on account of my situation, for I was anxious to meet your sanctity in the antechamber. But pray God in my behalf that I may be delivered happily of the child which is in my womb." And the bishops, wondering at her condescension, said: "May He who blessed the womb of Sarah and Rebecca and Elizabeth, bless and quicken the child in thine." After further edifying conversation she said to them: "I know why ye came, as the castrensis Amantius explained it to me. But if you are fain to instruct me, fathers, I am at your service." Thus bidden, they told her all about the idolaters, and the impious rites which they fearlessly practised and their oppression of the Christians, whom they did not allow to perform a public duty, nor to till their lands, "from which produce they pay the dues to your imperial sovereignty." And the empress said: "Do not despond; for I trust in the Lord Christ, the Son of God, that I shall persuade the emperor to do those things that are due to your saintly faith and to dismiss you hence well treated. Depart, then, to your privacy, for you are fatigued, and pray God to cooperate with my request." She then commanded money to be brought, and gave three darics apiece to the most holy bishops, saying: "In the meantime take this for your expenses." And the bishops took the money, and blessed her abundantly, and departed. And when they went out they gave the greater part of the money to the deacons who were standing at the door, reserving little for themselves.

And when the emperor came into the apartment of the empress, she told him all touching the bishops, and requested him that the heathen temples of Gaza should be thrown down. But the emperor was put out when he heard it, and said:

"I know that city is devoted to idols, but it is loyally disposed in the matters of taxation and pays a large sum to the revenue. If then we overwhelm them with terrors of a sudden, they will betake themselves to flight, and we shall lose so much of the revenue. But if it must be, let us afflict them partially, depriving idolaters of their dignities and other public offices, and bid their temples be shut up and be used no longer. For when they are afflicted and straitened on all sides, they will recognize the truth; but an extreme measure coming suddenly is hard on subjects." The empress was very much vexed at this reply, for she was ardent in matters of faith, but she merely said: "The Lord can assist his servants, the Christians, whether we consent or decline."

We learned these details from the chamberlain Amantius. On the morrow the Augusta sent for us, and having first saluted the holy bishops according to her custom, she bade them sit down. And after a long spiritual talk, she said: "I spoke to the emperor, and he was rather put out. But do not despond, for, God willing, I cannot cease until ye be satisfied and depart, having succeeded in your holy purpose." And the bishops made obeisance. Then the saintly Porphynus, pricked by the spirit, and recollecting the word of the thrice-blessed anchoret Procopius, said to the empress: "Exert yourself for the sake of Christ, and in recompense for your exertions he can bestow on you a son whose life and reign you will see and enjoy for many years."

At these words the empress was filled with joy, and her face flushed, and new beauty beyond that which she already had passed into her face; for the appearance shows what passes within. And she said: "Pray, fathers, that, according to your word, with the will of God, I may bear a male child, and if it so befall, I promise you to do all that ye ask. And another thing, for which ye ask not, I intend to do with the consent of Christ; I will found a church at Gaza in the centre of the city. Depart then in peace, and rest quiet, praying constantly for my happy delivery; for the time of my confinement is near." The bishops commended her to God and left the palace, and prayer was made that she should bear a male child; for we believed in the words of Saint Procopius the anchoret.

And every day we used to proceed to the most holy Johannes, the archbishop, and had the fruition of his holy words, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. And Amantius the chamberlain used to come to us, sometimes bearing messages from the empress, at other times merely to pay a visit. And after a few days the empress brought forth a male child, and he was called Theodosius, after his grandfather Theodosius, the Spaniard, who reigned together with Gratian. And the child Theodosius was born in the purple, wherefore he was proclaimed emperor at his birth. And there was great joy in the city, and men were sent to the cities of the Empire, bearing the good news, with gifts and bounties.

But the empress, who had only just been delivered and arisen from her chair of confinement, sent Amantius to us with this message: "I thank Christ that God bestowed on me a son on account of your holy prayers. Pray then, fathers, for his life and for my lowly self, in order that I may fulfil those things which I promised you, Christ himself again consenting, through your holy prayers." And when the seven days of her confinement were fulfilled, she sent for us and met us at the door of the chamber, carrying in her arms the infant in a purple robe. And she inclined her head and said: "Draw nigh, fathers, unto me and the child which the Lord granted to me through your holy prayers." And she gave them the child that they might seal it with God's signet. And the holy bishops sealed both her and the child with the seal of the cross, and, offering a prayer, sat down. And when they had spoken many words full of heart pricking, the lady said to them: "Do ye know, fathers, what I resolved to do in regard to your affairs?" (Here Porphyrius related a dream which he had dreamed the night before: then Eudoxia resumed:) "If Christ permit, the child will be privileged to receive the holy baptism in a few days. Do ye then depart and compose a petition and insert in it all the requests ye wish to make. And when the child comes forth from the holy baptismal rite, give the petition to him who holds the child in his arms; but I will instruct him what to do. And I trust in the Son of God that He can arrange the whole matter according to the will of His loving kindness." Having received these instructions we blessed her and the infant and went out. Then we composed the petition, inserting many things in the document, not only as to the overthrow of the idols, but also that privileges and revenues should be granted to the holy Church and the Christians; for the holy Church was poor.

The days ran by, and the day on which the young emperor was to be illuminated (i. e., baptized) arrived. And all the city was crowned with garlands and decked out in garments entirely made of silk and gold jewels and all kinds of ornaments, so that no one could describe the adornment of the city. One might behold the inhabitants, multitudinous as the waves, arrayed in all manner of various dresses. But it is beyond my power to describe the brilliance of that pomp; it is a task for those who are practised writers, and I shall proceed to my present true history. When the young Theodosius was baptized and came forth from the church to the palace, you might behold the excellence of the multitude of the magnates and their dazzling raiments, for all were dressed in white, and you would have thought they were covered with snow. The patricians headed the procession with the illustres and all other ranks, and the military contingents, all carrying wax candles, so that the stars seemed to shine on earth. And close to the infant, which was carried in arms, was the emperor Arcadius himself, his face cheerful and more radiant than the purple robe he was wearing, and one of the magnates carried the infant in brilliant apparel. And we marvelled, beholding such glory. Then the holy Porphyrius said to us: "If the things which vanish possess such glory, how much more glorious are the things celestial, prepared for the elect, which neither eye hath beheld nor ear heard, nor hath it come into the heart of man to consider!"

And we stood at the portal of the church, with the document of our petition, and when he came forth from the baptism we called aloud, saying, "We petition your Piety," and held out the paper. And he who carried the child seeing this, and knowing our concernment, for the empress had instructed him, and when he received it halted, and he commanded silence, and having unrolled a part he read it, and folding it up, placed his hand under the head of the child, and cried out: "His majesty has ordered the requests contained in the petition to be ratified." And all having seen did obeisance to the emperor, congratulating him that he had the privilege of seeing his son as emperor in his lifetime; and he rejoiced thereat. And that which had happened for the sake of her son was announced to the empress, and she rejoiced and thanked God on her knees. And when the child entered the palace, she met it and received it and kissed it, and, holding it in her arms, greeted the emperor, saying: "You are blessed, my lord, for the things which your eyes have beheld in your lifetime." And the emperor rejoiced thereat. And the empress, seeing him in good humor, said: "Please let us learn what the petition contains that its contents may be fulfilled."

And the emperor ordered the paper to be read; and when it was read, he said: "The request is hard, but to refuse it is harder, since it is the first mandate of our son." Thus the petition was granted, and the empress herself saw to it that all its provisions were fulfilled; and the bishops returned to Palestine well supplied with funds, having obtained all they desired by working on the superstition of the empress, and through her skill in managing the emperor.

The narrative is highly instructive and interesting in the picture it gives of the empress, her outward piety, her joy at the birth of a son, her superstitious acceptance of the prophecy of the anchoret, and her cleverness in the ruse she devised to win the consent of the emperor. It is an altogether pleasing picture of a religious queen and a devoted mother, and we could wish that all her conduct had conformed to these high ideals. The worldly side of Eudoxia's character appeared in the open war between the empress and the patriarch, which disturbed the later years of the reign of Arcadius.

John Chrysostom was an austere and eloquent prelate, who had studied the art of rhetoric under Libanius and had been brought by Eutropius to Constantinople from Antioch, where he had already achieved great popularity and an enviable reputation for holiness and eloquence. He was a man of saintly life and apostolic fervor, but rash and inconsiderate alike in speech and in action. His charity and eloquence made him the idol of the people, but his free speaking offended the court circles, and his austere manners and autocratic methods made him disliked by the clergy. He thundered against the degeneracy of the wealthy classes and enlarged on the peculiar vices of the aristocrats, to the confusion of the empress and her court ladies and to the delight of the populace.

The worldliness and carnal ambitions of Eudoxia can be judged from the sermons of Chrysostom; and she naturally gave the tone to the ladies of her court. She was not above suspicion of criminal intrigues, as can be inferred from the fact of the rumor prevailing that Count John, a nobleman of the court, was the father of her son Theodosius; but whether this was merely a court scandal cannot at this day be ascertained. With the empress given to worldly vanity, we can imagine the nature of the society over which she presided. "One curious trait of manner indicates clearly enough the tone of the court. It was the custom of Christian ladies to wear veils or bands over their foreheads, so as to conceal their hair. Women of meretricious life were distinguished by the way they wore their hair cut and combed over their brows, just like modern fringes. The ladies of Eudoxia's court were so immodest, and had such bad taste, as to adopt this fashion from the courtesans. The next step probably was that the example of the court influenced respectable Christian matrons to wear the obnoxious fringe." On the other hand, actresses and public prostitutes retaliated by imitating the dress of consecrated virgins, and this abuse had to be suppressed by legislation. In the aristocratic society of Eudoxia three ladies were especially prominent,--Marsa, the widow of Promotus, a distant relative of the empress; Castricia, the widow of Saturninus; and Eugraphia, who had also lost her husband. These ladies, though no longer young, were rich and fashionable, and endeavored to preserve the appearance of youth by inordinate attention to complexion and to dress. Eugraphia is mentioned as given to using rouge and white lead to preserve her complexion, a habit which was severely condemned by the austere Chrysostom. It was hard to forgive a preacher who reproached the feminine tendency to conceal by cosmetics and dress one's age and ugliness.

Furthermore, the attractions of the theatre and the dissipations of high life engaged the attention of this fashionable set quite as much as did attendance on religious service and outward manifestations of piety. Christianity had not suppressed the licentiousness of the stage or improved the morality of greenrooms. Chrysostom complains of the lawlessness of the theatre and the obscenity of the songs that delighted the audience; he was especially shocked at the exhibitions of women swimming. The professional courtesan, with all the accomplishments of the actress, was the centre of attraction for the habituÉs of the theatre; and she was even allowed to contaminate fashionable weddings with her presence.

Other types of contemporary society are of interest, especially instances of the ambitious and fashionable lady, not of the aristocracy, who wished to work her way up into the court circle. Synesius gives us the picture of such a one in a celebrated allegory presenting the career of the noble and high-minded Aurelian, head of a patriot party, and of his unscrupulous adversary, who wished to displace him. The subject of the allegory is the contest between the two sons of Taurus, Osivis and Typhos. Osivis represents Aurelian, the type of everything good and laudable; Aurelian's antagonist is figured in Typhos, a perverse, gross, and ignorant person, who favored the German party. He was a profligate Roman, who had been guilty of malversation in office and hoped by his new alliance to return to power. He had an active, though not very discreet, ally in his wife, whom Synesius depicts in pregnant phrases. Owing to her vanity she was her own tire-woman, a reproach which suggests her excessive attention to the details of her toilet. She liked to show herself in grand array in the market place, fancying that the eyes of all were upon her. Owing to her desire to have her drawing rooms filled and to be the object of notoriety, she did not close her doors even against professional courtesans; and we may infer on that account that select Byzantine society was not desirous of her acquaintance. Synesius contrasts with her the wife of Aurelian, who never left the house, and gives us a reminiscence of Thucydides in his sententious expression that it was the greatest virtue of a woman for neither her body nor her name ever to cross the threshold. Aurelian succeeds in winning political honors in spite of the hostility of Typhos and his wife, much to the disgust of the latter, who saw her intrigues for social laurels defeated.

The ladies of the court and those who wished to be such were in large measure devoted to the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life. Chrysostom's austere spirit was naturally offended at the life of such a court and of fashionable and aspiring matrons, and in his pastoral visits to these great ladies he undoubtedly rebuked them for their worldliness. Furthermore, in his pulpit he preached valiantly against luxury and worldliness, and would often add point to his remarks by turning his eyes toward the part of the gallery where sat Eudoxia and the ladies of her court. Great umbrage was aroused against him because of his outspoken condemnation of their vices, petty and otherwise, and he was hated as the wicked Herodias hated John the Baptist. His greatest offence was reached in a sermon in which the empress was openly called Jezebel--a statement which led to the spread of the unfounded scandal that she had robbed a widow of a vineyard as Ahab robbed Naboth.

The rank and file of the people enjoyed with great zest these attacks on the aristocrats, and that which stung the great ladies most severely was their being made objects of censure before the mob, as their consciences were sufficiently hardened not to be deeply penetrated by the preacher's shafts. Accordingly, the humiliation of their pride led them to form a conspiracy against Chrysostom, the centre of which was the house of Eugraphia. These ladies readily found allies. The archbishop's austerity of life and rigid discipline had made him many enemies among the bishops, monks, and nuns, for he had attacked the corruption of the clergy as well as the corruption of the court. The sensuality, avarice, and selfishness of the clergy laid them open to attack. Women were admitted to the monasteries, or lived in the houses of priests as "spiritual sisters," a custom that gave rise to much scandal. Still more scandalous was the conduct of the order of deaconesses who, while not following the fashions of the court, yet adorned their austere garb "with an immodest coquetry which made them more piquant than an ordinary courtesan." Chrysostom was especially severe on the monks, who would linger about Constantinople for the sake of its licentious pleasures instead of betaking themselves to their natural fields of labor.

Though Chrysostom had his enemies among the fair sex, he had also his circle of admirers, who were the more ardent in their attentions because of the persecutions he had to undergo. The most distinguished and the most devoted of these was the aristocratic Olympias, whose mother was at one time betrothed to an emperor, but who was wedded to a king of Armenia, and afterward became the wife of a Roman noble. Olympias was renowned for her benevolence toward the poor and her constancy to Chrysostom in his troubles, while her kindness of heart and sweetness of spirit give her rank among the "good" women of the period. Another constant friend was a Moorish princess, Salvina, who had been placed as a hostage in Theodosius's charge by her father, and had been married to the empress's nephew. In contrast to the restless activity of the ladies about Eudoxia, she led a quiet and peaceful life devoted to good works, and Chrysostom, in a "letter to a young widow," contrasts the serenity and happiness she enjoyed with the turbulent life of her father.

Chrysostom's sharp reproofs of the worldly minded, his close friendships with Olympias and other ladies, whom he at times received alone in his episcopal residence, and his retired, ascetic life, gave pretext for unwarranted charges. His enemies even went so far as to assert that under the cover of his unsocial habits he conducted "Cyclopean orgies" in his home.

An official journey which he made for the regulation of the affairs of the churches, during which he removed many unworthy bishops, aroused much umbrage against him, and gave his enemies at home an opportunity to injure him. Severian, whom he left in his place, was an especial favorite of the empress, and joined the court league against his superior. Upon his return, Chrysostom acted with his customary decision. Hearing of the unbecoming conduct of his subordinate, he severely and openly attacked his time-serving relations with the empress, and, when Severian grew defiant, promptly excommunicated him. Owing to the entreaties of the empress and the emperor, however, he withdrew the ban and restored Severian to his office.

Soon afterward a louder storm burst, and from a new quarter. Theophilus, the worldly prelate of Alexandria, was induced by the court ladies to undertake their cause against the patriarch. He came to Constantinople and took up his quarters in the palace of Placidia, and from this centre, as well as from the house of Eugraphia, a violent warfare of words was waged against Chrysostom.

The emperor was prevailed upon to grant a synod for the trial of the patriarch, which was held outside the city, owing to the strength of the latter's adherents. Chrysostom was condemned by the packed assembly, known as the "Synod of the Oak," and formally deposed. The city was in an uproar. Chrysostom retired to Bithynia, but the people demanded his return, and he was recalled from banishment and restored to his office. Had he now adopted a policy of quiet tolerance, all would have been well, but very soon an occasion arose which led him to make a further attack on Eudoxia. In September, 403, a statue of silver on a column of porphyry was erected to the empress near the precincts of Saint Sophia. Chrysostom took occasion to censure severely the adulation of the populace, and by his remarks he must have mortally offended the pride of the empress, for henceforth even the mild emperor declined to have any communication with the patriarch.

The next year a new synod was held, and the action of the Synod of the Oak was confirmed. The emperor ratified the sentence, and Chrysostom quietly yielded to the inevitable and retired from the city. As soon as the people heard of the occurrence, another uproar followed, which resulted in the conflagration of Saint Sophia and other buildings and in the persecution of many adherents of the exiled patriarch. Olympias and many others were condemned to exile. "Among those who anticipated the sentence by flight was an old maid named Nicarete, who deserves mention as a curious figure of the time. She was a philanthropist who devoted her means to works of charity, and who always went about with a chest of drugs, which she used to dispose of gratuitously, and which rumor said were always effectual."

Meanwhile, Chrysostom was transported to a remote town among the ridges of Mount Taurus, in Lesser Armenia. He suffered many hardships, but he was sustained by the sympathy of his friends, especially Olympias, with whom he corresponded, and who never told him of the persecutions she herself underwent in his behalf. Her own last years, however, were darkened by her afflictions, and Chrysostom tried to lighten her melancholy by his letters of consolation. Her saintly life cast a halo about her memory after she passed away, and a legend was current in later times that her encoffined body had, by her own directions, been cast into the sea at Nicomedia, whence it was borne to Constantinople, and thence to Brochthi, where it reposed in the Church of Saint Thomas.

Chrysostom's last years were perhaps his most useful ones, being spent in regulating by letter the affairs of the churches. The Pope at Rome never ratified his condemnation, and he was universally beloved as one subjected to unjust persecution. Owing to his undiminished prominence in all Church affairs, the ruthless empress pursued him in his exile, and an order was despatched for him to be transported to Pityus, a desolate place on the south-eastern coast of the Euxine; but on the way thither he expired from exhaustion, in the sixtieth year of his age. He was the last of the patriarchs to stand out against the corruption and the frivolity of the court, and henceforth the archbishops were but subservient adherents of the emperor and the empress.

His innocence and merit were acknowledged by the succeeding generation, and thirty years later, at the earnest solicitation of the people, Chrysostom's remains were brought to Constantinople. The Emperor Theodosius advanced to receive them as far as Chalcedon, and implored the forgiveness of the injured saint in the name of his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia.

Less than four years after the birth of her son, Theodosius, Eudoxia, in the bloom of her youth and the height of her power, came to her end as the result of a miscarriage; and this untimely death confounded the prophecy of Porphyrius of Gaza, who had foretold that she would live to see the reign of her son. Pious Catholics saw in her untimely death the vengeance of Heaven for the persecution of Saint Chrysostom; and few save the emperor and her children bewailed the loss of the worldly and ambitious empress.

X

THE RIVAL EMPRESSES--PULCHERIA AND EUDOCIA

Beside the deathbed of the gentle Arcadius, whom destiny snatched from life in the fulness of manhood, stood four weeping orphans of tenderest years, three maidens and a little lad--all too young to realize the greatness of their loss. These were the seven-year-old Theodosius, heir to the throne, the nine-year-old Pulcheria and her two younger sisters, Arcadia and Marina. In the orphanage of the children, it was natural that the eldest daughter should feel that upon herself rested the responsibility of acting as mother to her brother and sisters; and Pulcheria possessed the mental endowments and the rapidly developing nature which peculiarly fitted her for this task. Fortunately the administration of the Empire was in the hands of the praetorian prefect Anthemius, a wise and able counsellor, who acted as the guardian of the young prince and his sisters and directed their education. He, with the Patriarch Atticus, who was their religious guide and spiritual adviser, provided them with every possible advantage for intellectual and spiritual growth. Pulcheria early exhibited an earnest and almost manly intelligence. Along with the sympathetic and mystical temperament of a saint, she possessed the strong, practical sense of her grandfather, Theodosius the Great. Hence she was quick to turn her attention to problems of statecraft and displayed a precocious capacity for administration. Her duties as guardian of her brother and sisters also developed her innate love of mastery, so that as a child she gradually conceived a longing for the duties and responsibilities of the imperial station.

At the tender age of fourteen, Pulcheria began to win influence in state affairs. Proud and ambitious like her mother Eudoxia, she sought as rapidly as possible to assert her authority; and, as her power and influence grew, that of Anthemius gradually ceased to exert itself. By no other hypothesis can we explain why Anthemius at this time retired from active duties and did not retain his office as regent at least until two years later, when Theodosius, in his fifteenth year, should attain his majority.

On July 4, 414, Pulcheria, the daughter of an emperor, assumed, contrary to all precedent, the title of Augusta, previously reserved exclusively for the wives of emperors, and formally took upon herself the honor and the duties of regent in the name of her brother, who was still a minor. So thoroughly did she gain the ascendency over the young prince that even after he was created Augustus two years later she retained her title and continued to be the real power in the imperial palace; indeed, she was for forty years virtually the ruler of the Eastern Empire.

The children of Arcadius and Eudoxia inherited the religious temperament of their father rather than the worldly disposition of their mother. Consequently, the court of Theodosius the Younger formed a great contrast to that of Arcadius. Pulcheria determined to embrace a life of celibacy. Resolving to remain a virgin, she induced her sisters to join with her in vows of perpetual virginity. They were confirmed in this step by their spiritual father, Atticus, who wrote for the princesses a book in which he dwelt on the beauty of the single life. In the presence of the clergy and the assembled people of Constantinople the three daughters of Arcadius dedicated their virginity to God; and their solemn vows were inscribed on a tablet of gold and jewels, which was publicly offered in the Church of Saint Sophia. Pious souls saw in this vow of Pulcheria only the natural result of her strict piety and her unselfish love for her brother; but profane historians attributed it to her extraordinary prudence, which was with her a gift of nature, and to her unbounded ambition--on the ground that she could thus maintain permanently her ascendency over the young prince, and, by controlling his marriage, share his power.

In her manner of life, however, Pulcheria emphasized the genuineness of her piety. The imperial palace, as says a contemporary, assumed the character of a cloister. All males, except saintly men who had forgotten the distinction of sexes, were excluded from the holy threshold. Pulcheria and a chosen band of Christian damsels formed a sort of religious community. Spiritual practices were carried on, with strict punctuality, from morning till evening. Whereas richly clad senators and officers in sumptuous raiment had earlier passed in and out of the palace, so now the black robes of priests and the dark cowls of monks were to be seen thronging the entrance, and in place of the joyous songs of banquetings and festivities, one could hear the monotonous intoning of psalms. The vanity of dress which had scandalized the court of Eudoxia was discarded, and the simple garb of nuns was the prevailing fashion of the palace. The princesses did not employ themselves in personal adornment or in the many vanities of royal station, but spent much of their time at the loom, weaving garments for the poor and needy. A frugal diet was adopted, and even this was interrupted by frequent fasts. Thus Pulcheria and her maidens wearied not in their saintly life and in the performance of deeds of mercy.

These outward exercises of piety were attended by sumptuous beneficences for the spread of the Christian religion. Magnificent churches were built in various parts of the Empire at the expense of Pulcheria; charitable foundations for the benefit of the poor and the unfortunate were established in Constantinople and elsewhere, and ample donations were given by her for the perpetual maintenance of monastic societies. This imperial saint, who thus devoted a large part of her time and energies to the performance of religious duties and of charitable undertakings, naturally enjoyed the peculiar favor of the Deity. There is a tradition that the knowledge of the location of sacred relics and intimation of future events were communicated to her in dreams and revelations. The common people attributed healing power to her. Pulcheria's virtues aroused in the populace a feeling of admiration, and the saintly life of the palace awakened and spread a deep spiritual influence throughout the Empire.

Religion, however, was accompanied with culture, and Pulcheria, with the aid of the best masters, had her brother and sisters trained in all the various branches of knowledge acquired up to that time. Under her direction Theodosius became a student of natural science; and so great was his skill in writing and in illuminating manuscripts that he received the name of Calligraphus. Pulcheria acquired an elegant and familiar command of both Greek and Latin; and she displayed her intellectual discipline, and gift of expression on the various occasions of speaking or writing on public business.

Yet Pulcheria's devotion to religion and to learning never diverted her indefatigable attention from public affairs. She strengthened the influence of the senate and supported it in the reform of many abuses which had crept in during the ascendancy of the eunuchs of the palace and the struggles with the German party; but her energies were chiefly directed toward acting as counsellor to the emperor, and protecting him from the intrigues of court officials, to which his weak character made him an easy victim. She instructed her brother in the art of government, yet the tenderness of her discipline seems to have made him rather a willing instrument in her own hands than an independent monarch. Possibly she realized that the elements which go to form a great ruler were lacking in his character; possibly her own love of power blinded her to the right course of action toward her confiding ward. At any rate, "her precepts may countenance some suspicion of the extent of her capacity or the purity of her intention. She taught him to maintain a grave and majestic deportment; to walk, to hold his robe, to seat himself on his throne in a manner worthy of a great prince; to abstain from laughter; to listen with condescension; to return suitable answers; to assume, by turns, a serious or a placid countenance; in a word, to represent with grace and dignity the external figure of a Roman emperor."

Though so careful and systematic in her training of the young prince, Pulcheria did not deprive his boyhood of those companionships which add zest to youthful pursuits and recreation and stimulate the growth of manly qualities. She gave him as comrades two bright and spirited youths, Paulinus and Placitus, with whom he associated in open-hearted intimacy and who were destined to play a prominent part in his reign. Paulinus especially became his most trusted friend, and the two were united for many years by bonds which resembled those of Damon and Pythias. Amid such surroundings and under such influence, Theodosius grew up. The product of Pulcheria's instruction, however, was a ruler who descended below even the weakness of her father and uncle. Chaste, temperate, merciful, superstitious, pious, he was rich in negative qualities; but, being feeble in energy and lacking all initiative, he became merely a good-hearted and well-meaning, instead of active and courageous, ruler. Consequently in every official act it was Pulcheria who supplied the wisdom and the energy which made the earlier years of Theodosius's reign such happy and peaceful ones. Pulcheria, however, was content to keep her power in the background and to attribute to the genius of the emperor the smoothness with which the wheels of government turned, as well as the mildness and prosperity of his reign.

The choice of a wife for Theodosius naturally lay in the hands of Pulcheria. The young prince, influenced by the example of his father, had expressed to his sister his preference for rare physical perfection and high intellectual endowments over exalted station and royal blood in the choice of a consort; and Pulcheria, in conjunction with his boyhood friend Paulinus, set herself to the task of finding in the capital or in the provinces an ideal corresponding to the wishes of the imperial youth. Yet, while they were engaged in the search, by happy chance a wonderful concatenation of events in the pagan city of Athens determined the destiny of the nineteen-year-old ruler.

In the story of Athenais we have the beautiful romance of a maiden of modest station raised by destiny to the exalted dignity of a throne. She was the favorite child of Leontius, an Athenian philosopher, who devoted most of his time to training his daughter in the religion and philosophy of his native city, and who sought to cultivate in her all that charm of manner and richness of temperament which characterized the Greek women in the best days of ancient Athens. The story goes that the old philosopher was so confident that, because of her beauty and intellectual gifts, a high destiny awaited his daughter, that he bequeathed her as a legacy only a hundred pieces of gold, while he divided the bulk of his estate between his two sons, Valerius and Genesius. The brothers, being avaricious by nature and jealous of the superior qualities of their sister, treated her with neglect and cruelty in her distress. Athenais implored them to repair the obvious injustice and to grant her her rights, representing to them how she did not deserve this disgrace and that the indigence of their sister would be to them, if not a cause of grief, yet certainly a continual reproach; but her brothers would not listen to her appeals, and finally drove her from the paternal mansion. Fortunately, a maternal aunt resided in Athens, who received the disinherited maiden into her home and warmly espoused her cause. She brought Athenais to Constantinople, where another aunt dwelt, and made arrangements for the maiden to bring suit against the hard-hearted brothers. To influence the decision, Athenais and her aunt obtained audience with Pulcheria, and thus the link was formed which joined the destinies of the young emperor and the hapless orphan.

The youthful plaintiff was her own advocate, and so effectually did she argue her case that the Augusta, charmed by the penetration and cleverness which her speech revealed, as well as by the wonderful beauty and modest demeanor of the maiden, was irresistibly forced to the conviction that this girl was the very one who embodied the ideals and longings of the young prince. And, in fact, Athenais was physically and intellectually endowed in a manner seldom equalled. Imagine a maiden of tall and slender proportions of figure, of rare perfection of form, of fair complexion, of dark and luminous eyes which revealed the sweetness and subtlety of the spirit within, while the perfect outline of the countenance was framed by a luxuriant abundance of golden locks,--and you have some conception of the stranger who stood with queenly grace before the proud Augusta. Furthermore, every word that she uttered revealed the rare subtlety of understanding or warmth of sensibilities of the petitioner, who was in every regard the perfect picture of a symmetrically developed maiden. So soon as Pulcheria ascertained that Athenais was of good family and was still unmarried, she began to carry out her plans as a royal matchmaker. She aroused the curiosity of her brother by her account of the charms of the Greek maiden, and the recital inspired in the young prince a lively impatience to see Athenais. He besought his sister to arrange an opportunity for him, unobserved, to see the maiden, and Pulcheria readily devised a plan. After having concealed Theodosius and Paulinus behind the tapestries in her apartment, she summoned Athenais to come to her for a further interview. Athenais entered the room, and the young men were so charmed by the view that Theodosius, enamored of the maiden at first sight, desired to make her his bride.

What must have been the emotions of the disinherited orphan, when the Augusta, instead of granting her petition, told her that she was chosen to be the bride of an emperor? Only one obstacle to the union presented itself,--the pagan faith of the beautiful Athenian. While winning her heart for himself, the pious Theodosius longed to win her soul for the Saviour. To the patriarch Atticus was assigned the pleasing task of convincing the beautiful maiden of the errors of paganism and of guiding her spirit into the ways of eternal truth. The pure heart of the gentle Athenais proved readily susceptible to the beauties of Christian teaching; the waters of baptism were supposed to remove from her nature the last vestiges of pagan unbelief; and in accordance with the wishes of her betrothed, the converted Athenais received the baptismal name of Eudocia.

Finally, on June 7, 421, the royal nuptials were celebrated with great pomp, amid the rejoicings of the populace. The prudent Pulcheria, however, withheld from the bride of the emperor the title of Augusta until the union was blessed by the birth of a daughter, who was named Eudoxia, after her grandmother, and who, fifteen years later, became the wife of Valentinian III., ruler of the Western Empire.

The brothers of Eudocia richly deserved the resentment of the new empress. They had fled from Athens when they heard of the elevation of their despised sister, but she had them sought out and brought to Constantinople. They entered into her presence trembling and disconcerted; but instead of punishing them, as they felt they well deserved, Eudocia received them in a friendly manner and forgave them for their base conduct. Regarding them as the unconscious instruments of her elevation, the new empress gave them part in some of the highest offices of state.

Having become a Christian, Eudocia dedicated her talents to the honor of religion and to the glory of her husband. She indited religious poems which were the admiration of the age. She composed a poetical paraphrase of the five books of Moses, of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, and of the prophecies of Daniel and Zechariah. She devoted three books of verse to the legend of Saint Cyprian, who was a martyr in the persecution inaugurated by Diocletian. She wrote a panegyric on the Persian victories of Theodosius; and there is extant from her pen a cento of Homeric verse treating the life and miracles of Christ. She also manifestly exerted a strong influence in the founding of the University of Constantinople, if we judge from the preponderance of Greek chairs. She also encouraged in every manner the cultivation of Greek letters; and the support she gave to Greek poets and litterateurs gave umbrage to the narrow religionists, who regarded everything Greek as pagan.

Eudocia, by her beauty and sprightliness, rapidly gained an ascendancy over the weak but noble-hearted emperor, who had now two masters, his sister and his wife. The new empress, in spite of her devotion to religion, still retained some pagan leanings, and the monastic life of the court began to undergo a change. Both the empress--sister and the empress--wife were ladies of strong will, and Eudocia by degrees became less sensitive to the gratitude she owed Pulcheria because of her elevation. Hence, as each of the AugustÆ endeavored to have her own way, there arose discord in the imperial family. Intriguing courtiers and bishops knew how to take advantage of the division of sentiment in the royal household, and, while there was no public outbreak, the wheels of government did not run so smoothly as when Pulcheria held uncontested sway. The rivalry and dissension in the court between the two empresses showed itself particularly in the religious controversies of the time, and especially in the so-called Nestorian heresy regarding the dual nature of Christ. Pulcheria throughout was opposed to Nestorianism, as to every doctrine which flavored of Greek metaphysics, while Eudocia is credited with being an advocate of the new doctrine. Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria and the principal opponent of Nestorius, left no stone unturned to win the favor and support of Pulcheria, while ecclesiastics of the opposite party doubtless attempted the same with Eudocia.

The result of this conflict of opinion between the rival empresses was that the policy of Theodosius was always wavering; he was consistent neither in orthodoxy nor heterodoxy. At first a partisan of Nestorius, he responded rather sharply to the appeals of Cyril; but he afterward went over entirely to the opposite side--an indication that the influence of Pulcheria was once more paramount.

Thus passed the first decade and a half of Eudocia's reign. Finally in 438 occurred an event of momentous interest to the entire Roman world--the marriage of the princess Eudoxia with Valentinian III., Emperor of the West. As it seemed likely that Eudocia would never bear a son to Theodosius, the union of the two reigning houses meant possibly the reunion of the Empire under one emperor, should a son be born to the newly married couple. Possibly feeling lonely after the marriage and departure of her daughter; possibly tiring of the intrigues of the court, Eudocia, with the concurrence of the emperor, shortly afterward undertook a solemn pilgrimage to Jerusalem to discharge her vows and to return thanks to the Deity for the welfare of her daughter.

Attended by a royal cortege of courtiers and eunuchs and slaves, the Empress Eudocia set out on her journey. Her ostentatious progress through the East hardly seems in keeping with the spirit of Christian humility. One of the most impressive events of her journey was the sojourn in Antioch, the metropolis of the Far East. Here she pronounced to the senate, from a throne of gold, studded with precious gems, an eloquent Greek oration, which was regarded as a marvel of Hellenic rhetoric. In Antioch, probably far more than in Constantinople or Alexandria, there was a hearty appreciation of Greek culture and art, and many of the renowned rhetoricians of the day had in this city their lecture halls, to which thronged enthusiastic students; and to the most cultivated audience of the metropolis was granted the presence of an empress glorying in her Athenian nativity, trained in all the rhetorical art of the Greek, and combining in her own personality all that was most pleasing in both pagan and Christian culture. The last words of Eudocia's address--a quotation from Homer--are said to have occasioned prolonged applause:

ta?t?? t?? ?e?e?? te ?a? a?at?? e???a? e??a?--Iliad ? 211.

"I boast to be of your own race and blood."

Eudocia was also generous in her gifts to the city. She induced the emperor to enlarge its walls, and herself bestowed upon it a donation of two hundred pounds of gold to restore the public baths. She graciously accepted the statues which were decreed to her in gratitude for her munificence--a statue of gold erected in the Curia, and one of bronze in the museum. To the empress, with her earlier love of the sacred traditions of the city of the violet crown, her enthusiastic reception in the most thoroughly Hellenized city of the Orient must have been a most gratifying occurrence.

From Antioch the empress probably followed the pilgrims highway to the Holy Land. There with doubly chastened soul the cultivated convert visited the places hallowed by the Saviour's sufferings and glory. From Bethlehem, where the Mother found shelter in a stable, and therein "in a manger laid" the newborn Redeemer, to receive the adoration of the shepherds, on through the country which the Lord travelled in His mission, till finally she beheld Mount Calvary and looked upon the place of the Sepulchre, now marked by the Christian temple raised by Helena. Her presence brings to mind the visit of this Helena, the Emperor Constantine's mother, one hundred years before, but the Greek matron must have beheld it with very different emotions. She had been reared in the philosophers' gardens of Athens, amid the glories of the Parthenon and the many wonderful works of art which the Greek genius had created, and in her new home in Constantinople she had not been altogether weaned from the traditions of her youth. In glowing contrast to ancient Athens she now saw a city whose prized monuments were the chapels erected on spots rendered sacred by the footsteps of the Christ and the relics of saints and martyrs. To this city she came as a Christian pilgrim, and her devoutness of spirit showed that her heathen culture, in which she took a pardonable pride, had been consecrated to the religion she professed, and her endeavor to relieve the sufferings of the poor and the unfortunate proved that she had learned the lesson of caring for others from the example of the Master.

Her alms and pious foundations in the Holy Land exceeded even those of the great Helena; and the destitute of the land had reason to be grateful to the empress for her unbounded liberality. In return for her zeal, she had the conscious satisfaction of returning to Constantinople with some of the most sacred relics of the Church--the chains of Saint Peter, the relics of Saint Stephen, and a portrait of the Virgin Mary, reputed to be from the brush of Saint Luke. The first martyr's relics were deposited with great ceremony in the chapel of Saint Laurence, and the piety of the empress won for her the loving admiration of the devout populace.

But this pilgrimage to Jerusalem, with its many tokens of the affection of her subjects, and her triumphal return to the capital city, marks the termination of the glory of the Athenian maiden as empress of the East. Then began the rivalries and conflicts which finally brought about Eudocia's downfall. To understand these we must first of all take into consideration the difference of temperament of the two empresses. Pulcheria was essentially Roman; Eudocia was essentially Greek. Pulcheria belonged to the orthodox party which strictly condemned everything which savored in the least degree of paganism; Eudocia encouraged Greek art and letters and lent a friendly ear to the heresies which were the product of Greek speculation. Pulcheria was puritanical and austere in her manner of life, while Eudocia had a fondness for dress and for the innocent gayeties of life which characterized the women of her race. It was utterly impossible for two women of such marked difference of temperament to live in perfect harmony under the same roof.

Furthermore, during Eudocia's absence a new factor had entered prominently into the life of the palace. The influence of the eunuchs, which had been so marked during the reign of Arcadius, had not made itself felt during the earlier years of Theodosius's reign, because of the ascendency of the two women, but it gathered strength by degrees as years passed. Antiochus was the first chamberlain to make himself powerful, and upon his fall, the eunuch Chrysaphius, because of his personal beauty and winning manner, won the favor of Theodosius and acquired the art of bending the emperor to his will. Chrysaphius knew also how to play the two empresses off against each other, so as to gain his own ends.

It seems altogether probable that immediately after her return from Jerusalem, the spouse of the emperor more than ever dominated the court at Constantinople. An important indication of this was the prominence of one of her favorites during the years 439-441--Cyrus of Panopolis, who was a poet of renown, a "Greek" in faith, and a student of art and literature. He won great popularity during his long tenure of office as prefect of the city. He restored Constantinople on so magnificent a scale, after it had experienced a disastrous earthquake, that the people once cried out in the circus: "Constantine built the city, but Cyrus renewed it."

The type of culture represented by Cyrus and Eudocia, and the manifest sympathy between them, greatly offended the strictly orthodox, who regarded it in the light of a Christian duty to sever all connection with paganism, and who considered all tolerance of the Muses and Graces of a more beautiful past to be a heinous sin. This religious party found their ideal and their inspiration in Pulcheria, and she in consequence became their natural leader. Hence, both their natural proclivities and the zeal of their followers forced the two empresses into an attitude of rivalry which could only be settled by the retirement or fall of one or the other of them.

Shortly after her return it seems that Eudocia, in union with Chrysaphius, succeeded in lessening the influence of Pulcheria. So thoroughly did she control her weak but fond husband that Pulcheria withdrew from the palace to the retirement of her villa at Hebdomon, and it has even been asserted that Theodosius, at the request of his wife, meditated making his sister take orders as a deaconess, so that she would have to relinquish her secular power. Thus for a time Eudocia experienced the keen delight of sole and uncontested power. But the retirement of the Augusta, who had for so many years exercised the paramount influence in the court, was the very step to arouse the orthodox and to lead them to undertake every form of intrigue for the ruin of Eudocia and the return of Pulcheria. The result was that, after enjoying for a brief period the sole supremacy, Eudocia fell from the loftiest heights of supreme authority into the deepest depths of humiliation and sorrow.

The orthodox party, with a cleverness which discounted the aims of the nobility, utilized the jealousy of Theodosius as the lever to overturn the beautiful and talented empress. Paulinus had been the boyhood friend of Theodosius, and their intimacy had grown with the passing of the years. He had ardently approved the prince's determination to make the Athenian maiden his wife, and had acted as his best man in the wedding festivities. Owing to the affectionate relations between the two men, Paulinus had enjoyed a free association with both emperor and empress, unhindered by the restricting bonds of court etiquette; and his relations with Eudocia were always of the most friendly and open-hearted character. These relations the enemies of Eudocia seized upon for the attainment of their ends, and their attempt succeeded only too well. It is fitting to tell the story in the words of John Malalas, the earliest chronicler who records it:

"It so happened," says the chronicler, "that as the Emperor Theodosius was proceeding to the church In Sanctis Theophaniis, the master of offices, Paulinus, being indisposed on account of an ailment in his foot, remained at home and made an excuse. But a certain poor man brought to Theodosius a Phrygian apple, of enormously large size, and the emperor was surprised at it, and all his court. And straightway the emperor gave one hundred and fifty nomismata to the man who brought the apple, and sent it to Eudocia Augusta; and the Augusta sent it to Paulinus, the master of offices, as being a friend of the emperor. But Paulinus, not being aware that the emperor had sent it to the empress, took it and sent it to the Emperor Theodosius, even as he was entering the palace. And when the emperor received it, he recognized it and concealed it. And having called Augusta, he questioned her, saying:

"'Where is the apple that I sent you?' And she said, 'I ate it.'--Then he caused her to swear the truth by his salvation, whether she ate it or sent it to some one; and she swore, 'I sent it unto no man, but ate it.' And the emperor commanded the apple to be brought, and showed it to her. And he was indignant against her, suspecting that she was enamored of Paulinus, and sent him the apple and denied it. And on this account Theodosius put Paulinus to death. And the Empress Eudocia was grieved, and thought herself insulted, for it was known everywhere that Paulinus was slain on account of her, for he was a very handsome young man. And she asked the emperor that she might go the holy place to pray; and he allowed her; and she went down from Constantinople to Jerusalem to pray."

In the opinion of Gregorovius, Eudocia's apple of Phrygia eludes interpretation as completely as Eve's apple of Eden, but Bury explains the story as an example of Oriental metaphor. He recalls a parallel to it in the Arabian Nights, and fancies that its germ may have been an allegorical mode of expression in which someone covertly told the story of the suspected intrigue. In Hellenistic romance the apple was a conventional love gift, and when presented to a man by a woman signified a declaration of love. Hence, as the basis of the tale was presumed to be the amorous intercourse of Paulinus and the empress, we can conceive one accustomed to Oriental allegory saying or writing that Eudocia had given her precious apple to Paulinus, symbolizing thereby that she had surrendered her chastity.

Such is the legend of the fall of the empress. All we know for certain is that about this time a marked discord between husband and wife was apparent, and that Paulinus, the emperor's boyhood friend and most trusted confidant, was put to death by imperial order during the year 440.

History seems entitled to draw the conclusion that it was probably a charge, whether true or false, of a criminal attachment between Eudocia and Paulinus that led to the disgrace of the empress and the execution of the minister; but the probabilities are all in favor of the innocence of the Augusta. Eudocia had passed the age of forty when the breach with her husband occurred, and Paulinus was an official of mature years. The conduct of both had always been above reproach, and it was almost inconceivable that either would have acted unbecomingly at this late date.

For two or three years after the execution of Paulinus the empress remained at court, under what circumstances and in just what relation to the emperor we are not informed. It is evident, however, that her power was gone. Feeling herself more and more relegated to the background, and ever watched by hostile eyes, it was natural that she should find life at Constantinople unbearable, and should long for a place where, far from the turmoils and intrigues of the world, she might devote herself to retirement and to pious practices. She therefore asked permission of the emperor to be allowed to retire to Jerusalem and there pass the rest of her life. After the tender bond of love which had for twenty years united the Athenian maiden and the royal prince had once been violently broken, there was no reason why her petition should be denied, and Eudocia was granted the privilege of retiring to the sacred scenes whose solitude and religious atmosphere had already appealed to her.

So, some years after her first visit to the holy city, Eudocia withdrew thither for a permanent abode. But what a contrast had a few years wrought! With what different emotions did she now visit the sacred shrines! Then a beloved wife, a happy mother, an all-puissant empress! Now a voluntary exile, a discredited wife, an empress but in name! Theodosius left her her royal honors and abundant means for her station, so that she could not only have a moderate establishment at Jerusalem, but could also adorn the city with charitable institutions. Yet even here the hatred of her enemies and the jealousy of the emperor followed her. Though so far from Constantinople, court spies watched and reported her every movement, and in their malignity they recounted to the emperor such a slanderous picture of her life and doings that he, in the year 444, with newly awakened jealousy, had two holy men--the presbyter Severus and the deacon John, who had been favorites of Eudocia in Constantinople and had followed her to Jerusalem--executed by the order of Saturninus, her chamberlain. This cruel deed, however, did not remain unavenged, for Eudocia did not interfere when Saturninus, in a monkish riot, or at the hands of hired murderers, lost his life. Theodosius punished her for this with undue severity, by removing all the officers who attended her and reducing her to private station.

The remainder of the life of Eudocia, sixteen long years, was spent in retirement and in holy exercises. Troubles heaped themselves upon her. Her only daughter, whose future at her marriage with Valentinian had looked so promising, also lost her royal station and was led a captive from Rome to Carthage. She had to endure all the insults which could fall to one who from supreme power had been reduced to private station. But in the consolation of religion and in self-sacrificing devotion to others more unfortunate, Eudocia found solace in her grief. Finally, in the sixty-seventh year of her age, after experiencing all the vicissitudes of human life, the philosopher's daughter expired at Jerusalem, protesting with her dying breath her faithfulness to her marriage vows and expressing forgiveness of all those who had injured her.

In Constantinople, Eudocia's fall and exile had brought Pulcheria and the orthodox party again to the front. The poetry-loving Cyrus, the head of the Greek party, was deprived of his office and compelled to take orders; and there was a return to the austerity which had characterized the earlier years of Pulcheria's supremacy. Pulcheria and orthodoxy from this time on controlled the court life and dominated the Empire. Finally, in 450, Theodosius was fatally wounded while hunting, and upon his demise Pulcheria was unanimously proclaimed Empress of the East. Her first official act was one of popular justice as well as private revenge--the execution of the crafty and rapacious eunuch, Chrysaphius. In obedience to the murmur of the people, who objected to a woman being sole ruler of the Empire, she selected an imperial consort in Marcian, an aged senator who would respect the virginal vows and superior rank of his wife. He was solemnly invested with the imperial purple, and proved in every way equal to the demands of his exalted station.

Three years later, Pulcheria passed away. Because of her austerity of life, her deeds of charity, her advocacy of orthodoxy, she won the eulogies of the Church; but her controlling attribute had been a love of power, which had wrought much evil. Our sympathies are naturally with the beautiful and gifted Athenais, a Greek by birth, by temperament and by culture, but yet a Christian in religious fervor and pious practices, whose personal fascination had given her the authority she richly merited, until the stronger nature of Pulcheria, by despicable means, had wrought her downfall.

For four years after the death of Pulcheria, Marcian continued to hold supreme power; finally, in 457, he too came to his end, and with Marcian the house of Theodosius the Great ceased to reign in new Rome.

XI

THE EMPRESS THEODORA

There are few stranger episodes in literary history than the fate of Theodora, the celebrated consort of the Emperor Justinian. To us in this day she is a Magdalene elevated to the throne of the CÆsars, a beautiful and licentious actress suddenly raised by a freak of fortune to rule the destinies of the Roman Empire. All this is due to the remarkable discovery made by Nicholas Alemannus, librarian of the Vatican, toward the end of the seventeenth century, of the Secret History of Procopius, a work which purported to reveal the private life of the Byzantine court in the days of Justinian. Before the publication of this work Theodora was in public opinion chiefly remarkable for the prominent place she occupied in Justinian's reign. Of her early life nothing was known, but from the date of her accession to the throne she had exercised a sovereign influence over the emperor. In an important crisis she had exhibited admirable firmness and courage. She had taken an active part in the court intrigues and religious controversies of the epoch, and to her sagacity the emperor attributed many of his happiest inspirations in legislation. The ecclesiastical historians accused her of serious lapses into heresy and of having laid violent hands on the sacred person of a pope; but, with all their vituperation, there never was in circulation a calumny affecting her personal character. Such is a brief resume of the history of Theodora as handed down unassailed for a thousand years.

Then suddenly a startling revelation was made to the world concerning the previously unknown period of Theodora's life. Alemannus disinterred from the archives of the Vatican library, where it had long lain forgotten, an Arcana Historia which purported to be from the pen of the celebrated historian of the Wars and the Edifices of Justinian. Edited with a learned commentary by a hostile critic, the work immediately attained wide circulation and universal credence. For the first time the character of the illustrious empress was presented in the blackest colors. The world, it seemed, had been really mistaken in its estimate. Theodora's antecedents and early life had been of the vilest character, and her public life signalized by cruelty, avarice, and excess. From the date of the publication of this chronique scandaleuse, and thanks to Gibbon's trenchant paraphrase of its vilest sections, Theodora was condemned. Her name became the connotation for all the depraved vices known in high life. The silence of eleven centuries was overlooked, and the garish picture of the Secret History has formed the modern world's estimate of Rome's most illustrious empress.

It becomes, therefore, an important problem to attempt to distinguish the Theodora of history from the Theodora of romance. We must inquire whether the startling "anecdotes" of the Secret History justly supersede the estimate and tradition of so long a period. Was Theodora the grand courtesan she is represented to be in the modern drama, or was she a great empress, worthy of the respect and admiration of Justinian and of succeeding ages? To answer these questions we must first briefly review the legendary history of Theodora, and then dwell more at length on the authentic history of the empress. This will merit a recital, for she appears to be a personality singularly original and powerful, possessing both the qualities of a statesman and the unique traits of a woman, a character of much complexity and of rare psychological interest. During the first years of the sixth century there lived in Constantinople a poor man, by name Acacius, a native of the isle of Cyprus, who had the care of the wild beasts maintained by the green faction of the city, and who, from his employment, was entitled the Master of the Bears. This Acacius was the father of Theodora. Upon his death, he left to the tender mercies of the world a widow and three helpless orphans, Comito, Theodora, and Anastasia, the eldest being not yet seven years of age. At a solemn festival these three children were sent by their destitute mother into the theatre, dressed in the garb of suppliants. The green faction scorned them; but the blues had compassion and relieved their distress, and this difference of treatment made a profound impression on the child Theodora, which had its influence on her later conduct. As the maidens increased in age and improved in beauty, they were trained by their mother for a theatrical career. Theodora first followed Comito on the stage, playing the rÔle of chambermaid, but at length she exercised her talents independently. She became neither a singer nor a dancer nor a flute player, but she figured in the tableaux Vivants, where her beauty freely displayed itself, and in the pantomimes, where her vivacity and grace and sprightliness caused the whole theatre to resound with laughter and applause. She was, if the panegyrists may be believed, the most beautiful woman of her age. Procopius, the best historian of the day, says that "it was impossible for mere man to describe her comeliness in words or to imitate it in art." "Her features were delicate and regular; her complexion, though somewhat pale, was tinged with a natural colour; every sensation was instantly expressed by the vivacity of her eyes; her easy motions displayed the graces of a small but elegant figure; and either love or adulation might proclaim that painting and poetry were incapable of delineating the matchless excellence of her form." It is unfortunate that we have no likeness which portrays her exquisite beauty. The famous mosaic in San Vitale at Ravenna is the best authentic representation of the empress, but a mosaic can give but little idea of the original.

But Theodora possessed other fascinations besides beauty: she was intelligent, full of esprit, witty. However, with all these gifts there was in her a deficiency of the moral sense and a natural inclination to pleasure in all its forms. Sad to relate, her charms were venal. If the Secret History be believed, her adventures were both numerous and scandalous; to quote a piquant expression of Gibbon, "her charity was universal." Procopius recounts memorable after-theatre suppers and tableaux vivants that would be excluded from the most licentious of modern stages. After a wild career in the capital as the reigning figure of the demi-monde, Theodora suddenly disappeared. She condescended to accompany to his province a certain Ecebolus, who had been appointed governor of the African Pentapolis. But this union was transient. She either abandoned her lover or was deserted by him, and for some time the fair Cyprian, a veritable priestess of the divine Aphrodite, made conquests innumerable in all the great cities of the Orient. Finally, she returned to Constantinople, to the scenes of her first exploits, being then between twenty and twenty-five years of age. In her bitterest humiliation, some vision had whispered to her that she was destined to a great career.

Wearied of amorous adventures and of a wandering career, she began from this moment to adopt a retired and blameless life in a modest mansion, where she relieved her poverty by the feminine task of spinning wool. It was at this moment that happy chance threw the patrician Justinian in her path. Captivated by her beauty and her feminine graces, this staid, business-like, and eminently practical personage, already marked as his uncle Justin's successor to the Empire, wished to make the fair Theodora his wife. But there were obstacles in the way. The Empress Euphemia flatly refused to accept the reformed courtesan as a niece; Justinian's own mother, Vigilantia, feared that the vivacious and beautiful worldling would corrupt her son. It was even said that at this time the laws of Rome prohibited the marriage of a senator with a woman of servile origin or of the theatrical profession. But Justinian remained inflexible. The Empress Euphemia conveniently died; Justinian overrode the opposition of his mother; and Justin was persuaded to pass a law abolishing the rigid statute of antiquity and to make Theodora a patrician.

Soon followed the solemn nuptials of Justinian and Theodora; and when, in 527, Justinian was officially associated with his uncle on the throne, Theodora was also solemnly crowned in Saint Sophia by the hands of the Patriarch as an equal and independent colleague in the sovereignty of the Empire, and the oath of allegiance was imposed on bishops and officials in the joint names of Justinian and Theodora; while in the Hippodrome, the scene of her earlier triumphs, the daughter of Acacius received as empress the adulation of the populace.

Such, according to the Secret History, is the romance of Theodora. The reason why it has been given general credence is because the work purported to be that of a contemporary writer, the greatest historian of his age, who has weighted his charges with emphasis and detail, and because the recital received the convincing endorsement of Alemannus and of Gibbon. The principle which governed Gibbon was as follows: "Of these strange anecdotes a part may be true because probable, and a part true because improbable. Procopius must have known the former and the latter he could scarcely invent." Reassured by this argument, and seduced by the masculine taste for adventure, most historians have complacently accepted this piquant history and have applied to Theodora the vilest epithets. But recent writers, especially Debidour, Ranke, Mallet, Bury, and Diehl, have not regarded the case as proved, and through a careful analysis of the Secret History have presented convincing arguments against the reputed authorship of the work and the authenticity of its narrative.

These later writers have called attention to the internal evidence of the improbability of the picture of Theodora. There are in the statements glaring inconsistencies with the other works of Procopius, and inconsistencies within the anecdotes themselves. Many stories told of Justinian are obviously overdrawn and dictated by inventive malice, and these vitiate the entire narrative. Furthermore, the question of the marriage law is triumphantly set aside. The edict abolishing the Old Roman law was passed seven years after Justinian's succession, and was in accordance with other legislation inspired by Theodora, to ameliorate the condition of woman. The external evidence, also, has been carefully sifted. The legal maxim, Testis unus, Testis nullus, applies in history as well as in law. A single witness has related the most incredible stories. Nowhere in other historians is there a shred of evidence to support the story of Theodora's flagitious life. These stories could have no basis other than in popular rumors; how is it, therefore, that no other chronicle alludes to them? Orthodox ecclesiastics violently attack Theodora's heresy, and speak of her as an enemy of the Church, but write not a word against her private reputation. Historians condemn in unmeasured terms certain features of Justinian's administration, and dwell on other faults of Theodora, but say never a word about her profligacy. Why are all other writers silent about the dark passages in Theodora's history? Even the Secret History alleges nothing immoral against her after her marriage: why then should we take its testimony seriously regarding the earlier period of her life? The silence of all other chronicles about extraordinary occurrences, which, if true, must have been generally known, throws doubt over the whole narrative and places it in the light of an infamous libel.

And here is a final argument. Justinian was no mere youth when he married, but a sober gentleman of thirty-five, the heir apparent to the throne, who had to keep in the good graces of the people. Would he at so momentous a time have perpetrated so infamous a scandal? And would it have been possible for a woman of such notorious profligacy to ascend the throne without a protest from patriarch or bishop or senators or populace? The outward life of the Byzantine people, owing to the influence of Christianity, was usually correct. A little later an emperor lost his throne because he divorced one wife and took another. Theodora's triumphant ascent to the throne, without a protesting voice, is conclusive evidence that no great scandal had sullied her reputation.

Yet, on the other hand, panegyrists never lauded Theodora as a saint. She was neither a Pulcheria nor a Eudocia. Many traits in the character of the empress accord well with the fact that her early life was not passed amid beds of roses nor had been altogether free from temptation. Hence, with the story reduced to its lowest terms, it seems probable that Theodora was of obscure and lowly origin, that she was for a time connected in some way with the Byzantine stage, and that, owing to her beauty, her cleverness, and her strong personality, she was raised from poverty to share Justinian's throne. But, whatever her career, her life had been sufficiently upright to save appearances, and Justinian could make her his wife without scandal.

The turn of fortune which elevated Theodora from modest station to the imperial throne deeply stirred the popular imagination, and a cycle of legends has gathered about her name. The stranger in Byzantium in the eleventh century was shown the site of a modest cottage, transformed into a stately church dedicated to the spirit of charity, and was told the story how the great empress, coming with her parents from their native town in Cyprus, had here maintained herself in honorable poverty by spinning wool, and how it was here that the patrician Justinian, drawn thither by the fame of her beauty and her learning, had wooed and won her for his bride. However little value we may attach to this tradition, it shows that in Constantinople the popular estimate of Theodora was not that of the Secret History. The Slavic traditions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries not only dwell on her marvellous beauty, but also recount that she was the most queenly, the most cultivated, the most learned of women. The Syriac traditions were still more flattering. In their devout reverence for the pious empress who espoused their cause, these Monophysites of the thirteenth century name as the father of Theodora, not the poor man who guarded the bears in the Hippodrome, but a pious old gentleman, perhaps a senator, attached to the Monophysite heresy, and affirm that when Justinian, fascinated by the beauty and intelligence of the young maiden, demanded her hand in marriage, the good father did not consent that she should marry the heir apparent until the latter had promised not to interfere with her religious beliefs.

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.

Romanus and Zoe were never an affectionate couple. He devoted himself strictly to affairs of state and looked with indifference upon the many intrigues of his amorous spouse, who, like Queen Elizabeth, believed herself to be the mistress of all hearts. But one of these amours, perhaps, cost him his life.

The royal consorts had turned the management of the palace largely over to eunuchs. One of these, John the Paphlagonian, became very powerful, and, as he was precluded from the imperial title himself, sought to raise a brother to that high honor. This brother, Michael, had begun life as a goldsmith and money changer, but his brother appointed him to a place in the imperial household. Owing to his personal beauty and graceful and dignified manners, he soon became the favorite chamberlain to his royal mistress. Unfortunately, however, he was subject to sudden and violent attacks of epilepsy. This, instead of repelling Zoe, merely aroused her pity, and she fell in love with her handsome servant and carried on an amorous intrigue with him. Romanus was duly informed of his wife's conduct, but remained indifferent to it and probably deemed the accusation untenable because of the epilepsy of Michael. Zonaras, an ancient chronicler, tells the story that in the night the emperor frequently called Michael to rub his feet when he was in bed with Zoe. And he naively adds: "Who can refrain from supposing that the hands of the young valet-de-chambre did not find an opportunity of touching also the feet of the empress?" During the last two years of his life, Romanus was afflicted with a wasting disease and rumor had it that it was due to a slow poison administered either by Zoe, or by the eunuch John, who wished to bring about his brother's elevation. At any rate, in his dying moments, before the breath had left his body, the empress quitted his bedside to take measures with John the Paphlagonian for placing her epileptic paramour on the throne.

The moment Romanus III. ceased to live, Zoe called an assembly of the officers of state in the palace and invested Michael IV. with the diadem and the purple robe. He was straightway proclaimed Emperor of the Romans, and was formally seated beside Zoe on the vacant throne. The patriarch Alexius was filled with disgust at this flagrant display of contempt for decency, but for reasons of state and to avoid greater scandal, he celebrated the marriage between the empress and her paramour. "Thus a single night saw the aged Zoe the wife of two emperors, a widow and a bride, and Michael a menial and a sovereign."

Michael was twenty-eight when he wedded Zoe at the age of fifty-four and ascended the throne. In spite of his humble origin, he showed himself a capable ruler, and succeeded in repelling some of the enemies of the Empire. But his usefulness was hindered by his epileptic fits and by the unfriendly attitude of his subjects who regarded his disease as evidence of the divine wrath because of his ingratitude toward his benefactor, Romanus. He became a hopeless invalid before the age of thirty-six, and, when he felt his end approaching, he renounced the world and all the vanities of imperial station, and retired to the monastery of Saint Anarghyras where he became a monk. He died on December 10, 1041, after a reign of seven years and eight months.

After the death of her second husband, the irrepressible Zoe at first attempted to carry on the Empire alone, with the assistance of the eunuchs of her household, but the prevailing aversion to female sovereignty and her own disinclination to be without companionship of the male sex led her to a realization of the necessity of giving the Empire a male sovereign. The alternative which presented itself was whether she should adopt a son or marry a husband. Having twice experienced matrimonial bliss, but never having tasted the joys of filial devotion, for the sake of a new sensation Zoe adopted the former expedient.

She selected for the honor another Michael, the nephew of her late husband, but, as she was aware of his volatile character, she made him take a solemn oath, before conferring on him the crown, that he would ever regard her as his benefactress and treat her as his mother. Michael was ready enough to promise everything, and the diadem was placed on his head.

But as soon as he was established in power, Michael V. revealed his meanness of soul, and showed both insolence and ingratitude toward the woman through whom he had attained his elevation. He finally carried his insolence so far that he banished the empress Zoe to Prince's Island and compelled her to adopt the monastic habit. But this base act was more than the people could stand. Their fury burst through every restraint. The mob paraded the streets and proclaimed the reign of Michael at an end. They threatened to seize him and scatter his bones abroad like dust. An assembly was held in the church of Saint Sophia, to which the aged Theodora was brought from the monastery of Petrion, and she was proclaimed joint empress with her sister Zoe. In the meantime, Michael, alarmed at the rapid and overwhelming spread of the sedition, had Zoe brought back to the palace, and endeavored to pacify the people by persuading her to appear on a balcony overlooking the Hippodrome. But it was impossible for him to stem the current of the popular fury. The palace was stormed, and three thousand people were killed in the conflict which followed. Michael saved his life by escaping to the monastery of Studion; his eyes were finally put out, and he passed the rest of his days in the garb of a monk.

Zoe immediately entered upon the duties and responsibilities of power, of which for a time she had been deprived, and she endeavored to force her sister back into religious retirement; but the Senate and people insisted upon the joint reign of the two sisters. But this singular union lasted less than two months. In temperament and in interests the two sisters were antipodal. Different factions were their support, the clerical party favoring the devout Theodora, and the worldlings the volatile Zoe. For a time, the twain appeared always side by side at the meetings of the Senate and at the courts of justice. Unlike Zoe, Theodora showed great aptitude for public business, and took pleasure in performing her administrative duties.

Zoe's plots against her sister being frustrated, and recognizing that Theodora was rapidly gaining the ascendency, she bethought herself of taking a third husband, to whom she might resign the throne and thus deprive her sister of the influence she was rapidly acquiring.

Hence, at the advanced age of sixty-two, Zoe began to cast about for a third husband, in spite of the canons of the Church, which forbade a third marriage. Her thoughts first turned to a powerful nobleman, Constantine Dalasennus, whom her father had once chosen for her in her earlier years, and about whom her recollections cast a halo of romance. But in place of the gallant hero of her imagination she found she had summoned to the palace for an interview a stern old gentleman, who strongly expressed his disapprobation of the existing imperial system; who censured in unmeasured terms the vices of the court, and who took no pains to conceal his contempt for her own questionable conduct. Such a spouse would have been a most excellent antidote for the prevailing corruption of the Empire, but Zoe had no desire to submit to the control of so severe a master, and she quickly made up her mind to look elsewhere.

A former lover, Constantine Artoclinas, then became the object of her matrimonial designs. But he already had a wife, who was not of the self-sacrificing disposition of the wife of Romanus. As soon as she heard of the honor to which Zoe destined her husband, Constantine Artoclinas fell ill and did not long survive. It was the general opinion that his wife had poisoned him, either through jealousy of Zoe, or because she felt an aversion to passing the rest of her days in a convent. Zoe, however, was readily consoled.

She again selected an old admirer, Constantine Monomachus, whom Michael IV. had banished to Mitylene because of his attentions to the empress, but who had been recalled on the accession of Zoe and Theodora and appointed to a high official position in Greece. An imperial galley was despatched with a royal courier to notify him of the new dignity that awaited him, and to bring him back to Constantinople. Upon his arrival he was invested with the imperial robes. His marriage with Zoe was performed by one of the clergy, for the patriarch Alexius declined to officiate at the third marriage of the empress, which in this case was doubly uncanonical, as both Zoe and Constantine had been twice married.

The choice made by Zoe is a sad commentary on the immorality of the age. The life and character of Constantine X. show the utter lack of moral principle which prevailed in the court circles. After he had buried two wives, Constantine Monomachus had won the affections of a beautiful and wealthy young widow called Sclerena, who openly became his mistress and accompanied him in his exile to Mitylene. Yet, in the eyes of the orthodox, her position as mistress was more respectable, as being less uncanonical than if she had become his third wife. As Sclerena had stood by him in the days of his adversity, Constantine insisted upon her sharing with him his prosperity, and when he assumed the purple he bargained with Zoe that he should retain his mistress, a condition to which Zoe in her shamelessness agreed. Hence, "the people of Constantinople were treated to the singular spectacle of an Emperor of the Romans making his public appearance with two female companions dignified with the title of Empress, one as his wife, the other as his mistress."

Sclerena was officially saluted with the title of Augusta, and possessed a rank equal to that of Theodora, whose relative importance had been reduced by the advent of the Emperor Constantine X. She held a court of her own and was installed in apartments of the imperial palace.

Owing to her beauty and her elegant manners she gathered about her a brilliant court circle, which in its sumptuousness and ostentation contrasted greatly with the dull ceremony and sombre atmosphere of the apartments of the elderly sisters, Zoe and Theodora. Sclerena's disposition, too, was amiable and winning, and she was admired for the constancy with which she had clung to her lover in the days of his misfortune. Constantine, in return for her self-sacrificing devotion when he was an impoverished exile, sought to repay her by the most lavish expenditure of the public funds. Her apartments were made the most elegant and luxurious in the city, and her toilettes were the envy of all the aristocratic ladies of Constantinople.

Though Constantine showed in every way his partiality for his mistress, it did not disturb the domestic tranquillity of the imperial household. Zoe and Sclerena lived on the best of terms, and the utter absence of jealousy in the aged wife is less remarkable than her utter shamelessness.

The moral feelings of the people, however, were not so completely corrupted as those of their superiors. They resented the lavish expenditures of the public moneys upon the concubine of the emperor, and they also resented the insult thus put upon their empress. They felt that the lives of the aged sisters, the only survivors of the Macedonian house, could not be safe in a palace where vice reigned supreme, and where secret murders had so often occurred.

The incensed populace raised a sedition on the feast of the Forty Martyrs, when it became the duty of the emperor to walk in solemn procession to the church of Our Saviour in Chalke, whence he proceeded on horseback to the church of the Martyrs. As the procession was about to move from the palace, a cry was raised: "Down with Sclerena; we will not have her for empress! Zoe and Theodora are our mothers--we will not allow them to be murdered!" The mob then sought to lay hands on the emperor to tear him in pieces, but the tumult was quieted by the sudden appearance of Zoe and Theodora on the balcony and the people were dispersed without serious damage being done.

The Empress Zoe died in 1050, at the age of seventy. Constantine X. survived to the year 1055. He, before the end came, was anxious to name his successor, but as soon as Theodora heard of the attempt of her brother-in-law to deprive her of the throne, she hastened to the palace, where the Senate was quickly convened, and presented herself as the lawful empress. With universal acclamation, Theodora was proclaimed sole sovereign of the Empire.

Though seventy-five years of age when she became sole ruler of the destinies of the Eastern Empire, Theodora exhibited great vigor of character and her short reign was a fortunate period for the Byzantines, owing to her attention to public business and the freedom from external conflicts. To preserve power in her own hands, Theodora presided in person at the meetings of the Cabinet and the Senate, and heard appeals as supreme judge in civil cases. Her long monastic life had developed in her the narrow views and acrimonious passions of a recluse, but an ascetic spirit was a relief after the sensual performances of the court of Constantinople. Even at the advanced age of seventy-six, Theodora felt so robust that she looked forward to a long life. The monks flattered her with prophecies that she was to reign for many years. But in the midst of her plans, she was suddenly attacked by an intestinal disorder that speedily brought her to the grave. Theodora was the last scion of a family which had upheld with glory the institutions of the Empire for nearly two centuries, and had secured to its subjects a degree of internal tranquillity and commercial prosperity far greater than that enjoyed during the same period by any other portion of the human race. "And with her, expired the race of Basil, the Slavonian groom, and the administrative glory of the Byzantine Empire, on the 30th of August, 1057."

BYZANTINE INTERIOR, NINTH CENTURY
From a water-color by S. Baron, after a restoration by P. BÉnard.

In this period military exigencies did not permit of numerous apartments. We find the great room, the place of reunion, a sumptuously decorated apartment, in which also the meals were served and the bed was placed. The floor was of bricks, and the apartment was warmed by hot air supplied from a hypocaustum, placed below the floor, and admitted through a painted iron grating. The wall decorations presented an infinite variety of beautifully executed mouldings and scroll designs of flowers and foliage, common to the Byzantine manner. The furniture of the room was sober in style. The bed was shaped and ornamented somewhat like a modern sofa. A curtain on sliding rings served to screen from draughts, as well as to separate beds. In this room the lady received her guests.

What a contrast is offered between the empresses of these later centuries and the great names of the earlier period, Eudoxia and Pulcheria and Eudocia and the great Theodora! We have fallen on evil times; and in the general corruption, woman has degenerated. During the remaining centuries which it falls to our lot to consider, we shall find that the chronicles of women continue to exhibit the downward march of womanhood, until with the utter debasement of woman, the fabric of society gives way, and all is darkness in the history of the sex.

We have had a glimpse of the luxury with which the Empress Eudoxia surrounded herself in her palace on the Bosporus, and our curiosity and interest may be satisfied concerning the domestic surroundings of a woman of rank during the period of the Byzantine decadence. The only truly original Christian art, down to the eleventh century, was the Byzantine; it dominated both Christian and pagan artists. In the period to which we refer, military exigencies did not permit of numerous apartments. We find the great room, the place of reunion, a sumptuously decorated apartment, in which also the meals were served and the bed was placed.

This chief room showed little constructive quality, but it was superbly decorated. The square, heavy door was usually contrived below a relieving arch, whose archivolt was richly charged with sculptured and painted ornaments; the twin windows were supported by a pied-droit or on small columns. The flat walls rarely had a real projecting entablature; the ends of joists were simulated by cornices resting on consoles or modillions; the architrave and the frieze were only a painted effect. The floor was of bricks. Chimneys were not yet used, and the apartment was warmed by hot air supplied from a hypocaustum, placed within the walls or below the floor, and admitted through a painted iron grating.

The wall decorations presented an infinite variety of beautifully executed mouldings and scroll designs of flowers and foliage, common to the Byzantine style. A prominent feature of the mural decoration was the numerous figures, in stiff attitudes, draped with garments falling in meagre folds, and decked with abundant fringes and precious stones, after the Oriental fashion; close to these figures were placed groups of Greek letters.

The furniture of the room was sober in style. The bed was shaped and ornamented somewhat like a modern sofa. The occupant reclined rather than lay on it, for the cushions were heaped up increasingly toward the head of the bed. It was customary to sleep without garments, the only covering being an ample sheet. A curtain on sliding rings was indispensable; it served to screen from draughts, as well as to separate beds; moreover, it supplemented the scanty furniture of the room.

Over the bed was a lighted lamp. This was invariably used, for darkness was dreaded, and it was believed that the light kept off evil spirits and prevented baleful apparitions. In this room the great lady of our period received her guests; here intrigues were plotted; here she partook of her repasts, waited upon by her many serving-maids; here she passed, indeed, most of her life.

XIV

THE PRINCESSES OF THE COMNENI

With the end of the Macedonian house in 1057, all the elements of discord in the Byzantine Empire seemed to have been loosed. Civil war and foreign invasions rapidly succeeded one another, and the empire hastened to its doom. But the downward progress was for a time checked by the rise of the Comneni, a prominent family, who controlled the destinies and exerted a paramount influence over the career of the Byzantine government for over a century, in fact, until its overthrow by the Latin Crusaders in 1204. In the chronicles of the Comneni, its princesses played a notable though not always creditable role; and the undercurrent of Byzantine history for a century and a half was determined largely by woman's influence and woman's artifice.

Of the great families whose names appear on every page of the Byzantine history of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, that of the Comneni is by far the most illustrious. The hypothesis that the Comneni were an ancient Roman house which followed Constantine from Old Rome to New Rome must be given up: so important an item in the family glories of the house would not have been passed over in silence by Anna Comnena and her husband in their historical works. We must accept the testimony of a contemporary, Psellus, that the family was of Greek or Thracian origin, and derived its name from the ancestral seat, the village of Comne in the valley of the Torniga, near the site of the city of Adrianople.

The first of the line prominent in Byzantine annals was the illustrious Manuel Comnenus, who, under Basil II., aided in settling the troubled condition of the East and in reestablishing the Empire on a firm footing. As a result of his labors for the state, Manuel acquired vast estates in Cappadocia, and, from this time, his family ranked as one of the wealthiest and most aristocratic houses of the Byzantine nobility.

Manuel, upon his deathbed, left his two sons, Isaac and John, to the care and the gratitude of his sovereign. The two lads were carefully educated in all the learning and trained in all the manly accomplishments of the day; and their brotherly love became the subject of comment in an age when self-seeking was the most salient characteristic of the aristocratic class. When they attained manhood, both made brilliant marriages which greatly increased the lustre of their family name: Isaac married a captive princess of Bulgaria, and John wedded Anna Dalassena, the daughter of the patrician Dalassenus, nicknamed Charon from the number of enemies he had sent to the infernal regions. Isaac was fated to die childless and his wife is unknown to fame, but Anna, the wife of John, was destined to be the most remarkable woman of her house.

The Empress Theodora, in her last days, had nominated Michael VI.,--Stratioticus,--an aged and decrepit veteran, as her successor; but his elevation was resented by the soldiers, who plotted and successfully carried through a conspiracy by which Michael was dispossessed and Isaac Comnenus, at that time the most popular general of the East, was elevated to the throne. But the usurpation was not attended with the blessings of heaven: Isaac was stricken with disease before he had reigned a full year, and retired to a monastery to die, abdicating the throne and selecting his brother John as his successor. For some unaccountable reason, and much to the chagrin of his wife Anna, whose ambitions were distinctly imperial, John declined the honor, and persisted in his refusal in spite of the entreaties of his wife and relatives, and with a seeming blindness to the welfare of the state. Possibly he felt that a curse rested upon a dynasty which had usurped the throne. Constantine Ducas, another Cappadocian patrician, was then selected; during his reign of seven troubled years he proved himself to be a sorry administrator. His empress, Eudocia Makremvolitissa, and Anna Dalassena are the two dominating personalities who determined the tenor of court intrigue and largely influenced the course of the events of this period. Anna most intensely hated Ducas and all his house, for they were occupying a throne which she thought should have been retained in her own family; and her relations with the empress were those of rivalry or of friendship, in proportion as Eudocia was acting in sympathy with or in opposition to her husband's family.

Constantine XI.--Ducas--was as intensely partisan as Anna; and when he found his end approaching, he wished above all things to assure the elevation of his three children, Michael, Andronicus, and Constantine. Constantine was well aware of the dangers which his dynasty would incur should the empress marry a second time; before conferring upon her the regency of the Empire, he therefore exacted from her a most solemnly attested promise that under no circumstances would she take a second husband. This important document was deposited in the hands of the patriarch, John Xiphilinus. Constantine made the Senate, also, take an oath never to acknowledge any other emperor than one of his own children. Feeling that he had bound his wife by irretrievable bonds, and that every precaution had been taken to assure the implicit fulfilment of his wishes, Constantine breathed his last with a contented mind.

But Eudocia soon discovered the need of a strong arm for the protection of her own rights and those of her sons. A woman of executive gifts, she was also devoted to literary pursuits, and her knowledge of history had taught her with how much reluctance the Byzantines submitted to the sovereignty of a woman. She recalled, too, the experience of the Empress Theophano, who had found prudent guardians for her sons, Basil II. and Constantine IX., in the persons of the soldiers Nicephorus II. and John I., though she was appalled by the vices of this empress, who had married and murdered the first and been scorned by the second guardian. Furthermore, threatening invasions and domestic unrest proved the need of a soldier as her colleague in the Empire. Love came to the assistance of reason, and Eudocia determined to break her vows and to take a second husband.

Romanus Diogenes, the most daring and popular general of the Empire, had been convicted of treason for participation in a conspiracy against her children's throne, and was then in prison awaiting sentence of death from Eudocia as regent. The latter, however, became enamored of her distinguished captive, and his beauty and valor convinced her that he was destined to share with her the throne. The army was clamoring for his release; and when he received a full pardon from the empress-regent, it at first created no suspicion of her romantic designs. The Seljukian Turks were at that time overrunning Cappadocia and it was necessary that the army should be under the control of an able and a daring general. Romanus was therefore raised from the scaffold to the headship of the army.

Before the empress could take any further step toward carrying out her matrimonial intentions, it was necessary to secure possession of the document which evidenced her pledge to her husband that she never would contract a second marriage. Feminine diplomacy enabled her to accomplish this delicate task; and the lack of principle and high moral character in the patriarch caused him to fall readily into the net laid for him by Eudocia.

Xiphilinus at first urged upon her emissary the sanctity of the oath the empress had taken, and the sacred nature of the trust he had assumed; but when it was whispered in his presence that his own brother was destined for the high honor, the patriarch's scruples were relaxed, and he yielded--out of proper regard, as he alleged, for the welfare of the state. He resigned the important paper into the empress's hand, and at her solicitation proposed and carried through a measure in the Senate, favoring her second marriage, and in addition released the senators from their vow never to recognize as emperor any other than a son of Constantine. Great was the confusion of the credulous patriarch when he realized that he had been outwitted by the clever woman, who, when her plans were fully matured, made an official proclamation that she had selected Romanus IV.,--Diogenes,--the most brilliant general of the Empire, to share with her the throne and to act as guardian to her sons.

Her choice was the occasion of much satisfaction to the army and the people, but caused jealousy and dissension in the imperial household. John Ducas, the late emperor's brother, held the rank of CÆsar and was the natural guardian of his nephews; he at once began to conspire for the overthrow of Romanus and the retirement of Eudocia.

The new emperor at once assumed his duties of warding off the enemies of the Empire, and engaged in a deadly conflict with the Seljukian Turks. Though at first successful, his army was finally routed and almost annihilated, and Romanus himself was taken captive, on the fatal field of Manzikert, 1071,--a decisive battle that marked the beginning of the end of Byzantine history and presaged the final conquest of Constantinople by the Turks. Romanus's capture produced a revolution at court. John Ducas seized the reins of government, ostensibly in the interests of Michael VII., son of Constantine; and when Romanus, having been released by his gallant foe, returned to Constantinople, Ducas had him seized and blinded and left to die through neglect. Eudocia was forced to retire to a monastery and take the veil; there she devoted herself to literary labors. She is reputed to be the author of a learned work, still extant, entitled Ionia, a species of historical and mythological dictionary. The last public appearance of the hapless Eudocia was on the occasion of the funeral of the valiant Romanus, which she was permitted to celebrate in an imposing manner.

A period of anarchy followed the cruel death of Romanus, and there were at one time no less than six pretenders to the throne. Throughout this trying period John Ducas maintained his power as regent, relinquishing his regency only when his ward, Michael VII., became of age and asserted his rights. Michael was fortunate in the choice of his empress, Princess Maria, daughter of the King of Iberia, whose beauty and grace are celebrated by the historian Anna Comnena. When her husband was overthrown and slain by the rebel Nicephorus Botaniates, Maria married the latter, with the hope of securing the throne for her child and the regency for herself. And from this time on her story is closely interwoven with that of the Comneni princesses, to whom we now return.

John Comnenus died soon after Constantine Ducas, leaving to the widowed Anna the task of bringing up a large family of eight children,--Manuel, Isaac, Alexius, Adrian, Nicephorus, Maria, Eudocia, and Theodora. But Anna was equal to the task, and deserves to be ranked among the great mothers of the world. She gave herself up to the proper education of her sons and daughters, and to the promotion of their political advancement. She could never console herself for the loss of an imperial crown through the weakness of her husband, and all her tireless energy was directed toward recovering her lost opportunity and reaching the throne through the elevation of one of her sons. What is recounted of her shows that she was a woman of extraordinary intelligence, inexhaustible energy, remarkable political astuteness, and inordinate ambition.

After performing political services of great merit, Manuel, the eldest, died at an early age. The mother sought to make her sons Isaac and Alexius men who could show themselves capable of performing every task imposed upon them in the high station they were destined to acquire; and the proof of the influence she exerted in the formation of their characters is seen not only in their high attainments, but also in the ascendency she retained over Alexius when he had reached the throne.

Owing to her undying hatred of the house of Ducas, Anna attached herself to the party of the Empress Eudocia and Romanus, and, being then in high favor at court, she married her daughter Theodora to Romanus's son Constantine. The revolution made by John Ducas to the advantage of himself and his ward, Michael VII., upset all the well-laid plans of Anna Dalassena; and the fall of Romanus marked for a time the end of the favor of the Comneni. Anna showed her firmness of character by remaining faithful to the cause of the dethroned emperor. Her correspondence with him was detected, and she was exiled, with her children, to one of the Prince's Isles. Her exile did not last long, however, for she was recalled and restored to favor; and Michael VII. brought about the marriage of Isaac, the eldest son since the death of Manuel, to Irene, daughter of an Alanian prince, and cousin-german to the Empress Maria.

Meanwhile, another matrimonial scheme was being matured, which was not at all in accordance with the wishes of Anna and the empress. John Ducas, from the monastery to which he had retired, projected the marriage of his grand-daughter Irene, with Alexius Comnenus, who was rapidly growing in promise and influence, and was already giving evidence of his political astuteness and diplomacy. Alexius gladly welcomed an alliance which would unite the two most powerful families of Constantinople in his interest, but his patrician mother opposed any affiliation with the rival house, and hated the very name of Ducas. The Empress Maria also had plans for Alexius, with which she feared this alliance would interfere, and at first threatened open opposition. But Alexius won his point with his usual cleverness. Anna finally yielded to his persuasion, and the empress gave her reluctant consent. The result of the union was that Alexius at once became the most powerful of the younger nobles at the court.

The next step in his career was also determined by the profound wisdom or wily caprice of a woman. To the surprise of her friends and consternation of her enemies, the Empress Maria adopted Alexius as her son. Anna Dalassena in all probability had a hand in this move for the elevation of her house, but it is difficult to see what was the motive of the empress, who had a young son, Constantine, whom she wished to succeed to the purple. Perhaps she felt the need of a strong hand to support the claims of herself and her son against her second husband, the usurper Nicephorus Botaniates. Perhaps she was captivated by the manly vigor and personal charms of the young man, and wished to play with Alexius the rÔle of Theophano with Zimisces. It is impossible to state her motive, but the step was the first move toward the final overthrow of her house and the succession of the Comneni.

Alexius had now all the reins of power in his hands, and a revolution against Botaniates ensued. The usurper was overthrown and Alexius was proclaimed emperor by the army. At first Constantine, the son of the Empress Maria and Michael VII., was associated with him on the throne, though still in his minority. Anna Dalassena and Maria, dreading the ascendency of Irene Ducas, wife of Alexius, plotted to prevent her coronation as empress, but the patriarch, who was a partisan of the house of Ducas, defeated their intrigues; a few days after Alexius assumed the purple, Irene, with imposing ceremonies, was crowned empress.

Alexius well knew how to gain over to his support and utilize for his schemes the intriguing women who were about him. He had a profound respect for the political sagacity of his mother and during the earlier years of his reign her word exerted a deep influence on the course of government. When he was called away from Constantinople by the wars that demanded his personal attention, he left his mother as regent during his absence.

The first offspring of the union of Alexius and Irene was a daughter, Anna Comnena. She was in her infancy affianced to Constantine, and the two were regarded as heirs to the throne, much to the delight of the ex-Empress Maria. In the ceremonies of the court, the names of Constantine and Anna immediately followed those of Alexius and Irene.

Finally, in 1088, the empress bore a son, the third of her children. The joy of Alexius was unbounded. Seeing the possibility of his son carrying on the dynasty and perpetuating the name of Comnenus, Alexius determined to set aside the claims of Constantine and his eldest daughter. An estrangement with Maria Ducas followed. In 1092, John in his fourth year was proclaimed emperor, and Constantine was deprived of his rights. The rupture between Alexius and Maria was a source of enmity to the reigning house. Chagrined at the failure of her plans, and at the usurpation of one to whom she had shown every kindness, the ex-empress took part in a conspiracy against Alexius. But the plot was exposed in time, and all who were engaged in it were severely punished, except the ex-empress, who was permitted by her adopted son to go into peaceful retirement.

Constantine, though no longer associated on the throne, was still affianced to Anna, but an early death removed him from the scene of action and the intrigues of the court. In 1097, Anna was married to Nicephorus Bryennius, scion of a noble house. The mother, Anna Dalassena, continued for some time to be a powerful factor at court, but, becoming unpopular and realizing that she was losing her hold on her imperial son, she finally followed the usual custom of retiring to a monastery.

Thus the ex-Empress Maria and Anna--the real founder of the fortune of her house--found in religious retirement and meditation a life of peace and tranquillity after the turmoils of revolutions and the intrigues of imperial politics. The one had seen the failure of her plans and the downfall of her house; the other could look with pride upon the full fruition of her plots for the elevation of the Comneni.

The reign of Alexius I.,--Comnenus,--occupies a considerable place not only in Byzantine, but, also, in general history. It inaugurated a new era in the relations between the East and the West, between the Greek and the Latin, both in affairs of Church and state, and the events of which the tragic expedition of 1204 was the climax had their beginning in the days when the courtiers of Alexius revelled with the companions of Godfrey of Bouillon. Equally important is this reign from the point of view of the Byzantine Empire; it put an end to the anarchy of the eleventh century, it established a dynasty which restored much of the territory that weak rulers had lost, and for over a century it preserved the tottering Empire from its inevitable fall. It was a period in which woman's influence was marked, and its record is well known to us because of the literary skill of Anna Comnena. This imperial princess is the first woman in the world's annals to write an extended history. Both in learning and in personality she has won a place among the notable women of the world, and hers is the last great name in the chronicles of Byzantine womanhood.

In the comprehensive education which Anna received, we have a view of the literary prominence of the Comnenic epoch. She had the best masters the Empire afforded, and in her childhood she exhibited a phenomenal capacity for learning. Her teachers gave her thorough training in the works of classical authors. She read Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristophanes, the Tragedians and Polybius under suitable guidance, and without assistance mastered the writings of the church fathers. She studied with avidity ancient mythology, geography, history, rhetoric, and dialectic, and was also versed in Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. It was in history, however, that she found her chief delight, and she early conceived the idea of composing a work in honor of her father's reign.

We have already mentioned the incidents of her childhood. Anna never forgave her brother John for supplanting her, and this disappointment of her tender years largely influenced the course of her later life. She was devoted to Maria, the mother of her first betrothed, and no doubt imbibed from her much of the ambition and hatred which were the marked characteristics of her career in politics. Her empress-mother, Irene, also exhibited a marked partiality for her eldest daughter, to the disparagement of her son, whom Alexius had destined for the throne. Irene was a beautiful and intriguing princess of much natural ability, and stood in awe of the greater learning of her daughter. The two became companions in intrigue and diplomacy, and worked together for the promotion of their own interests, against the schemes of Alexius and John. Anna was married at a tender age to Nicephorus Bryennius. He was the representative of one of the most aristocratic and powerful families of Constantinople, and exhibited much ability both in authorship and statecraft, but he seems mediocre and colorless by the side of his spouse.

Walter Scott laid the scene of his Count Robert of Paris in the Constantinople of this period, and he presents an interesting picture of Anna as a devotee of the Muses, and of the principal heroes and heroines who figure in the intrigues of the court at this time:

"It was an apartment of the palace of the Blaquemal, dedicated to the especial service of the beloved daughter of the Emperor Alexius, the Princess Anna Comnena, known to our times by her literary talents, which record the history of her father's reign. She was seated, the queen and sovereign of a literary circle, such as the imperial princess, Porphyrogenita (or born in the sacred purple chamber itself), could assemble in those days, and a glance round will enable us to form an idea of her guests or companions.

"The literary princess herself had the bright eyes, straight features and comely and pleasing manners which all would have allowed to the emperor's daughter, even if she could not have been, with severe truth, said to have possessed them. She was placed upon a small bench, or sofa, the fair sex here not being permitted to recline, as was the fashion of the Roman ladies. A table before her was loaded with books, plants, herbs, and drawings. She sat on a slight elevation, and those who enjoyed the intimacy of the princess, or to whom she wished to speak in particular, were allowed during such sublime colloquy to rest their knees on the little dais or elevated place where her chair found its station, in a posture half standing, half kneeling. Three other seats, of different heights, were placed on the dais, and under the same canopy of state which overshadowed that of Princess Anna.

"The first, which strictly resembled her own chair in size and convenience, was one designed for her husband, Nicephorus Bryennius. He was said to entertain or affect the greatest respect for his wife's erudition, though the courtiers were of the opinion that he would have liked to absent himself from her evening parties more frequently than was particularly agreeable to the Princess Anna and her imperial parents. This was partly explained by the private tattle of the court, which averred that the Princess Anna Comnena had been more beautiful when she was less learned; and that, though still a fine woman, she had somewhat lost the charms of her person as she became enriched in her mind.

"To atone for the lowly fashion of the seat of Nicephorus Bryennius, it was placed as near to his princess as it could possibly be edged by the ushers, so that she might not lose one look of her handsome spouse, nor he the least particle of wisdom which might drop from the lips of his erudite consort.

"Two other seats of honor or, rather, thrones--for they had footstools placed for the support of the feet, rests for the arms, and embroidered pillows for the comfort of the back, not to mention the glories of the outspreading canopy--were destined for the imperial couple, who frequently attended their daughter's studies, which she prosecuted in public in the way we have intimated. On such occasions, the Empress Irene enjoyed the triumph peculiar to the mother of an accomplished daughter, while Alexius, as it might happen, sometimes listened with complacence to the rehearsal of his own exploits in the inflated language of the princess, and sometimes mildly nodded over her dialogues upon the mysteries of philosophy, with the Patriarch Zosimus, and other sages."

Scott's description gives a graphic presentation of the Princess Anna and of her relations with the various members of her family; and if we add the heir to the throne, her younger brother John, for whom she had profound contempt in spite of his many virtues, we have the group about whom revolve the narrative of her history and the chief events of her life.

It is not necessary for us to enter into the story of the First Crusade, and of the incidents of the intercourse of Franks and Greeks, which Anna tells so graphically in her history; but before calling attention to the literary qualities and historical value of her work, we must note those events which unfolded her character and, in her later years, brought about her exclusive devotion to literature.

Owing to his duplicity and lack of confidence in men, Alexius made his wife and his learned daughter his confidantes and his advisers in many of the affairs of State, and frequently utilized their services in gaining his ends. Both the imperial ladies were apt pupils in the school of political intrigue, and, in the last years of the emperor, endeavored to utilize their influence over him to the detriment of the heir-apparent and the elevation of Anna and her husband, the CÆsar Nicephorus. They accordingly formed a plot, during Alexius's last illness, to dispossess the eldest son John, that the three might share the government among them.

The empress introduced soldiers into the palace, and in the closing hours of the emperor's life sought to prevail on him to pronounce the words which would bring about the change in the succession. But the astute emperor realized his son's eminent fitness to wear the crown, and was not in sympathy with the ambitions of his learned but unscrupulous daughter. To all the entreaties of the empress he but cast his eyes heavenward and remarked on the vanities of human greatness. Despairing and enraged, the empress at last hastily left the room with a parting thrust at her imperial consort, which might fitly have been inscribed as an epitaph on his tomb: "You die as you lived--a hypocrite!" Meanwhile, during her absence, John entered the room, and, with the tacit consent of his dying father, removed from his finger the signet which gave him command of all the forces of the palace; and crushing, in their inception, the plots of the empress and her daughter, he was solemnly crowned the moment his father breathed his last.

John proved to be the most amiable character that ever occupied the Byzantine throne. But all his virtues did not suffice to quell the malice and disappointed ambition of his imperial sister. In spite of the failure of the first conspiracy, the Princess Anna, "whose philosophy would not have refused the weight of a diadem," entered into another plot to dispossess her brother--already secure in the confidence of courtiers and subjects--and to elevate her husband, whom she felt sure of ruling. As John was already on the throne, however, the only way by which he could be disposed of was to have his eyes put out or to resort to the still worse crime of secret assassination. When her mild and gentle husband recoiled at the thought of such cruelty, Anna made to him the memorable response that Nature had mistaken the two sexes and had endowed him with the soul of a woman, contemptuously contrasting what she termed his feminine weakness with her own manly inhumanity.

This conspiracy, however, was also revealed before it had made any serious headway, and John deemed it necessary to confiscate his sister's wealth in order to make further intrigues impossible. He caused the Princess Anna to retire to a convent and bestowed her luxuriously furnished palace on his favorite minister, Axouchus. But the noble nature of Axouchus recoiled at being benefited by the princess's fall, and thought more of turning the situation to the emperor's advantage than of enriching himself. Accordingly, he suggested to the emperor that it would be better policy to ward off the malice of his enemies by restoring the palace to Anna, and seeming to ignore her futile plots. John felt the prudence of the advice, and impressed by the unselfish devotion of his friend,--a quality most rare in late Byzantine times,--replied in like spirit: "I should, indeed, be unworthy to reign if I could not forget my anger as readily as you forget your interest." Anna was reinstated in her palace.

But little is known of the rest of Anna Comnena's life. Tiring finally of the vanities of court life, disappointed in all her intrigues for absolute power, and becoming ever more absorbed in her literary undertakings, she seems to have voluntarily sought the life of the cloister and to have spent the last decades of her career in peaceful retirement, engaged on her monumental work. She survived her brother John, who died in 1143, and was still at work on her history in 1145. The date of her death is unknown.

The great work of Anna Comnena is entitled the Alexiad, and is one of the most important works in the voluminous collection of the Byzantine historians. In fifteen books, it narrates the history of Alexius Comnenus; and is a completion and continuation of a work in four books, left by her husband, Nicephorus Bryennius. The first two books of Anna's work treat of the rise into power of the Comneni house, and of the early life of Alexius; the remaining thirteen are devoted to the events of his reign.

The work of Anna, as a contribution to historical literature, has very decided deficiencies. In spite of her professed love of truth, her filial vanity tempts her at all times to put her father and her family in the best light. The very title, Alexiad suggests rather an epos--a poem in prose--than a serious historical work, and emphasizes its epideictic tendency. As a woman, she is impressed with the concrete rather than the abstract, and describes brilliant state functions, church festivals, imposing audiences and the like with much more familiarity and enthusiasm than she displays in her treatment of the underlying causes and inner connections of events. But with all their faults, these memoirs are an authoritative account of a brilliant and important epoch, and of a ruler who for his military sagacity and political shrewdness ranks among the great personages of the Middle Ages.

The human traits of the author reveal themselves in every chapter of her work. Anna possessed a womanly weakness for gossip and slander, and mingles her praise of the other prominent women of her time with a tincture of disparagement that must often be attributed to feminine jealousy. She possessed considerable wit and irony, but was intensely vain of her rank, her Greek origin and especially of her literary attainments. Nor must we fail to note the vaulting ambition of this otherwise attractive woman, an ambition which made her untrue to her brother and a conspirator against his throne and his life.

Anna Comnena realized that the chief censure of her work at the hands of contemporaries and of posterity would be the charge of partiality, and against this she seeks to defend herself in a striking passage:

"I must still once more repel the reproach which some may bring against me, as if my history were composed merely according to the dictates of the natural love for parents which is engraved on the hearts of children. In truth, it is not the effect of that affection which I bear to mine, but it is the evidence of matters of fact, which obliges me to speak as I have done. Is it not possible that one can have at the same time an affection for the memory of a father and for truth? For myself, I have never directed my attempt to write history otherwise than for the ascertainment of the matter of fact. With this purpose I have taken for my subject the history of a worthy man. Is it just, then, by the single accident of his being the author of my birth, his quality of my father ought to form a prejudice against me, which would ruin my credit with my readers? I have given, upon other occasions, proofs sufficiently strong of the ardor which I had for the defence of my father's interests, which those that know me can never doubt; but, on the present, I have been limited by the inviolable fidelity with which I respect the truth, which I should have felt conscious to have veiled, under pretence of serving the renown of my father."

The authoress felt assured that a number of disturbances of nature and mysterious occurrences as interpreted by the soothsayers, foreboded the death of Alexius; thus she claimed for her father the indications of consequence, which were regarded by the ancients as necessary intimations of the sympathy of nature with the removal of great characters--from the world. During his latter days, the emperor was afflicted with the gout. Weakened in body, and gradually losing his native energy, he once responded to the empress, when she spoke of how his deeds would be handed down in history: "The passages of my unhappy life call rather for tears and lamentations than for the praises you speak of." Finally asthma came to the assistance of the gout, and the prayers of monks and clergy, as well as the lavish distribution of alms, failed to stay the progress of the disease. At length passed away the Emperor Alexius, who, with all his faults, was one of the best sovereigns of the Eastern Empire.

His learned daughter, in the greatness of her grief, threw aside the reserve of literary eminence, and burst into tears and shrieks, tearing her hair, and defacing her countenance, while the Empress Irene cut off her hair, changed her purple buskins for black mourning shoes, and, casting from her her princely robes, put on a robe of black. "Even at the moment when she put it on," adds Anna, "the emperor gave up the ghost, and in that moment the sun of my life set."

Anna continues to express her lamentations at her loss, and upbraids herself that she survived her father, "that light of the world"; Irene, "the delight alike of the East and of the West"; and, also, her husband, Nicephorus. "I am indignant," she adds, "that my soul, suffering under such torrents of misfortune, should still deign to animate my body. Have I not been more hard and unfeeling than the rocks themselves; and is it not just that one who could survive such a father and a mother and such a husband should be subjected to the influence of so much calamity? But let me finish this history, rather than any longer fatigue my readers with my unavailing and tragical lamentation!" The history then closes with the following couplet:

"The learned Comnena lays her pen aside,

What time her subject and her father died."