She was not indeed content to pursue her aims merely by the legitimate means of persuading the monarch. When she knew that he had resolutely determined on a line of policy which was not in accordance with her own wishes, she did not scruple to act independently. The most important matter in which their views diverged was ecclesiastical policy. Theodora was a devoted Monophysite, and one of her constant preoccupations was to promote the Monophysitic doctrine and to protect its adherents from the penal consequences which they incurred under Justinian’s laws. Her husband must have been well aware that she had an intelligence department of her own and that secret intrigues were carried on of which he would not have approved. But she was clever enough to calculate just how far she could go.
Her power of engaging in independent political action was due to her economic independence. She had large financial resources at her disposal, for which apparently she had to render no account. The personal expenses of an Emperor’s consort and the maintenance of her household were provided by estates in Asia Minor which were managed by a high steward known as the Curator of the House of Augusta,65 who was responsible to her. Justinian appears to have increased these estates considerably for the benefit of Theodora.66 He gave her large donations on the occasion of her marriage.67 The house known as the palace of Hormisdas, in which Justinian had resided before his elevation to the throne, was enlarged and enclosed within the precincts of the Great Palace, and placed at the disposal of the Empress.68
Theodora did much to deserve the reputation of a beneficent queen, always ready to use her influence for redressing wrongs,69 and particularly solicitous to assist the unhappy of her own sex.70 To her initiative are ascribed the stringent laws which were passed to suppress the traffic in young girls, which flourished as actively then as in modern Europe, and was conducted by similar methods, which the legislator graphically describes. Agents used to travel through the provinces to entice to the capital poor girls, sometimes under ten years of age, by the bait of fine clothes and an easy life. Indigent parents were easily persuaded by a few gold coins to consent to the ruin of their daughters. The victims, when they came to the city, were fed and clothed miserably, and kept shut up in the houses of ill-fame, and they were forced to sign written contracts with their infamous masters. Sometimes compassionate patrons of these establishments offered to deliver one of these slaves from her misery by marrying her, but the procurers generally refused to consent. The new edict forbade the trade and ordered that all procurers should be banished from Constantinople.71 The principle of compensation, however, seems to have been applied. The patrons were allowed to state on oath how much money they had given to the parents of each girl; the average price was five nomismata, and Theodora paid the total out of her private purse.72 To receive unfortunate women who abandoned a life of shame, a palace on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, not far from the Black Sea, was converted into a convent which was known as Metanoia or Repentance.73
Theodora was perhaps too eager to interfere, as a sort of beneficent providence, in the private affairs of individual persons, and her offices were not always appreciated. She is said to have forced two sisters, who belonged to an old senatorial family and had lost their husbands, to marry against their will vulgar men who were utterly unworthy of them.74 And her enemies alleged that in her readiness to espouse the cause of women she committed grave acts of injustice and did considerable harm. Wives who were divorced for adultery used to appeal to the Empress and bring accusations against their husbands, and she always took their part and compelled the unfortunate men to pay double the dowry, if she did not cause them to be whipped and thrown into prison. The result was that men put up with the infidelity of their wives rather than run such risks.75 It is impossible to decide how much truth there may be in these charges, but they illustrate Theodora’s desire to be the protectress and champion of her own sex.
There can be little doubt that the Empress used her position to exercise a patronage in appointments to offices, which was not always in the public interest, and that she had few scruples in elevating her favourites and disgracing men who displeased her.76 It must, however, be confessed that in the two cases in which we have good evidence that she intervened to ruin officials, her intervention was beneficial. Thus she procured the disgrace of an Imperial secretary named Priscus, an unprincipled man who had grown rich at the public expense. He was alleged to have spoken against her, and as she could not prevail on Justinian to take action, she caused the man to be put on board a ship and transported to Cyzicus, where he was tonsured. Justinian acquiesced in the accomplished fact and confiscated his property.77 Procopius, in his Secret History, has several stories to tell of cruel punishments which she inflicted privately on persons who had offended her. Lurid tales were whispered of the terrible secret dungeons of her palace in which men disappeared for ever,78 and the known fact that she had the means of maintaining heretics in concealment for years made gossip of this kind appear credible. Whatever may be the truth about her alleged vengefulness and cruelty, it is certain that she was feared.
There was no disguise in the attitude which she assumed as head of the ecclesiastical opposition to Justinian’s policy, and he must have been fully aware that secret intrigues were carried on which he would not have sanctioned. It seemed indeed difficult to believe that a man of his autocratic ideas would have tolerated an independent power beside his own; and the theory was put forward that this apparent discord between their aims and views was a political artifice deliberately planned to blind their subjects, and to facilitate the transactions which the emperors could not openly permit.79 This theory may contain a small measure of truth so far as ecclesiastical policy is concerned. It may have been convenient to the Emperor to allow the severities which his policy forced him to adopt against the Monophysites to be mitigated by the clandestine and illegal protection which the Empress afforded to them. But otherwise the theory can hardly be entertained seriously. We can only regard the latitude which was allowed to Theodora as due to Justinian’s weakness. And she was clever enough to know how far she could venture.
Her habits presented contrast to the temperance and simplicity of Justinian. She spent a long time in her bath. At her meals she indulged in every kind of food and drink. She slept long both at night and in her daily siesta.80 She spent many months of the year in the suburban palaces on the seashore, especially at Hêrion (on the coast of Bithynia, opposite the Islands of the Princes), which Justinian enlarged and improved.81 Sometimes she visited the hot springs of Pythia (in Bithynia), where Justinian also built an Imperial residence. On these occasions she was attended by an immense retinue of patricians and chamberlains.82 For Theodora had all a parvenue’s love of pomp and show, and she was probably encouraged by the Emperor, who, though simple in his own tastes, thought much of public splendour and elaborate ceremonial as a means of enhancing the Imperial majesty. We are told that new and abasing forms of etiquette were introduced at court. When the Senate appeared in the presence of the Emperor, it had been the custom for one of the patricians to kiss the sovran on the right breast, and the sovran replied to the salutation