River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1885-05-07
Theodore.
he Contemporary Review.


Theodore was tho daughter of bear
Keeper, attached to the Hippodrome at
Constantinople, and was one of three
sisters whom their mother sent on the
stage when they were still children z
or s years old. With no talent either
for music or dancing, her fortune was
in her face and her tongue. Her pretty
features, her nimble movements, her
audacious smartness in repartee, made
hen the most popular and notorious in
the pantomimes Ito use the nearest
modern equivalent which delighted
people whose taste had fallen below the
regular drama. Needless to say what
was the morality of the Byzantine
stage, or what was the life the young
actress led. Her enemies of later years
declared it to have been more than
usually shameless and disgusting, but
the question, if delicately balanced less
OF more, besides being now insolu5le,
need make little difference to our view
of her character. After some years she
accompanied wealthy Tyrian, rs his
mistress, to the Governorship of Trip
oil: auarreled with him, left him, and
after having been reduced to sad straits
in Egypt, found her way back to Con-
stantinople, where, according to story
current long afterward in the city, she
sought to support herself by spinning
wool in house near the edge of the
Golden Horn. THIS looks like trying
to turn over a new leaf. However, she
did not conceal her charms. EncoUr-
aged by the words of an Oriental for
tune teller, who had promised her
wealth and power, she threw herself
in the way of Justinian, who yielded at
once to her destinations. He was then
about 40 years of age-probably some
twenty years her senior-nephew OF the
reigning Emperor, and gathering into
his hands the reins of Government
which we're beginning to slip from the
grasp of his aged and ignorant uncle.
He was an able and well educated man,
already remarkable for his fondness
for theology and his assiduous attention
to public business. His passion led
him to promise to marry the whllom
actress, but law dating Tin substance)
from the time of Augustus, and re-en-
acted by later Emperors, forbade the
union OF Senators and other persons OF
exalted rank to women who had been
on the stage. Nothing was left but to
repeal the law, which the Emperor was
compelled by the urgency of his nephew
to do, and the statute may still be read
in the Corpus Juris which so long held
SWAY over Continental Europe, monu-
ment of Theodora's arts and justinlans
susceptibility. There had been, how
evor, more serious obstacle to the
nuptials of the eager pair. The En-
press Euphemia was an ignorant and
rustic person, who had risen in life too
late to acquire the polish of the capital.
But she was pious, aud she was respect
able to the backbone. She had
probably heard of Theodora's earlier
fame, for the Court was like most
| Courts; anyhow she knew what Theo-
dora had been, and the idea of her
nephew marrying such a person was
too shocking to be considered. While
she lived she held out and kept heI
husband to his resistance; but when she
died he gave way, the law was repealed
the marriage was solemnized, and when
in few years the old Emperor died,
Theodore was crowned along with hen
husband, and received the homage Of
the Senate, the priesthood and the
people. A rise like this had never
been seen before, not even in Constan'
tinople, and was never seen again
That such person should have married
an Emperor was wonderful enough.
But that Of all Emperors she should
have married Justinian, the studiou.
and pious Justinian-he was indeed
matter for a hymn to Aphrodite, had
there been a poet to sing it.