Theodora: Actress, Emperor, Saint

Potter (Constantine the Emperor), professor of Greek and Roman history at the University of Michigan, paints a sympathetic portrait of Theodora, mistress and then wife of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. Theodora was the most powerful woman of the Byzantine Empire, and was later canonized by the Greek and Syriac churches. Though Potter’s meandering narrative can be difficult to follow, he capably illuminates the essential features of society in sixth-century Constantinople, especially the lifestyles of women, and the common people with whom Theodora shared a certain affinity. Having grown up in the capital amid a family of circus performers, Theodora the empress was “a traveler making her way in a foreign land.” Her work on behalf of child prostitutes and battered women cut against the patrician ethos of the city’s elite, and Potter believes that “there is every reason to think that while she was contemptuous of the traditionally wealthy, she felt a deep compassion for the poor, the deserted, and the destitute.” Theodora made her influence felt in other arenas as well; she was one of the primary patrons of the construction of the Hagia Sophia cathedral, and her steady nerves dissuaded her husband from abdicating when his rule was threatened by riots. Potter’s discursive style obscures numerous surprising anecdotes, particularly those of Theodora’s detractors, but this is still a notable biography of an overlooked figure. [em](Nov.) [/em]