When Justinian Met Theodora – Part 2

==== INTRO =====

Hello and welcome to Conflicted, the history podcast where we talk about the struggles that shaped us, the tough questions that they pose, and why we should care about any of it.

Conflicted is a member of the Evergreen Podcasts Network; and as always, I’m your host, Zach Cornwell.

You are listening to Part 2 of multi-part series on the life and times of Justinian and Theodora, rulers of the Byzantine Empire in the mid- 6^th century AD.

You know/It’s funny – when I first decided to do this topic, I promised myself – promised! - that it would be a standalone episode. One and done, I said/swore. In and out. But as I started researching and thinking and writing, it quickly became clear that condensing this story/thing down to a brisk 90 minutes was just not going happen. Or rather, it shouldn’t happen. Justinian and Theodora are some of the most interesting and multi-faceted characters in antiquity, and to truly do them justice, we’re gonna need to spend a little more time in that world.

Right now, it’s looking like this will be a three-part series. I’m gonna try and hold myself to that, I swear, but… longtime fans of the show know that I have miscalculated before. So - we’ll just have to see how it goes.

But, as always, before we jump back in, I think it’d be nice to briefly recap the events and themes of last episode, so we can dive into this new leg (of the journey) with all those details fresh in our minds./heads

In Part 1, our story began as all good love stories do – with a vicious, life-threatening display of professional sports. The citizens of the Byzantine Empire held many old Roman traditions dear, but chariot racing was their raison d’etre. The thrill of the track was sweeter than any wine, stronger than any opiate. And the greatest chariot racing stadium of all was the Hippodrome in Constantinople.

One hundred thousand people could fit into this marvel of ancient architecture, but only one of them is a title character in our tale. It was at the Hippodrome that we first met Prince Justinian, heir to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire.

There’s an old theory among the world’s aristocracy that leadership is in the blood. Great men, they say, are simply a product of good breeding, like hounds or horses. Justinian was evidence to the contrary. The Prince, after all, was not born a Prince. He came screaming into the world on a small pig farm in Serbia.

But Justinian had something that all the other pig farmers in Serbia did not: A very successful and prolific uncle, a go-getter of a guy named Justin, who’d hitched a horse-cart to the big city/ Constantinople many years earlier, and become kind-of-a-big-deal in the Imperial guard. With Uncle Justin’s sponsorship, the young Justinian was educated, trained and groomed for leadership. Eventually, through a fortuitous and surprising chain of events, Uncle Justin rose to the rank of Emperor, and his bright, ambitious nephew was poised to inherit the Byzantine throne.

Indeed, It was a true rags-to-regalia story. If ever there was one.

About the same time that Justinian was battling the slings and arrows of puberty, our other protagonist, Theodora, was born into a very different sort of life. Justinian’s future empress was raised in the bowels of Hippodrome, just a stone’s throw from the Imperial Palace. While Justinian studied and trained, Theodora learned to act and dance just a few hundred yards away. From the very beginning, Theodora was destined for a career in show business, and by the time she was a teenager, she’d become Constantinople’s most renowned burlesque-dancer, comedic actress, and high-end prostitute.

But Theodora didn’t want to live that way forever, so the first chance she got, she attached herself to a wealthy client named Hecebolus and set sail for an early retirement. Only problem was, Hecebolus turned out to be a bit of jerk, and when he found out that Theodora was pregnant with his child, he decided she wasn’t worth the trouble, and kicked her to the curb.

But Theodora was a survivor. She hiked and hooked her way across the North African coast, until she arrived in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. When people hit rock bottom, they tend to look for answers, and Theodora found hers in the form of a charismatic preacher named Severus. Like a lost broken bird, Theodora sought spiritual guidance under Severus’s powerful wings, and she became what today we might call a ‘born again’ Christian.

Armed with a new faith and a fresh lease on life, Theodora hung up her G-string and started working as an informant for the Blue faction, one of Byzantium’s powerful entertainment cartels. It was through this information network, that she first met Justinian, who often bought intel from the Blues in an effort to strengthen his political position.

“Love at first sight” is a corny cliché, of course, but Justinian was kind of a corny guy. He took one look at Theodora’s tight curves, large eyes, and alabaster skin…and fell deeply, madly, in love. When he closed his eyes, she was there, dancing on his retinas. Bending around rods and cones. In a matter of weeks, she had a toothbrush and her own closet in the Prince’s palace.

Over the centuries, Justinian has been accused of many things, but no one has ever accused him of being afraid of commitment. He was smart enough to know that when you find a woman like Theodora, you put a ring on it immediately. And despite some initial pushback from suspicious family members, Justinian succeeded in doing just that.

In 525 AD, Justinian and Theodora said “I do” in the biggest, grandest church in Constantinople. A few years later, Old Uncle Justin passed the torch and officially proclaimed his nephew Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. With a whiff of incense, a mutter of prayer, and the descent of two golden crowns, a former prostitute and a pig farmer’s son became the most powerful people in the Mediterranean world.

And if this were a romantic comedy, the tale might’ve ended there, with a wedding, a kiss, and a cheering crowd. But unlike Hollywood, history does not do ‘happily ever after’. The honeymoon bed had barely cooled before Justinian and Theodora faced an existential threat to their embryonic dynasty; one that would endanger their power, their freedom, and their very lives.

This time, in Part 2, we’re going to expand our core cast a bit and meet some new faces in Constantinople. In the wake of his coronation, Justinian’s court was quickly populated by a motley crew of schemers, dreamers and true believers. In other words, things are about to get a little messy.

We’re also going move into a more dramatic and violent phase of the story. We are no longer in breezy romance territory. Although it’s funny, because if you squint, the early years of Justinian and Theodora kinda resemble a famous rom-com, the movie Pretty Woman. In that movie, Julia Roberts plays a hooker with a heart of gold who’s swept off her feet by a handsome, powerful man. But that is where the similarities end, unless there’s a director’s cut of Pretty Woman that ends with half of Los Angeles on fire and a massacre at Dodgers stadium. That joke will make more sense in about 90 minutes.

So, now that we’re all caught up and primed for the next installment, we can crack open the pages, remove our book mark, and pick up where we left off.

Welcome to When Justinian Met Theodora – Part 2.

==== BEGIN =====

It’s 531 A.D.

Four years after Justinian and Theodora first became Emperor and Empress.

We’re in Constantinople, the capitol city of Byzantium.

There’s a theory, popular among some urban anthropologists, that every city on earth has a unique smell. Every city that has ever existed, in fact - from ancient Babylon to Victorian London to 1970s Tokyo - had a singular combination of aromas that no other city could ever truly imitate/replicate. “Smellscapes” they’re called. Like thumbprint, or the iris of an eye, each city’s smell is totally unique, formed from a precise ratio of environmental factors: Geography, climate and cuisine. Flora and fauna. Sewage systems or lack thereof. Like ingredients in a pot, they stew together to form something completely distinct.

For example. New York and Mumbai and Beijing and Moscow are all big cities. They are all filled with people, living similar lives in similar ways. But no two cities, the theory goes, smell exactly the same.

What then, we might wonder, would 6^th century Constantinople have smelled like? Riding through the great bronze gates, or leaping onto the crowded docks, what aromas might’ve assailed your nostrils? Well, like all huge cities, Constantinople didn’t smell especially good or especially bad, it just…smelled. Pleasant mingling with putrid.

You would’ve smelled all kinds of things: salt from the sea. Incense from the churches. Horseshit from the Hippodrome. The metallic tang of fish blood and the sticky smoke of hearths, bread baking and sewage rotting and roses blooming. And walking through this unique urban smellscape, taking big, greedy lungfuls of God’s good air, a brand-new (and very important) character strolls into our story.

MEET JOHN

His name is John.

John the Cappadocian.

That’s J-O-H-N (John). The Cappadocian – C-A-P-P-A-D-O-C-I-A-N

Truth be told, John does not like being called THE CAPPADOCIAN. To be fair, it is a factual observation. He is from Cappadocia, a small province on the empire’s fringes. It was the WAY they said it. The way a simple, innocuous noun like JEW or MEXICAN or ARAB can be twisted into a slur with just the right [forceful] inflection. When people called John, “John the CAPPADOCIAN” – he knew what they were really saying: John, the outsider. John, the alien. John, the immigrant.

->

It shouldn’t have mattered where he was from, of course. Constantinople was FULL of immigrants. As Antony Bridge writes: “in origin the people of Constantinople might be Roman, Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Arab, or even Gothic, for a large number of blue-eyed, fair-haired Germans could be seen in the city.”

But in Roman society, Cappadocians were considered to be…untrustworthy. According to Antony Bridge, a popular saying at the time went: “‘Cappadocians are always bad, worse in political office, and worst where money is concerned.”  As with most stereotypes, no one knew where it came from exactly. Like mold growing quietly in the cabinet/basement of ignorance, it just sort of festered and took on a life of its own.

But as he swaggers cheerfully through the byways of Byzantium in the summer of 531 A.D., John is untroubled by slurs and petty bigotry. When you’re as filthy rich and obscenely powerful as John the Cappadocian, it doesn’t matter what they call you.

If business cards had been customary in 6th century Constantinople, John would’ve needed two just to fit all of his titles and honorifics. Praetorian Prefect. Count of the Sacred Largesse. Chief Financial Minister. John the Cappadocian is, according to David Alan Parnell, “the highest-ranking civilian official in the imperial government.”

Put in the simplest possible terms, John is the Chief Tax Collector of the Byzantine Empire. He is Justinian’s money man. When John walks through the city / Constantinople, he smells only one thing: cold hard cash.

Money, after all, is like oxygen to a large empire. Without it, the builders stop building, the ships stop sailing, and the soldiers stop showing up. John’s job is to make sure that the imperial treasury/coffers never runs dry. To extract every available copper and coin from the good people of this glorious empire/city. By any means necessary.

Throughout history, tax collectors have never been the most popular public officials, but the people of Constantinople hate John with a special intensity. They hate him because he is a Cappadocian. They hate him because he takes their money. But most of all, they hate him because he is FAIR. Under John’s watchful eye, no one dodges taxes. Not the lowliest peasant or the richest Senator. It doesn’t matter if you have too much money or not nearly enough, no one is exempt from their civic duty. If you owe, you pay. One way or another.

There’s an old saying that nothing is certain except death and taxes. John’s philosophy was that neglecting the latter would hasten the former. Fail to pay your taxes, and you might receive a late-night visit from John’s enforcers for a kind of abdominal audit. My knife, your guts, no appeals. Some people even whispered that John had dungeons and torture chambers beneath his mansion, where he flayed and whipped and dismembered people who couldn’t pay up.

Keep whispering, John thought, and you might start giving me ideas.

But today, John’s mind is far away from all that nasty gossip. Like a taut rubber band, his mind snaps back to the here & now. After a pleasant commute through the city, he has arrived at his destination. His workplace, so to speak. The Imperial palace. Soldiers nod, spears part, and John strides through the gilded gates. No matter how many times he comes here, the Emperor’s Palace never fails to impress.

It was, writes Paolo Cesaretti, a “city within the city, a sacred enclosure of almost twenty-five acres running down a gentle slope on the city’s European shore.”

“The Palace itself was not a single large building like Buckingham Palace,” adds Antony Bridge, “but a great complex of buildings more like the Kremlin in Moscow, covering a considerable area and housing the whole apparatus of the central government of the Empire.”

If you didn’t know where you were going, the Imperial Palace was a web within a maze, wrapped in a labyrinth. Someone could get lost in here and wander the grounds for years. But John the Cappadocian does know where he’s going. Left-right-left-left-left-right-past the statues of dead old men and through the big bronze doors.

MEET BELISARIUS

But as he rounds a blind corner, John nearly collides with another person. In Constantinople, conventional wisdom held that it was not wise to collide with John the Cappadocian. Wild horses or stone walls were preferable; they left fewer bruises.

After a brief moment of awkwardness, composure is regained, clothes are smoothed, and fake smiles are exchanged.

“Hello, John.”

“Hello, Belisarius.”

If John the Cappadocian is the highest-ranking civilian official in Justinian’s regime, Belisarius is the highest-ranking NON-civilian official. That’s B-E-L-I-S-A-R-I-U-S.  Belisarius is a soldier. Scratch that, he is THE soldier. Standing straight as a Corinthian column, clad sternum to sandals in glittering fish-scale armor, Belisarius is the most celebrated military mind in the Byzantine Empire. Justinian’s top general and personal favorite.

John had a mind for numbers, finance and human weakness. But Belisarius had a mind for battlefields. He looked at a battlefield the same way Michael Jordan looked at a basketball. He just knew what to do. It made perfect sense to him. Like he’d been born to do it. Normally, these instincts take generals a lifetime (or many other people’s lifetimes) to develop, but Belisarius is somewhat of a prodigy. He is remarkably young, only in his late 20s.  If not for the chains of office and imperious glare, he could pass for a greenhorn conscript.

General Belisarius clears his throat and breaks the uncomfortable silence: “On your way to the throne room, John?” [chesty]

[less chesty’]

“Where else?” The Cappadocian smiles, “The Emperor requires my presence and my counsel.”

“I’m surprised you have the time.” quips Belisarius, “Surely you have some farmer to extort, or fishwife to torture.”

John smiles with his teeth but not his eyes, “Oh don’t be naïve, General. You of all people should appreciate the importance of a robust tax policy. After all,” he taps Belisarius’ breastplate, “Who do you think pays for this? For your soldiers and all their sharp toys? Wars cost money, young man.”

Belisarius looks at John like something that crawled out of his soup. “The Emperor is waiting.” He scowls, “Let’s go.” Cape whirling, armor rattling, the young General turns on his heel and marches toward the throne room.

John sighs./ rolls his eyes

In the popular imagination, God created 9 circles of Hell to torment sinners, each one worse / more horrific than the last. But if He had created a 10^th circle, it would’ve been a ring of eternal small talk with co-workers. And if He’d created an 11^th, it would’ve been small talk with Belisarius. Thankfully, no deity is that cruel.

THE THRONE ROOM

Torches gutter and heavy doors creak as the two men enter the Throne Room. As far as we know, there were no time-traveling photographers sneaking around the Byzantine palace, so we don’t know exactly what this room looked like. But we can imagine. We can imagine elaborate mosaics and red granite, gold leaf and polished bronze. The kind of room that you start whispering in without even realizing it. And looming above all the opulence, hunched like two marble gargoyles, are the Imperial thrones. A twin set.

As the doors slam shut behind them, John the Cappadocian and General Belisarius immediately drop to their knees. They are now in the presence of the Emperor and Empress of Byzantium, God’s representatives on Earth, and the proper protocol must be observed.

As John crawls on his hands and feet toward the thrones, prostrating himself on the cold tile, he can’t help but find this whole ritual/exercise a bit ridiculous. The previous Emperor, the senile old soldier Justin, had never required any of these embarrassing displays of deference. But since Justinian and Theodora had ascended to the Byzantine Throne, they’d made some big changes. As Paolo Cesaretti writes:

“Until this time, people admitted to the emperor’s presence had been required merely to bow to him. Patricians could incline their heads in the direction of the breast of the Augustus and receive his kiss; the other senators genuflected on their right knee. Now that the empire had such vast political goals and such lofty religious and moral dicta, all the ancient formal customs and deep-rooted meanings were being changed. Senators and patricians ceased to address the rulers with the technical, essentially neutral terms of “emperor” and “empress.” They were to address them now as “lord” and “lady,” if not “master” and “mistress.” In other words, the technical appellation was supplanted by an admission of personal subjection; high-ranking dignitaries became “servants” if not “slaves” of the rulers.”

When he arrives on all fours at the throne, John places a kiss on a dainty white foot, pale as cream. He moves slightly to the right, and repeats the gesture with someone else’s foot, tan and sinewy. General Belisarius does the same / repeats the ritual. And then, they hear a kind, warm voice above their heads.

“John. Belisarius. My friends, please rise.”

They peer up into the familiar face of their Emperor, Justinian the first. His curly black hair is flattened under a heavy crown. Next to him, hand on her husband’s shoulder, is the Empress…Theodora. She says nothing, but her huge eyes shine/twinkle in the torchlight. It is difficult not to stare.

Knees creaking, lower back aching, John the Cappadocian hauls himself to his middle-aged feet. Belisarius, of course, pops up like a well-oiled spring.

“Well, now that we’re all here,” Justinian claps his hands together,” Let us convene this council.”

During his time as Emperor, Justinian had five key people that he relied upon to run his Empire. Five advisors to help him carry out his policies, agenda, and vision for New Rome. Like the five digits/fingers of a hand, they worked in concert to serve their regent.

There was John the Cappadocian, who collected taxes and raised the money.

There was General Belisarius, who commanded the armies and defended the empire.

Then there was the eunuch, Narses, who coordinated the Emperor’s spies and informants. Like a sort of 6^thcentury CIA director.

There was also the lawyer, a man named Tribonian, who wrote Justinian’s  laws and edicts.

And last, but certainly not least, was the Empress Theodora. Justinian’s wife, confidante, and best friend. The steel rod in his spine.

And today, in 531 A.D., the five fingers of the emperor’s hand have come together, tight as a fist, to discuss the complicated business of running an empire.

“Tribonian,” Justinian gestures at the lawyer, “Why don’t you start us off.”

Resplendent in tailored silk, gold rings clinking/rattling on his hand, the greatest legal mind in the Empire rises to his feet, bows low, and clears his throat. As Tribonian the Lawyer prattles on about edicts and statutes and precedents, John the Cappadocian, the Tax Man, scans the room, his eyes flitting from person to person.

John is not an educated man, in the traditional sense. He doesn’t have a lawyer’s pedigree or a soldier’s discipline or Empress’ good looks, but he knows people. Human frailty is a stink that he is cursed/doomed to detect. And after being with the five other people in this room on countless occasions, over and over again, he has them all figured out.

Tribonian, the stuffed toga currently bloviating, is, in technical terms, a greedy fucker. He writes the laws with himself in mind, funneling wealth to his estate right under the emperor’s nose. But greed does not concern John all that much. Avarice is predictable, and therefore manageable. In truth, John is oddly thankful for Tribonian’s existence. Because if there’s one thing people hate more than the Tax Man, it’s a lawyer.

John’s wolfish eyes flit to the next speaker.

Now, there is Narses, N-A-R-S-E-S, the eunuch spymaster. It’s an old stereotype that Eunuchs are the most dangerous of men. But John had never really understood that cliché. Eunuchs, by definition, lacked the very thing that made men most dangerous. Narses was deadly not because of a lack of genitalia/equipment, but because of an abundance of information. His agents were everywhere, wriggling through the capitol like worms in an apple. Not a person to make an enemy of, John notes.

After Narses sits down, it’s General Belisarius’ turn to speak. The perfect soldier. Byzantium’s white knight. John rolls his eyes and stifles a chuckle. Of all the people in this room, Belisarius might be the stupidest. Oh, give him a sword and a command tent and he is a mighty talent. Only a fool would deny the young General’s acumen for war. But as insightful as Belisarius is, he has a blind spot the size of a trebuchet. If the rumors were true, and in Constantinople they always were, Belisarius was bit a cuckold. It was said that his wife, a blushing young beauty named Antonina, took many, many lovers on the side. And for whatever reason, Belisarius refused to see it.

In a weird way, John feels bad for Belisarius. A busy young man, a wandering wife. It’s a tale as old as two-timing. The Cappadocian grinds his teeth. Women, he thinks, will be the end of us all.

Without even thinking, his eyes dart to the last member of the Emperor’s hand. One woman in particular, he thinks, might be the end of us all. For the briefest second, John’s eyes lock with the Empress Theodora. But holding her gaze is like holding a hot pan/coal. In some primal instinct of self-preservation, he drops his eyes to the floor.

->

Feigning nonchalance, John tries to stabilize his breathing. The previous Empress, Old Justin’s slave bride Euphemia, was an intimidating woman. Strong, fearless, intelligent. But this new Queen, Theodora…she is something else entirely. An ex-prostitute, if the rumors were true. A dancer, a stripper, an actress– maybe all three. They said that a few short years ago, she’d been the most expensive piece of ass in the city. Then, without a word, she disappeared for months; and when she returned, she did so with a baby on her back and Jesus in her heart. Three months later, she was waking up in Prince Justinian’s palace.

It didn’t make any fucking sense, John thought. The math didn’t add up. Of all the women in this empire…why her? It’s not that he didn’t understand Theodora’s appeal, on a physical level. She was undeniably beautiful. No - not beautiful, he thinks…that’s not the right word. Theodora is intoxicating. Like a dangerous opiate. One little taste, and you’ll go insane. In John’s jealous imagination, he is alone with the Empress in a locked room. He rips her robe, pulls her hair, and unbuckles his pants. And then… his fantasies are rudely interrupted.

“John!” The Emperor Justinian says affectionately. “Please bring us back to Earth. Tell me how I’m going pay for all these grand plans.” “for another year of grand plans and glorious progress.”

The Cappadocian bows his head, “With happy hearts, your subjects will provide, Caesar.”

Justinian smiles, “And thanks to you, they always do. Even though your methods have proven a bit…unorthodox. Methods that would’ve made Pontius Pilate himself queasy, I hear.”

Mixed chuckles rise from the assembly. The Emperor turns to address the entire council. “We are the on the threshold of a new era, my friends” he says, “An age of miracles. Four years ago, when my esteemed Uncle went to be with God, he placed a heavy burden on my shoulders. This Roman Empire of ours is vast and ancient and magnificent, but it is plagued on all sides by jealous enemies. Hun raiders to the North, heretics to the south, and Persians to the East.

“As you all know, the Persians have been an especially stubborn obstacle these past few years. Despite the valiant efforts of General Belisarius, their heathen armies still threaten our borders, endanger our cities, and put a drain on our treasury.”

Out of the corner of his eye, John sees Belisarius cast an embarrassed glance at the floor.

“But we must not be distracted by these cyclical vendettas. Romans have fought Persians for 500 years. They are no more an existential threat to us than a passing rainstorm. We need to be thinking much bigger than that. God’s plan for this mighty empire does not lie in Eastern deserts. Instead, we must look to the West. Because although we are powerful, wealthy, and blessed by heaven’s light, we are also…incomplete. // We may be powerful, we may be wealthy, we may be blessed by heaven’s light, but we are also…incomplete.”

John pinches the bridge of his nose. Here we go again. This old hobby horse.

Justinian continues: “Even now, as we sit chattering in this hall, the birthplace of our Empire is under occupation. Many miles and leagues from here, far to the West, Old Rome is in chains. The city of Caesar and Augustus and Trajan and Marcus Aurelius is under the heel of barbarian chieftains, defiled by profane rituals. It is true, they claim to accept the Christ, they claim to love the one true God…. but their faith is false, my friends. A counterfeit and corrupted devotion to heretical screeds. As your Emperor, God has chosen me to liberate these stolen lands. We must always, always remember, that we are one half of a larger whole.”

Justinian casts a loving glance at Theodora.

“And until the two halves are rejoined, Rome will never be complete.”

John the Cappadocian nods along, but he has heard this speech before. They all have. Reconquering the lost territories of the Western Roman Empire was Justinian’s undying obsession. His fixation. His delusion, some might say. As Antony Bridge writes:

“Justinian’s one over-riding aim in life, was to restore the Empire to its former extent and former glory; everything he did was done to further that end. The imperium romanun had brought greater blessings to mankind than any other political system since the creation of the world, and since the Empire had embraced Christianity, it had become co-extensive with the kingdom of God on earth; to push back its boundaries once again, until they reached and then exceeded their former limits, was therefore an enterprise which would bring to more and more people the dual blessings of civilization in this world and salvation in the next.”

It was true, Justinian had a dream. But dreams, John noted, don’t come cheap. The Emperor was an intelligent and thoughtful man; he was also very, very bad with money. The reach of his ambition often exceeded the grasp of his bank account. As Antony Bridge describes:

Justinian desperately needed money: money to pay for the war with Persia; money for his grandiose schemes of reconquest in Italy, north Africa, Spain and elsewhere; money for his almost equally grandiose building schemes, for he had a passion for building fortresses, churches, and palaces which amounted almost to an addiction; money for his diplomatic policy of buying the support and alliance of barbarian nations in strategic positions beyond the frontiers of the Empire, wherever they were well placed to act as buffer states between the Byzantines and the ever-restless, ever-menacing nomadic peoples of Asia and northern Europe; and finally money to behave with the kind of regal generosity which alone befitted a Roman Emperor, and which in any case came naturally to him and to Theodora, who were generous people by temperament and inclination.”

To raise all this money – and quickly, Justinian had hired John the Cappadocian. The Emperor’s financial acumen was questionable, but he had an eye for talent. Where other people saw in John a crude, uncultured immigrant, Justinian sensed a shrewd and singular intelligence. As Bridge writes:

“Coarse, uneducated, crude in speech and manners, [John] was a man of limitless appetites, a drunkard, a lecher, and a glutton; but he was a brilliant organizer, a hard worker, and a man of immense personal force, which made him useful to Justinian as head of the huge Byzantine bureaucracy, without which the Empire could not possibly have been governed. […] John was extremely able, completely ruthless, and afraid of no one.”

->

John wasn’t afraid, but wasn’t blind either.

He knew something that no one in this room would dare tell the Emperor to his face. For all his grand plans and gilded language, Justinian was deeply unpopular with the Byzantine people.

The emperor’s heavy taxes and abrupt legal reforms were causing serious discontent within the city. Patricians and Peasants, Greens and Blues, they were all becoming increasingly frustrated and resentful. Cocooned in his Palace alongside his limber Empress, Justinian couldn’t feel their hot glares or angry stares, but John could. He’d felt their spit on his cheek and their screams of pain in his ear. He had intimidated, murdered and maimed to come up with the coin for Justinian’s pet projects. He had squeezed every last drop from every last citizen.

But it still wasn’t enough.

And now, like a boil filled with pus, all that anger was ready to pop.

When the council meeting adjourns, John the Cappadocian leaves the Palace and returns to his gated estate in the city. Out of caution, he doubles the guards outside the front door. One cup of wine becomes two becomes three, and when his mind stops racing, John climbs into bed and blows out the candle.

Constantinople, he fears, is about to explode.

---- MUSIC BREAK -----

It’s the morning of January 12^th, 532 A.D. [DAY BEFORE RIOTS]

“Morning” is a charitable term here, because at this early hour, the sun has not even risen yet.

We’re deep within the Imperial Palace, that sprawling maze of antechambers, courtyards, and banquet halls. And somewhere in this luxurious labyrinth, a razor-sharp knife is unsheathed in the dark. It catches the torchlight, and then suddenly stabs downward. It rises, falls, and rises again. Slicing, cutting, and gutting. The blade is wielded by a skilled practitioner, an expert in his craft. After a short but intense interval, the dripping steel is wiped clean and returned to its sheathe. Like nothing ever happened.

The wielder looks down at his handywork, admiring the carnage.

The knife-wielder surveys the carnage below.

2 chopped cabbages. 5 minced garlic cloves, 14 pitted olives, a pair of fish filets, and one very stubborn carrot/turnip. With a few glugs of olive oil and a drizzle of fish sauce, this meal is ready to serve. A nice healthy breakfast, fit for an Emperor and Empress.

The Palace chef snaps his fingers, and a servant appears at his side. Take this straight to the Imperial bedchambers, please. No dallying, no delays, and no flirting with the guards. The servant nods, scoops up the serving tray and rushes off. The Chef sighs. Then remembers something important. Wait, wait, he calls out. Almost forgot. He places a few pieces of candied fruit on the tray. Mustn’t forget dessert. The Empress loves her little sweets.

As the servant approaches the Imperial bedchambers, clutching her culinary cargo like a nuclear football, she starts to hear raised voices. Two raised voices, to be exact. A man and a woman, arguing back and forth in a heated verbal chess match. The servant prepares to enter the royal suite, but a guard outside the door shakes his head, His mouth says nothing, but his eyes say, not a good time. Trust me. Come back later.

The Emperor and Empress are fighting again. Coming between them in the middle of an argument was like trying to separate two wild lions. Better to keep a safe distance and let the storm pass. As the servant scurries off, a ripe green olive rolls off the tray and onto the floor. The guard skewers it with the point of his spear, plucks it from the tip, and pops it into his mouth. Boring job, he thinks, but it has its perks.

Inside the royal chambers, Justinian is sitting on the edge of an enormous bed, rubbing small circles into his temples.

“So, let me get this straight,” he says. “Explain it to me again. You do not - REPEAT – do NOT believe, that Jesus Christ was a mortal man.”

Theodora puts her hands on her hips, “That’s not what I said. What I SAID, was that Christ’s divine nature supersedes his mortal nature. He wasn’t a God; He wasn’t a man; he was something else entirely. A synthesis. One perfect being with a singular nature.”

Justinian throws up his hands. “How can Christ have ONE nature when he clearly has two? He lived as a mortal man for 33 years! Only after he died – key word ‘died’ – did he ascend into divinity. He wasn’t perfect at all. That’s what makes him relatable, Theodora. That’s what makes him inspiring. He had flaws. Like us.”

Speak for yourself Theodora says.

Theodora shakes her head, “Oh grow up, Justinian. The so-called ‘flaws’ were part of God’s divine plan. Set in stone from the very beginning of time. Therefore, they weren’t flaws at all. Severus always said –

Justinian rolls his eyes -loudly, but she presses onward. “SEVERUS always said, that Christ was wholly divine. Jesus walked among us, yes, but he was never truly one of us. No mortal man could ever do what he did. Endure what he endured.”

“Severus,” Justinian smiles, “is a loony old apostate who spent too much time baking his brain in the desert.”

Theodora’s does not smile back. “Severus saved me,” she says sternly/with a faraway expression, “Without him, I’d still be…Well. Without him, I never would have met you.”

“In that case,” Justinian replies, “I’m grateful for the old nutjob. And I still love you; even if you are a heretic.”

Justinian ducks to avoid the pillow she throws at his head. “I should smite you for that,” he warns.

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” she crawls closer and curls beside him, “Now that you mention it, I think I’m overdue for a little smiting.”

After a few minutes, the guard outside the door hears loud voices again - although these are of a slightly more pleasant pitch. And mostly coming from the Empress. The guard shuffles his feet in embarrassment, hums a tune, and tries to think about something else.

Just then, The servant girl returns, hoping to deliver the royal breakfast, and once again, the guard shakes his head, uh… not a good time.

For most married couples, sharp theological disagreements tend to be a prelude to divorce. But for soulmates like Justinian and Theodora, it/fighting was [just] foreplay. There are, of course, arguments in every marriage. Where to eat. What show to watch. Whose turn it is to take out the trash. But on the rare occasion when the Emperor and Empress quarreled, it was usually about the nature of God.

Early Christians quickly realized that a new religion isn’t truly respectable until it’s had a few violent schisms. Which means that modern Christianity might be the most respectable religion on earth. Today, there are 22,000 various branches, sects, cults, and denominations, each of them thoroughly convinced that everyone else has it wrong. And one of the first of these major schisms occurred in the time of Justinian and Theodora.

On one side of the divide was the Orthodox party. So named because it upheld, well, the orthodox view of Jesus Christ. The Orthodox tradition held that Jesus of Nazareth was a fusion of two distinct natures. Kind of like how a coin has two faces. Divine on one side, Mortal on the other. Coexisting and yet distinctly separate. Justinian – and most of the Byzantine world – believed in the Orthodox view.  

In the opposing corner was a breakaway sect called the Monophysites. “Mono” meaning “one”. “Physite” meaning “body”. As such, Monophysites believed that Jesus Christ had only one nature, not two. He wasn’t a God; He wasn’t a man. He was something else - completely new and completely unique. Theodora, and her spiritual mentor Severus, subscribed to the Monophysite interpretation.

Now, to a modern, secular observer, this all may seem like debating whether a fork should have four prongs or five, but at the time, it mattered. In the towns and churches and basilicas of the Mediterranean, debating became fighting became killing. By Justinian and Theodora’s time, the schism had left the Christian world, as Bettany Hughes puts it, “bitterly divided.”

Now an Emperor and Empress who hold fundamentally different religious beliefs might sound like a brick of C4, wrapped in dynamite, strapped to a powder keg, but…it was actually fine. Justinian and Theodora approached their marriage as co-equal partners, each entitled to their own views and opinions; and although they fiercely debated the question, it never drove a wedge between them. As Hughes writes:

“The rest of the world keenly felt this split, but at home in their Great Palace overlooking the sea at Constantinople the two seemed to have rubbed along and positively enjoyed the sparks they created.”

Later that morning in 532 A.D., as Justinian and Theodora lay in a tangle of damp sheets, the Emperor breaks the drowsy silence. “What are we going to teach them?’

“Teach?” Theodora asks, “Teach who?”

“Our future children, obviously,” Justinian replies, “How are we going to shield them from all your incorrect opinions about religion.”

Theodora traces a painted nail across his bare chest. “Tell you what. We’ll alternate. The even ones can be Orthodox. The odd one will be Monophysite.”

“The odd ones will be Monophysites,” Justinian echoes, “Sounds about right.”

The Empress snorts and laughs.

“Although Rome regarded Monophysites as a heresy, neither Justinian nor Theodora did.” Writes James Allan Evans, “For them the problem was simply a division between two differing theological interpretations, and reasonable persons should be able to bridge it.”

In fact, the whole situation had a pleasant political side effect. Each regent had a calming effect on the side they represented. As long as Justinian sat the throne, the Orthodox party felt that their interests would never truly be threatened. The Monophysites, by contrast, believed that in Theodora they had a powerful advocate at the highest level of government. And so, the great religious war of the day fizzled into much more manageable pockets of throat-slitting and the occasional pogrom. For now, the great Monophysite schism was the least of Justinian and Theodora’s worries.

And a good thing too. Because other, more existential problems were boiling up in the streets right outside their bedroom. Taxes and tensions were high in Constantinople, and in January of 532, barely four years into his reign, Justinian was confronted with the greatest threat he would ever face, both to his throne and to his life: The very famous, and very bloody, Nika Riots/ Insurrection. That’s N-I-K-A, Nika.

This spasm of civil upheaval was, according to Paolo Cesaretti: “the most violent and momentous urban riots ever to occur in antiquity or late antiquity […] and it would be Theodora who determined their outcome.”

It began, as these things often do, at a sporting event.

NIKA RIOTS

It’s the next day,

It’s January 13^th, 532 A.D.

We’re at the Hippodrome, the great arena and racetrack of Constantinople.

Scattered across the city, there are many holy places. Temples and basilicas, statues and shrines. But deep in their hearts, everyone knows that chariot racing is the true religion of the Byzantine Empire. The sounds of whips and wheels and screaming horses are sweeter than any aria. Holier than any hymn. And this place, the hallowed Hippodrome, is chariot racing’s greatest church.

January 13^th is a Tuesday. It is also a Race Day, and people have come in their tens of thousands to cheer on the charioteers. Outside these walls, people divide themselves into all kinds of categories: Rich and poor, Orthodox and Monophysite, but in the Hippodrome, only one distinction matters:

BLUE or GREEN.

As the chariots thunder around the track, kicking up dirt and dust and the occasional bloody limb, the rival factions roar and cheer and spit and curse. Indeed, the only thing more powerful than their love for the sport, is their hatred for each other. Put a gang of Green & Blue hooligans together in a dark alley, and you’ll be hard pressed to scrape up what’s left into a paper sack.

But today, the Blues and Greens have something in common. Someone they hate even more than each other. And he is currently entering the Imperial box, draped in purple robes and glowing from a fresh round of makeup sex. Justinian the First. Emperor of Byzantium. As he waves from the dais, the crowd erupts in a chorus of boos and jeers. Since he was a boy, Justinian had always dreamed of making history. And today, he’s managed to do just that; something no Emperor has ever done before. He has united the Greens and Blues in common cause.

When Justinian first came to power, the Blues rejoiced and the Greens despaired. The Blues believed they had gained a supreme patron; one of their own on the throne. With Justinian and Theodora’s protection, they were untouchable; free to run wild with impunity. The Greens on the other hand, braced for blistering persecution.

But both factions were in for a surprise. When he became Emperor, Justinian hung up his Blue jersey and traded it for a purple robe. He did not show favoritism to the Blues or prejudice towards the Greens. Instead, he cracked down hard on the rampant hooliganism that both factions had been getting away with for years. Arrests, curfews, raids, making his point at the point of a sword. / even the occasional hanging to make his point clear.

To make matters worse, Justinian unleashed John, the Foul Cappadocian, on the wallets of every Byzantine citizen. The Emperor’s new tax man was appointed in 531 A.D, and in less than a year, he had earned himself a fearsome reputation. If the rumors were to be believed, John’s approach to taxation was like an unholy union between the IRS and the Spanish Inquisition.  As Antony Bridge writes:

The way in which John set about making everyone pay their taxes more than confirmed that popular judgement on his {Cappadocian] countrymen. Being afraid of no one, he treated the rich and the powerful with as little respect as the poor and the weak, throwing anyone, whoever they might be, into jail without the smallest hesitation or compunction, if they would not pay what was demanded of them. No excuses were accepted; protestations of inability to find the money were not believed; and it was said that defiance and refusals to pay were greeted with physical violence. It is always difficult to be sure how much truth there is in accusations of this kind; there is no one more bitterly hated or more likely to attract libelous stories than a ruthless and successful tax-collector. But it seems probable that John, who was a man of immense physical strength and unbelievably coarse manners, did not scruple to have people physically ill-treated when they crossed him, for he is known to have tolerated such abuses of power in some of his subordinates.”

By 532 A.D, the people of Constantinople were very, very pissed off. Over-taxed, over-policed, and pining for the simpler days of senile old Uncle Justin. And yet, all that discontent might’ve been kept at angry, but manageable, simmer, had it not been for the strange events of January 10^th - three days before this chariot race.

On that day, two rival gangs of Blues and Greens had gotten into a scuffle. Punches were thrown, daggers were pulled, and when the clouds of dust cleared, several people were dead. The City Prefect, the capitol’s chief of police, arrested the whole group and sentenced them all to death by hanging the very same day. One by one, their necks cracked beneath the gallows, but when it came time to execute the last two men – one Blue and one Green - the ropes snapped, and they tumbled into the dirt with bruised but unbroken C2 vertebrae. The hangman, a firm believer in the ‘try try again’ theory of capital punishment, attempted to hang them a second time. But once again, the ropes snapped and the execution failed. The assembled crowd, believing this to be a sign from God that the men were innocent, rushed the gallows and carried the Blue and Green off to a hideout for safety. The city guards pursued them, surrounded the building, and a stalemate ensued.

Three days later, on January 13^th, (The Ides of January) this standoff has still not been resolved.

But there is hope at the Hippodrome. Blues and Greens gather in their tens of thousands to shout and plead and chant at Emperor Justinian, hoping that he will pardon the two men and defuse this tense situation. As Antony Bridge describes:

“The great stadium was even more crowded than usual; the seats were packed to capacity, and people were perched on anything and everything which provided a vantage point. From the start the atmosphere was tense and angry, and Justinian had not taken his seat for five minutes before the two official spokesmen for the Blues and the Greens, the Demarchs as they were called, one after the other began to beg him to pardon the two fugitives in the Church of Saint Lawrence. It was well understood that the Emperor was under no obligation to reply through his own spokesman, the Mandator, although he often did so; and on this occasion he chose to sit silently in the kathisma as though he had not heard the words addressed to him.”

There are 24 chariot races scheduled for today. After each one concludes, the stadium crowds scream at the Imperial box, begging the Emperor to acknowledge the will of God and release the men from their death sentence. To their shock and anger, their pleas remain unanswered. In fact, the Emperor will not even engage in a dialogue with them, as he and his predecessors so often did.

“He may have been advised by City Prefect,” continues Antony Bridge, “that it was essential to be firm and not to give way to popular pressure on behalf of the two condemned men on the grounds that, if rioters were once allowed to get away without retribution, worse riots would be sure to follow, especially since the capital was so full of unrest; or he may have decided on his own behalf not to respond to the appeals made to him. In any case, the Mandator remained in his place without saying a word.”

Justinian, like many rulers throughout history, didn’t have much deference for the opinions of The People. After all, if the People actually knew what was good for the people, they wouldn’t be “the people”. The sheep don’t lead the flock; the shepherd does. And so, Justinian remains silent.

By the 22^nd chariot race, the crowd is frothing with frustration and discontent. And then, something happens that has never happened in the history of the Hippodrome. The Blues and Greens start chanting not against each other, but WITH each other. A lone cry goes up:

“Long live the merciful Blues and Greens!”

The cry is answered with a rhythmic incantation. As stadium chants go, it’s fairly straightforward. One word, two syllables, shouted over and over again. Up in the Imperial box, Justinian furrows his brow and turns to John the Cappadocian.

“What are they saying, John? Can you make it out?”

John cranes his ear; He recognizes the word instantly. “Nika”, my lord. They’re saying ‘Nika”.

‘Nika’ is a Greek word, which has a few different meanings, depending on the context. It can mean “victory’; it can mean ‘conquer’; it can mean “may you win”. But in this context, its message to Justinian rang clear as a church bell: “Fuck. You.” As Paolo Cesaretti writes:

“Nika was the Greek version of the Latin Tu vincas, the cheer from the crowds that usually greeted the Augustus in his role as military chief. The crowd’s change of language signaled a change in meaning. The phrase no longer exhorted the emperor to prevail over an enemy; now one faction was exhorting the other, one citizen wishing another, “may you be victorious!” Thus, the emperor was no longer “benevolent” and “humane” or “victorious.” Strengthened by its size and its everyday language, the crowd had seized those prerogatives for itself, without any partisan distinctions. Being able to speak out meant being able to act.”

For decades, modern researchers have been studying the dangerous and volatile psychology of spectator crowds. When enough people gather, and emotions run high, something primordial clicks in the brain. The synapses unravel, the chemistry curdles, and people just want to break something. To quote a favorite author of mine, “the intelligence of that creature known as a Crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it.”

In 2018, Philadelphia Eagles fans flipped cars and destroyed traffic lights after their team won the Super Bowl. In 1994, 200 people were injured in Vancouver after Game 7 of the Stanley Cup. In 1964, over 300 people were killed at a soccer game in Peru.

And in January 532 A.D, the deadliest sports riot in human history raged through the city of Constantinople.

As Emperor Justinian listens to 50,000 people shout “Nika” in terrifying unison, the Imperial Box doesn’t feel so safe and secure anymore. The ancient equivalent of a Secret Service detail escorts him out of the box and down the long hallway that connects back to the palace. They barricade the doors and unsheathe their swords. This is what optimists refer to as a ‘tactical retreat’.

“At this,” writes David Alan Parnell, “the riot spilled out of the hippodrome and onto the streets of Constantinople. Driven by their request to free the two convicted murderers who had escaped the hangman, the rioters proceeded to the headquarters of the city prefect, loudly demanding the release of the prisoners. When no response was forthcoming, the rioters burned down the building.”

Violent riots have a lot of things, but clear objectives are not among them. Unsatisfied with the razing of the Praetorium, their blood still hot and the word “Nika” in their lungs, they set other symbols of authority to the torch. As Paolo Cesaretti writes:

“The crowd set fire to the palace vestibule (the Chalkê), to the senate building, and to the basilica of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia). These were some of the most distinctive buildings of Constantine’s city: the palatial symbol of power; the home of the senate that had raised up the second Rome to equal the first; and the church that kept the city under God’s protection were all lost in a single night of fire.

Standing on a balcony in the Imperial Palace, Theodora watches the distant red flames twist at grope/grasp at the stars. Like twin snow globes, her eyes reflect the destruction in miniature. This is bad, she thinks. Really bad. The Palace is a safe place for now, a veritable fortress, but for how long? How long before those rioters run out of things to burn and set their sights on the true object of their anger?

Her concentration is broken by a sudden, loud noise. It’s Justinian, pounding his desk in anger. “Savages”, he says quietly. “All of them, savages. Worse than barbarians. Worse than Persians!”

“They’re not savages,” she says. “They’re angry.”  

“The church, Theodora. They burned down the Church.”

“Churches can be rebuilt,” She shrugs, “Monuments can be repaired. What you need to mend is this break with your people.” She cups his face with her soft white hands. “Justinian, listen to me. This is not going to stop.”

Justinian pulls his face away. “Oh, it’ll stop. I’ll have Belisarius see to that.”

Theodora shakes her head. “It won’t be enough. We have, what, a few thousand soldiers in the city? In a head-to-head fight, they’ll be overrun; ripped to pieces. Then, they’ll come for us. Just stop for a moment and think. Don’t react; think. What do the factions want?”

Justinian looks up into her eyes, and understands.

The next morning, Wednesday January 14^th, the crowds return to the Hippodrome. After a long night of smashing, burning and breaking, the rioters have gathered in their tens of thousands to present their demands to the Emperor of Byzantium. This is no longer a sports stadium, it’s a negotiating table. As Paolo Cesaretti writes:

They didn’t come there to watch the races. The protest was turning into a political statement. The heads of the two factions had met in secret all night long and they were no longer simply asking that the two condemned men be set free; now they wanted political changes: they wanted resignations.”

Through his booming interlocutor, the Mandator, Justinian asks the angry crowd what its demands are. Although in his heart, he already knows the answer. The spokesmen for the Greens and Blues cup their hands and shout up at the Imperial Box.

We want an end to these taxes and to the laws that justify them, they say. For a year, we have been squeezed and extorted by that psychopathic leech you call a Tax Collector. The foul Cappadocian, John. Remove him from his position, immediately. And while you’re writing pink slips, dismiss Tribonian, the bloodsucking lawyer, too.

Without missing a beat, the Emperor agrees. Done. Fine. They’re both gone.

John the Cappadocian, standing a few feet away in the Imperial box, feels like he’s been punched in the mouth. Almost instantly, his shock catalyzes into anger. He glares at the back of Justinian’s curly crowned head. You stupid, purple idiot, he thinks. No amount of carrots are going to save you from the stick. [Theodora, that up-jumped stripper, must’ve put you up to this, must’ve planted this desperate idea in your head. She’s always hated me. So why not sacrifice the foul tax collector to appease the whims of the crowd. Or maybe not. Maybe you’re capable of such breathtaking stupidity all by yourself.

Yes, if John the Cappadocian knew anything, it was human nature. Give the mob a cookie, and they’ll take the whole goddamn jar. Unfortunately for Justinian, the Cappadocian’s analysis was spot-on. The rioters had gotten what they wanted, but they were still not satisfied.

As the week dragged on, Constantinople continued to burn – with no end in sight.

==== MUSIC BREAK =====

It’s 1887.

About 1,300 years after the Nika riots.

By this time, the Byzantine Empire is long gone. Just a paragraph in a school textbook. Ask for directions to Constantinople, capitol of the Byzantines, and they’ll say, oh you mean Istanbul, capitol of the Ottoman Empire.

But on this pleasant spring morning, we are far away from the ruins of the Eastern Roman world. We are in the city of Paris, France, 1700 miles to the north west. At this time, at the height of what is called the Belle Époque, (or ‘beautiful era), Paris was the epicenter of European culture, art, tourism and technology. Many of the city’s most iconic landmarks were built in this period, even the famous Eiffel Tower, which in 1887, is still in the early stages of construction. Just a squat little tangle of beams, bolts and rivets – beside a very large ‘pardon our dust’ sign.

And somewhere in this city of almost 2 million people, in a quiet art studio overlooking the city, a painter is painting. The fumes of turpentine and linseed oil fill the air as this painter mixes, washes, brushes, and layers. His name, which I will duly butcher, is Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant.  He is 43 years old and a celebrated artist of the Romantic and Orientalist styles.

With his close-cropped hair, little spectacles on a chain, and twirly mustache that’d make a Brooklyn bartender green with envy, Jean-Joseph is every inch the Parisian artiste.

Most great artists can point to some formative experience, some spark in their life that set them on their creative path. For Jean-Joseph, it was a trip to Morocco in 1872. Something about the Islamic world, with its strange attire, its flowing script, the dawn droning of the call-to-prayer, it inspired Jean-Joseph. He returned to Paris with a burning desire to capture his dreams in canvas.

Over the next decade and a half, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant created dozens of beautiful oil paintings, many of which you can still find today in modern art museums. He painted Turkish janissaries and Arab traders, harem girls and long-dead popes – all of it rendered in a lush, realistic style. But today, in his little Paris studio, Jean-Joseph is putting the finishing touches on a painting that he thinks might be his masterpiece.

In terms of composition, it’s a very simple painting. There are no grand vistas, elaborate architecture, or complex poses. It’s just a depiction of a woman sitting in a chair. But what a woman, and what a chair.

Jean-Joseph has made this woman, for lack of a better word, scary. She reclines on a rounded marble throne, her arms resting casually on each side. Half of her face is obscured in gloomy, slashing shadows. Rather than looking into the distance, she stares directly at the viewer, watching us, weighing us, judging us. We get the impression that we are at her feet, in chains, and she is deciding whether to grant us a quick death, or a very long one.  / impassive/imperious.

With a final dab/flourish of his brush, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant completes his painting. In the lower left-hand corner, he signs his surname in cursive. There, is of course, just one last thing to do. Every painting needs a title. Something to etch on the plaque in the museum. When asked what he calls his newest masterpiece, the artist answers proudly:

“Empress Theodora”

Artists from this period often depicted female rulers as soft, dainty, gentle creatures. But Benjamin-Constant chose to depict Theodora as a frightening figure of authority. Why would he do that? What did Theodora do to earn that interpretation, to earn that chilling reputation?

Well, we’re about to find out.

A PURPLE SHROUD

In a blink, we are no longer in 19^th century Paris.

We’re back in Constantinople, and it’s Sunday, January 18^th, 532 A.D.  

About a week after the Nika Riots first broke out.

Once again, we are in the imperial throne room. And once again, the Emperor’s Hand has convened; Justinian and his five closest advisors.

There’s Theodora, the Empress.

Narses, the eunuch and spymaster.

Belisarius, the celebrated general

Tribonian, the lawyer.

And John the Cappadocian, the recently fired, but still favored, Tax Collector.

The mood in this room is similar to the one you might find on a sinking ship.

It’s been five days since the Nika Riots first broke out. Five days since the Green and Blue circus factions teamed up in common revolt/insurrection against the Emperor. And in that time, things have gone from bad, to worse, to borderline apocalyptic. As Paolo Cesaretti writes:

“In January 532, Constantinople was the very image of a world turned upside down. The emperor, lord of the Ecumene [known world], was holed up in his palace like a prisoner. Former prisoners walked the streets freely. Women were also in the streets, which was uncommon and exciting. Disorder and anarchy reigned in the city just as it was trying to codify new laws that were to stand gloriously through the centuries. The night sky was lit up by fires. Hospitals and churches were destroyed, and those with wounded bodies and spirits were left homeless […] In a perverse switch, the city once considered the center of triumphant civilization was suddenly home to every possible barbarity.”

Justinian had hoped that by acceding to the rioter’s demands, by removing John the Cappadocian and Tribonian from their posts, he might cool the passions of the mob. But all it did was embolden them; the Blues and Greens smelled blood in the water, and they saw an opportunity to tear out Justinian’s regime root-and-stem. The arson and violence continued, and that evening, the upper tiers of the Hippodrome itself were consumed in flames.

With the failure of the carrot, Justinian reached for his favorite stick. The next day, Belisarius rode out at the head of a column of crack troops, hardened warriors / veterans from the Persian front. Like New Rome’s very own Lancelot, Byzantium’s knight in shining armor was determined to crush this uprising once and for all. But the mob was ready and waiting for him, and Belisarius received a costly lesson in the basic principles/fundamentals of urban warfare. As Antony Bridge writes:

“Climbing up on to the roofs of the houses and to their top floors, the people of Constantinople bombarded Belisarius’ men with anything and everything, from roof tiles to boiling water, which came to hand. Even the women of the city joined in, screaming at the Goths like wild cats and egging their men on to fight more fiercely, until eventually the disconcerted and greatly outnumbered soldiers were slowly forced to retreat to the comparative safety of the Palace, leaving the rebels triumphant and even more exasperated than before. Compromise of any sort was now out of the question.”

Free of all threat of consequences, the rioters turned the capitol of the Byzantine Empire into something straight out of the Purge movies. As Bridge continues:

“During the next two days, Friday and Saturday, the citizens of Constantinople went on a rampage of violence, arson, and pillage. Anything and everything connected with the government became their target; they set fire to public buildings wherever they found them, and since there happened to be a strong north wind blowing, the flames spread with appalling rapidity through the dry wooden buildings of the city. The Church of the Holy Peace was burnt down, and so were those dedicated to Saint Theodore Sphoracius and Saint Aquilina. The hospitals of Eubulus and Sampson and the Baths of Alexander were totally destroyed, and fanned by the wind, which carried sheets of flame and showers of sparks up into the cold, grey January air, the fires spread to the Mesê and to some of the residential quarters of the city. The homes of unpopular officials were looted and burnt to the ground; old scores were settled, and though no one knows how many murders were committed during the course of these few anarchical days, it was thought that many people took advantage of the violence of the times to settle long-standing debts of hatred and to avenge old grievances.”

On Sunday, January 18^th, Justinian tried one last-ditch effort at reconciliation. Surrounded by a phalanx of guards, he stood on the Hippodrome’s balcony and addressed the crowds of protestors and rioters. Concessions had failed, threats had failed, so he appealed to their loftier instincts/ he took a more spiritual tack / better angels. Clutching the Holy Bible to his torso like Kevlar vest, Justinian took a deep breath and projected his voice out across the crowd:

“By this power, I forgive you this error, and I order that none of you be arrested but be peaceful; for there is nothing on your head but rather on mine. For my sins have made me deny to you what you asked of me in the hippodrome.” [he meant the request to release the two condemned men that started this whole chain reaction]

In essence, Justinian was offering to pardon all of the rioters. No matter what they had done, or who they’d done it too. As writer Nick Holmes puts:

“This was an extraordinary capitulation by the proud Justinian. He was in effect telling the mob the problem is me, not you.”

In the theatre of his own mind, Justinian might have imagined a great swell of inspirational music, carrying his wise words over the mob, calming their bloodlust, soothing their anger. But the answer he received, was not at all what he expected. With his gesture of reconciliation, Justinian was signaling to them that they had him by the balls. This time a new chant rose up from the crowd:

“You are a forsworn ass”, they shouted.

As Justinian stormed back to the palace, the insult pounded in his ears like a war drum.

Clearly the people of Constantinople had decided they were done with Emperor Justinian the 1^st . But every Empire needs an emperor, and wouldn’t you know it? They’d already picked out a suitable, if not entirely willing, replacement. A nobleman named Hypatius, an unimpressive relative of the Emperor Anastasius that had preceded Old Uncle Justin, had been chosen by the crowd as their next Caesar. Hypatius had the bloodline and the bona fides, but not necessarily the backbone for his new role.

“But the people,” writes Antony Bridge, “would not take ‘no’ for an answer, and Hypatius was bundled out of the[his] house, trembling and protesting his reluctance, by hundreds of jubilant supporters, who carried him off to the Forum of Constantine. His arrival was greeted with rapturous applause, and a golden chain, which someone was wearing as a necklace, was hastily commandeered and wound round his head like a diadem, while the crowd cried, ‘Long live Hypatius!’ As royalty was thus forced upon him, the wretched Hypatius was shaking like a leaf with fear, but as he saw the size of the crowd which was cheering him, and began to recognize a large number of Senators and other eminent people amongst his supporters, he began to recover his nerve, hoping against hope that things might turn out well after all.”

But no matter how much finery they draped over his shivering frame, Hypatius would not truly be Emperor until he physically sat in the Imperial Palace and evicted its current occupant. Until that moment, all of this was just theatre. As Peter Sarris writes: “whoever controlled the palace essentially controlled the throne.”

For the 4^th time that week, the Hippodrome filled up with tens of thousands of people. “But for once in their lives,” writes Antony Bridge, “the Byzantines were no longer in the mood for chariot racing.” The Blues and Greens were seeing Red, and the factions began stockpiling swords, armor, breastplates and spears. It was time for a final assault on the palace. Time to smash open the bronze doors, storm the throne room, and string up Justinian and his painted whore for all to see.

Back in the Imperial throne room, the mood was, in a word, grim. As Bridge continues:

“To the little party of people who still remained in the Palace, the outlook could not have looked blacker. The cheering of the rebels in the Hippodrome could be heard like the noise of the sea in the distance; the Guards were sullen and aloof, obviously preparing to desert to the other side at the first convenient opportunity and only deterred from such a course by the presence of Belisarius’ Goths [soldiers].”

In that dead, depressing silence, someone raised the unthinkable question. Should we run?

“Justinian’s secret council considered all kinds of possible actions,” writes Paolo Cesaretti, “A “true Roman male” in ancient times—even someone as abominable as Nero—would have killed himself to save his honor, but suicide was an unsuitable choice for a Christian. Flight seemed to be the only option left.”

Antony Bridge elaborates:

“Indeed, Belisarius, John the Cappadocian, and Justinian’s other closest friends and colleagues took it in turns to urge him to go while the going was good; he could sail to Heraclea Pontica on the southern shore of the Black Sea, they advised him, where he would be safe for the time being, and if the situation improved, he could return as easily as he had departed to resume his rightful position in the Palace. Everyone must have known that, once he had fled the city, he would never come back; but it was a polite and face-saving fiction to suggest that one day he might do so. Justinian listened morosely to what his friends had to say to him; it was impossible to disagree with them; the rebellion had succeeded, and there was no longer any point in refusing to bow to the inevitable. No other course was open to him but flight.”

Head in his hands, crown on his lap, Justinian weighed his terrible array of options. He could leave, sure. He could run. But to where and to what end? To live out his days as a purple pauper emperor, hiding in hole, daydreaming of a glorious return until they hunted him down or he died of old age?

The alternative, of course, was even worse. Justinian knew his history. He knew what happened to deposed Emperors. Since Julius Caesar’s time, Rome’s unluckiest regents had been stabbed, smothered, beheaded, castrated, blinded, or disemboweled – sometimes all of the above. Justinian was not afraid of death – not really. He believed that after a few moments of pain and fear, he’d be walking tall and youthful in the golden halls of Heaven. His soul was safe, even if his throne was not. Maybe death was the cleanest way out.

But then, he looks at Theodora. His Empress. All of a sudden, he is so scared for her safety he cannot breathe. He thinks of the first time they met, when she stepped out of the litter, opened her huge eyes and changed his life. He thinks of all the nights they’d spent in each other’s arms, loving and whispering and laughing. Then puncturing the past like a dagger, are visions of the immediate future. The mob in here, in this room, tearing and laughing and ripping at her like dogs. He shuts his eyes tight and tries to snuff out the image.  

They could kill themselves, but then what? An eternity in Hell?

As Justinian agonizes over a selection of catastrophic choices, and his advisors argue and bicker at his side, a small voice pierces the gloom and echoes through the hall. They stop talking and turn/whip their heads towards the speaker.

It’s Theodora. She is in her marble throne, arms resting casually, shadow falling on one side of her face. Like the image that Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant painted in his Paris studio 13 centuries later, she is a frightening/chilling vision of clarity and purpose. But instead of flat canvas, daubed with gritty pigment and turpentine, this Theodora is flesh and blood, her large eyes aflame with remorseless fury.

> 

Normally, no woman, not even the Empress, is permitted to speak in these kinds of gatherings. But at the moment of crisis, this is no longer Justinian’s throne room. It is hers. She addresses the room. And this is what she said, according to Procopius:

‘My lords, the present occasion is too serious to allow me to follow the convention that a woman should not speak in a man’s council. Those whose interests are threatened by extreme danger should think only of the wisest course of action, not of conventions.

Now in my opinion, in the present crisis if ever, flight is not the right course, even if it should bring us to safety. It is impossible for a man, once he has been born into this world, not to die; but for one who has reigned it is intolerable to be exiled. May I never be deprived of this purple robe, and may I never see the day when those who meet me do not call me “Empress”.’

She turns to Justinian and says:

‘If you wish to save yourself, my Lord, there is no difficulty. Over there is the sea, and there too are the ships, and we have money. Yet reflect for a moment whether, when once you have escaped to a place of security, you will not prefer death to such safety.

I agree with an old saying that the purple is a fair burial shroud.”

Theodora had made her feelings plain. As James Allan Evans writes:

“This was a proud empress who had climbed from the dregs of society to the peak of the social order, and she would die rather than slide down the ladder again. She would be royalty or she would be nothing!”

Breaking all protocol, shirking all decorum, Theodora speaks out in Justinian’s council, and then pulling him close, grasps his hands. “You once told me”, she might’ve said, “that you would kill every man, woman, child, animal and insect in the Hippodrome if I asked you to. Justinian, love of my life, you have to save us; you have to fight for your crown and your court and your future children. I was wrong – these rioters are savages. All of them. You need to be the wrath of God and smite every last one of these fucking traitors. My love, my emperor, you know what you have to do; drown them in blood like Moses drowned the Egyptians in the Red Sea.”

“If the choice was between slaughtering the mob or laying aside the purple,” Evans writes, “she was for slaughter.”

The truth is, of course, that we don’t know the exact words that Theodora used to rally Justinian’s court. But we know that she spoke, and that the words she used had an effect on every man in the room. As David Potter writes:

“Whatever she said, and however she said it, Theodora’s intervention changed the course of events. Justinian resolved to end the rebellion by force.”

Sometimes, a wife has to remind her husband to take out the trash. And at this moment of crisis, the city filled with usurpers and arsonists and seditionists. Theodora said, honey – sweetheart, please take out the trash.

After the Empress’ big speech, things moved very quickly. Each member of the council had a part to play. Justinian was outnumbered and outmanned, but not outwitted. Crippling a revolution in full bloom requires three things: Subterfuge, brute force, and a complete lack of remorse. On January 18^th, 532 A.D., the Justinian’s court displayed all three.

“The first thing they decided to do,” writes Antony Bridge, “was to try to sow dissension in the crowd in the Hippodrome; this was in line with the traditional Roman policy of divide et impera. Narses ordered his eunuchs to mingle with the people there, and to do everything in their power to create a split between the Greens and the Blues. They were supplied with plenty of money in small change, which could be used in a tactful way to bribe those who were open to bribery, while their instructions were to remind the Blues of the favors they had received at Justinian’s hands in the past, and at the same time to insinuate that Hypatius, like his uncle Anastasius before him, would be sure to favor the Greens.”

Narses and his spies succeeded in blunting the momentum of the crowd. What had hours earlier been a unified revolution with a clearly defined purpose quickly unraveled into a patchwork of bickering factions and gangs. Meanwhile, General Belisarius strapped on his armor, gathered his soldiers, and began systematically surrounding the Hippodrome. His men were outnumbered at least 6-to-1, but this was no rabble. These were highly-trained, heavily armed, career soldiers. If Belisarius and his men could corner the mob into a chokepoint, their torches and clubs would be no match for chainmail coats and iron weapons.

I’ve read several different descriptions of what happens next, and the best one, hands-down comes from Antony Bridge. Here it is:

“With considerable difficulty Belisarius then led his Goths [soldiers] as quietly and as stealthily as he could over the blackened ruins of the buildings around the Augusteum to the western entrance to the Hippodrome, while Mundus [another commander] took his Germans [soldiers] as inconspicuously as possible to another gate at the other end of the arena; it was known as the Nekra Gate because, when there were casualties during the chariot races, the dead were carried out through it. There were not many people about, for everyone who could do so had crowded into the Hippodrome, and the streets were nearly deserted. The few who saw the soldiers moving in a dark, silent mass towards their objective were either too frightened or too incurious to realise what they were doing; they did not raise the alarm, and both Belisarius and Mundus arrived at their respective points of attack undetected and with their troops in perfect order and disciplined silence.

On arrival, since there was no further advantage to be gained by concealment, Belisarius drew his men up openly in the portico of the Blues to the right of the kathisma in full view of the suddenly horrified crowd, which was taken completely by surprise. Many of the rebels were armed, but whereas on previous occasions they had come face to face with Belisarius’ Goths [men] in the city streets where they had had room to manoeuvre and to hide or escape if things got too hot for them, now they faced them in the desperately restricted and overcrowded arena of the Hippodrome; there were no side streets down which they could run, no roofs from which they could throw bricks or boiling water, and not an inch of room in which to manoeuvre.

Huddled together in a dense and helpless mass like sheep, they looked in dismay at the grim ranks of Gothic soldiers, as they formed up in order of battle and coldly, efficiently, and unemotionally drew their swords. When Belisarius gave the order to charge, the people who were nearest to the troops panicked; they tried to back away, but there was no room to retreat, and those closest to the approaching Goths ran into those immediately behind them in a struggling and confused heap of tangled human bodies; some fell to the ground, while others stumbled over them, screaming and fighting in a mad scramble to escape by way of the gates at the other end of the Hippodrome. But as the vast crowd stampeded, and Belisarius and his Goths [men] began their bloody and merciless work of killing, the soldiers cutting and thrusting with the murderous skill of professionals, Mundus and his Germans burst into the arena through the Nekra Gate, and the terrified rebels found themselves trapped like sheep between two packs of wolves. A massacre followed.”

“Procopius says 30,000 died that afternoon, an unbelievably large number and about 5 per cent of the entire population of some 600,000,” writes Nick Holmes, “The hippodrome must have been drenched in blood and gore. Belisarius’ soldiers undoubtedly killed many, but it’s quite likely others were trampled to death as panic seized the mob, and there was also fighting between the Factions themselves, particularly as the Blues were being paid by Narses to turn against the Greens.”

When the sun rose on Monday, January 19^th, the Nika Riots had evaporated like some kind of bad dream. But the devastation they left behind was very real.

“The core of the capital lay smoldering in ruins,” writes Peter Sarris.

One 7^th century historian described the eerie silence that settled over the city after the weeklong orgy of violence:

“All of Constantinople was quiet, and no one dared to go out, but only the shops which provided food and drink for needy people were open. And business remained untransacted and Constantinople was without commerce for a number of days.”

The only thing that broke the horrible hush was a chorus of shrieking and howling from the ruins of the Hippodrome. It was the widows, the wives of the dead rioters picking through the carnage, trying to find their husbands’ bodies.

Back at the Palace, Theodora takes another deep gulp of wine. For the first time in several days, her hands have stopped shaking. So many husbands had to die, so that her husband could keep his throne. But she feels no regret, no pity, no guilt. Those fine dead husbands in the Hippodrome would’ve broken into her home, murdered Justinian, and in all probability, raped her to death. The blood of 30,000 traitors was a small price to pay for the life she had worked so hard to build.

But - she taps the rim of her goblet with a fingernail – there’s still a little more blood to spill. One last traitor to deal with. She peers down from her throne at the pathetic, trembling figure standing before her. Hypatius, the nobleman the rioters chose to replace Justinian, has come to beg for his life. Theodora steals a glance at her husband. Justinian looks exhausted, every cell in his body wrung dry by the stress of the Nika ordeal. He has bags under his eyes, his posture sags, and grey has started creeping into his curls. And still, she can’t help but think how handsome he is; how proud she is of him.

Justinian is a good man. He will take pity on this usurper. He’ll strip him of everything but his life. Hypatius will thank God every day for his good fortune. And then, when enough time has passed, that gratitude will turn sour. He’ll remember how he felt, carried on the shoulders of the crowd. He’ll curse Justinian and pine for the time when he was almost Emperor. Maybe Hypatius will quietly gather allies, stoke dissent, and hatch another conspiracy. Theodora will not let Justinian release a viper back into the grass. She leans over to him and whispers something in his ear. His head jerks towards her, and then settles into resignation. Deep down, he knows she is right.

At dawn the next day, Hypatius is taken to the shore and executed. His body is not buried or entombed, but thrown into the sea. His remains are never recovered.

In the coming days, Constantinople’s nobility swarms to the Palace in their thousands to pay homage and reaffirm their loyalty to Emperor Justinian the First. While the bodies rot in the Hippodrome, the Senators who would’ve happily accepted the usurper Hypatius crawl over each other to kiss Justinian’s feet.

It is a disgusting display, thinks John the Cappadocian. Leaning against the wall, his bearded, hard-lined face cast in flickering torchlight, he smirks at the Emperor and his clown show. What week, he thinks. What a long, nasty, terrifying, bloody fucking week. But John knows he won’t have much time for rest and recuperation. In a matter of weeks, John the Cappadocian will be reinstated to his former position. Emperor Justinian had, in a moment of weakness, removed John from his post, but that was only to satiate the mob. A Mob that is currently moving / being digested in the lower intestines of several hundred vultures. It won’t be long before John the Cappadocian once again bears the title of Praetorian Prefect, Count of the Sacred Largesse, and Chief Tax Collector of the Byzantine Empire.

No need to throw away those business cards away just yet.

The Nika Riots had offered John the Cappadocian several key insights. The surprising frailty of his Emperor, the unwavering brutality of Belisarius, and the shortsightedness of his own zealous taxation policies. But the most interesting lesson of all, concerned a 5-foot, 110-pound woman with a small oval face and huge dark eyes.

Theodora, he thinks, I didn’t know you had it in you. The Empress, John realizes, is a ruthless political operator. All those people in the Hippodrome, poor pitiful Hypatius – she didn’t even bat an eye. John’s amusement suddenly hardens into a sober observation. Theodora is dangerous. There is nothing – NOTHING – she would not do to preserve her position and protect Justinian.

But all women, even strong ones, have their weaknesses. It was a defect built deep into their chromosomes, as old as the Garden of Eden itself. Not that John believed in any of that Judean garbage and its fairy tale figments. His religious views were a bit more…traditional than the recent fad known as Christianity. But still, stories have power. Like Eve, John thought, Theodora was destined for a fall from grace.

All he had to do was watch, wait, and when the time was right…facilitate her expulsion from Paradise. Then the proud but pliant Justinian would be soft river clay in his hands. As cheers echo in the Throne Room, the Cappadocian whistles cheerfully, strolling around the corner, until his shadow shrinks and narrows to nothing in the torchlight.

=== OUTRO ====

Well folks, that’s all the time we have for today.

Next time, in Part 3, we’ll move beyond the walls of Constantinople and explore Justinian and Theodora’s foreign policy. With the trauma and tragedy of the Nika Riots behind them, the Emperor and his Empress are free to pursue the grand ambitions burning in their minds. Laws will be rewritten, churches will be rebuilt, lands will be reclaimed - and a certain tax collector will run afoul of the world’s most powerful woman.

Needless to say, I have a lot more story for ya on this topic. if I’m being totally honest, I haven’t had this much fun writing in a very long time, and hopefully you’re enjoying the journey. So, as always, thanks for listening and I hope you have an awesome day.

This has been Conflicted. I’ll see you next time.  

=== END ====