Justinian (46 page)

an overrated pastime

There is a considerable amount of evidence suggesting that some men of power or genius (intellectual, artistic, scientific, military, etc.) have shown little interest in sex – perhaps because their overriding drive/passion/obsession displaced or sublimated it. Examples are: Thomas Carlyle, Ruskin (who may have died a virgin), Isaac Newton, Erasmus, Michaelangelo. Henry VIII, despite his famously priapic reputation and his ill-starred passion for Anne Boleyn, would appear to have been less interested in sex per se than as a means of securing dynastic progeny; the same observation probably also applies to Napoleon. Hitler, despite lurid speculation of the ‘tabloid headline' variety would appear to have been uninterested in sex, except perhaps on a semi-abstract, idealized plane.

Justinian comes over to me as very much a man of the above type – an intellectual and obsessive workaholic, to whom (as I've hinted in the story) sex would have been a time-wasting distraction, and may even have been physically distasteful. Which may seem a ludicrous conclusion in view of his marriage to the (allegedly) promiscuous and oversexed Theodora. That they genuinely loved one another seems certain; however, as I've suggested in later chapters, their love may have been more to do with a ‘meeting of minds', than anything based on physical passion.

indicating their support for ‘the Blues'

Dominating popular entertainment in Constantinople was the sport of chariot-racing, held in the Hippodrome. Supporters of the two rival teams – known as ‘the Blues' and ‘the Greens' (from the colours worn by the opposing racing drivers) – extended their mutual rivalry far beyond the realm of sport. (Shades of Celtic v. Rangers fans in West Central Scotland!) In a pre-democratic age, these factions could be the voice of the people, and woe betide the emperor who failed to take notice of their complaints or demands, as voiced in the Hippodrome; Justinian very nearly lost his throne in the Circus faction Nika Riots of 532. The Blues tended to represent wealthy businessmen and landowners, while the Greens drew support from traders and artisans, many of Syrian origin. The Blues' ‘Establishment' credentials were further strengthened when they were backed by Justinian, whose patronage enabled them to terrorise the streets of the
capital with impunity. Known as ‘Partisans', their leaders, dressed in Hunnish fashion, were engaged in perpetual gang warfare with their rivals, the Greens: a situation with striking parallels to the urban gang culture in many cities today.

our ‘little father' has been taken from us

The soubriquet has nothing to do with Anastasius' stature, but was a popular endearment conferred on many Eastern emperors from Marcian on, whose generally benign régimes helped to create an image of the emperor as the loving Protector of his people. (In contrast to the policy of appeasement towards Attila of the feeble Theodosius II, his successor Marcian's resolute stand against the Hun leader gave him popular hero status.)

Blinding or death

To forestall any possibility of his becoming a future focus for disaffection, a defeated rival for the purple was invariably either executed or – as a ‘humane' alternative – mutilated by blinding or amputation of the nose. Disfigurement constituted an automatic bar to becoming emperor.

the most powerful post in the Empire

The powers of the Master of Offices were very great. He was in effect the head of the Empire's central administration. In modern terms, his position would combine the roles of most senior cabinet ministers, excluding that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

a damaging schism

At the Council of Chalcedon, near Constantinople, in 451, the belief, put forward by Pope Leo, that Christ had two natures – both human and divine – was established as orthodoxy for the Church in the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. Chalcedonism was violently opposed by the Monophysites (mainly in Syria and Egypt) who believed that Christ had only one, divine, nature. As the Monophysites were now officially heretical, the effect of Chalcedon was to create religious strains within the Empire, which could threaten to degenerate into schism unless handled with tact and diplomacy. Thus, in Egypt (the source of the Eastern Empire's vital grain supply), a blind eye had perforce to be turned to Monophysitism. After the fall of the Western Empire in 476, relations between Italy (ultra-Chalcedonian, although her German rulers were Arian) and the Eastern Empire cooled (in what became known as the Acacian Schism), because of the pro-Monophysite sympathies of Emperors Zeno and Anastasius. However, the accession of the strongly Chalcedonian Justin ended the
schism, and this paved the way for Italy to become reintegrated into the Empire under Justinian.

stage menials rushed around the orchestra

In the Ancient Greek theatre, the stage (a long narrow platform upon which the actors performed) was fronted at a lower level by a semi-circular space called the
orchestra
, in which the chorus sang and danced. The Romans (often using the same theatres that the Greeks had constructed) reversed the functions of stage and orchestra.

Eratosthenes . . . who had measured the earth's circumference

By observing the difference between the angles of the sun at two places a measured distance apart (north-south), Eratosthenes was able to calculate the angle subtended by that distance. The number of times the angle would divide into 360 degrees multiplied by the distance, gave him the answer – which was amazingly close to our own measurement of 24,000 miles. Pure geometry, pure genius!

you can't just send me away

Beyond the fact that he was appointed governor of the Pentapolis, and that Theodora accompanied him there as his mistress, we know nothing about Hecebolus or why he should have turned her out of his house, piling insults on her as he did so (thus causing me to resort to invention). Procopius, of course, exploits poor Theodora's predicament with prurient relish. In the
Secret History
he writes, ‘she was at a loss for the necessities of life, which she proceeded to provide in her usual way, putting her body to work at its unlawful traffic.'

The terminus of the cursus publicus

The imperial post was one of the glories of Roman administration, with staging-posts every eight miles on the main highways where horses or vehicles could be hired, operating on a relay system. In the West, it functioned (unevenly post c. 400) almost to the end. In the East, it was discontinued early in Justinian's reign as a cost-cutting exercise – barring, for military reasons, the road from the capital to the Persian frontier. From the time of Constantine, clerical dignitaries were accorded special travel privileges on the post.

admitted to the bishop's presence

I've had to invent scenarios introducing Theodora to Timothy and later to
Severus, as we don't know how they met. But meet them she did (which seems almost incredible considering her background, and which speaks volumes for her determination and power of personality). Not only that, she formed a deep and fruitful friendship with both men – two of the finest minds in the Roman world, from which she gained a grounding in rhetoric, a taste for intellectual conversation, and a lasting respect for the Monophysites. Altogether, her experiences in Alexandria amount to something like a Damascene conversion.

the Graeco-Roman mind

The passionate concern displayed by people of late antiquity about the nature of Christ may seem to us today to be both incomprehensible and pointless – mere sterile Christological hair-splitting. But less so perhaps, if we view this obsession as stemming from the Graeco-Roman cast of mind that sought to discover the truth via reason and logic, the two great fruits of which are (as I've had Timothy point out) Greek philosophy and Roman law. And lest we become too dismissive of such concerns, we should perhaps remind ourselves that our own times have witnessed preoccupations no less abstruse. Forests have died to produce endless tracts devoted to dialectical materialism, Marxist-Leninism, existentialism, etc.; while the quest to arrive at a satisfactory definition of the Trinity continues to exercise and baffle the minds of bishops at successive Lambeth Conferences. Impatience with ambiguity is what drove these late Roman theologians. The true heirs of Athanasius and Augustine may be Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins (by way of Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke and David Hume) rather than Cardinal Newman or Ronald Knox.

a kindness Theodora . . . would repay a thousandfold

Once married to Justinian, Theodora – as a result of the kindness shown her in Alexandria by Timothy and Severus – persuaded her husband (who could deny her nothing) to call off the persecution of the Monophysites. Not only did this happen with immediate effect (making Theodora enormously popular with the sect) but the Monophysites actually became a favoured minority at the imperial court, with Severus himself being invited to a conference between the leaders of both the Orthodox party and the Monophysites, intended to settle their differences.

gazing adoringly at her lover's face

History has many examples of strong-willed, intelligent women who, loving
their own sex as well as, or in preference to, men, have had sufficient force of character to ignore the strictures of society and live according to their nature. Examples are: Sappho, Aphra Behn (that amazing polymath and early champion of women's rights and racial equality), perhaps Queen Anne and Catherine the Great, Anne Lister – Regency landowner, diarist and proud lesbian, Colette, Radclyffe Hall, Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Violet Keppel (Trefusis), Frida Kahlo and many individuals associated with the Women's Liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. With her intellectual interests, sturdy independence of mind, and passionate proto-feminism,
*
Theodora comes over to me as being very much cast in the same sort of mould as the above women. Which is not to say of course that she necessarily shared their sexual proclivities. Still, when you can tick three out of four boxes indicating traits in common, there's a temptation also to tick the fourth, even when the answer is ‘unknown'. There's a tantalizingly vague phrase in Gibbon which may or may not shed some light on the matter: ‘Her secret apartments were occupied by the favourite women . . . whose . . . passions she indulged'. It's hard to know what to make of this. Gibbon doesn't name his source; it's certainly not Procopius, who would have had a field day in his
Secret History
, exploiting any kind of lesbian activity on Theodora's part, had he got wind of it. And none of his contemporaries, as far as I've been able to find out, mentions anything that Gibbon might have been referring to. So, for want of any hard evidence one way or the other, to the question of whether Theodora was bisexual or lesbian, probably the least unsatisfactory answer has to be that good old Scots Law verdict, ‘Not proven'. Which allows me, I think, sufficient artistic licence to portray Theodora and Macedonia as lovers.

addressed to a certain ‘Petrus Sabbatius . . .'

Antony Bridge in his splendid
Theodora
states, ‘Before returning to Constantinople she went to Antioch for a time, where she made friends with a celebrated dancer named Macedonia'. He goes on to speculate, ‘that it may well have been through her [Macedonia's] instrumentality that Theodora . . . met the man who was destined so radically to change her fortunes' [i.e. Justinian]. He confirms, as do other sources, including Gibbon, that on her return to the capital she earned a modest living spinning wool – an enterprise which I've had Macedonia take a hand in. The name ‘Petrus Sabbatius' had
now been changed officially to ‘Flavius Justinianus', for as such he is listed in the consular
Fasti
for the year 521, the other consul being one Valerius. ‘Flavius' indicates favoured status as part of the imperial family, perhaps a hint that he was already being groomed as Justin's successor.

John the Cappadocian

I have introduced him rather prematurely, as he seemed the ideal person to grasp the significance of ‘the Arabia Felix Question', and to explain its complexities to others in a clear manner. In real life originally a clerk in the office of the local Cappadocian military commander, rather than in one of the imperial
scrinia
(as in the story), he was actually chosen by Justinian, not Justin. Coarse and offensively outspoken, he was also loyal, efficient and incorruptible. As praetorian prefect, he made himself indispensable to Justinian through his administrative reforms, cost-cutting exercises and tax-raising measures – the last two of which made him extremely unpopular with many citizens, and were largely the cause of the Nika Riots of 532 (of which more hereafter).

Dhu-Nuwas has invaded Arabia Felix

For convenience in plotting, I've had the invasion of Yemen start a little earlier than was actually the case, and telescoped the events of the subsequent counter-attack into a somewhat shorter time-span. Two historical facts enabled me conveniently to involve Justinian in the expedition. Firstly: as Robert Browning in his brilliant and most readable
Justinian and Theodora
suggests, Justinian may have personally contacted Ella Atsbeha (Elesboas) in response to his appeal. Secondly: we know that about this time Justin offered his nephew command of the Army of the East. Paucity of information concerning Justinian's doings at this period therefore allowed me to speculate that he
might
have gone to Ethiopia in a military capacity. (We know that the Romans supplied a naval force to help the Ethiopians. Whether they also sent ground troops is uncertain, although considering the importance of ‘the Arabia Felix Question', they must have been prepared to do so, if necessary – in which case, it would have fallen to the Army of the East to provide the required contingent.)