Theodora"s most intimate friend was Antonina, the wife of Belisarius, whom Procopius describes as a woman "more capable than anyone else to manage the impracticable." The two clever women devised an unscrupulous bit of strategy which, if successful, would surely cause the downfall of the much execrated minister of finance. Antonina, at Theodora"s suggestion, cultivated the friendship of John"s daughter, Euphemia, and intimated to her that her husband Belisarius was seriously disaffected toward the emperor, because of the poor requital which his distinguished services had received, but that he could not attempt to throw off the imperial yoke unless he was a.s.sured of the sympathy and support of some one of the important civil officials. Euphemia naturally told the news to her father, who, seeing in the circ.u.mstance an opportunity to ascend the throne with the aid of the powerful general, easily fell into the trap. To perfect the plot the Cappadocian arranged a secret interview at Rufinianum, one of the country seats of Belisarius. The empress arranged to have two faithful officials, Marcellus and Na.r.s.es, concealed in the villa, with orders to arrest John if his treason became manifest, and, if he resisted, straightway to put him to death. They overheard the treasonable plot, but the minister succeeded in escaping arrest and fled to the inviolable asylum of Saint Sophia. He was, however, exiled in disgrace to Cyzicus; but the ruthless hatred of Theodora followed him, and, after all his ill-gotten gains had been confiscated, he was exiled to Egypt, where he remained until the death of the empress. He finally returned to Constantinople, but Justinian had no further need of the services of his quondam counsellor, and the latter, in the rude garb of a priest, died upon the scene of his former triumphs.
In her ruthless persecution of her opponents, as ill.u.s.trated by this incident, there seems to have been in this remarkable woman a singular absence of the moral sense.
True it is that she pa.s.sionately loved power and luxury and wealth; true, that she exercised her authority at times in a ruthless and unscrupulous manner. Yet the hardness of her nature is offset by many sympathetic qualities which show that, together with the sternness of an empress, she had the heart of a woman.
She showed a sympathetic interest in the welfare of her own family. She married her sister Comito to Sittas, an officer of high rank. Her niece Sophia was united in marriage with the nephew of Justin, heir presumptive to the Empire. All her life she regretted that she did not have a son to mount the throne: she had buried an infant daughter, the sole offspring of her marriage.
One of the most pleasing traits of her character was the large tolerance and substantial sympathy she showed to fallen women. Severe on men, she manifested for women a solicitude rarely equalled. On the Asiatic coast of the Bosporus she converted a palace into a s.p.a.cious and stately monastery, known as the Convent of the Metanoia, or Repentance, and richly endowed it for the benefit of her less fortunate sisters who had been seduced or compelled to embrace the trade of prost.i.tution. In this safe and holy retreat were gathered hundreds of women, collected from the streets and brothels of Constantinople; and many a hapless woman was filled with grat.i.tude toward the generous benefactress who had rescued her from a life of sin and misery.
Are we to see in this tender solicitude an exemplification of the words of the poet, _Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco_, or were her endeavors merely the outcome of the religious exaltation of a pure and n.o.blewoman "naturally p.r.o.ne to succor women in misfortune," as a Byzantine writer says of her? At any rate, this practical sympathy exerted its influence also in enactments of the Justinian Code relating to women; such as the ordinance tending to increase the dignity of marriage and render it more indissoluble, or that to give to seduced maidens recourse against their seducers, or that to relieve actresses of the social disbarment which attended their calling. All these measures were doubtless due to the inspiration of Theodora.
She also carried her strict ideas as to the sanct.i.ty of marriage into the life of the court, as is shown by the manner in which she pitilessly spoiled the romance which would have united one of the most brilliant generals of the Empire to a niece of Justinian.
Praejecta, the emperor"s niece, had fallen into the hands of Gontharis, a usurper who had slain her husband, Areobindus. She had given up all as lost when an unexpected savior appeared in the person of a handsome Armenian officer, Artabanes, the commander in Africa, who overthrew the usurper and restored her to liberty. From grat.i.tude, Praejecta could refuse her deliverer nothing, and she promised him her hand. The ambitious Armenian saw in this brilliant marriage rapid promotion to the height of power. The princess returned to Constantinople, and the Count of Africa hastened to surrender his honorable office and sought a recall to Constantinople to join his prospective bride. He was lionized in the capital; his dignified demeanor, his burning eloquence and his unbounded generosity won the admiration of all. To remove the social distance between him and his fiancee he was loaded down with honors and dignities. All went well until an unexpected and troublesome obstacle to the nuptials presented itself. Artabanes had overlooked or forgotten the fact that years before he had espoused an Armenian lady. They had been separated a long time, and the warrior had never been heard to speak of her. So long as he was an obscure soldier his wife was contented to leave him in peace; but not so after his unexpected rise to fame.
Suddenly she appeared in Constantinople, claiming the rights of a lawful spouse, and as a wronged woman she implored the sympathetic aid of Theodora.
The empress was inflexible when the sacred bonds of marriage were at stake, and she forced the reluctant general to renounce all claims to the princess and to take back his forsaken wife. By way of precaution, she speedily married Praejecta to John, the grandson of the emperor Anastasius, and the pretty romance was at an end.
With equal regard to the sanct.i.ty of marriage, Theodora employed numerous devices to reconcile Belisarius, the celebrated general, with his wife Antonina, to whom the scandal of the _Secret History_ attributes serious lapses from moral rect.i.tude, though the charge cannot be regarded as proved.
A portrait of the Byzantine empress would be incomplete if it did not speak of her religious sentiments and the prominent part she took in ecclesiastical politics. In religious matters we see not only the best side of Theodora"s nature, but also the supreme exhibition of her influence in the affairs of the Empire. Like all the Byzantines of her time, she was pious and devoted in her manner of life. She was noted for her almsgiving and her contributions to the foundations established by the Church. Chroniclers cite the houses of refuge, the orphanages, and the hospitals founded by her; and Justinian, in one of his ordinances, speaks of the innumerable gifts which she made to churches, hospitals, asylums, and bishoprics.
Yet, in spite of these many exhibitions of inward piety, Theodora was strongly suspected by the orthodox of heresy. She professed openly the monophysite doctrine,--the belief in the one nature in the person of Jesus Christ. She also endeavored to bring Justinian to her view, and, with an eye to the interest of the state, she entered upon a course of policy which reconciled the schismatics--but disgusted the orthodox Catholics, who were in unison with Rome. The people of Syria and Egypt were almost universally Monophysites and Separatists. Theodora, with a political finesse far greater than that of her husband, saw that the discontent in the Orient was prejudicial to the imperial power, and she endeavored by her line of policy to reconcile the hostile parties and to reestablish religious peace in the Empire. She recognized that the centre of gravity of the government had pa.s.sed permanently from Rome to Constantinople, and that consequently the best policy was to keep at peace the peoples of the East.
Justinian, on the other hand, misled by the grandeur of Roman tradition, wished to establish, through union with the Roman See, strict orthodoxy in the restored empire of the Caesars. Theodora, with greater ac.u.men, observed the irreconcilable lines of difference between East and West, and recognized that to proscribe the learned and powerful party of dissenters in the Orient would alienate important provinces and be fatal to the authority of the monarchy. She therefore threw her influence into the balance of heresy. She received the leaders of the Monophysites in the palace, and listened sympathetically to their counsels, their complaints, their remonstrances. She placed men of this faith in the most prominent patriarchal sees--Severius at Antioch, Theodosius at Alexandria, Anthimius at Constantinople. She transformed the palace on Hormisdas into a monastery for the persecuted priests of Syria and Asia.
When Severius was subjected to persecution, she provided means for him to escape from Constantinople; and when Anthimius was deposed from the metropolitan see, she extended to him, in spite of imperial orders, her open protection, and gave him an asylum in the palace. Her boldest coup, however, consisted in placing on the pontifical seat at Rome a pope of her own choice, pledged to act with the Monophysites.
For this role she found the man in the Roman deacon Vigilius, for some years apostolic legate at Constantinople. Vigilius was an ambitious and clever priest who had won his way into the confidence of Theodora, and the empress thought to find in him, when elevated to the pontifical chair, a ready instrument for her purposes. It is recounted that, in exchange for the imperial protection and patronage, Vigilius engaged to reestablish Anthimius at Constantinople, to enter into a league with Theodosius and Severius, and to annul the Council of Chalcedon. Upon the death of the presiding pope, Agapetus, Vigilius set out for Rome with letters for Belisarius, who was then at the height of his power in Italy, and these letters were such that they did not admit of objection.
Apparently, in this affair Justinian had secretly a.s.sented to the plans of the empress, seeing perhaps in the movement a solution which would bring about the unity which he desired and place the Roman pontiff in accord with the Orientals. But it was not without trouble that Vigilius was installed. Immediately upon the death of Agapetus, the Roman party had provided a successor in Silverius; and to seat Vigilius in the chair of Saint Peter, they must first make Silverius descend. Belisarius was charged with this repugnant task. With manifest reluctance, he undertook his part in the questionable intrigue. He first suggested to Silverius a dignified way of settling the affair by making the concessions which the emperor desired of Vigilius. Silverius indignantly refused to make any such compromise. Thereupon, under the imaginary pretext of treason, he was brutally arrested, deposed, and sent into exile. Vigilius was at once ordained pope in his stead. Theodora seemed to have conquered.
But when securely installed, Vigilius, in spite of the threats of Belisarius, deferred the fulfilment of his promises. Finally, however, he was compelled to make important concessions to the empress. This was the last triumph of Theodora; and toward the close of her life, in the growing progress of the Eastern Church, and in the declining influence of the pope, she had reason to believe that the dreams of her religious diplomacy were realized.
Theodora"s advocacy of the cause of the dissenters accounts for much of the vituperation heaped upon her by orthodox Catholics. In the eyes of the Cardinal Baronius, the wife of Justinian was "a detestable creature, a second Eve too ready to listen to the serpent, a new Delilah, another Herodias, revelling in the blood of the saints, a citizen of h.e.l.l, protected by demons, inspired by Satan, burning to break the concord bought by the blood of confessors and of martyrs." It is worthy of note that this was written before the discovery of the ma.n.u.script of the _Secret History_. What would the learned cardinal have said had he known of the alleged adventures of the youth of this woman, cla.s.sed by pious Catholics as one of the worst enemies of the Church?
Perhaps, after all, we are to find in Theodora"s religious defection the source of all the scandal which has attached to her name. d.a.m.ned in the eyes of pious churchmen because of her religious faith that Christ"s nature was not dual, it was easy for the tongue of scandal regarding her early life to gain credence. Had Theodora followed the orthodox in the belief in the two natures, she might have committed worse offences than were charged to her, and no such vituperation would have been uttered by any member of the orthodox Church; but her position in the religious controversies of the sixth century will certainly, in the twentieth century, do her memory little harm.
Theodora"s health was always delicate. After these years of stormy dissension, as her strength began to fail, she was directed to use the famous Pythian warm baths. Her progress through Bithynia was made with all the splendor of an imperial cortege, and all along the route she distributed alms to churches, monasteries, and hospitals, with the request that the devout should implore Heaven for the restoration of her health. Finally, in the month of June, A. D. 548, in the twenty-fourth year of her marriage and the twenty-second of her reign, Theodora died of a cancer. Justinian was inconsolable at her loss, which rightly seemed to him to be irreparable. His later years were lacking in the energy and finesse that had characterized him during her lifetime, and it was doubtless her loss which clouded his spirits and removed from him the chief inspiration of his reign. Some years after Theodora"s death, a poet, desiring to gratify the emperor, recalled the memory of the excellent, beautiful and wise sovereign, "who was beseeching at the throne of grace G.o.d"s favor on her spouse."
We can hardly think of Theodora as a glorified saint, yet her goodness of heart and her charity may atone for many of the serious defects in her character. We know not whence she came nor the story of her early life; but as an empress she exhibited all the defects of her qualities.
She was a woman cast in a large mould, and her faults stand out in equal prominence with her virtues. She was at times cruel, selfish, and proud, often despotic and violent, utterly unscrupulous and pitiless when it was a question of maintaining her power. But she was resourceful, resolute, energetic, courageous; her political ac.u.men was truly masculine; in a critical moment she saved the throne for Justinian, and during all her lifetime she was his wise Egeria, by her counsel enabling him to succeed in great movements; when her influence ceased to exercise itself a decadence began which continued during the remaining years of Justinian"s reign.
As a woman, she was capricious, pa.s.sionate, vain, self-willed, but sympathetic to the unfortunate and infinitely seductive. Truly imperial was she in her vices, truly queenly in her virtues. Whatever may have been her youth, her career on the throne is the best refutation of the scandal of the _Secret History_, and she deserves a place in the records of history as one of the world"s greatest, most intelligent, most fascinating empresses.
XII
OTHER SELF-a.s.sERTING AUGUSTae--VERINA, ARIADNE, SOPHIA, MARTINA, IRENE
It is a noteworthy feature in the history of the Eastern Roman Empire that periods in which empresses figure prominently in the affairs of state alternate with periods in which the Augustae are mere ciphers.
Eudoxia, the wife of Arcadius, marks the early limit of feminine predominance in the independent history of the eastern section of the Roman Empire. The Empress Irene, who reigned at first with her son Constantine and afterward alone, marks the later limit of the Roman, as distinguished from the strictly Byzantine Empire, since during her reign, at the beginning of the ninth century, the Empire of the West was completely dissevered from all connection with Constantinople through the crowning of Charlemagne as Emperor of the West by Pope Leo. Thus a masterful woman was the predominating influence at the beginning and at the end of the existence of the Eastern Roman Empire as a separate ent.i.ty.
In the interval between these two limits the most important reign was that of Justinian and the most remarkable woman was, of course, the Empress Theodora. Following Eudoxia were the rival Empresses Pulcheria and Eudocia, celebrated for their beauty, their culture, and their piety.
When the house of Theodosius ceased to exist with Pulcheria and Marcian, the Roman Empire in the East was safely guided through the stormy times which saw its extinction in the West by a series of three men of ability, Leo I. (457-474), Zeno (474-491), and Anastasius (491-518).
During this period two Augustae--Verina and Ariadne--took a part in imperial politics, and made up in wickedness and intrigue what they lacked in culture and piety. Next followed the house of Justin, which produced two remarkable women in Theodora and her niece Sophia, the latter, though not the equal of her aunt in strength of character, yet leaving her mark on the history of her times.
Following the death of Sophia there was for nearly forty years a break in the predominance of self-a.s.serting Augustae. Of the wives of Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas, we know merely the names--respectively, Anastasia, Constantina, and Leontia Augusta. Heraclius"s memorable reign was shared with two empresses, the first of whom, Eudocia, did nothing to win publicity, while the career of the second--Martina--recalls the wickedness and the intrigue of Verina and Sophia. But the spouses of the successors of Heraclius did not follow Martina"s ign.o.ble example, but were women of whom nothing was recorded either of praise or blame. We do not even know the name of the wife of Constans II., who entered upon a long reign after the exile of Heracleonas, son of Martina. Anastasia, the spouse of Constantine IV., Theodora, queen of the second Justinian, Maria, spouse of Leo III., the Isaurian, and Irene, Maria, and Eudocia, the three wives of Constantine V., played so little part in political affairs that they are hardly better known than the nameless wives of the emperors who filled up the interval between the second Justinian and Leo the Isaurian (695-716).
This brief resume brings us to the reign of the Empress Irene, who in energy, in wickedness, and in ambition made up for all the deficiencies of her predecessors. Having devoted separate chapters to the most celebrated Augustae of the Eastern Empire--Eudoxia, Pulcheria and Eudocia, and Theodora--we shall group into one chapter our brief consideration of the lives and characters of the less renowned but no less p.r.o.nounced Augustae of the intervening periods--Verina, Ariadne, Sophia, Martina, and Irene.
Verina and her daughter Ariadne, through their wickedness and ambition, cast dark shadows over the otherwise bright history of the house of Leo the Great. Verina, the imperial consort of Leo, was a woman of little cultivation but of great natural gifts, fond of intrigue, ambitious of power, and implacable in hatred and revenge. Of her two daughters, Ariadne had married Zeno the Isaurian, one of the most ill.u.s.trious and able officials of the Empire. Leo, the offspring of this union, was selected as the heir and successor of Leo I., but upon the death of the lad, shortly after his accession, Zeno was raised to the throne, much to the disgust of the empress-mother Verina. She fostered"a conspiracy for the downfall of Zeno and the elevation of Patricius, her paramour, and as a result of her intrigues Zeno had to forsake his throne and flee to the mountain fastnesses of Isauria, his native country, together with his wife Ariadne and his mother Lallis. Verina"s brother, Basiliscus, aspired to the throne, but she opposed his claims in order to win the purple for Patricius. After Zeno"s flight, however, the ministers and senators elected Basiliscus as his successor, and the new emperor entered upon a most unpopular and checkered reign of only twenty months.
His queen was named Zenonis, a young and beautiful woman, who soon gained an unenviable reputation because of her manifest fondness for her husband"s nephew Harmatius, a young fop, noted for his good looks and his effeminate manners. An ancient chronicler tells the story of this intrigue:
"Basiliscus permitted Harmatius, inasmuch as he was a kinsman, to a.s.sociate freely with the empress Zenonis. Their intercourse became intimate, and, as they were both persons of no ordinary beauty, they became extravagantly enamored of each other. They used to exchange glances of the eyes, they used constantly to turn their faces and smile at each other, and the pa.s.sion which they were obliged to conceal was the cause of grief and vexation. They confided their trouble to Daniel, a eunuch, and to Maria, a midwife, who hardly healed their malady by the remedy of bringing them together. Then Zenonis coaxed Basiliscus to grant her lover the highest office in the city."
This palace intrigue was soon brought to an end, however, by the fall of Basiliscus and the restoration of Zeno in 477, in spite of the intrigues of Verina. After Zeno"s return, his most powerful minister, the Isaurian Illus, became the object of Verina"s enmity and machinations. She even formed a plot to a.s.sa.s.sinate him, which he was fortunate enough to discover and frustrate. Recognizing that his power would not be secure so long as Verina was at large, he begged Zeno to consign to him the dangerous woman; and the emperor, doubtless glad to be rid of his redoubtable mother-in-law, gave her over into his hands. Illus first compelled her to take the vows of a nun at Tarsus, and then placed her in confinement in Dalisandon, an Isaurian castle.
But Illus had only got rid of one female foe to find a more bitter antagonist in the latter"s daughter, the empress Ariadne. She made the second attempt on his life in 483, and used all her arts of intrigue to estrange from him the Emperor Zeno. Finally, realizing that his life was not safe in Constantinople, Illus withdrew from the court, and later attached himself to the cause of the rebel Leontius, who sought to overthrow Zeno. In support of the rebel"s cause, Illus turned to his quondam enemy Verina, the empress-mother, who from her prison castle was glad to seize the opportunity to deal a blow to her ungrateful son-in-law. To give the semblance of legitimacy to the cause of Leontius, Verina was induced to crown him at Tarsus, and she also issued a letter in his interest, which was sent to various cities and exerted a marked influence on the disaffected. Leontius established an imperial court at Antioch, but was speedily overthrown by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. The two leaders of the conspiracy, with Verina, took refuge in the Isaurian stronghold of Papirius, where they stood a siege for four years, during which time Verina died. The fortress was finally taken through the treachery of Illus"s sister-in-law, and Illus and Leontius were slain.
After the death of Zeno, Anastasius was in 491 proclaimed emperor through the influence of the widowed empress Ariadne, who married him about six weeks later and continued to be an influence in politics during Anastasius"s long and successful reign.
In Verina and Ariadne we see a mother and a daughter exceedingly alike in character, but frequently at cross purposes with each other because of their similar traits. Both were ambitious, both fond of intrigue, and both ready to commit any crime when it answered their purpose. Verina, pleased at the accession of her grandson Leo, whom she could control, was chagrined and disappointed when upon the lad"s death his masterful father was elevated to the throne; and, continuing her intrigues, she lost first her royal station and then her freedom and her life in her endeavor to do an injury to her son-in-law. Ariadne quickly grasped the power which her mother had lost, and has the unusual record of choosing her husband"s successor on the throne and of being the imperial consort of two rulers in succession.
We pa.s.s now to the dynasty of Justin and to a consideration of the niece of the great Theodora, Sophia, empress of Justin the Younger, nephew and successor of Justinian.
The poet Corippus gives a dramatic account of the elevation of Justin and Sophia. During Justinian"s long illness the two were faithful attendants at his bedside and ministered to his every want. Finally, one morning, before the break of day, Justin was awakened by a patrician and informed that the emperor was dead. Soon after, the members of the Senate entered the palace and a.s.sembled in a beautiful room overlooking the sea, where they found Justin conversing with his wife Sophia. They greeted the royal pair as Augustus and Augusta; and the twain, with apparent reluctance, submitted to the will of the Senate. They then repaired to the imperial chamber, and gazed, with tearful eyes, upon the corpse of their beloved uncle. Sophia at once ordered to be brought an embroidered cloth, on which was wrought in gold and brilliant colors the whole series of Justinian"s labors, the emperor himself being represented in the midst with his foot resting upon the neck of the Vandal giant. The next morning, Justin and his imperial consort proceeded to the church of Saint Sophia, where they made a public declaration of the orthodox faith.
In taking this step, Sophia showed that she had the ambition but not the political ac.u.men of her aunt Theodora. Like the latter, she had been originally a Monophysite; but a wily bishop had suggested that her heretical opinions stood in the way of her husband"s promotion to the rank of Caesar, and in consequence she found it advisable to join the ranks of the orthodox. Unfortunately, by this step the balance of the religious parties, which Theodora had so successfully maintained, was broken, and the later years of Justin"s reign were disgraced by the persecution of the Monophysites, so that great disaffection toward the throne was created throughout the East.
The religious ceremony was soon followed by the acclamations of the populace in the Hippodrome, which were made all the more hearty through the act of Justin in discharging the vast debts of his uncle Justinian; and, before three years had elapsed, his example was imitated and surpa.s.sed by the empress, who delivered many indigent citizens from the weight of debt and usury--an act of benevolence which won for her the grat.i.tude and adoration of the populace.
Thus auspiciously began the reign of Justin and Sophia, which the royal pair had proclaimed was to be an new era of happiness and glory for mankind; but, though the sentiments of the emperor were pure and benevolent and it was the ambition of the empress to surpa.s.s her aunt Theodora, neither had the intellectual gifts equal to the task, and during their reign the Empire was subjected to disgrace abroad and to wretchedness at home.
Much the same ingrat.i.tude which Belisarius had experienced at the hand of his imperial mistress was visited upon his eminent successor, Na.r.s.es, by the new empress. She sent Longinus, as the new exarch, to supersede the conqueror of Italy, and in most insulting language recalled the eunuch Na.r.s.es to Constantinople. "Let him leave to men," she said, "the exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of the palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the hands of the eunuch." "I will spin her such a thread as she shall not easily unravel!" is said to have been the indignant reply of the hero, who alone had saved Italy to the Empire. Instead of returning to the Byzantine palace, he returned to Naples and later dwelt at Rome, where he pa.s.sed away and with him the only military genius great enough to ward off the invasion of the Lombards.
After a reign of a few years the faculties of Justin, which were impaired by disease, began to fail, and in 574 he became a hopeless lunatic. The only son of the imperial pair had died in infancy, and the question of a successor now became a serious one. The daughter, Arabia, was the wife of Baduarius, superintendent of the palace, who vainly aspired to the honor of adoption as the Caesar. Domestic animosities turned the empress elsewhere.
The artful empress found a suitable successor in Tiberius, the young and handsome captain of the guards, and, in one of his sane intervals, Justin, at her instance, created him a Caesar. During the few remaining years of Justin"s life, Tiberius showed himself to both his adopted parents a filial and grateful son, and meekly submitted to all the exactions of his empress-mother. Though relying on Tiberius for the sterner duties of the imperial office, Sophia retained all her authority and sovereignty as Augusta and would not submit to the presence of another queen in the palace. Tiberius was already a husband and father.
In a sane moment, Justin, with masculine good nature and blindness to feminine foibles, blandly suggested that Ino, the wife of the Caesar, should dwell with Tiberius in the palace, for, he added, "he is a young man and the flesh is hard to rule." But Sophia immediately put her foot down. "As long as I live," said she, "I will never give my kingdom to another"--words that were possibly a reminiscence of the celebrated saying of Zen.o.bia, Queen of Palmyra, "I am a queen; and as long as I live I will reign." Consequently, during the lifetime of Justin, Ino and her two daughters lived in complete retirement in a modest house not far from the palace. Her social status aroused considerable interest among the ladies of the court circle, who found it difficult to decide whether or not they should call on the wife of the Caesar. At tables and firesides this question was gravely discussed, but no one would take the initiative of visiting Ino without first consulting the wishes of Sophia. Finally, when one of the ladies, with considerable trepidation, ventured to ask the empress, she was scolded for her pains; "Go away and be quiet," responded the imperious Sophia, "it is no business of yours."
When, however, a few days before the death of Justin, Tiberius was inaugurated emperor, he at once installed his wife in the palace, to the chagrin of the empress-mother, and had her recognized by the factions of the Hippodrome. A conflict arose as to what should be her Christian name as empress: the Blues wished to change her pagan name to "Anastasia,"
while the Greens urged stoutly the adoption of the name of the sainted "Helena." Tiberius decided with the Blues, and as Anastasia Ino was crowned Empress of the East.
During the long apprenticeship of Tiberius, Sophia had held the purse strings and had kept the young Caesar on an allowance which seemed too small to comport with his imperial prospects. Upon becoming emperor, however, Tiberius quickly rid himself of the dictation of his patroness.
He gave her a stately palace in which to live, and surrounded her with a numerous train of eunuchs and courtiers; he paid her ceremonious visits on formal occasions and always saluted the widow of his benefactor with the t.i.tle of mother. But it was impossible for Sophia to overcome her disappointment at being deprived of power, and she set on foot numerous conspiracies to dethrone Tiberius and to bring about the elevation of some one whom she could control. The chief of these plots centred about the young Justinian, the son of Germa.n.u.s of the house of Anastasius.