Theodora: Empress of Byzantium (Mark Magowan Books) by Paolo Cesaretti Read Free Book Online

arbitrary and insecure.
    Clearly, someone claimed to have better patrons and a greater right to the job of bear keeper for the Green team at the Kynêgion. He could certainly offer more, not only to Asterius, the administrator and operations manager, but also—most important—to the faction’s treasury. It was natural, even advisable, for Asterius to yield, for this meant strengthening his position in a power clique, or maybe allowing one of the many cliques to solidify their strength in the Kynêgion and therefore in Constantinople’s entertainment industry, which was both ceremonial and institutional. It was an arbitrary decision, no doubt, but codified nonetheless.
    One can only speculate whether this change of personnel came on orders from the highest imperial circles, or because of seditious activity taking place on the radical fringes of the factions, where the city’s tensions—fueled especially by immigration and growing demographic pressure—found a violent outlet. Perhaps “the militant group of the Greens” 11 influenced Asterius, claiming the position, and paying for it, on behalf of one of the group’s members or protégés. If indeed heavy political pressures were at work, Acacius’s widow had little or no chance of redressing the wrong: she could pay, she could pray, or she could find other ways.
    + + +
    Theodora’s mother was not a woman who gave up easily; she was even less likely to suffer in silence when she was wronged. And so she claimed what she believed was her due, and she did so in an unexpected way, with a spectacular act of daring. Maybe the inspiration came to her as she saw her three girls singing or acting out a scene they had glimpsed in a square or on the street. Or perhaps it was a dream that drove her to act, for at the beginning of the seventh eon, Christian Constantinople, the “Beacon of the Ecumene,” was still very close to the archaic Greece of Pythias and of the old myths. 12 Whatever the reason behind her decision—whether it came to her in a dream or in the long hours of a sleepless night—she did not hesitate; she put her plan together and she acted.
    She summoned her daughters and told them that the time had come to stop pretending and to start doing. And so they studied rituals, funerals, and processions, and they rehearsed gestures feverishly, to learn how to suffuse their performance with the entire grammar of grief, to learn every nuance of affliction. They practiced in secret, without letting anyone know, linked by their female complicity. The mother may have gone out late in the evening, a torch in her hand, to “make the final arrangements.” She would speak with the theater ushers and guards, and the following morning the girls would question her.
    Finally, the fateful day arrived. It was a holiday, with flowers strewn everywhere, partly in homage to the city’s secret name, “The Flourishing” (
anthousa
in Greek,
flora
in Latin). The girls too were adorned with flowers: in their hair were garlands similar to those worn by rulers and saints, and in their hands were flowers, held close to the breast against a white dress.
    According to legend, one day the emperor Constantine the Great had gone into the arena and won a fight against a bear and a lion. Similarly, the girls were going into the arena to triumph over poverty and the abuse of power. They passed through the gates of the Kynêgion and walked along the vaulted corridors, dimly lit by torches, beneath the stands of the amphitheater. As they proceeded, the light at the far end of the corridor grew, and the roar of the audience, excited by a
venatio
,grew louder and more distinct. The girls stopped and rehearsed their gestures. Then the roar subsided and finally stopped.

10. Mosaic of a procession of Holy Virgins, c. 560, church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna.

    The family started walking again, and they moved closer to the light. The mother exchanged a signal with a man draped in a green