Chap. XL] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 229 which she afterwards changed into a magnificent temple. 27 Her beauty, assisted by art or accident, soon attracted, capti- vated, and fixed the patrician Justinian, who already reigned with absolute sway under the name of his uncle. Perhaps she contrived to enhance the value of a gift which she had so often lavished on the meanest of mankind ; perhaps she inflamed, at first by modest delays, and at last by sensual allurements, the desires of a lover, who from nature or devotion was addicted to long vigils and abstemious diet. When his first transports had subsided, she still maintained the same ascendant over his mind, by the more solid merit of temper and understanding. Justinian delighted to ennoble and enrich the object of his affection ; the treasures of the East were poured at her feet ; and the nephew of Justin was determined, perhaps by religious scruples, to bestow on his concubine the sacred and legal character of a wife. But the laws of Koine expressly prohibited the marriage of a senator with any female who had been dishonoured by a servile origin or theatrical profession ; the empress Lupicina, or Euphemia, a Barbarian of rustic manners but of irreproachable virtue, refused to accept a prostitute for her niece; and even Vigilantia, the superstitious mother of Justinian, though she acknowledged the wit and beauty of Theodora, was seriously apprehensive lest the levity and arrogance of that artful para- mour might corrupt the piety and happiness of her son. These obstacles were removed by the inflexible constancy of Justinian. He patiently expected the death of the empress ; he despised the tears of his mother, who soon sunk under the weight of her affliction; and a law was promulgated in the name of the emperor Justin, which abolished the rigid jurisprudence of antiquity. A glorious repentance (the words of the edict) was left open for the unhappy females who had prostituted their persons on the theatre, and they were permitted to contract a legal union with the most illustrious of the Eomans. 28 This 27 Anonym, de Antiquitat. C. P. 1. iii. 132 in Banduri, Imperium Orient, torn. i. p. 48. Ludewig (p. 154) argues sensibly that Theodora would not have immortalised a brothel ; but I applied this fact to her second and chaster residence at Constanti- nople. 28 See the old law in Justinian's code (1. v. tit. v. leg. 7, tit. xxvii. leg. 1) under the years 336 and 454. The new edict (about the year 521 or 522. Aleman. p. 38, 96) very awkwardly repeals no more than the clause of mulieres scenicae, libertinse, tabernariga. See the novels 89 and 117 [111 and 141, ed. Zachar. ; dated a.d. 539 and 542], and a Greek rescript from Justinian to the bishops (Aleman.
