victims of her revenge; where she could receive her spies, who brought her information of every idle word that prince or bourgeois of the capital uttered concerning herself; where she could receive her victims, gloat over their sufferings by scourge or torture, blind their children, confiscate their property, destroy their whole family; and where she could tell her executioners to do her bidding, "or, by Him who liveth for ever, your skin shall be flayed from your body."
An accursed woman. And yet a woman who did good things. While she mutilated, tortured, and imprisoned, she founded an asylum for fallen women, in which she ought herself to have been imprisoned. A brave woman, too. When her husband trembled before the rage of a mob, it was Theodora who armed him with courage. She was proud, avaricious, cruel, relentless, but she was strong.
One of the most singular stories in the chronicles of the city is that of the sedition which imperilled Justinian's throne in the fifth year of his reign.
The races in the circus were originally contested by rival charioteers, who wore red and white colours. To these were afterwards added blue and green. These later colours absorbed the first two in Constantinople. The people naturally took opposite sides at the circus, and then confusing their partisanship in the games with their sides in politics, gradually joined one or other of the two great factions which perpetually troubled and menaced the tranquillity of the city, the green and the blue—one hears nothing more of red and white. Differences in this city of controversy meant religious differences; and a
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