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 paramour 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 Romans.[1] This indulgence was speedily followed by the solemn nuptials of Justinian and Theodora; her dignity was gradually exalted with that of her lover; and, as soon as Justin had invested his nephew with the purple, the patriarch of Constantinople placed the diadem on the heads of the emperor and empress of the East. But the usual honours which the severity of Roman manners had allowed to the wives of princes could not satisfy either the ambition of Theodora or the fondness of Justinian. He seated her on the throne as an equal and independent colleague in the sovereignty of the empire, and an oath of allegiance was imposed on the governors of the provinces in the joint names of Justinian and Theodora.[2] The Eastern world fell prostrate before the genius and fortune of the daughter of Acacius. The prostitute, who, in the presence of innumerable spectators, had polluted the theatre of Constantinople, was adored as a queen in the same city, by grave magistrates, orthodox bishops, victorious generals, and captive monarchs.[3]
- ↑ See the old law in Justinian's code (l. 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, libertinæ, tabernariæ. 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. p. 41). [Note (1) that the only authority for the objections of Justinian's mother to his marriage is the Life of Theophilus; and (2) that the law of c. 522 A. D. (Cod. Just. v. 4, 23) had no connexion with Theodora, notwithstanding the statement of Procopius, Anecd. c. 9.]
- ↑ I swear by the Father, &c., by the Virgin Mary, by the Four Gospels, quæ in manibus teneo, and by the holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, puram conscientiam germanumque servitium me servaturum, sacratissimis DDNN. Justiniano et Theodoræ conjugi ejus (Novell. viii. tit. 3 [xvi. p. 123, ed. Zach.]). Would the oath have been binding in favour of the widow? Communes tituli et triumphi, &c. (Aleman. p. 47, 48).
- ↑ "Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more," &c. Without Warburton's critical telescope, I should never have seen, in the general picture of triumphant vice, any personal allusion to Theodora.
