satiated with love, yet some applause is due to the firmness of a mind which could sacrifice pleasure and habit to the stronger sense either of duty or interest. The wishes and prayers of Theodora could never obtain the blessing of a lawful son, and she buried an infant daughter, the sole offspring of her marriage.[1] Notwithstanding this disappointment, her dominion was permanent and absolute; she preserved, by art or merit, the affections of Justinian; and their seeming dissensions were always fatal to the courtiers who believed them to be sincere. Perhaps her health had been impaired by the licentiousness of her youth; but it was always delicate, and she was directed by her physicians to use the Pythian warm baths. In this journey, the empress was followed by the prætorian præfect, the great treasurer, several counts and patricians, and a splendid train of four thousand attendants; the highways were repaired at her approach; a palace was erected for her reception; and, as she passed through Bithynia, she distributed liberal alms to the churches, the monasteries, and the hospitals, that they might implore heaven for the restoration of her health.[2] The death of Theodora. A.D. 548, June 11 At length, in the twenty-fourth year of her marriage, and the twenty-second of her reign, she was consumed by a cancer;[3] and the irreparable loss was deplored by her husband, who, in the room of a theatrical prostitute, might have selected the purest and most noble virgin of the East.[4]
The factions of the circus II. A material difference may be observed in the games of antiquity: the most eminent of the Greeks were actors, the Romans were merely spectators. The Olympic stadium was open to wealth, merit, and ambition; and, if the candidates could depend on their personal skill and activity, they might pursue the footsteps of Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct- ↑ St. Sabas refused to pray for a son of Theodora, lest he should prove an heretic worse than Anastasius himself (Cyril in Vit. St. Sabæ, apud Aleman. p. 70, 109).
- ↑ See John Malala, tom. ii. p. 174 [441]. Theophanes, p. 158. Procopius, de Aedific. l. v. c. 3.
- ↑ Theodora Chalcedonensis synodi inimica canceris plagâ toto corpore [leg. corpore toto] perfusa vitam prodigiose finivit (Victor. Tununensis in Chron. [ad. A.D. 549]). On such occasions, an orthodox mind is steeled against pity. Alemannus (p. 12, 13) understands the εὐσεβω̂ς ἐκοιμήθη of Theophanes as civil language, which does not imply either piety or repentance; yet two years after her death St. Theodora is celebrated by Paul Silentiarius (in Proem. v. 58-62).
- ↑ As she persecuted the popes, and rejected a council, Baronius exhausts the names of Eve, Dalila, Herodias, &c.; after which he has recourse to his infernal dictionary: civis inferni — alumna dæmonum — satanico agitata spiritu — oestro percita diabolico, &c. &c. (A.D. 548. No. 24).
