Comito

Comito (Greek: Κομιτὼ) was the daughter of Acacius "the bear-keeper", an elder sister to Theodora and Anastasia. Through Theodora, Comito was a sister-in-law of Justinian I. The Secret History of Procopius is a main source about her. Comito is also mentioned by John Malalas, Theophanes the Confessor and Georgios Kedrenos

Her father, Acacius, was a bear trainer of the hippodrome's Green faction in Constantinople. Her mother, whose name is not recorded, was a dancer and an actress. After her father's death, her mother brought her children wearing garlands into the hippodrome and presented them as suppliants to the crowd. Most of the information from this earliest part of her life comes from the Secret History of Procopius, published posthumously. Critics of Procopius (whose work reveals a man seriously disillusioned with his rulers) have dismissed his work as a severely biased source, vitriolic and pornographic, but have been unable to discredit some of its facts.

Procopius narrates: "He [Justinian] took a wife: and in what manner she was born and bred, and, wedded to this man, tore up the Roman Empire by the very roots, I shall now relate. Acacius was the keeper of wild beasts used in the amphitheater in Constantinople; he belonged to the Green faction and was nicknamed the Bearkeeper. This man, during the rule of Anastasius, fell sick and died, leaving three daughters named Comito, Theodora and Anastasia: of whom the eldest was not yet seven years old. His widow took a second husband, who with her undertook to keep up Acacius' family and profession. But Asterius, the dancing master of the Greens, on being bribed by another, removed this office from them and assigned it to the man who gave him the money. For the dancing masters had the power of distributing such positions as they wished." James Allan Evans, a modern historian, notes that animal acts appeared as entr'actes between chariot races. The post of animal trainer for the various factions often passed from father to son. But Acacius left no son and the second husband of his widow had a weaker claim to the position.

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