Theodora (wife of Justinian I)

Theodora
Byzantine Empress
Theodora, detail of a Byzantine mosaic in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna
Byzantine Empress
Tenure	9 August 527 – 28 June 548
Predecessor	Euphemia
Successor	Sophia
Born	c. 500 Cyprus
Died	28 June 548 (aged 48) Constantinople
Burial	Church of the Holy Apostles
Spouse	Justinian I
Issue	illegitimate: John Theodora
Dynasty	Justinian

Theodora (Greek: Θεοδώρα; c. 500 – 28 June 548) was empress of the Byzantine Empire and the wife of Emperor Justinian I. She was one of the most influential and powerful of the Byzantine empresses. Some sources mention her as empress regnant with Justinian I as her co-regent. Along with her husband, she is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, commemorated on November 14.

The main historical sources for her life are the works of her contemporary Procopius. The historian offered three contradictory portrayals of the Empress. The Wars of Justinian, largely completed in 545, paints a picture of a courageous and influential empress who saved the throne for Justinian.

Later he wrote the Secret History, which survives in only one manuscript suggesting it was not widely read during the Byzantine era. The work revealed an author who had become deeply disillusioned with the emperor Justinian, the empress, and even his patron Belisarius. Justinian is depicted as cruel, venal, prodigal and incompetent; as for Theodora, the reader is treated to a detailed and titillating portrayal of vulgarity and insatiable lust, combined with shrewish and calculating mean-spiritedness; Procopius even claims both are demons whose heads were seen to leave their bodies and roam the palace at night. Yet much of the work covers the same time period as The Wars of Justinian.

Procopius' Buildings of Justinian, written about the same time as the Secret History, is a panegyric which paints Justinian and Theodora as a pious couple and presents particularly flattering portrayals of them. Besides her piety, her beauty is excessively praised. Although Theodora was dead when this work was published, Justinian was alive, and probably commissioned the work.

Her contemporary John of Ephesus writes about Theodora in his Lives of the Eastern Saints. He mentions an illegitimate daughter not named by Procopius.

Various other historians presented additional information on her life. Theophanes the Confessor mentions some familial relations of Theodora to figures not mentioned by Procopius. Victor Tonnennensis notes her familial relation to the next empress, Sophia.