Theodora

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

the famous consort of the Byzantine emperor, Justinian I.; was, according to the dubious evidence of Procopius, the daughter of Acacius, a bearward at Constantinople; and had already been by turns actress, dancer and harlot, when she won the heart of the austere and ambitious Justinian, to become in succession, his mistress, his wife, and successi the sharer of his throne (527). There was a law which forbade a member of the senate to marry an actress, but Justinian cleared the way by repealing it. Never thereafter did the breath of scandal touch her name; she became Justinian's trustiest counsellor, bore a chief share in the work of government, and saved the throne by her high courage at the crisis of the Nika riots (532). She lavished her bounty on the poor, and especially on the unfortunate of her own sex, and died at 40 (548), her slender and graceful frame worn out by the anxieties of State. Her character descended to history unspotted till the appearance (1623) of the "Secret History" of Procopius, the work of a man who had enjoyed the full favor and confidence of the court, and had in his other writings openly extolled the triumphs and the wisdom of Justinian and Theodora, whose reputation he was the while laboring in secret to destroy. His stories satisfied his first editor, Nicholas Alemannus, and later Gibbon and Dahn, but other writers have very properly questioned the testimony of Procopius regarding Theodora's profligacy after she became a queen.