The anti-woman for the women? Theodora’s mastery of power in the Byzantine Empire

How did Theodora, a woman, gain so much power in the Byzantine Empire? Roman and Western medieval feminine ideals focused on a woman’s role in domestic life where women were subservient to their husband. Theodora went against many of these norms and even went so far as to use the male gaze to her advantage both in obtaining power over Justinian and retaining it. We can learn a lot about Theodora and her story through Prokopios’ ’Secret History’. Although an invective which paints Theodora in perhaps the worst possible light, Prokopios’ opinions shed light on how she was perceived during that period of time. He describes Theodora’s control over Justinian and suggests that when Theodora breaks these norms, other women in the Byzantine world are influenced to follow suit and in some cases also subvert their femininity to their advantage: ‘It was during this time that the morals of almost all women too were corrupted’ (Procopios, c. 17). However, we can see here that this ‘corruption’ of femininity also somewhat hurts society’s perception of women in power.

Through digging deeper into Prokopios’ analysis of Theodora, her actions and her impact on other women at the time, we can get a better idea of the place that women occupied in the world and in the imaginary during that time. Although the book is considerably biased by his conservative views, Prokopios' ’The Secret History’ tells us a lot about how Theodora was perceived during the time. He was understandably anti-regime (and anti-Theodora) after two wars had been initiated on flimsy pretexts and the new plague left many people pretty unhappy so the invective was ruthless. As we can decipher pretty easily, his expectations of women followed the feminine virtues as expressed in the Roman matrona (gentle, modest..). Of course, Theodora’s life story and behavior during her rule are antithetical to most of these traits. He spends much of the book building her character as a woman of unnatural lusts from whom respectable people flee (Prokopios, c. 9). In Leslie Brubaker’s analysis of ‘The Secret History’ entitled ‘Sex, lies and textuality: the Secret History of Prokopios and the rhetoric of gender in sixth-century Byzantium’, Brubaker describes Prokopios' narrative of Theodora as ‘prurient sexual slander’. This depiction of Theodora and her friends probably reflects his deep anxiety about the disruption of traditional gender roles in Byzantine society. He frames Theodora’s use of sexuality in manipulation as a direct threat to the ideals expected of women and the established patriarchal order. This fear highlights Theodora's impressive ability to manipulate the systems around her to secure and redefine female power in her time.

So, how was Theodora able to use this identity as the ‘anti-woman’ (as described by Berbaker) to exert real power? According to Prokopios she used magic to make Justinian do what she wanted (reflecting his inability to understand female power): ‘She could win over her husband quite against his will to the action she desired’ (Prokopios, c.13). In reality, it was probably Justinian’s deep infatuation that allowed her to manipulate him. She seemed to be very aware of this predicament and used her situation to her advantage. In one case, they adopt a young man who becomes a ‘son’ to them, only for Theodora to sleep with him and convince her husband she was simply bending over to grab something when he walked in! Through manipulating Justinian in their private life, she was able to exercise power in the public arena. The entire state is essentially at the whim of his infatuation with Theodora: ‘And the state became the fuel for this love’ (Prokopius Part 9). “She appointed both magistrates and priests” and “she also arranged marriages as if she held some kind of divine authority” (Prokopios, c. 17).

Despite obtaining this sort of near-divine power, we can see very clearly in Prokopios’ account and those thereafter that Theodora was not really able to change the expectations of women. She was said to have “insisted on presiding over every branch of state and on always having her way” in the words of Prokopios (Prokopios, c. 17) rather than just “presiding over every branch of state”. He rarely even recognizes her power as something beyond her sexuality. Ultimately, those same perceptions that Theodora was able to weaponize forever limited her. Many women in positions of power in the modern day have to deal with being viewed through a similar skeptical, sexualized lens. This all highlights how it is much easier for women to control the place that women occupy in the world than the place that women occupy in the imaginary - we are still working on that...