Empress Theodora Essay

Jullie Kandundu

11/2/2017

Fourth period

World history

Empress Theodora

She was from lowly birth of an animal trainer and had been an actress and a brothel worker, but later in her life took on the role of an empress. She was Theodora, the wife of the byzantine emperor Justinian and an influential figure during the time of his rule. His wife through the eyes of history, seen as unimportant from the writing of early historians, however the opposite is true. She helped reform the Byzantine empire with laws protecting women, and helping their lives. Empress Theodora was intelligent and a political genius, this had allowed her to be Justinian’s trusted advisor and queen of the Byzantine empire. Very little is known of Theodora’s early life

She began to change laws concerning women and their lives. She changed the law that stopped men from making profit from prostitutes, stopped female trafficking, banished brothel keepers, created rape legislation, and helped give women marriage rights such as dowry and divorce. Theodora also tried to end persecution against the monophysites. She achieved her goal but Justinian had an importance with the friendship it had alongside Rome concerning orthodoxy. This isn’t all she did for the empire, her most famous act was during the Nika riot. She made a speech during the revolt saying that even though her husband will flee she would not; she would stay and die rather than flee and live in exile. Justinian was then able up to become courageous and follow her. Crushing the mob unfortunately resulted in a great massacre. Justinian continued to rule the empire thanks to Theodora’s words. They had a mutual relationship and she ruled either as regnant or co-regnant, both interested in the state of the empire and the people living in it. They made unpopular reforms at the time even though it was for the better of the kingdom and its citizens. Comprising the laws into Justinian’s Code not only helped preserve roman laws but the laws they had created that would later go on to become a fundamental element to most of Europe’s future legal

From a very young age she had begun acting. Beside her during her acting days was her sister, Comito, a famous and well renowned singer who was two years older than her. She was also a mistress to many men and was said to have had many abortions alongside Theodora. During that time the term actress was used in a derogatory way for women in the theater; mostly claiming that the women were very promiscuous in their nature and were looked down upon. In her youth, Theodora was said to be a party goer and loved to have fun. She was rumored to love entertaining men and had a child out of wedlock. It wasn’t until her conversion that she had become more mellow and observant. The religion she had converted to was unorthodox and later crushed by the roman church, monophysitism. She moved to Alexandria where she met a pestor who helped her change her way of living. Later on she moved to Antioch she stayed with a dancer only a little older than her. Her name was Macedonia and she was also said to had been a spy for Constantinople. They were close friends but Theodora later moved back to Constantinople where she met and got married to