may be argued (1) that she certainly did interfere constantly and arbitrarily in the administration of public affairs, and showed herself therein the kind of person who would be cruel and unscrupulous in her choice of means, and (2) that we gather from other writers an impression that she was harsh and tyrannical, as, for instance, from the references to her in the lives of the popes in the Liber Pontificalis (which used to pass under the name of Anastasius, the papal librarian). Her threat to the person whom she commanded
to bring Vigilius to her was “nisi hoc feceris, per Viventem in saecula excoriari te faciam.” Much of what we find in these lives is legendary, but they are some evidence of Theodora’s reputation. Again, (3) the statute (Cod., v. 4, 23) which repeals the older law so far as relates to scenicae mulieres is now generally attributed to Justin, and agrees with the statement of Procopius that an alteration of the law was made to legalize her marriage. There is therefore reason for holding that she was an actress, and, considering what the Byzantine stage was (as appears even by the statute in question), her life cannot nave been irreproachable.
Against the evidence of Procopius, with such confirmations as have been indicated, there is to be set the silence of other writers, contemporaries like Agathias and Evagrius, as well as such later historians as Theophanes, none of whom repeat the charges as to Theodora’s life before her marriage. To this consideration no great weight need be attached. It is difficult to establish any view of the controversy without a long and minute examination of the authorities, and in particular of the Anecdota. But the most probable conclusions seem to be—(1) that the odious details which Procopius gives, and which Gibbon did not blush to copy, deserve no more weight than would be given nowadays to the malignant scandal of disappointed courtiers under a despotic government, where scandal is all the blacker because it is propagated in secret; (2) that apparently she was an actress and a courtesan, and not improbably conspicuous in both those characters; and (3) that it is impossible to determine how far the specific charges of cruelty and oppression brought against her by Procopius deserve credence. We are not bound to accept them, for they are uncorroborated; yet the accounts of Justinian’s government given in the Anecdota agree in too many respects with what we know aliunde to enable us to reject them altogether; and it must be admitted that there is a certain internal consistency in the whole picture which the Anecdota present of the empress. About the beauty, the intellectual gifts, and the imperious will of Theodora there can be no doubt, for as to these all our authorities agree. She was evidently an extraordinary person, born to shine in any station of life.
Her fortunes have employed many pens. Among the later serious works dealing with them may be mentioned M. Antonin Débidour’s L’Impératrice Theodora: Étude Critique (Paris, 1885), which endeavours to vindicate her from the aspersions of Procopius; and among more imaginative writings are Sir Henry Pottinger’s interesting romance Blue and Green (London, Hurst and Blackett, 1879), M. Rhangabé’s tragedy Θεοδώρα (Leipzig, 1884), and M. Sardou’s play Theodora, produced in Paris in 1884. See also Dr F. Dahn’s Prokopios von Cäsarea (1865), and, in addition, the works cited under Justinian. (J. Br)
THEODORA, wife of the Roman emperor Theophilus. In the last year of her husband’s reign (842) she overrode his ecclesiastical policy and summoned a council under the patriarch Methodius, in which the worship of images was finally restored and the iconoclastic clergy dispossessed. Appointed guardian of her infant son, Michael III., she carried on the government with a firm and judicious hand; she replenished the treasury and deterred the Bulgarians from an attempt at invasion. In order to perpetuate her power she purposely neglected her
son’s education, and therefore must be held responsible for the voluptuous character which he developed under the influence of his uncle Bardas. Theodora endeavoured in vain to combat Bardas’s authority; in 855 she was displaced from her regency at his prompting, and being subsequently convicted of intrigues against him was relegated to a monastery. She was sainted in recompense for her zeal on behalf of image-worship.
THEODORA (d. 1057), daughter of the emperor Constantine VIII. Possessed of a strong and austere character, she
refused the hand of the heir-presumptive, Romanus, who was
married instead to her sister Zoë (1028). Though living in
retirement she excited Zoë’s jealousy, and on a pretext of conspiracy was confined in a monastery. In 1042 the popular movement which caused the dethronement of Michael V. also
led to Theodora’s instalment as joint-empress with her sister.
After two months of active participation in government she
allowed herself to be virtually superseded by Zoë’s new husband,
Constantine IX. Upon his death in 1054, in spite of her
seventy years, she reasserted her dormant rights with vigour,
and frustrated an attempt to supersede her on behalf of the
general Nicephorus Bryennius. By her firm administration she
controlled the unruly nobles and checked numerous abuses;
but she marred her reputation by excessive severity towards
private enemies and the undue employment of menials for
advisers. She died suddenly in 1057.
See G. Fialay, History of Greece, vol. ii. (Oxford, 1877); G. Schlumberger, L’Épopée Byzantine, vol. iii.(Paris. 1905).
THEODORE, the name of two popes. Theodore I., pope from November 642 till May 649, succeeded John IV. He was the son of a bishop, and was born in Jerusalem. A zealous Opponent of mono the lit ism, in the course of the protracted
controversy he in a Roman synod excommunicated Pyrrhus,
patriarch of Constantinople, and signed the document with ink
mingled with consecrated wine. Theodore II. had a pontificate
of only twenty days (Nov.–Dec. 897).
THEODORE (Rus. Fedor, or Feodor), the name of three tsars of Russia.
Theodore I. (1557–1598), tsar of Russia, the son of Ivan the Terrible and Anastasia Romanova, nominally succeeded his father in 1584, but being of weak intellect was governed throughout his reign by the boyar, Boris Godunov, whose sister Irene he married in 1580. On his death-bed he is said to have left the throne to his consort, with the Patriarch Job, Boris Godunov, and Theodore Romanov, afterwards the Patriarch Philaret, as her chief counsellors. Irene, however, retired into a monastery and her brother Boris stepped into her place.
See S. M. Solovev, History of Russia (Rus.), vol. viii. (Petersburg, 1895, &c.).
Theodore II. (1589–1605), tsar of Russia, was the son of Tsar Boris Godunov and one of the daughters of Malyuta-Skuratov, the infamous favourite of Ivan the Terrible. Passionately beloved by his father, he received the best available education for those days, and from childhood was initiated into all the minutiae of government, besides sitting regularly in the council and receiving the foreign envoys. He seems also to have been remarkably and precociously intelligent, and the first map of Russia by a native, still preserved, is by his hand. On the sudden death of Boris he was proclaimed tsar (13th of April 1605). Though his father had taken the precaution to surround him with powerful friends, he lived from the first moment of his reign in an atmosphere of treachery. On the 1st of July the envoys of Pseudo-Demetrius I. arrived at Moscow to demand his removal, and the letters which they read publicly in the Red Square decided his fate. On the 10th of July he was most foully murdered in his apartments in the Kreml.
See D. I. Ilovaisky, The Anarchical Period in the Realm of Moscovy (Rus) (Moscow, 1894).
Theodore III. (1661–1682), tsar of Russia, was the eldest surviving son of Tsar Alexius and Maria Miloslavskaya. In 1676 he succeeded his father on the throne. He was endowed with a fine intellect and a noble disposition; he had received an excellent education at the hands of Simeon Polotsky, the most learned Slavonic monk of the day, knew Polish, and even possessed the unusual accomplishment of Latin; but, horribly disfigured and half paralyzed by a mysterious disease, supposed to be scurvy, he had been a hopeless invalid from the day of his birth. In 1679 he married his first cousin Agatha and assumed the sceptre. His native energy, though crippled, was not crushed by his terrible disabilities; and he soon showed that he was as thorough and devoted a reformer as a man incompetent to lead armies and obliged to issue his orders from his litter, or his bed-chamber, could possibly be. The atmosphere of the court ceased to be oppressive; the light of a new liberalism shone in the highest places; and the severity of the penal laws was considerably mitigated. He founded the academy of sciences in the Zaikonospassy monastery, where everything not expressly forbidden by the orthodox church, including Slavonic, Greek, Latin and Polish, was to be taught by competent professors. The chief difference between the
