The Secret History

by

Procopius of Caesarea

translated by Richard Atwater

(Chicago: P. Covici, 1927 New York Covici Friede 1927)

Reprinted, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1961, with indication
that copyright had expired on the text of the translation.

17. HOW SHE SAVED FIVE HUNDRED HARLOTS FROM A LIFE OF SIN

I have told earlier in this narrative what she did to Belisarius, Photius and
Buzes.

There were two members of the Blue faction, Cilicians by birth, who with a mob
of others offered violence to Callinicus, Governor of the second Cilicia; and when
his groom, who was standing near his master, tried to protect him, they slew the
fellow before the eyes of the Governor and all the people. The Governor, convicting
the two of this and many previous murders, sentenced them to death. Theodora heard
of this, and to show her preference f or the. Blues,. crucified Callinicus, without
troubling to remove him from his office, on the spot where the murderers had been
buried.

The Emperor affected to lament and mourn the death of his Governor, and sat around
grumbling and making threats against those responsible for the deed. But he did
nothing, except to seize the estate of the dead man.

Theodora also devoted considerable attention to the punishment of women caught
in carnal sin. She picked up more than five hundred harlots in the Forum, who earned
a miserable living by selling themselves there for three obols, and sent them to
the opposite mainland, where they were locked up in the monastery called Repentance
to force them to reform their way of life. Some of them, however, threw themselves
from the parapets at night and thus freed themselves from an undesired salvation.

There were in Constantinople two girls: sisters, of a very illustrious family
-not only had their father and grandfather been Consuls, but even before that their
ancestors had been Senators. These girls had both married early, but became widows
when their husbands died; and immediately Theodora, accusing them of living too
merrily, chose new husbands for them, two common and disgusting fellows, and commanded
the marriage to take place. Fearing this repulsive fate, the sisters fled to the
Church of St. Sophia, and running to the holy water, clung tightly to the font.
Yet such privations and ill treatment did the Empress inflict upon them there, that
to escape from their sufferings they finally agreed to accept the proposed nuptials.
For no place was sacred or inviolable to Theodora. Thus involuntarily these ladies
were mated to beggarly and negligible men, far beneath their rank, although they
had many well-born suitors. Their mother, who was also a widow, attended the ceremony
without daring to protest or even weep at their misfortune.

Later Theodora saw her mistake and tried to console them, to the public detriment,
for she made their new husbands Dukes. Even this brought no comfort to the young
women, for endless and intolerable woes were inflicted on practically all their
subjects by these men; as I have told elsewhere. Theodora, however, cared nothing
for the interest of office or government, or anything else, if only she accomplished
her will.

She had accidentally become pregnant by one of her lovers, when she was still
on the stage; and perceiving her ill luck too late tried all the usual measures
to cause a miscarriage, but despite every artifice was unable to prevail against
nature at this advanced stage of development. Finding that nothing else could be
done, she abandoned the attempt and was compelled to give birth to the child. The
father of the baby, seeing that Theodora was at her wit’s end and vexed because
motherhood interfered with her usual recreations, and suspecting with good reason
that she would do away with the child, took the infant from her, naming him John,
and sailed with the baby to Arabia. Later, when he was on the verge of death and
John was a lad of fourteen, the father told him the whole story about his mother.

So the boy, after he had performed the last rites for his departed father, shortly
after came to Constantinople and announced his presence to the Empress’s chamberlains.
And they, not conceiving the possibility of her acting so inhumanly, reported to
the mother that her son John had come. Fearing the story would get to the ears of
her husband, Theodora bade her son be brought face to face with her. As soon as
he entered, she handed him over to one of her servants who was ordinarily entrusted
with such commissions. And in what manner the poor lad was removed from the world,
I cannot say, for no one has ever seen him since, not even after the Queen died.
The ladies of the court at this time were nearly all of abandoned morals. They ran
no risk in being faithless to their husbands, as the sin brought no penalty: even
if caught in the act, they were unpunished, for all they had to do was to go to
the Empress, claim the charge was not proven, and start a countersuit against their
husbands. The latter, defeated without a trial, had to pay a fine of twice the dower,
and were usually whipped and sent to prison; and the next time they saw their adulterous
wives again, the ladies would be daintily entertaining their lovers more openly
than ever. Indeed, many of the latter gained promotion and pay for their amorous
services. After one such experience, most men who suffered these outrages from their
wives preferred thereafter to be complaisant instead of being whipped, and gave
them every liberty rather than seem to be spying on their affairs.

Theodora’s idea was to control everything in the state to suit herself. Civil
and ecclesiastical offices were all in her hand, and there was only one thing she
was always careful to inquire about and guard as the standard of her appointments:
that no honest gentleman should be given high rank, for fear he would have scruples
against obeying her commands.

She arranged all marriages as if that were her divine right, and voluntary betrothals
before a ceremony were unknown. A wife would suddenly be found for a man, chosen
not because she pleased him, which is customary even among the barbarians, but because
Theodora willed it. And the same was true of brides, who were forced to take men
they did not desire. Frequently she even made the bride jump out of her marriage
bed, and for no reason at all sent the bridegroom away before he had reached the
chorus of his nuptial song; and her only angry words would be that the girl displeased
her. Among the many to whom she did this were Leontius, the Referendar, and Saturninus,
the son of Hermogenes the Master of Offices.

Now this Saturninus was betrothed to a maiden cousin, freeborn and a good girl,
whom her father Cyril had promised him in marriage just after the death of Hermogenes.
When their bridal chamber was in readiness, Theodora arrested the groom, who was
conducted to another nuptial couch, where, weeping and groaning terribly, he was
compelled to wed Chrysomallo’s daughter. Chrysomallo herself had formerly been a
dancer and a hetaera; at this time she lived in the palace, with another woman of
the same name and one called Indaro, having given up Cupid and the stage to be of
service to the Queen.

Saturninus, lying down finally to pleasant dreams with his new bride, discovered
she was already unmaidened; and later told one of his friends that his new-found
mate came to him not imperforate. When this comment got to Theodora, she ordered
her servants, charging him with impious disregard of the solemnity of his matrimonial
oath, to hoist him up like a schoolboy who had been saucy to his teacher: and after
whipping him on his backsides, told him not to be such a fool thereafter.

What she did to John the Cappadocian I have told elsewhere; and need add only
that her treatment of him was due to her anger, not at his transgressions against
the state (and a proof of this is that those who later did even more terrible things
to their subjects met no such similar fate from her), but because he had a not only
dared oppose her in other things, but had denounced her before the Emperor: with
the result that she was all but estranged from her husband. I am explaining this
now, for it is in this book, as I said in the foreword, that I necessarily tell
the real truths and motives of events.

When she confined him in Egypt, after he had suffered such humiliations as I
have previously described, she was not even then satisfied with the man’s punishment,
but never ceased hunting for false witnesses against him. Four years later, she
was able to find two members of the Green party who had taken part in the insurrection
at Cyzicus, and who were said to have shared in the assault upon the bishop. These
two she overwhelmed with flattery and threats, and one of them, inspired by her
promises, accused John of the murder; while the other utterly refused to be an accomplice
in this libel, even when he was so injured by the torture that he seemed about to
die on the spot. Consequently for all her efforts she was unable to cause john’s
death on this pretext. But the two young men had their right hands cut off: one,
because he was unwilling to bear false witness; the other, that her conspiracy might
not be utterly obvious. Thus she was able to do things in full public sight, and
still nobody knew exactly what she had done.