by Will Durant
The career of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (475?–524) paralleled that of Cassiodorus, except in longevity. Both were born of rich Roman families, served Theodoric as ministers, labored to build a bridge between paganism and Christianity, and wrote dreary books that were read and treasured for a thousand years. Boethius’ father was consul in 483; his father-in-law, Symmachus the Younger, was descended from the Symmachus who had fought for the Altar of Victory. He received the best education that Rome could give, and then spent eighteen years in the schools of Athens. Returning to his Italian villas, he buried himself in study. Resolved to save the elements of a classical culture that was visibly dying, he gave his time—the scholar’s most grudging gift—to summarizing in lucid Latin the works of Euclid on geometry, of Nicomachus on arithmetic, of Archimedes on mechanics, of Ptolemy on astronomy. … His translation of Aristotle’s Organon, or logical treatises, and of Porphyry’s Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle provided the leading texts and ideas of the next seven centuries in logic, and set the stage for the long dispute between realism and nominalism. Boethius tried his hand also at theology: in an essay on the Trinity he defended the orthodox Christian doctrine, and laid down the principle that where faith and reason conflict, faith should prevail. None of these writings repays reading today, but it would be hard to exaggerate their influence on medieval thought.
Moved by his family’s tradition of public service, Boethius dragged himself from these abstruse pursuits into the whirlpool of political life. He rose rapidly; became consul, then patricius, then master of the offices—i.e., prime minister (522). He distinguished himself by both his philanthropy and his eloquence; men compared him with Demosthenes and Cicero. But eminence makes enemies. The Gothic officials at the court resented his sympathy with the Roman and the Catholic population, and aroused the suspicions of the King. Theodoric was now sixty-nine, failing in health and mind, wondering how to transmit in stability the rule of an Arian Gothic family over a nation nine tenths Roman and eight tenths Catholic. He had reason to believe that both the aristocracy and the Church were his foes, who impatiently awaited his death. In 523 Justinian, Byzantine regent, issued an edict banishing all Manicheans from the Empire, and barring from civil or military office all pagans and heretics—including all Arians except Goths. Theodoric suspected that the exception was intended to disarm him, but would be withdrawn at the first opportunity; and he judged the decree a poor return for the full liberties that he had accorded to the orthodox creed in the West. Had he not raised to the highest offices that same Boethius who had written an anti-Arian tract on the Trinity? In this very year 523 he had given to the church of St. Peter two magnificent chandeliers of solid silver as a gesture of courtesy to the pope. However, he had offended a great part of the population by protecting the Jews; when mobs destroyed synagogues in Milan, Genoa, and Rome, he had rebuilt the synagogues at public expense.69
It was in this conjuncture of events that word reached Theodoric of a senatorial conspiracy to depose him. Its leader, he was told, was Albinus, president of the Senate and friend of Boethius. The generous scholar hastened to Theodoric, guaranteed the innocence of Albinus, and said: “If Albinus is a criminal, I and the whole Senate are equally guilty.” Three men of blemished reputation accused Boethius of sharing in the plot, and they adduced a document, bearing Boethius’ signature, which invited the Byzantine Empire to reconquer Italy. Boethius denied all charges, and rejected the document as a forgery; later, however, he admitted: “Had there been any hopes of liberty I should have freely indulged them. Had I known of a conspiracy against the King … you would not have known of it from me.”70 He was arrested (523).
Theodoric sought some understanding with the Emperor. In words worthy of a philosopher king he wrote to Justin:
To pretend to dominion over the conscience is to usurp the prerogative of God. By the nature of things the power of sovereigns is confined to political government; they have no right of punishment except over those who disturb the public peace. The most dangerous heresy is that of a sovereign who separates himself from part of his subjects because they believe not according to his belief.71
Justin replied that he had a right to refuse office to men whose loyalty he could not trust, and that the order of society required unity of belief. The Arians of the East appealed to Theodoric to protect them. He asked Pope John I to go to Constantinople and intercede for the dismissed Arians; the Pope protested that this was no mission for one pledged to destroy heresy; but Theodoric insisted. John was received with such honors in Constantinople, and returned with such empty hands, that Theodoric accused him of treason, and flung him into jail, where, a year later, he died.72
Meanwhile Albinus and Boethius had been tried before the King, adjudged guilty, and sentenced to death. The frightened Senate passed decrees repudiating them, confiscating their property, and approving the penalty. Symmachus defended his son-in-law, and was himself arrested. Boethius, in prison, now composed one of the most famous of medieval books—De consolatione philosophiae. In its alternation of undistinguished prose and charming verse no tear finds voice; there is only a Stoic resignation to the unaccountable whims of fortune, and an heroic attempt to reconcile the misfortunes of good men with the benevolence, omnipotence, and prescience of God. Boethius reminds himself of all the blessings that life has showered upon him—wealth, and a “noble father-in-law, and a chaste wife,” and exemplary children; he recalls his dignities, and the proud moment when he thrilled with his eloquence a Senate whose presiding consuls were both of them his sons. Such bliss, he tells himself, cannot last forever; fortune must balance it now and then with a chastening blow; and so much happiness can forgive so fatal a calamity.73 And yet such recalled felicity can sharpen affliction: “in all adversity of fortune,” says Boethius in a line that Dante made Francesca echo, “it is the most unhappy kind of misfortune to have been happy.”74 He asks Dame Philosophy—whom he personifies in medieval style—where real happiness lies; he discovers that it does not lie in wealth or glory, pleasure or power; and he concludes that there is no true or secure happiness except in union with God; “blessedness is one with divinity.”75 Strangely, there is no suggestion, in this book, of personal immortality, no reference to Christianity or to any specifically Christian doctrine, no line that might not have been written by Zeno, Epictetus, or Aurelius. The last work of pagan philosophy was written by a Christian who, in the hour of death, remembered Athens rather than Golgotha.
On October 23, 524, his executioners came. They tied a cord around his head, and tightened it till his eyes burst from their sockets; then they beat him with clubs till he died. A few months later Symmachus was put to death. According to Procopius,76 Theodoric wept for the wrong he had done to Boethius and Symmachus. In 526 he followed his victims to the grave.
His kingdom died soon after him. He had nominated his grandson Athalaric to succeed him; but Athalaric being only ten years old, his mother Amalasuntha ruled in his name. She was a woman of considerable education and many accomplishments, a friend and perhaps a pupil of Cassiodorus, who now served her as he had served her father. But she leaned too much toward Roman ways to please her Gothic subjects; and they objected to the classical studies with which, in their views, she was enfeebling the King. She yielded the boy to Gothic tutors; he took to sexual indulgence, and died at eighteen. Amalasuntha associated her cousin Theodahad with her on the throne, having pledged him to let her rule. Presently he deposed and imprisoned her. She appealed to Justinian, now Byzantine Emperor, to come to her aid. Belisarius came.
CHAPTER V
Justinian
527–565
I. THE EMPEROR
IN 408 Arcadius died, and his son Theodosius II, aged seven, became Emperor of the East. Theodosius’ sister Pulcheria, having the advantage of him by two years, undertook his education, with such persistent solicitude that he was never fit to govern. He left this task to the praetorian prefect and the Senate, while he copied and illu
minated manuscripts; he seems never to have read the Code that preserves his name. In 414 Pulcheria assumed the regency at the age of sixteen, and presided over the Empire for thirty-three years. She and her two sisters vowed themselves to virginity, and appear to have kept their vows. They dressed with ascetic simplicity, fasted, sang hymns and prayed, established hospitals, churches, and monasteries, and loaded them with gifts. The palace was turned into a convent, into which only women and a few priests might enter. Amid all this sanctity Pulcheria, her sister-in-law Eudocia, and their ministers governed so well that in all the forty-two years of Theodosius’ vicarious reign the Eastern Empire enjoyed exceptional tranquillity, while the Western was crumbling into chaos. The least forgotten event of this period was the publication of the Theodosian Code (438). In 429 a corps of jurists was commissioned to codify all laws enacted in the Empire since the accession of Constantine. The new code was accepted in both East and West, and remained the law of the Empire until the greater codification under Justinian.
Between Theodosius II and Justinian I the Eastern Empire had many rulers who in their day made great stir, but are now less than memories: the lives of great men all remind us how brief is immortality. Leo I (457–74) sent against Gaiseric (467) the greatest fleet ever assembled by a Roman government; it was defeated and destroyed. His son-in-law Zeno the Isaurian (474–91), anxious to quiet the Monophysites, caused a bitter schism between Greek and Latin Christianity by imperially deciding, in his “unifying” letter, the Henoticon, that there was but one nature in Christ. Anastasius (491–518) was a man of ability, courage, and good will; he restored the finances of the state by wise and economical administration, reduced taxes, abolished the contests of men with wild beasts at the games, made Constantinople almost impregnable by building the “Long Walls” for forty miles from the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea, expended state funds on many other useful public works, and left in the treasury 320,000 pounds of gold ($134,400,000), which made possible the conquests of Justinian. The populace resented his economies and his Monophysite tendencies; a mob besieged his palace, and killed three of his aides; he appeared to them in all the dignity of his eighty years, and offered to resign if the people could agree on a successor. It was an impossible condition, and the crowd ended by begging him to retain the crown. When presently he died, the throne was usurped by Justin, an illiterate senator (518–27), who so loved his septuagenarian ease that he left the management of the Empire to his brilliant regent and nephew Justinian.
Procopius, his historian and enemy, would have been dissatisfied with Justinian from birth, for the future emperor was born (482) of lowly Illyrian—perhaps Slavic1—peasants near the ancient Sardica, the modern Sofia. His uncle Justin brought him to Constantinople, and procured him a good education. Justinian so distinguished himself as an officer in the army, and as for nine years aide and apprentice to Justin, that when the uncle died (527), the nephew succeeded him as emperor.
He was now forty-five, of medium height and build, smooth shaven, ruddy faced, curly haired, with pleasant manners and a ready smile that could cover a multitude of aims. He was as abstemious as an anchorite, eating little and subsisting mostly on a vegetarian regimen;2 he fasted often, sometimes to exhaustion. Even during these fasts he continued his routine of rising early, devoting himself to state affairs “from early dawn to midday, and far into the night.” Frequently when his aides thought he had retired, he was absorbed in study, eager to become a musician and an architect, a poet and a lawyer, a theologian and a philosopher, as well as an emperor; nevertheless he retained most of the superstitions of his time. His mind was constantly active, equally at home in large designs and minute details. He was not physically strong or brave; he wished to abdicate in the early troubles of his reign, and never took the field in his many wars. Perhaps it was a defect of his amiability that he was easily swayed by his friends, and therefore often vacillated in policy; frequently he subordinated his judgment to that of his wife. Procopius, who devoted a volume to Justinian’s faults, called him “insincere, crafty, hypocritical, dissembling his anger, double-dealing, clever, a perfect artist in acting out an opinion which he pretended to hold, and even able to produce tears … to the need of the moment”;3 but this might be a description of an able diplomat. “He was a fickle friend,” continues Procopius, “a truceless enemy, an ardent devotee of assassination and robbery.” Apparently he was these at times; but he was also capable of generosity and lenience. A general, Probus, was accused of reviling him, and was tried for treason; when the report of the trial was laid before Justinian he tore it up and sent a message to Probus: “I pardon you for your offense against me; pray that God also may pardon you.”4 He bore frank criticism without resentment. “This tyrant,” so unfortunate in his historian, “was the most accessible person in the world. For even men of low estate and altogether obscure had complete freedom not only to come before him but to converse with him.”5
At the same time he promoted the pomp and ceremony of his court even beyond the precedents of Diocletian and Constantine. Like Napoleon, he keenly missed the support of legitimacy, having succeeded to a usurper; he had no prestige of presence or origin; consequently he resorted to an aweinspiring ritual and pageantry whenever he appeared in public or before foreign ambassadors. He encouraged the Oriental conception of royalty as divine, applied the term sacred to his person and his property, and required those who came into his presence to kneel and kiss the hem of his purple robe, or the toes of his buskined feet.* He had himself anointed and crowned by the patriarch of Constantinople, and wore a diadem of pearls. No government has ever made so much ado as the Byzantine to ensure popular reverence through ceremonial splendor. The policy was reasonably effective; there were many revolutions in Byzantine history, but these were mostly coups d’état of the palace personnel; the court was not awed by its own solemnity.
The most significant revolt of the reign came early (532), and nearly cost Justinian his life. The Greens and Blues—the factions into which the people of Constantinople divided according to the dress of their favorite jockeys—had brought their quarrels to the point of open violence; the streets of the capital had become unsafe, and the well-to-do had to dress like paupers to avoid the nocturnal knife. Finally the government pounced down upon both factions, arresting several protagonists. The factions thereupon united in an armed uprising against the government. Probably a number of senators joined in the revolt, and proletarian discontent strove to make it a revolution. Prisons were invaded, and their inmates freed; city police and officials were killed; fires were started that burned down the church of St. Sophia and part of the Emperor’s palace. The crowd cried out “Nika!” (victory)—and so gave a name to the revolt. Drunk with success, it demanded the dismissal of two unpopular, perhaps oppressive, members of Justinian’s council; and he complied. Emboldened, the rebels persuaded Hypatius, of the senatorial class, to accept the throne; against the pleading of his wife he accepted, and went amid the plaudits of the crowd to take the imperial seat at the Hippodrome games. Meanwhile Justinian hid in his palace, and meditated flight; the Empress Theodora dissuaded him, and called for active resistance. Belisarius, leader of the army, took the assignment, assembled a number of Goths from his troops, led them to the Hippodrome, slaughtered 30,000 of the populace, arrested Hypatius, and had him killed in jail. Justinian restored his dismissed officials, pardoned the conspiring senators, and restored to the children of Hypatius their confiscated property.6 For the next thirty years Justinian was secure, but only one person seems to have loved him.
II. THEODORA
In his book on Buildings Procopius described a statue of Justinian’s wife: “It is beautiful, but still inferior to the beauty of the Empress; for to express her loveliness in words, or to portray it as a statue, would be altogether impossible for a mere human being.”7 In all his writings except one this greatest of Byzantine historians has nothing but praise for Theodora. But in a book which he left unpublished during his l
ifetime, and therefore called Anecdota—“not given out”—Procopius unfolded so scandalous a tale of the Queen’s premarital life that its veracity has been debated for thirteen centuries. This “Secret History” is a brief of candid malice, completely one-sided, devoted to blackening the posthumous reputations of Justinian, Theodora, and Belisarius. Since Procopius is our chief authority for the period, and in his other works is apparently accurate and fair, it is impossible to reject the Anecdota as mere fabrication; we may only rate it the angry retaliation of a disappointed courtier. John of Ephesus, who knew the Empress well, and does not otherwise reproach her, calls her simply “Theodora the strumpet.”8 For the rest there is scant corroboration of Procopius’ charges in other contemporary historians. Many theologians denounced her heresies, but none of them mentions her depravity—an incredible generosity if her depravity was real. We may reasonably conclude that Theodora began as not quite a lady, and ended as every inch a queen.
She was, Procopius assures us, the daughter of a bear trainer, grew up in the odor of a circus, became an actress and a prostitute, shocked and delighted Constantinople with her lewd pantomimes, practiced abortion with repeated success, but gave birth to an illegitimate child; became the mistress of Hecebolus, a Syrian, was deserted by him, and was lost sight of for a time in Alexandria. She reappeared in Constantinople as a poor but honest woman, earning her living by spinning wool. Justinian fell in love with her, made her his mistress, then his wife, then his queen.9 We cannot now determine how much truth there is in this proemium; but if such preliminaries did not disturb an emperor, they should not long detain us. Shortly after their marriage Justinian was crowned in St. Sophia; Theodora was crowned Empress at his side; and “not even a priest,” says Procopius, “showed himself outraged.”10