A Triple-headed Serpent: A Story of Theodora, Empress of Byzantium

by Marié Heese

  She had felt, at first, outraged: it had been a betrayal by her body, on which she had depended all her life – kept it in good shape, trained, controlled and pampered it. But it had dealt her a staggering blow; it had fooled and then grievously disappointed her. Then she lost the fierce anger and slid instead into a morass of misery. Her heart was desolate. God had deserted her.

  It was a punishment, she had now come to believe. It was undoubtedly divine retribution. And worst of all, it was deserved. She had sworn, when she was received into the Church in Alexandria, that she would be a soldier for Christ. But she had not kept that solemn vow. For the first time she saw herself clearly, as if standing trial and illuminated by the pitiless light of truth, and what she saw was a vision of an unregenerate sinner.

  Now everything made her weep. Including the letter from Antonina, since it emphasised her sense of worthlessness.

  Antonina has achieved a great victory for the Monophysites, she thought. She made it happen. I had nothing to do with it.

  Within two months of Belisarius’s triumphant entry into Rome, an army of around a hundred thousand Gothic warriors led south by Witigis himself laid siege to the city. They set up seven stockaded camps at strategic points. Inside the encircling walls, Belisarius had no more than five thousand men, including legionaries and foederati, Isaurians and his own comitatus. The Gothic host was considerably larger than anyone had anticipated.

  Given the large discrepancy in numbers, wrote Procopius, Belisarius can do no more than send out patrols and sorties to harass the Goths, which are very effective, since our mounted archers are highly skilled. In addition to repairs to the great walls of Aurelian, Belisarius has improved fortifications, ordering a wide ditch to be dug on the outside, and he has built some forts to cover key bridges.

  Soon the news arrived that a grand attempt to take the city by force had been resisted, but the same courier brought a letter from Belisarius with an urgent appeal to his emperor for reinforcements. Justinian read the letter aloud to Theodora.

  “So far, matters have gone well, whether our success be due to valour or to fortune. If this success is to continue, it behoves me to state clearly what it behoves you to do.”

  “Well, that’s as close to an outright order as anything I’ve heard addressed to the Emperor of Byzantium,” said Theodora.

  “He was writing in stressful circumstances,” said Justinian. “He then says: Though all things happen according to the will of God, yet men enjoy praise or suffer blame according to their own success or failure. True enough.”

  “What does he want?”

  Justinian read: “Let arms and soldiers be sent to us in sufficient numbers that henceforward we may wage the war on equal terms with the enemy. Let the conviction penetrate your mind, O Emperor, that if the Barbarians triumph now, we shall lose not only your dominion of Italy but the army as well.”

  “What impertinence! ‘Let the conviction penetrate your mind!’” Theodora could no longer summon enthusiasm for the endless warfare, but she resented the attitude of Belisarius.

  “I don’t think he means to be disrespectful, just emphatic,” said Justinian. He read: “Besides this we shall suffer the dishonour of failure, and furthermore the shame of bringing ruin on those Romans who were loyal to the throne at the risk of their own safety. I know that my life belongs to Your Majesty, and I shall not be forced out of this place while I live. But give thought to the effect such an end to the life of Belisarius would have on your reputation.”

  “This is truly a kind of blackmail,” said Theodora.

  “Yet he is correct. He and I will both be judged by posterity, and I will be judged to some degree by my relations with him.”

  “Maybe. But what will you do next?” asked Theodora, forcing an interest that she did not feel.

  “I have already dispatched one thousand six hundred cavalry, mercenaries, mostly Huns and Slavs. If they can elude the Goths, they can strengthen the force in Rome.”

  Justinian, deeply concerned about Theodora, conceived the idea of giving her a summer palace. Surely, he thought, the exhausting heat in Constantinople was contributing to her unhappiness and lassitude and lack of appetite.

  The location he chose was Hieron, a small town on the eastern shore of the Bosphorus near the point where it joins the Black Sea. There was an existing palace which he ordered to be considerably enlarged to accommodate her extensive court.

  “This will be your very own place,” said Justinian.

  “I have the Hormisdas Palace,” said Theodora, evincing no interest at all in the new venture. “Your wedding gift.”

  “Yes, you do, my love. But you’ve filled it with religious refugees, and Indaro and Chrysomallo live there, and I should think it doesn’t feel like yours any more. But this one will be just for you.”

  She had no involvement in choosing furnishings. She left it all to Narses. “Do what you think best,” she told him wearily.

  He had it splendidly equipped for her. White marble, white silk, alabaster, silver and crystal combined to create a cool, peaceful sanctuary. The town itself was also improved, with parks and gardens, colonnades of shops, and public baths.

  “I want the townsfolk to be friendly to you, my dear.” Justinian was determined to create a happy world for her. She smiled her dutiful, unhappy smile.

  “Will you come?” She was aware of the long hours he devoted to his labours, how little time he slept, let alone simply relaxed.

  “I have to work,” he said. “But you’ll have company.”

  With her went Juliana and Zeno, and the small Anastasius, who was unreservedly delighted to be there. Especially he loved to be taken on the water in a boat, and great was his joy when a slave taught him to fish. His first catch, a minuscule mullet, was solemnly handed over to the head chef, who pan-fried it and served it ceremoniously, garlanded with herbs.

  “Delicious, darling,” said Theodora, surreptitiously getting rid of bones.

  So she was with Juliana and Zeno at Hieron when the comet appeared in the heavens. The astronomers had predicted that it would be clearly visible at that time. Theodora allowed Anastasius to stay up, sitting on his mother’s knees on a secluded terrace with a view across the dark water, the lights of the town glimmering in the distance and the night sky overhead, a deep vault tented over the level earth. It reminded Theodora of the first time she had stood on the terrace of the Hormisdas Palace with Justinian. It had been just such a night. She recalled that Justinian had quoted the writings of St Augustine.

  “Justinian says that a view like this gives one a sense of the concentric rings of human society that St Augustine identifies,” she said.

  Zeno nodded. “Yes, I’ve read that. First, the domus, this particular home. Then the civitas, not just the city, but the entire state. And then the orbis terrae, the earth and the whole of human society that inhabits it. And finally …”

  “The mundus,” said Theodora, stretching out her arms. “The cosmos. Encompassing the earth and the heavens and the constellations, God and his angels and the souls of the departed as well as human society now alive.”

  “It makes one feel small,” said Juliana, looking up. “The night sky seems so … immense. I don’t see the comet, though.”

  “There’s cloud cover,” said Zeno. “Maybe it will clear up.”

  The flaming torches in brackets against the wall gave off an acrid scent that almost masked the smell of the sea. Anastasius yawned.

  How fortunate that he looks like his mother, thought Theodora fondly: dark curls and beautiful golden-brown eyes. Zeno is so square, like a statue still in need of final chiselling. The child could have been a cherub shaped and polished by one of the great Greek sculptors of old. Truly, he is beautiful. She sighed a deep sigh.

  They waited. Slaves silently came and went, bearing refreshments.

  Then the clouds began to unravel, and suddenly, there it was, clearly visible in the dark heavens: a fiery object with a tail, slightly fu
zzy.

  “A fish!” cried Anastasius. “Look, Grandmother, it’s a fish!”

  “A swordfish,” agreed Zeno, gloomily. “This is not good.”

  “Why?” asked Juliana.

  “It is a thing out of place,” said Zeno. “Contrary to the created order. A perturbation in the mundus. It is a portent.”

  Theodora asked: “A portent of what?”

  “One does not know. Earthquakes, war, storms … even, perhaps, plague. It surely is a sign of the wrath of God.”

  “Terrible as an army with banners,” said Theodora, shivering. The strange, brilliant, alien thing seemed to her to dominate the heavens just as despair dominated her daily consciousness. Her sorrow seemed to her to be a thing of weight and substance, pressing heavily on her heart. Perhaps the comet portended the flood of darkness the sibyl had predicted, she thought. Already the world seemed to her to have become bereft of light.

  Anastasius, not understanding but sensing tension among the adults, began to cry.

  “He’s tired,” said Juliana. “Let him be put to bed.”

  Zeno stood up, hoisted his small son over his shoulder and carried him inside, followed by fussing servants.

  “He’s a loving father,” observed Theodora.

  “He’s a loving husband,” said Juliana, with a sigh. It had been a political marriage, since Zeno was the grandson of the old emperor Anastasius. “Just irredeemably dull. Earnest and worthy and dull.”

  “There are worse things than a dull husband,” said Theodora. “Far worse, believe me.”

  “Better things too. But I’ll never know, will I?” Tears glimmered in her dark eyes.

  “You have a son,” said Theodora. “Be thankful.”

  When Theodora returned to Constantinople, it was clear that the sojourn in Hieron had not succeeded in lifting her spirits. On the contrary, she grew ever more mired in misery. She lost all interest in matters of state. She would issue no orders, hear no petitions, undertake no projects, visit no charities, attend no Masses. Above all, she would walk in no ceremonial processions. She had always delighted in showing herself, a regal, glittering iconic figure, to her people. Now she shunned their attention like one deeply shamed. She could not explain this to a baffled Justinian, not even to Narses who hovered around her, his face scrunched with worry, surrounding her with roses and music, plying her with pomegranates.

  She could not explain to them that it was again as it had been directly after the riots: when she walked out into the streets of her city, or rode in state, she was tracked and hounded by a horde of phantoms, the thousands upon thousands of rebels whose spilt blood had painted the Hippodrome red; the men mown down by the swords of the mercenaries newly invigorated by her words. Silently accusing, hostile, implacable. She could not stand it.

  She wanted nothing more than to sit on the terrace of the Hormisdas Palace, staring out across the ever-changing sea. She wanted no company. She did not want to eat. She hardly spoke. She refused to talk to the palace physicians. “I’ll not be bled and purged and prodded and poked,” she said. “Tell them to leave me alone.”

  Night after night she woke in the small hours and lay unsleeping, islanded in darkness and silence, filled with a nameless dread, bereft even of the solace of prayer.

  Her will, formerly so strong in driving her forward, was now resolute in refusing to do anything at all. She had folded herself down into a small, hard bundle, like a tent struck in the desert, ready to be removed to some other place.

  One day Narses brought Aetios to see her. The tall physician walked quietly across the terrace and sat down, uninvited, on the stone wall, at an angle to her cushioned seat. She stared past his head at the blue horizon, obdurately silent. But he did not try to stir her into speech. He merely sat, turning a small wooden box around and around in his long fingers with the knuckly joints.

  At last she sighed, and said: “So. Have you brought me a miraculous cure?”

  “No, Despoina,” he said. “I don’t have one.”

  “Really? Then what’s in the box?”

  “Chase-devil,” he said.

  “What?” She was intrigued in spite of herself.

  “Chase-devil. Hypericum perforatum. A herb, Despoina. Also known as St John’s wort. Helps to lift the spirit. To chase devils from the mind.” He opened the box, showing her a container with small white pellets, and a bag. “Tablets, you see, and dried leaves and petals, to make an infusion.”

  “And this chases away devils?”

  “Helps to. Yet devils will not depart without a fight. Or to put it another way, self-control and fortitude are required to overcome destructive emotions. You must take up arms against the devils yourself.”

  “Ah. You do not tell me to pray?”

  “In the dark night of the soul,” he said, “the voice of God cannot penetrate.”

  She closed her eyes, feeling the hot, irresistible tears leaking down her cheeks.

  “It is my impression that Majesty has fortitude,” said Aetios. “May I offer this medication, to assist?”

  She put out her hand. “Very well. Give it to me.”

  “If I may make a suggestion?’

  “Do.”

  “It is better to work than to sit still. I understand that Majesty has many charities?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go to them. Visit them all. Find out what they require. Help them to plan for the future. Keep busy.”

  She sighed.

  “I know, at this time it seems useless. One thinks one knows the truth about oneself, at last, and the truth is that one is completely worthless and nothing one might do has any meaning. But –”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I have myself been in need of chase-devil,” he said. “I know how one feels. So I can attest, truly, that one can escape from that dungeon.”

  “It does not seem possible,” she said forlornly.

  “It is possible. You may believe that. But not easy. It will not be quick,” he warned. “It will take time.”

  She nodded. “Thank you. Thank you, Aetios. I will try.”

  In June of that year, 537, Antonina wrote:

  My dearest Theodora – Salutations to the Empress!

  I am writing to you, my dear friend, to beg that you should use your influence on the Emperor, to urge him toward greater support for the war that my husband is waging on his behalf. I know that Belisarius has written to Justinian requesting reinforcements. Some have arrived, but still, truly, too few.

  I assume you will have heard that our army attempted an assault on the enemy but were routed by sheer force of numbers. (At one critical moment, the officer near Hadrian’s tomb broke up some antique statues to hurl at the enemy, and some Gothic warriors must have been surprised to find themselves being kicked in the head by a flying marble foot or smacked by a dismembered arm.) As matters now stand, we cannot overcome the Goths, and the Goths cannot take Rome by force. However, we shall not be able to hold out for ever. We are hungry, Theodora.

  Quite early on, the Goths agreed to let women and children leave the city safely. But I refused to leave with the other women. You should believe that Belisarius will never surrender, but we may be overcome, and if that happens, I shall die with him, if need be by my own hand. Pray to the Holy Virgin that this will not happen.

  Please, my friend, if you love me, if you love the dream of Empire that Justinian holds dear, get him to send more soldiers. Soon.

  Ever your loving friend

  Antonina

  “Only, it is not so simple,” said Justinian. “I understand that the situation in Rome is dire, and that they are suffering. Of course I would wish to send a large army to relieve the siege. But that would mean recalling regiments from somewhere else.”

  “Couldn’t you spare some soldiers from the northern frontier?” asked Theodora, looking over his shoulder at the map spread out on his table. It was some months since the visit from Aetios, and she had made a fragile recovery. She had
been dutifully active in working with her institutions, particularly her Metanoia convent, visiting all of them in turn. She went regularly to the Hormisdas to see her refugees. She forced herself to engage with her husband on matters of state. She still had no real interest in anything; she felt no anger, knew no joy. But she spoke the words that were required. She was a simulacrum of a wife. Yet it was better than no wife at all.

  “It would mean weakening the garrisons along the Danube,” said Justinian. “We are hard pressed on that border by constant incursions by bands of Slavs. Behind them Heruls are looting the forest towns. And beyond them, the Avars of the Steppes are sweeping south.” He pushed his hand despairingly through his rapidly greying hair.

  “I don’t suppose Belisarius knows about those dangers,” she said. Standing behind him, she noted that his hair had grown thin, allowing glimpses of the vulnerable scalp no longer entirely protected by the once vigorous brown thatch.

  “No, how would he know? He has no overview of all our frontiers as I do. The forts along the Danube have only skeleton garrisons as it is. Belisarius must do the best he can. He always thinks of some extraordinary stratagem.”

  “Maybe he will again.”

  By the time December came, and with it chill winds bearing a hint of snow, it was evident that Witigis was not going to give up the siege. Justinian finally decided to dispatch further reinforcements to Italy. “I have sent more soldiers to aid Belisarius under John – John Sanguinaris, I mean, the general,” he told Theodora.

  “Ah. Bloody John,” said Theodora, translating the Latin nickname.

  “Yes. He sails with eighteen hundred cataphracts. Also three thousand Isaurian infantry with a convoy of corn ships.”

  “Good, good,” said Theodora. “That should ease the situation in Rome.” Over the months since June her emotions had gradually returned from the dead. The world had improved from a dull grey prison to a place with the possibility of rainbows. She was able, once more, to care about a friend going hungry in a beleaguered city.

  Praise be for the timeous arrival of men and supplies, wrote Procopius. The army of Witigis is, I suspect, at last wearying of the struggle. Their numbers have been steadily dwindling, whittled away by successful forays out of Rome. Doubtless they too are suffering from famine and disease, scabies, lice and foot rot. The countryside has been denuded of crops, and finding victuals becomes more difficult by the day. We pray that the arrival of reinforcements from Constantinople may achieve the lifting of the siege.