Women of Early Christianity

by Alfred Brittain; Mitchell Carroll

After a reign of a few years the faculties of Justin, which were impaired by disease, began to fail, and in 574 he became a hopeless lunatic. The only son of the imperial pair had died in infancy, and the question of a successor now became a serious one. The daughter, Arabia, was the wife of Baduarius, superintendent of the palace, who vainly aspired to the honor of adoption as the Cæsar. Domestic animosities turned the empress elsewhere.

The artful empress found a suitable successor in Tiberius, the young and handsome captain of the guards, and, in one of his sane intervals, Justin, at her instance, created him a Cæsar. During the few remaining years of Justin's life, Tiberius showed himself to both his adopted parents a filial and grateful son, and meekly submitted to all the exactions of his empress-mother. Though relying on Tiberius for the sterner duties of the imperial office, Sophia retained all her authority and sovereignty as Augusta and would not submit to the presence of another queen in the palace. Tiberius was already a husband and father. In a sane moment, Justin, with masculine good nature and blindness to feminine foibles, blandly suggested that Ino, the wife of the Cæsar, should dwell with Tiberius in the palace, for, he added, "he is a young man and the flesh is hard to rule." But Sophia immediately put her foot down. "As long as I live," said she, "I will never give my kingdom to another"--words that were possibly a reminiscence of the celebrated saying of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, "I am a queen; and as long as I live I will reign." Consequently, during the lifetime of Justin, Ino and her two daughters lived in complete retirement in a modest house not far from the palace. Her social status aroused considerable interest among the ladies of the court circle, who found it difficult to decide whether or not they should call on the wife of the Cæsar. At tables and firesides this question was gravely discussed, but no one would take the initiative of visiting Ino without first consulting the wishes of Sophia. Finally, when one of the ladies, with considerable trepidation, ventured to ask the empress, she was scolded for her pains; "Go away and be quiet," responded the imperious Sophia, "it is no business of yours."

When, however, a few days before the death of Justin, Tiberius was inaugurated emperor, he at once installed his wife in the palace, to the chagrin of the empress-mother, and had her recognized by the factions of the Hippodrome. A conflict arose as to what should be her Christian name as empress: the Blues wished to change her pagan name to "Anastasia," while the Greens urged stoutly the adoption of the name of the sainted "Helena." Tiberius decided with the Blues, and as Anastasia Ino was crowned Empress of the East.

During the long apprenticeship of Tiberius, Sophia had held the purse strings and had kept the young Cæsar on an allowance which seemed too small to comport with his imperial prospects. Upon becoming emperor, however, Tiberius quickly rid himself of the dictation of his patroness. He gave her a stately palace in which to live, and surrounded her with a numerous train of eunuchs and courtiers; he paid her ceremonious visits on formal occasions and always saluted the widow of his benefactor with the title of mother. But it was impossible for Sophia to overcome her disappointment at being deprived of power, and she set on foot numerous conspiracies to dethrone Tiberius and to bring about the elevation of some one whom she could control. The chief of these plots centred about the young Justinian, the son of Germanus of the house of Anastasius. Upon the death of Justin a faction had asserted the claims of Justinian; but Tiberius had freely pardoned the youth for aspiring to the purple and had given him the command of the Eastern army. Sophia seized upon the acclamation which the renown of his victories inspired to start a conspiracy in his interests, but Tiberius heard in time of the intended uprising and by his personal exertions and firmness suppressed the conspiracy. He once more forgave Justinian, but he realized the necessity of restraining the activity of the rapidly aging, but still clever and intriguing, ex-empress. Sophia was deprived of all imperial honors and reduced to a modest station, and the care of her person was committed to a faithful guard who should frustrate any further attempts on her part to play a part in the game of imperial politics. Thus the ambitious niece of Theodora passed off the stage of action after a career which, beginning with every promise of brilliant success and high renown, had, after many vicissitudes, ended in humiliation and disgrace.

Heraclius's long and memorable reign, from 610 to 641, was characterized by much domestic infelicity. Upon the day of his coronation he celebrated his marriage with the delicate Eudocia, who bore him two children, a daughter, Epiphania, and a son, Heraclius Constantine, the natural successor to the throne. Heraclius's second wife was his own niece Martina, the marriage being considered incestuous by the orthodox and becoming the cause of much scandal. The curses of Heaven too seemed to be upon the union; of the children, Flavius had a wry neck and Theodosius was deaf and dumb; the third, Heracleonas, had no pronounced physical deformity, but was lacking in intellectual power and in moral force. The physical sufferings of Heraclius in his last years were also looked upon as retribution for his sin.

Martina's influence upon her aged husband in his declining years was unbounded. Full of ambition and intrigue, she induced him upon his deathbed to declare her son Heracleonas joint heir with Constantine, hoping thus herself to wield imperial power. "When Martina first appeared on the throne with the name and attributes of royalty, she was checked by a firm, though respectful opposition; and the dying embers of freedom were kindled by the breath of superstitious prejudice. 'We reverence,' exclaimed the voice of a citizen, 'we reverence the mother of our princes; but to those princes alone our obedience is due; and Constantine, the elder emperor, is of an age to sustain in his own hand the weight of the sceptre. Your sex is excluded by nature from the toils of government. How could you combat, how could you answer, the barbarians who, with hostile or friendly intentions, may approach the royal city? May Heaven avert from the Roman Republic this national disgrace which would provoke the patience of the slaves of Persia!' Martina descended from the throne with indignation and sought a refuge in the female apartment of the palace."

But, though deprived of the outward prerogatives of supreme power, she determined all the more to wield the sceptre through the power of her son. The reign of Constantine III. lasted only one hundred and three days, and at the early age of thirty he expired. The belief was prevalent that poison was the means used by his inhuman stepmother to bring him to his untimely end. Martina at once caused her son to proclaim himself sole emperor. But the public abhorrence of the incestuous widow of Heraclius was only increased by this deed, for Constantine had left a son, Constans, the natural heir. Both Senate and populace rose in indignation, and compelled Heracleonas to comply with their demand that Constans be made his colleague. His submission saved him for only a year. In 642 he was deposed by the Senate, and he and his mother Martina were sent into exile. So violent was the popular rage that the tongue of the mother and the nose of the son were slit--the first instance of the barbarous Oriental custom being applied to members of the royal house.

Martina was always looked upon by the devout of her age as "the accursed thing." She had by intrigue won the hand of her widowed uncle, by intrigue exerted a dominating influence over the emperor even up to his dying moments, and by intrigue tried to determine the destiny of her son and her stepson. But the intriguing widow reaped in public abhorrence the natural results of her offences. For a time the people endured the abomination of her unnatural crimes, but at last they visited upon her a well-merited punishment.

The reign of the empress Irene is noteworthy because of her restoration of the images banished by Leo the Isaurian and his successors, and because it marks the end of all union between the Eastern and Western Empires and the beginning of the Byzantine Empire strictly so called. Hence, it deserves more minute attention than the other reigns we have briefly sketched, and some mention must be made of the history of the religious movement with which Irene's name is so intimately connected.

Leo III., the Isaurian, the most remarkable of the Byzantine emperors since the days of the great Justinian, made his long reign from 717 to 740 memorable by his victories over the Saracens and his long and bitter conflict against the image worship and relic worship which had developed rapidly throughout the Empire and had assumed the aspect of fetichism.