Women of Early Christianity

by Alfred Brittain; Mitchell Carroll

She selected for the honor another Michael, the nephew of her late husband, but, as she was aware of his volatile character, she made him take a solemn oath, before conferring on him the crown, that he would ever regard her as his benefactress and treat her as his mother. Michael was ready enough to promise everything, and the diadem was placed on his head.

But as soon as he was established in power, Michael V. revealed his meanness of soul, and showed both insolence and ingratitude toward the woman through whom he had attained his elevation. He finally carried his insolence so far that he banished the empress Zoe to Prince's Island and compelled her to adopt the monastic habit. But this base act was more than the people could stand. Their fury burst through every restraint. The mob paraded the streets and proclaimed the reign of Michael at an end. They threatened to seize him and scatter his bones abroad like dust. An assembly was held in the church of Saint Sophia, to which the aged Theodora was brought from the monastery of Petrion, and she was proclaimed joint empress with her sister Zoe. In the meantime, Michael, alarmed at the rapid and overwhelming spread of the sedition, had Zoe brought back to the palace, and endeavored to pacify the people by persuading her to appear on a balcony overlooking the Hippodrome. But it was impossible for him to stem the current of the popular fury. The palace was stormed, and three thousand people were killed in the conflict which followed. Michael saved his life by escaping to the monastery of Studion; his eyes were finally put out, and he passed the rest of his days in the garb of a monk.

Zoe immediately entered upon the duties and responsibilities of power, of which for a time she had been deprived, and she endeavored to force her sister back into religious retirement; but the Senate and people insisted upon the joint reign of the two sisters. But this singular union lasted less than two months. In temperament and in interests the two sisters were antipodal. Different factions were their support, the clerical party favoring the devout Theodora, and the worldlings the volatile Zoe. For a time, the twain appeared always side by side at the meetings of the Senate and at the courts of justice. Unlike Zoe, Theodora showed great aptitude for public business, and took pleasure in performing her administrative duties.

Zoe's plots against her sister being frustrated, and recognizing that Theodora was rapidly gaining the ascendency, she bethought herself of taking a third husband, to whom she might resign the throne and thus deprive her sister of the influence she was rapidly acquiring.

Hence, at the advanced age of sixty-two, Zoe began to cast about for a third husband, in spite of the canons of the Church, which forbade a third marriage. Her thoughts first turned to a powerful nobleman, Constantine Dalasennus, whom her father had once chosen for her in her earlier years, and about whom her recollections cast a halo of romance. But in place of the gallant hero of her imagination she found she had summoned to the palace for an interview a stern old gentleman, who strongly expressed his disapprobation of the existing imperial system; who censured in unmeasured terms the vices of the court, and who took no pains to conceal his contempt for her own questionable conduct. Such a spouse would have been a most excellent antidote for the prevailing corruption of the Empire, but Zoe had no desire to submit to the control of so severe a master, and she quickly made up her mind to look elsewhere.

A former lover, Constantine Artoclinas, then became the object of her matrimonial designs. But he already had a wife, who was not of the self-sacrificing disposition of the wife of Romanus. As soon as she heard of the honor to which Zoe destined her husband, Constantine Artoclinas fell ill and did not long survive. It was the general opinion that his wife had poisoned him, either through jealousy of Zoe, or because she felt an aversion to passing the rest of her days in a convent. Zoe, however, was readily consoled.

She again selected an old admirer, Constantine Monomachus, whom Michael IV. had banished to Mitylene because of his attentions to the empress, but who had been recalled on the accession of Zoe and Theodora and appointed to a high official position in Greece. An imperial galley was despatched with a royal courier to notify him of the new dignity that awaited him, and to bring him back to Constantinople. Upon his arrival he was invested with the imperial robes. His marriage with Zoe was performed by one of the clergy, for the patriarch Alexius declined to officiate at the third marriage of the empress, which in this case was doubly uncanonical, as both Zoe and Constantine had been twice married.

The choice made by Zoe is a sad commentary on the immorality of the age. The life and character of Constantine X. show the utter lack of moral principle which prevailed in the court circles. After he had buried two wives, Constantine Monomachus had won the affections of a beautiful and wealthy young widow called Sclerena, who openly became his mistress and accompanied him in his exile to Mitylene. Yet, in the eyes of the orthodox, her position as mistress was more respectable, as being less uncanonical than if she had become his third wife. As Sclerena had stood by him in the days of his adversity, Constantine insisted upon her sharing with him his prosperity, and when he assumed the purple he bargained with Zoe that he should retain his mistress, a condition to which Zoe in her shamelessness agreed. Hence, "the people of Constantinople were treated to the singular spectacle of an Emperor of the Romans making his public appearance with two female companions dignified with the title of Empress, one as his wife, the other as his mistress."

Sclerena was officially saluted with the title of Augusta, and possessed a rank equal to that of Theodora, whose relative importance had been reduced by the advent of the Emperor Constantine X. She held a court of her own and was installed in apartments of the imperial palace.

Owing to her beauty and her elegant manners she gathered about her a brilliant court circle, which in its sumptuousness and ostentation contrasted greatly with the dull ceremony and sombre atmosphere of the apartments of the elderly sisters, Zoe and Theodora. Sclerena's disposition, too, was amiable and winning, and she was admired for the constancy with which she had clung to her lover in the days of his misfortune. Constantine, in return for her self-sacrificing devotion when he was an impoverished exile, sought to repay her by the most lavish expenditure of the public funds. Her apartments were made the most elegant and luxurious in the city, and her toilettes were the envy of all the aristocratic ladies of Constantinople.