CONTENTS

CHAPTERPAGE
I.Verina and her Daughters[1]
II.The Early Life of Theodora[21]
III.The Empress Theodora[36]
IV.Sophia[52]
V.Martina[67]
VI.The most pious Irene[81]
VII.Saint Theodora[101]
VIII.The Wives of Leo the Philosopher[120]
IX.The Tavern-keeper’s Daughter[136]
X.Two Imperial Sisters[158]
XI.Eudocia[181]
XII.Irene and Anna Comnena[197]
XIII.A Breath of Chivalry[218]
XIV.Euphrosyne Ducæena[238]
XV.The New Constantinople[257]
XVI.Irene of Montferrat[276]
XVII.Maria of Armenia[287]
XVIII.Anna of Savoy[298]
XIX.The Last Byzantine Empresses[317]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Ancient Constantinople, showing the Hippodrome, the Imperial Palace, and the Mosque of St Sophia[Frontispiece]
From the reconstruction by Djelal Essad after the Plan by Labarte
From “Les Imperatrices Byzantines de Constantinople.” By permission of H. Laurens, Paris
FACING PAGE
The Empress Theodora and her Attendants[40]
Mosaic of the sixth century in St Vitale, Ravenna
From a photograph by Alinari
The Empress Irene[88]
From an Ivory Plaque in the National Museum, Florence
From a photograph by Alinari
Eudocia Ingerina, Wife of Basil I[116]
From Du Cange’s “Historia Byzantina”
The Empress Helena[138]
From Du Cange’s “Historia Byzantina”
The Empress Zoe[166]
From “Constantinople,” by E. A. Grosvenor
By permission of Little, Brown & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
Eudocia and Romanus IV[186]
From an Ivory in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
From a photograph by A. Giraudon, Paris
Theodora, Wife of Michael VIII[268]
From Du Cange’s “Historia Byzantina”

THE EMPRESSES OF
CONSTANTINOPLE

CHAPTER I
VERINA AND HER DAUGHTERS

The Empress’s apartments in the sacred palace remained empty for four years after the virtuous Pulcheria had been laid in her marble sarcophagus. The Emperor Marcian was aged and feeble, and, as Pulcheria had guarded even in marriage the sanctity of her vow of chastity, there was none who might plausibly be regarded as heir to the throne. It was such a situation as Constantinople loved; and the thousands of soldiers, eunuchs, nobles and ladies who dwelt in the vast palace, and the tens of thousands of idlers who lounged under the arcades of the great square or chattered on the benches of the Hippodrome, had a large field for speculation.