Ariadne, the widow of an early emperor, went before the people and told them that her husband was dead. “Choose us a new ruler!” they clamored. She named a palace official, and then she married him. He was a very good ruler.
Zoe, the daughter of another emperor, did even better. She married three men, and each in turn became emperor.
More than that. The nephew of her second husband persuaded her to adopt him and name him her co-emperor. Then he had her hair shorn and shipped her off to the Princes Islands, in the Sea of Marmara, as a nun.
The crowds surged around the palace. “Where is our lovely lady,” they shouted, “whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather ruled before her?” The usurper had to bring her back, but even that did not save him. He ended in a monastery himself.
Saint Theodora (the wife of an emperor and the mother of one) used her influence to end a religious dispute that had disturbed the state for more than 100 years, while another Theodora, who was far from a saint, saved it from revolution.
This happened when the Greens and the Blues (the rival political parties) joined forces and revolted against Justinian, the greatest Byzantine emperor of all. After they had burned much of the city, they surged into the Circus and called on the emperor to abdicate.
The mighty Justinian, who had even ordered a ship ready for a quick escape, was about to give in when suddenly his empress, Theodora, stood beside him. She was an ex-circus girl, one of the people herself.
“You can do what you want to,” she told him, her eyes flashing. “I am going to stay here. Anyone who puts on the crown must never take it off. If I die, I am going to be buried in imperial purple!”
The emperor was ashamed of himself.
“Drive them back to their warrens!” he ordered two of his toughest generals.