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Authors: Paolo Cesaretti
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regular routine of daily life.
In the
Greek Anthology
of epigrams (also known as the
Palatine Anthology
because of the manuscript copy discovered in the Palatine Library of Heidelberg) we find sixth-century Constantinopolitan poets praising the physical beauty of their actresses, courtesans, and other women with choice terms and noble verses, claiming that no words could describe their beauty and no music could reproduce the spell of their voices. The svelte dancers they sang about had “feet as swift as wind”; singing and playing sweetly, they touched the kithara “with skilled fingers.” 10 Some images are indelible, such as the face of a beloved Lais, flooded with tears as she fears that her lover has broken the oath of love; 11 or a poet lingering affectionately over a wrinkle on the face of his beloved, because
Your autumn excels another’s spring,
And your winter is warmer than another’s summer. 12
These texts restore a world of delights, of sensuality, of caring, that was still widespread. It was inseparable from the world of the stage and theater and was nourished by it, even as it was scorned by the dour Procopius and earlier by Saint John Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople from 398 to 403 and a father of the Eastern Church, who in a most unchristian spirit censured theater and racetrack performances, even blaming the actors for their humble origins: their “fathers are ropemakers, fishmongers, and slaves.” 13 An unexpected criticism indeed from someone who valued and preached a Christian approach to life. It was a strong sign of the anti-theater mind-set of late antiquity when disparate, if not incompatible, attitudes combined to form an elite culture that was grounded in an ancient ideal of literary learning reduced, for the most part, to mere technique.
In the face of all this, the actress who became empress was not so much a paradox as a scandal in the perfect, evangelical sense of “a stone one stumbles over.”
Procopius, the leading historian of the time, could not attend the first performances of Comito and Theodora, her boyish “little slave,” in the city’s theaters. Around 512 and 513 he was still in the Levant, busying himself with legal and literary studies. Thus the information and images that he supplies are valuable not so much for their historical reliability as for being part of the narrative process of his work. Procopius had framed his first close-up snapshot of Theodora in the grand setting of the Kynêgion, in the midst of her family and in the act of pleading; but now her character comes more sharply into focus. Her relationship with the older sister is stressed; he specifies that there is a hierarchy in which Theodora is subordinated to Comito for “various services” that she performed, and he specifies her “professional” role in her career in theatrical entertainment, which immediately gets a negative connotation, branded as prostitution.
Procopius’s rhetoric of blame offers many unexpected, concrete details for a historical reconstruction of the period. Theodora’s boyish “little slave” tunic is a precious clue for identifying the roles that she regularly played on the stage with her sister: maybe our Theodora was the boy servant to Comito, who played the mistress. We have examples of this type of play both in Attic comedy (from Aristophanes to Menander) and in the mime tradition that had seduced even the stern philosopher Plato. 14
It is doubtful, however, that the two sisters performed artistic plays. More likely, they acted in variety sketches with very little dialogue and much physical posturing and gesturing, similar to modern vaudevillestyle shows designed to please and entertain an undemanding audience. The sketches were chock-full of “intrigues, betrayals, poisonings, fisticuffs, magic spells, serenades, and forsaken women.” 15 The mistress would accuse the servant of some wrongdoing and would try to slap him. The servant would flee, or
In the
Greek Anthology
of epigrams (also known as the
Palatine Anthology
because of the manuscript copy discovered in the Palatine Library of Heidelberg) we find sixth-century Constantinopolitan poets praising the physical beauty of their actresses, courtesans, and other women with choice terms and noble verses, claiming that no words could describe their beauty and no music could reproduce the spell of their voices. The svelte dancers they sang about had “feet as swift as wind”; singing and playing sweetly, they touched the kithara “with skilled fingers.” 10 Some images are indelible, such as the face of a beloved Lais, flooded with tears as she fears that her lover has broken the oath of love; 11 or a poet lingering affectionately over a wrinkle on the face of his beloved, because
Your autumn excels another’s spring,
And your winter is warmer than another’s summer. 12
These texts restore a world of delights, of sensuality, of caring, that was still widespread. It was inseparable from the world of the stage and theater and was nourished by it, even as it was scorned by the dour Procopius and earlier by Saint John Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople from 398 to 403 and a father of the Eastern Church, who in a most unchristian spirit censured theater and racetrack performances, even blaming the actors for their humble origins: their “fathers are ropemakers, fishmongers, and slaves.” 13 An unexpected criticism indeed from someone who valued and preached a Christian approach to life. It was a strong sign of the anti-theater mind-set of late antiquity when disparate, if not incompatible, attitudes combined to form an elite culture that was grounded in an ancient ideal of literary learning reduced, for the most part, to mere technique.
In the face of all this, the actress who became empress was not so much a paradox as a scandal in the perfect, evangelical sense of “a stone one stumbles over.”
Procopius, the leading historian of the time, could not attend the first performances of Comito and Theodora, her boyish “little slave,” in the city’s theaters. Around 512 and 513 he was still in the Levant, busying himself with legal and literary studies. Thus the information and images that he supplies are valuable not so much for their historical reliability as for being part of the narrative process of his work. Procopius had framed his first close-up snapshot of Theodora in the grand setting of the Kynêgion, in the midst of her family and in the act of pleading; but now her character comes more sharply into focus. Her relationship with the older sister is stressed; he specifies that there is a hierarchy in which Theodora is subordinated to Comito for “various services” that she performed, and he specifies her “professional” role in her career in theatrical entertainment, which immediately gets a negative connotation, branded as prostitution.
Procopius’s rhetoric of blame offers many unexpected, concrete details for a historical reconstruction of the period. Theodora’s boyish “little slave” tunic is a precious clue for identifying the roles that she regularly played on the stage with her sister: maybe our Theodora was the boy servant to Comito, who played the mistress. We have examples of this type of play both in Attic comedy (from Aristophanes to Menander) and in the mime tradition that had seduced even the stern philosopher Plato. 14
It is doubtful, however, that the two sisters performed artistic plays. More likely, they acted in variety sketches with very little dialogue and much physical posturing and gesturing, similar to modern vaudevillestyle shows designed to please and entertain an undemanding audience. The sketches were chock-full of “intrigues, betrayals, poisonings, fisticuffs, magic spells, serenades, and forsaken women.” 15 The mistress would accuse the servant of some wrongdoing and would try to slap him. The servant would flee, or
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