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Authors: Paolo Cesaretti
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would try to convince her that she was wrong—that it wasn’t his fault. Or maybe the mistress unfurled lofty monologues about life, destiny, and fate, while the servant went abouthis domestic chores and, in a “parallel” dialogue, exaggerated his daily tasks in gestures and words. “How tiring are the nights, how tiring,” 16 as Aristophanes had written a thousand years earlier.
From a historical and biographical point of view, Comito’s professional advancement, with the pay she brought in from her acting and any occasional supplemental income (as alluded to by Procopius), must have been financially important for a family that had lived through difficult times both just after Acacius’s death and later during the emergency that had caused them to plead in the Kynêgion. We do not know whether Comito continued to live at home or whether her professional career required an impresario or a protector. In any case, the mother most likely continued to supervise her daughter’s career to some degree. But what about Theodora? In an unexpected, brusque passage, the
Secret History
reports the following:
Now for a time Theodora, being immature, was quite unable to sleep with a man or to have a woman’s kind of intercourse with one, yet she did engage in intercourse of a masculine type of lewdness with the wretches, slaves though they were, who, following their masters to the theater, incidentally took advantage of the opportunity afforded to them to carry on this monstrous business, and she spent much time in the brothel in this unnatural traffic of the body. 17
Theodora was still immature sexually (and therefore professionally), but Procopius does not hesitate to separate her from the family and follow her alone, in her relationships and behavior. He ascribes to her practices that were defined as “unnatural” and links her sexually to slaves, and therefore to men on social rungs below even hers. It’s a scathing criticism, especially if we consider that during Theodora’s years as empress (when she was at the apex of society) very strict laws were enacted against homosexuality and in particular against sodomy, an act that the
Secret History
claims was a professional specialty of the young girl, as if it were her personal inclination, her personal passion.
+ + +
As we follow the gradual unveiling of the character of Theodora in the successive scenes of the
Secret History
, we find that the unveiling and the baring are more than just etymological. We also encounter the author’s eye, his intentions, his sophisticated rhetorical technique, his skill in setting up his materials. By studying the logic of that authorial gaze and the technique of that rhetoric and comparing it with other information pertinent to those years, we can reconstruct Theodora’s story (and somehow sketch her body, which, as even Procopius acknowledges, was “most fair”): We see Theodora, wounded by that gaze and “victimized” by that rhetoric. 18
According to Procopius, as we saw, Theodora was already sexually active at an extremely young age, and she engaged in perverted sex. The perversion was chiefly social, for while Comito, the actress-courtesan, shone among the powerful and could maybe take her stool to the notables and sit with them, Theodora stayed behind the scenes and mingled with the dregs of society, with “wretches and slaves.” The masters liked Comito; perhaps she pleased them and satisfied them. Meanwhile, there was mingling between their respective slaves, both on the stage and in life (Theodora and the “wretched”). The criticism is even more scathing and cunning considering that as the imperial couple Justinian and Theodora later reinforced certain ceremonial aspects of their position, endowing imperial power with sacredness, to the point of reducing even the highest state offices to positions of “slavery” beholden to the emperor and empress.
Procopius’s social reproach is pregnant with moral reproach,
From a historical and biographical point of view, Comito’s professional advancement, with the pay she brought in from her acting and any occasional supplemental income (as alluded to by Procopius), must have been financially important for a family that had lived through difficult times both just after Acacius’s death and later during the emergency that had caused them to plead in the Kynêgion. We do not know whether Comito continued to live at home or whether her professional career required an impresario or a protector. In any case, the mother most likely continued to supervise her daughter’s career to some degree. But what about Theodora? In an unexpected, brusque passage, the
Secret History
reports the following:
Now for a time Theodora, being immature, was quite unable to sleep with a man or to have a woman’s kind of intercourse with one, yet she did engage in intercourse of a masculine type of lewdness with the wretches, slaves though they were, who, following their masters to the theater, incidentally took advantage of the opportunity afforded to them to carry on this monstrous business, and she spent much time in the brothel in this unnatural traffic of the body. 17
Theodora was still immature sexually (and therefore professionally), but Procopius does not hesitate to separate her from the family and follow her alone, in her relationships and behavior. He ascribes to her practices that were defined as “unnatural” and links her sexually to slaves, and therefore to men on social rungs below even hers. It’s a scathing criticism, especially if we consider that during Theodora’s years as empress (when she was at the apex of society) very strict laws were enacted against homosexuality and in particular against sodomy, an act that the
Secret History
claims was a professional specialty of the young girl, as if it were her personal inclination, her personal passion.
+ + +
As we follow the gradual unveiling of the character of Theodora in the successive scenes of the
Secret History
, we find that the unveiling and the baring are more than just etymological. We also encounter the author’s eye, his intentions, his sophisticated rhetorical technique, his skill in setting up his materials. By studying the logic of that authorial gaze and the technique of that rhetoric and comparing it with other information pertinent to those years, we can reconstruct Theodora’s story (and somehow sketch her body, which, as even Procopius acknowledges, was “most fair”): We see Theodora, wounded by that gaze and “victimized” by that rhetoric. 18
According to Procopius, as we saw, Theodora was already sexually active at an extremely young age, and she engaged in perverted sex. The perversion was chiefly social, for while Comito, the actress-courtesan, shone among the powerful and could maybe take her stool to the notables and sit with them, Theodora stayed behind the scenes and mingled with the dregs of society, with “wretches and slaves.” The masters liked Comito; perhaps she pleased them and satisfied them. Meanwhile, there was mingling between their respective slaves, both on the stage and in life (Theodora and the “wretched”). The criticism is even more scathing and cunning considering that as the imperial couple Justinian and Theodora later reinforced certain ceremonial aspects of their position, endowing imperial power with sacredness, to the point of reducing even the highest state offices to positions of “slavery” beholden to the emperor and empress.
Procopius’s social reproach is pregnant with moral reproach,
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