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Authors: Paolo Cesaretti
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because Theodora’s sexual activity was sodomitic. The writer claims that she engaged in these acts not only in theater basements but also in “brothels,” though it is not clear if he meant the “immature” girl or, later, the woman who had reached full personal and sexual development. He did not consider that Theodora might have been in financial trouble. To him, it was simply a question of personal inclination, of her indulging in “a masculine type of lewdness … this monstrous business … this unnatural traffic of the body.”
The link to Christian moral standards is extremely weak, since theChurch condemned all sexual practices not aimed at procreation, even if they were done within a church marriage. On the other hand, Christianity had introduced a different view of prostitutes, declaring that even loathsome harlots could precede proper Pharisees into the Kingdom of Heaven. As a matter of fact, the controversial Mary Magdalene had been the first to be certain of the Resurrection. Later, the Byzantine eastern Mediterranean was enthralled by the adventures of reformed women “sinners” such as Saint Aphra, Saint Pelagia, Saint Margaret-Marina, and even Saint Mary the Egyptian, whose biography was written in the seventh century, although the core narrative of her life occurs earlier. According to Christian doctrine, the gates of Heaven stood open and ready to welcome any whores who repented of their sins. In the meantime, late antiquity viewed the daily practice of their trade as an evil that was somehow necessary and tolerable. In effect, in the words of an early father of the Church, it kept lust away from the undefiled world and restricted it within the boundaries of institutionalized prostitution. 19
Ancient pagan morality was much stricter, since its discriminating point was not divine grace or the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus Christ the Galilean had opened to everyone—slaves included—but the primacy of the male. Roman cultural influence, in particular, determined that a woman, no matter what her social condition, ought not to get pleasure from sex, whether it was practiced “according to” or “against” nature. She merely had to give pleasure. And to give it especially and solely to free Roman men. Prostitution was acceptable so long as a prostitute was simply a sexual thing, the recipient of irrepressible male virility, men being the only part of the sexual equation that ought to be valued and satisfied.
When an adulterous relationship resulted in a lawsuit, it was the woman who suffered most. Still, there was no worse fate than that reserved for the
pathicus
, the passive partner in a male-to-male relationship, the one who was subjected to
pedicatio
(anal penetration) instead of imposing it, as a “true Roman male” should. 20 The Roman world had no concept of the subtleties of the ancient Athenian custom of homophile relationship between an adult male lover or pedagogue anda beloved boy who was to be initiated to sexual rituals, rituals that were understood chiefly as a necessary stage in a boy’s growth into manhood.
In the Christian era, the compilers of the body of laws known as the
Codex Theodosianus
(Theodosian Code) of 438 did not extend any brotherly love to the
pathici
: they confirmed the strict ancient penalties for it, including burning at the stake. Thus writers such as Procopius could not have detected a worse infamy in Theodora. For not only had she, from a very young age, dared to seek pleasure for herself rather than for her sexual partners, but she had also distinguished herself in the loathsome specialty of the
pathici
, and then had dared to sit on the imperial throne. To the historian from Caesarea, she was indeed a living abomination.
The mind-set of the ancient historian or the Christian homilist (as we saw in Saint John Chrysostom’s attitude about actors’ low social extraction) is quite distant from our modern sensitivity. Such a writer could not conceive of
The link to Christian moral standards is extremely weak, since theChurch condemned all sexual practices not aimed at procreation, even if they were done within a church marriage. On the other hand, Christianity had introduced a different view of prostitutes, declaring that even loathsome harlots could precede proper Pharisees into the Kingdom of Heaven. As a matter of fact, the controversial Mary Magdalene had been the first to be certain of the Resurrection. Later, the Byzantine eastern Mediterranean was enthralled by the adventures of reformed women “sinners” such as Saint Aphra, Saint Pelagia, Saint Margaret-Marina, and even Saint Mary the Egyptian, whose biography was written in the seventh century, although the core narrative of her life occurs earlier. According to Christian doctrine, the gates of Heaven stood open and ready to welcome any whores who repented of their sins. In the meantime, late antiquity viewed the daily practice of their trade as an evil that was somehow necessary and tolerable. In effect, in the words of an early father of the Church, it kept lust away from the undefiled world and restricted it within the boundaries of institutionalized prostitution. 19
Ancient pagan morality was much stricter, since its discriminating point was not divine grace or the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus Christ the Galilean had opened to everyone—slaves included—but the primacy of the male. Roman cultural influence, in particular, determined that a woman, no matter what her social condition, ought not to get pleasure from sex, whether it was practiced “according to” or “against” nature. She merely had to give pleasure. And to give it especially and solely to free Roman men. Prostitution was acceptable so long as a prostitute was simply a sexual thing, the recipient of irrepressible male virility, men being the only part of the sexual equation that ought to be valued and satisfied.
When an adulterous relationship resulted in a lawsuit, it was the woman who suffered most. Still, there was no worse fate than that reserved for the
pathicus
, the passive partner in a male-to-male relationship, the one who was subjected to
pedicatio
(anal penetration) instead of imposing it, as a “true Roman male” should. 20 The Roman world had no concept of the subtleties of the ancient Athenian custom of homophile relationship between an adult male lover or pedagogue anda beloved boy who was to be initiated to sexual rituals, rituals that were understood chiefly as a necessary stage in a boy’s growth into manhood.
In the Christian era, the compilers of the body of laws known as the
Codex Theodosianus
(Theodosian Code) of 438 did not extend any brotherly love to the
pathici
: they confirmed the strict ancient penalties for it, including burning at the stake. Thus writers such as Procopius could not have detected a worse infamy in Theodora. For not only had she, from a very young age, dared to seek pleasure for herself rather than for her sexual partners, but she had also distinguished herself in the loathsome specialty of the
pathici
, and then had dared to sit on the imperial throne. To the historian from Caesarea, she was indeed a living abomination.
The mind-set of the ancient historian or the Christian homilist (as we saw in Saint John Chrysostom’s attitude about actors’ low social extraction) is quite distant from our modern sensitivity. Such a writer could not conceive of
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