Customer Reviews

Theodora: Empress of Byzantium

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I give this author a lot of credit for attempting this biography of Theodora, wife of Emperor Justinian of Byzantium. The credit is surely due because there are, unfortunatley, not a lot of information sources about Theodora, and the most complete source is Procopious's "Secret History", which can in no way be considered a glowing tale of her life. It's quite a salacious read, and perhaps gives one a somewhat distorted view of Theodora, and her upbringing. The auhtor of this work attempts a delicate balance between the "anti" sources, and the other reports of the reign of Justinian and his consort. The result is a book that has many nuances, but appears as fair as possible given the sources and the pasage of time since these events occured in world history. Often the author is driven to psychological speculation over why actions were taken or not taken, and he can't be faulted for his approach, given the situation. Anyone attempting to adequately reconstruct ancient events without proper historical help is going to have this problem, and I feel the author has done as well as can be expected. The book is a good view into the Justinian court, and the life of the Byzantine Empire of the time.

This novel was well researched and clearly written by an author steeped in the deep complexities of the Byzantine Age, but I had a real problem with his intention to "rehabilitate" the reputation of Empress Theodora regardless of almost any degree of moral-ambiguity and contradiction. It seemed as though the author could find no consistent world-view - no clear lense through which to interpret the life of this woman, one of histories transformative figures.

In the author's defence he isn't alone in this difficulty. It seems that the tremendous complexities of the Byzantine Age often come to afflict even those who attempt to chronicle them with spiritual confusion!

Although the dominant perspective of the novel is clearly Catholic/historical and attempts to present Thedora as a defender of the faith, at other points I felt as though the author were presenting her from a modern, feminist perspective. At yet other points I felt as if he were defending her from the charge of relentless and single-minded cruelty, of ruthless tyranny, and doing so from the perspective of a purely Machievellian pragmatism! And these are just the beginning of the contradictions.

My problem is not that I can't envision a person of that complexity. There is, obviously, virtually no limit to the potential complexities of the human personality. A failure to delve deeply enough into that complexity is, in my opinion, the failing here. The mystery of Theodora, the subject of the book, has defeated him. Her life is an enigma that simply resists his every attempt to make it conform to some handy modern concept - to put it in some "box" where a modern reader can merely glance at it, understand it, and turn away - content that their essential world-view hasn't been disturbed. But the far deeper truth is that if you look at Theodora's life and you aren't both confounded and deeply disturbed then you simply haven't been paying attention.