Istanbul was Constantinople and Constantinople was Byzantium ...
Welcome to T&J!
A limited podcast series devoted to sixth century Byzantium and the greatest recorded love story on earth – that between Empress Theodora and her husband, the Emperor Justinian.
Join me, your host, Christine Laskowski, on this epic, bi-weekly audio journey through a secret history, which includes (but is not exclusive to): an uprising, a plague, a reacquisition of imperial territory, a year-and-a-half when the sky went dim, an architectural innovation that went unsurpassed for 1,000 years, a codex that would form the bedrock of our modern legal system, stylite monks, fierce theological disputes, circus factions, a surprising number of civilized barbarians, a cuckolded general, a few shrewd eunuchs, and one very, very bad tax man.
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The Mediterranean, Aegean, the Dardanelles, Sea of Marmara …
The Mediterranean, Aegean, the Dardanelles, Sea of Marmara …
The Mediterranean, Aegean, the Dardanelles, Sea of Marmara …
It’s the year 516 AD in Constantinople. We’re in a theater. Entertainment was free. A young actress, 16? 17-years-old? Named Theodora appears onstage, essentially naked, and begins her show. Which is Zeus’ Seduction of Leda as a Swan, as in Zeus wants to bone a princess so obviously he becomes a swan. It’s phallic. It’s very phallic. Theodora is a petit, pretty brunette. Lithe, I guess is the word? There’s just this way she moves her body. She’s got this magnetic, Marilyn singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to JFK quality. This Jospehine Baker dancing in Paris wearing nothing but a skirt of bananas and a string of pearls je ne sais quoi. Although Theodora’s performance is a little different. She can’t sing, and she can’t dance. But she is a bonafide comedic talent, and that’s apparent right away. She’s smart and sexy and a real provocateur. And this is never more – badaaaah! – than during her finale. Theodora spreads her legs, and I imagine, like a sugar-dusted cake top, has barley grains sprinkled all over her exposed crotch, and then a gaggle of trained geese appear from off-stage to pick the barley clean off of her pussy with their beaks. (I know, I don’t really say pussy that often.) But the crowd goes nuts! And if you think that’s wild, in about ten years Theodora will be empress. And alongside her husband, the emperor Justinian, they will rule during what is no-question the most important period in Byzantine history, and maybe also the most absurd.
We don’t have a lot of information on Theodora. But what we do have, including this anecdote about her raunchy AF barley crotch performance, was written by a man. Maybe no surprise there. But this was not just any man. Procopius of Caesarea was the historian of record for that era, and he hated Theodora’s guts. What’s even crazier is that he wrote it all down in this gossipy screed that was not only never published during his lifetime, but would be discovered by sheer happenstance one millennium later … in the Vatican library.
T&J is not your white guy-white guy history podcast. It’s a series devoted to sixth century Byzantium – that bridge between the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, but it’s also a series about the greatest recorded love story on earth. Historical lacunae will be addressed, the intricate paths of the written record will be followed, and the daytime soap opera that this Byzantine menagerie truly was will be embraced by me, your host, Christine Laskowski, which includes (but is not exclusive to):
an uprising, a plague, a reacquisition of imperial territory, a year-and-a-half when the sky went dim, an architectural innovation that went unsurpassed for 1,000 years, a codex that would form the bedrock of our modern legal system, stylite monks, fierce theological disputes, circus factions, a surprising number of civilized barbarians (Shout out!), a cuckolded general, a few shrewd eunuchs, and one very, very bad tax man.
But most of all, there’s the story of Theodora and her husband, the Emperor Justinian, who fell in love.