We cross over the Danube River to uncover the many dichotomies between the Romans and their scruffier neighbors to the north. Justinian’s Uncle Justin leaves Thrace for Constantinople and sets off a chain of events that will lead T&J onto the throne.
We cross over the Danube River to uncover the many dichotomies between the Romans and their scruffier neighbors to the north. Justinian’s Uncle Justin leaves Thrace for Constantinople and sets off a chain of events that will lead T&J onto the throne.
T&J Episode 3
Barbarian Makeover: Part 1
A quick content warning: there is swearing as well as topics in this episode that may not be suitable for younger listeners. Please be advised.
Intro
Poor Amalasuntha. She was a Gothic princess in a bind.
She was too rich. Her son, the heir regent, too young.
Her husband? Too dead.
Amalasuntha’s father, King Theodoric of Italy, had left no male heir. So when he died in 526 AD, this left his daughter, the young, the beautiful, the Roman-educated Princess Amalasuntha in a position to rule, as regent, until her then eight-year-old son, Athalaric, was old enough to rule Italy on his own.
But the Gothic nobility, they were not having it.
They would not be ruled by a woman. For any length of time. And the year following her father’s death, there was a coup d’état in Ravenna, then the Gothic seat of power in Italy, directed against Amalasuntha and her pro-Roman ministers.
The Gothic nationalists who succeeded in pushing Amalasuntha out, were not fucking around in their campaign of devastation. Because under the guise of her young son Athalaric’s receiving a proper Gothic education… they took him away from her.
Desperate, Amalasuntha began a secret correspondence with Justinian — the one person she believed might be able to help her. The coup against Amalasuntha occurred toward the end of 527 AD. Justinian ascended the throne on August 1st of that year. So, chronologically-speaking, we’ve skipped ahead a little bit.
Last episode, we left T&J in a post-coital embrace in Constantinople, thoroughly coupled and cracking jokes, sometime in the early 520s or thereabouts. They are not married, yet, for reasons I’ll get into later in this episode.
Why I’m introducing Amalasuntha here is because of what she embodied as a highly-educated woman in power and as a Romanized Barbarian.
Now, a woman in power was a radical thing — still is! — which puts how Theodora navigated her own path as empress into some needed perspective.
But the fact that Amalasuntha was also a Romanized Goth sets up nicely this hybridization of long oppositional identities that was centuries in the making, and by the T&J era, particularly in Italy, not all that unusual.
The word ‘Roman,’ as a quality, isn’t something people really use. Sometimes, sure. But we use ‘Barbarian,’ ‘Vandal,’ and its -isms all the time. As evidenced by their use in hit TV shows. Like HBO’s The Wire and Girls.
Jay Landsman, The Wire [Season 4, Episode 13 - 00:45]: You know what he is? He is a Vandal. He is vandalizing the board. He is vandalizing this unit.
Ray Ploshansky, Girls [Season 4, Episode 3 - 20:38]: You guys are a pair of barbarians. You know that?
‘Gothic,’ however, has arguably surpassed them all as the preeminent modifier; and from reality TV series like Selling Sunset, to thrillers like Poker Face and Interview with the Vampire. Gothic today is used in all kinds of ways:
Christine Quinn, Selling Sunset [Season 3, Episode 5 - 06:52]: I’ve always considered myself, like, a little bit of a Gothic barbie …
Charlie Cale, Poker Face [Season 1, Episode 2 - 40:39]: What about the other kids? Sandwich guy and Goth girl. They didn’t want to come?
Daniel Molloy, Interview with the Vampire [Season 1, Episode 3 - 10:35]: Fifty years later, you talk like he was your soulmate, like you were locked in some fucked up Gothic romance.
There’s Gothic architecture, Southern Gothic, American Gothic, Goth music … But unlike ‘barbarian’ and ‘Vandal,’ ‘Goth’ is consistently medium-negative or weakly pejorative. Those who embrace it do so in the sense that ‘gothic’ describes aesthetics and trends that are united if only their conveyance of a certain … darkness.
Were the Goths … dark? And if not, when and how did their name come to be used to denote the qualities of Notre Dame cathedral, Flannery O’Connor’s oeuvre, an iconic American Depression-era painting, and Joy Division’s musical stylings? Where did the term ‘barbarian’ even come from? Who was it originally used to describe? Did the Vandals really vandalize?
I’m Christine Laskowski and this is 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. This is Episode 3: ‘Barbarian Makeover.’
Part I. Crossing the Motherfucking Danube
Historian Douglas Boin writes how the Latin language has a small way of denoting big concepts. Romans called the quality of freedom, libertas. The quality of seriousness? Gravitas. But to name the most abstract thing of all — the quality of what it meant to live under the rule of the emperors, to move freely across its hundred-plus provinces and be able to call any one of them your home — now that, that was Romanitas.
And for centuries, Romanitas meant that Latin speakers and Greek speakers, urbanites and rural folks, Jews, Christians, believers in the Greek and Roman gods, and even atheists … they all more-or-less could all be accepted as Roman. If they fit the bill.
And you know who didn’t fit the bill? Barbarians.
The term ‘barbarian’ was what Romans called all foreigners, and it was an epithet they’d borrowed from the Greeks. Who, when called to imitate the sounds of other languages being spoken, apparently went ‘bar bar’ ‘bar bar” ‘bar bar bar bar.’
On the European continent, the barbarians by-and-large existed in the lands north of the Danube River, which flowed west to east all the way from Germany’s Black Forest to the Ukrainian Black Sea coast.
Now, there would be times when Romans conquered land and barbarian peoples north of the Danube, and times when the tribes would cross the Danube over to the Roman side, particularly when it’d freeze over. Sometimes to settle; sometimes to raid.
As a result, the Danube was dotted with a chain of Roman fortresses with names like Noviodunum, Capidava, Sucidava, and Cii. And the situation there was pretty tense. Even in good times, when a provincial Roman citizen, or Goth, could earn a sweet living by trading amber, furs and hides, the Roman presence along the Danube was highly militarized.
To keep the tribes in check.
So overall, the Danube was what separated where Romanitas ended and the ‘otherness’ of the Barbarian north began, at least in the Roman purview.
Because one thing to really understand about the Romans is that they were huge snobs. And long before Emperor Constantine inaugurated Constantinople in 330 AD, the city of Rome was where Romans were their Romannest.
Much of what I’m about to describe next comes from historian Douglas Boin’s book, Alaric the Goth: An Outsider’s History of the Fall of Rome.
For centuries, Rome had been a city of immense privilege. Or perhaps like the Los Angeles of today, a city with microcosms of immense privilege.
The homes of the Roman elite were lavishly decorated, and their occupants wore the designer clothing of their day: imported silk.
High society families increased their wealth through investments, albeit not as shareholders in tech or pharmaceutical companies, but rather in commodities, like grapes, olives and ceramics from massive country estates.
Now, these upper-class Romans expressed their status in some pretty incredible ways that are also super familiar.
Middle-aged women would sometimes dress up and go on these flattery processions, where they’d walk slowly through the streets of Rome, followed by legions of fawning admirers they’d paid to trail after them.
Roman Sycophant: Girl, for 52, you look stunning!
There was also once this fad where hosts would weigh the food? Before serving it, in order to showcase just how much on it they’d spent. And to ensure it was all recorded… Pens and notebooks became the secondary utensils of the Roman dinner table.
Roman Sycophant: How much did that roasted Indian parrot weigh? Wait a second, let me right that down.
As the Empire and its trade expanded, delicacies, like Indian parrot, became a feature of Roman meals, which also began to include things like Syrian dates, Persian pears, and spices, like pepper and cinnamon.
When Romans would go yachting, as upper-echelon folk are wont to do, they’d apparently be all like:
Roman Sycophant: I’m going after the Golden Fleece now, y’all.
Going after the Golden Fleece. Even a simple swim usually meant bringing an entire wardrobe. I mean, how could you not? Account for the necessary costume changes?
Because like the ‘glam squads’ that trail most of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast — living at that level was performance. Rome was Instagram. So while the tech and the accoutrement inevitably changes, what is also just as inevitable is how much we, as humans, remain the same. Which also means having other humans you know you’re better than.
The Europe that lay north of the Danube in those days was full of tribes. So, so, so many tribes. Here a pretty comprehensive list of them, in mostly alphabetical order:
There were the Abkhazi, the Alemmani. There were the Alans, notable in the ancient world for not practicing slavery. The Antae, the Avars, the Bulgars, Burgundians, and the Dacians – who were gone by the 300s.There were the Franks. There were the Gepids, Herules, and Huns [along with Hun’s descendants the Bulgars, Kotrigurs and the Utigurs]. There were the Longobards, not to be confused with the Lombards; the Sabiri, the Sclavini, the Slavs, the Suevi, and the Vandals.
But the tribe that made up the most formidable barbarian group along the Danube river, the one that by the late third/early fourth century would settle into what had previously been Dacian lands … well, they were none other than the Goths.
And the Romans … turned up their Roman noses at the Goths, to put it mildly.
Goths were scruffy; Romans were clean-shaven. Goths used animal fat pomades for their hair; Romans preferred a day at the baths. Goths wore animal skins crudely stitched together; Romans donned stiff white togas and colorful tunics.
From the very beginning, the Romans never enjoyed living on the Danube frontier, in itchy, dingy proximity to the barbarians. The first Romans ever to go there in the early first century AD, fucking hated it.
Ovid — one of Latin literature’s canonical poets — just so happened to be one of them.
Ovid had been banished under mysterious [read: rapey] circumstances involving a female member of Emperor Augustus’s family, and while serving his time so-to-speak in the Danube frontier, Ovid wrote in a letter home detailing how the absence of luxurious baths and elevated dinner conversation made him feel … ‘metamorphosed.’
Before the T&J era, as in, before Romans spoke Greek, [slower] one intractable element of Romanitas involved a certain mastery of Latin. And for entry into elite circles, perfect Latin.
In Douglas Boin’s book, Alaric the Goth, he recounts this story of two Gothic churchmen in the late fourth century. These two men were struggling to teach themselves Latin, so they compiled a list of questions and mailed them to the most talented living linguist they knew of, a monk living in Bethlehem named Jerome.
Now, Jerome was working on a new translation of the Bible, the Latin Vulgate. Which is still the version used by the Catholic Church today.
So these Goths had really picked someone who knew their stuff, and Jerome’s response to them?
The Monk Jerome: Who should believe that the barbarous language of the Goths would try to compete with Hebrew in establishing the true text of the Scriptures?
Oh, but Jerome wasn’t done. The word ‘water’ in Latin should be plural, written ‘aquae,’ instead of the singular ‘aqua.’ How do you not know the difference between the nominative and the accusative!?
If I could chime in here. As someone who’s lived in Germany for a few years and is still trying to ‘Deutsch lernen,’ I feel that struggle with the accusative.
Ovid’s exile way back in the first century A.D. was in an area known as Thrace; a Roman region along the eastern Danube close to the Black Sea.
This would be the very same region five hundred years later, where our very own Emperor Justinian would be born.
And his first language? Would be Latin.
Part II. Uncle Justin
Our ‘J’ in T&J was born Flavius Petrus Sabbatius on or around 482 A.D. in a village called Tauresium.
And that’s about all we know of his early years. That, and he was Roman from Thrace, or a Thracian, which is a background that will feature prominently in the T&J era. It also happened to be this quirky part of the empire whose inhabitants still spoke Latin.
This was evidently a point of so much pride that, once he was emperor, Justinian would insist on writing all his official correspondence — in Latin — to Pope Hormisdas himself. And apparently all the scribes in the palace would roll their eyes and be like: | Hall of the 19 Couches Trumpet Instrumental
Palace Scribe: Oh my God. His Latin is so embarrassing!
But bad, bumpkin Latin aside, Justinian still managed to become the paragon of power over a largely Greek-speaking people. But he did not get there all by himself. No, he was aided by the golden hand of nepotism. A golden hand belonging to none other than his mother’s brother, Justin, who actually did rise to the heights of power, pretty much all by himself.
There is no getting around it, there would be no T&J without Uncle Justin. And Uncle Justin was born in 450 A.D. One year before the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon, and the starting date of our T&J Era.
In what is his most generous account of Uncle Justin In The Secret History, Procopius tells us both how and why Justin came to Constantinople in the first place:
Procopius: When Leo was holding the imperial power … three young farmers … Zimarchus, Dityvistus and Justinus from Bederiana, men who at home had to struggle incessantly against conditions of poverty and all its attendant ills, in an effort to better their condition, set out to join the army. And they came to Byzantium, walking on foot and themselves carrying cloaks slung over their shoulders, and when they arrived they had in these cloaks nothing more than toasted bread, which they had put in at home; and the Emperor enrolled them in the ranks of the soldiers and designated them for the Palace Guard. For they were all men of very fine figure.
Oooh, Procopius. I, too, enjoy a description of a muscled Thracian.
When these three young Thracians of ‘very fine figure’ arrived — Zimarchus, Dityvistus, and Justinus, or Uncle Justin — they were able to use their assets to secure posts in this hot, new palace guard created by Emperor Leo called The Excubitors. A name that doesn’t even seem real … but it was.
We don’t know what happened to the other guys, but Justin, suffice it to say, did very well in the Excubitors, rising up through the ranks until he became its lead Commander. This meant that Justin had the loyalty of a local army in Constantinople, which would come in real handy when Emperor Anastasius died.
Anastasius’ reign had been relatively drama-free, and prosperous — very prosperous. When he died, Anastasius left the Roman treasury with a surplus of 320,000 gold pounds, which sounds like a lot of gold pounds and evidently it was a lot of gold pounds at the time.
But Anastasius had also left a succession crisis. Because he had neither a son, nor a pre-appointed heir. What he did have were three nephews. Although the likeliest of them to take over… happened to be in Antioch at the time.
This left no clear procedure for selecting the next emperor. Even though legal tradition gave the Senate the right to choose, and the people the right to ratify the Senate’s choice … there was simply no obvious candidate.
It was this break in protocol, however, where Justin made his move. Or moves.
Behold, the most byzantine Byzantium story ever. Once we come back from a short break.
What you’ll hear next is a 1904 recording in the Sistine Chapel of The Gregorian High Mass.
Music Break: The Gregorian High Mass (1904)
Part III. Behold, The Most Byzantine Byzantium Story Ever
We probably use the term ‘Byzantine’ to refer to a system that is overly complicated or bureaucratic more than we use it to refer to the actual historical period. That is, unless you’re me.
The term ‘Byzantine’ first showed up as an adjective in the insufferably, complicated-bureaucratic context in 1937… when it appeared in both a political dictionary and in an article describing the structure of the Spanish army. Ouch.
The negative connotation appears to have originated with a man named Edward Gibbon, who is fundamental to the modern understanding of Rome, including Byzantine Rome. You see, Gibbon was an 18th century English historian whose seminal, multi-volume work, titled The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, helped to popularize the idea that Rome fell, when it, actually, over centuries, fell apart.
But it was Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that also kicked off this notion that the Byzantine era was, according to one source I found: ‘... little more than a series of shady backroom deals, backstabbing, and power grabs.’
But how Uncle Justin became emperor was, um, exactly that. And the primary person he had to outsmart to get there was a eunuch.
Eunuchs were born biologically male, were castrated before puberty, and were by-and-large enslaved servants of the nobility. I will delve into the phenomenon of eunuchs in the T&J era in a future episode. But for now, what’s really important to know is that eunuchs were mainly messengers: the Byzantine equivalent of texting, email, Twitter pre-Elon all rolled into one — eunuchs were the carriers of news and information, both official and not, among the nobility, but especially within the imperial palace complex.
Therefore, it follows that when Emperor Anastasius died suddenly on the night of July 8th, 518 AD, word of his death would first spread through its chief eunuch, the Grand Chamberlain, Amantius.
Amantius was a powerful man. He even helmed his own unit of court eunuchs, about 30-strong, called the Silentiaries. As in ‘silent,’ which sounds spooky.
But Amantius, he doesn’t immediately inform Justin and his Excubitors of this critical intel regarding Emperor Anastasius’ death. Rather, Amantius gives the head start to the leader of the other palace guard, known as The Scholarians, keyword there being ‘Scholar.’ And The Scholarians, as their name suggests, were not really fighters. Although they apparently looked stunning in their pristine, white uniforms.
So Anastasius dies, everyone’s in a tizzy. Morning comes. The Hippodrome is now packed with people clamoring with expectation for this next emperor, whoever he is, to be crowned. Both the head of the Scholarians and now Justin, head of the Excubitors, have each summoned their men.
Meanwhile within the Great Palace, in a place that, that I kid-you-not, is called The Hall of the Nineteen Couches! Not eighteen, not twenty, but nineteen couches. The senate, important imperial officials and the patriarch of the church are all gathered there to pick this new guy.
The story follows that Amantius, the Grand Chamberlain, in his own bid for power, since eunuchs couldn’t be emperor, tried to put his preferred, puppet candidate, a man named Theocritus, onto the throne.
So Amantius goes up to Justin and is, like, ‘Hey, I need your help getting Theocritus crowned emperor.’ And Justin’s, like, ‘Yeah, sure, man. No problem.’ And then Amantius is like, ‘Cool. We’re going to need to bribe all these guys in the Hall of the Nineteen Couches. So here’s a bunch of money. Now, go!’ And Justin’s like, ‘Yeah, great, Amantius. I got your back, bro.’
Only Justin didn’t have his back. That is, unless you count the knife Justin stabbed into it.
Because Justin does bribe them with Amantius’ money, but he doesn’t say it’s for Theocritus. He says it’s for himself.
And it works.
Justin wins the Game of Thrones. And soon after, he executes Amantius and two other eunuchs that were part of Amantius’ cabal. The head of The Scholarians, well, he gets off much easier. I mean, he had to give up his post, but at least he makes it out alive.
What’s important to consider is that Justin is a pretty old man at this point. Although my father would beg to differ. Justin would’ve been 68-years-old at the time of his coronation, and ultimately — a compromise candidate. Nobody expected him to live, or to rule, for very long.
But Uncle Justin … he lived just long enough to not make the same mistakes as Anastasius before him, or later, Amalsuntha’s dad, King Theodoric of the Ostrogoths over there in Italy. No sir, Justin made sure to prep and appoint his chosen successor before his death. And I bet you can probably guess who that was.
The Secret History frames Uncle Justin’s reign as the beginning of the end. According to Procopius, Justin was man who:
Procopius: Never learned to tell one letter from another, and was, as the familiar phrase has it, ‘without the alphabet,’ a thing which had never happened before among the Romans.
Procopius also goes on to describe how Justin needed a special stencil made …
Procopius: A sort of pattern of the four letters which mean in the Latin tongue, ‘I have read,’ and … grasping the Emperor’s hand, [they] moved it and the pen along the pattern of the four letters, causing it to follow all the winding lines.
I lean towards being generous on this one. He was old. Maybe it was on account of his motor skills. Justin was more jock than intellectual, sure, but he was far from stupid.
He was certainly smart enough to know who in the family did have the brains, and made sure they received the best education money could buy.
Because after Justin had begun to make it in the big city, he had his young nephew — Flavius Petrus Sabbatius — join him there. Now, he wasn’t Justin’s only nephew, but he was certainly the favorite.
By the time Justin was crowned emperor in 518, Flavius Petrus Sabbatius was around 35-years-old, and a reputable member of an elite unit of The Scholarians.
Which I find especially hilarious because even Uncle Justin was like, ‘You’re no Excubitor, my boy. Go over to the Scholarians and look pretty.’
But once Uncle Justin became Emperor Justin, that golden hand of nepotism well, it became, like, actual gold. And it was, from then on, just promotion after promotion …
Justin made him Count of the Domestics immediately, which gave his nephew the rank of patrician, again, the highest that there was.
Uncle Justin then made his nephew one of two Masters of the Soldiers in the Presence of Constantinople. I mean, all my uncles hate me so — must be nice!
In January of 521, Flavius Petrus Sabbatius was made consul, which was yet another ‘venerable and prestigious office’ that involved hosting a series of games in both the Hippodrome and the amphitheater and doling out money and prizes.
This included slaughtering twenty lions, thirty leopards and shelling out a whopping 4,000 gold pounds. I think this provides some pretty nice insight into his future reign because Justinian liked to … make it rain.
As Emperor, Justinian would blow through all of Anastasius’ budget surplus. Something Procopius likes to point out a lot.
Procopius: For no man in the whole world since the beginning of time has been more ready than this Justinian both to acquire money basely and then immediately more foolishly to squander it.
But around the time of Justinian’s largess as consul, that is in and around 521 A.D. Two important things happened.
One, Justin adopted his nephew. Making him his clear heir apparent and giving Flavius Petrus Sabbatius the name Justinianus, or Justinian. T&F just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, now does it?
The second development is that T&J were living together, unmarried, as a couple in Constantinople at this time. Although Justinian, now a prominent nobleman, was actively trying to change that.
Procopius: At length he set about arranging a betrothal with Theodora. But since it was impossible for a man who had attained senatorial rank to contract marriage with a courtesan, a thing forbidden from the beginning by the most ancient laws, he compelled the Emperor to amend the laws by a new law, and from then on he lived with Theodora as his married wife, and he thereby opened the way to betrothal with courtesans for all other men.
That’s right. Betrothal. In 525 A.D. or thereabouts, T&J got hitched. Justinian convinced his uncle to change the law so he could marry Theodora. But for that to happen, at least according to the Secret History, first, Justinian’s Aunt Euphemia had to die.
Part IV. Before there was T&J there was E&J
Procopius: Now as long as the Empress was still living, Justinian was quite unable to make Theodora his wedded wife. For in this point alone, the Empress [Euphemia] went against Justin, though opposing him in no other matter.
Given their backgrounds, I’d have thought that Justin’s wife, Euphemia, and Theodora would have been, if not friends, then at least allies. According to the social strata of the T&J era, Euphemia had come from an even lower class background — both because Euphemia was of barbarian origin and because Euphemia had also once been enslaved.
According to the Secret History, Euphemia made zero effort to hide her disdain for the former actress once she became her nephew’s girlfriend.
But it’s also clear that Euphemia tried very hard to assimilate into elite society by being nice, non-threatening, and never trying to subvert the status quo. And she seems to have succeeded. At least, in presenting the qualities in women that Procopius found laudable.
Procopius: For [Euphemia] chanced to be far removed from wickedness … [and] was quite unable to take part in government and continued to be wholly unacquainted with affairs of State.
That was simply not, and never gonna be, Theodora’s style. What I do find really interesting, however, is that Christianity offered both of these women — and the men who loved them — an out when it came to their pasts. And that’s largely because Christ’s legacy in the New Testament is one radically sympathetic to women who were seen as sexual sinners.
Mary Magdelene, most famously, had been a sex worker before she joined Christ’s inner circle. And then in the Book of John, when a woman accused of adultery is brought before him, Christ is like:
Jesus Christ: Then neither do I condemn you. Now go and sin no more.
Christ, he had drawn up some new terms.
Which now meant that when a former sex worker turned up and the mean girls would mean girl and be like, ‘Ew. What are you doing here? Whore.’ Then the former sex worker could be like, ‘I don’t know, bitch. Why don’t you go and ask Jesus your Lord and Savior. Cuz he invited me.’
Of course, it was never that simple. But there were exceptions. Exceptions that eventually led to women, like Euphemia and Theodora, slipping into high society. Even — gasp! — onto the throne.
It was T&J era development that our Procopius really resented Justinian for. Recall:
Procopius: And he thereby opened the way to betrothal with courtesans for all other men.
Because for centuries there had been strict laws in place preventing marriages between certain classes. Roman citizens could not marry slaves; they had to be manumitted first. And senators, those of the patrician or noble class, could only marry women of equal rank.
Justin, therefore, would have had to marry Euphemia before he reached the rank of senator.
Now, I want to start by saying that if Justinian and Theodora’s coupling was radical, his aunt and uncle’s was even more so.
Although I don’t want to romanticize it too much. And here’s why.
If Procopius is to be believed, and the Secret History is the source on all things Aunt Euphemia … she was of unknown Barbarian origin and originally called Lupicina. A name that was itself hardly a name because it meant both ‘prostitute’ and ‘she-wolf.’
‘Prostitute’ and ‘she-wolf.’
So Lupicina was allowed no identity beyond her role as a literal sex slave, that is,until Justin bought her from her previous owner, owned her for an unknown amount of time, freed her, and then married her.
Lupicina would at some point change her name to Euphemia, and would ascend the throne, like her husband, when she was already an elderly woman.
I’m going to address the brutal realities of enslavement during the T&J era in a future episode, but for now, looking at their relationship specifically, I’m extremely reluctant to ascribe a love component to this pairing in the same way I feel like I can with Theodora and Justinian.
On the one hand, Uncle Justin didn’t have to marry the-then Lupicina, which, as we know, meant freeing her first. This was a highly unusual thing to do. Especially when it would have behooved him, as an ambitious man, to marry a society woman.
However, from Euphemia’s side, and something common to many manumitted slaves historically: freedom per se often just isn’t enough. Where are you going to go now? What are you going to do for money?
That’s how feudalism and sharecropping came to be such stalwart institutions. Newly freed slaves and their progeny often stayed put — with the skills and the connections they had — because their former owners intentionally made remaining the more pragmatic choice.
Euphemia had known hell. Maybe she loved Justin and married him? Maybe she didn’t and still married him. I believe she probably saw this life option not only as fine, but rationally, as about the best she was ever going to do. And she wasn’t wrong.
Why Euphemia didn’t support Theodora … It could be because Theodora was Monophysite and Euphemia, like her husband, was Chalcedonian. Or it could be that Theodora was a reminder to everyone in Euphemia’s milieu of her background; that Euphemia’s ascendance was not this one-off anomaly, rather, with Theodora now on-the-scene, the reformed-sexual-sinner-to-empress pipeline was the now new norm. Or maybe their personalities just didn’t mesh. Or maybe it was all of the above. We’ll likely never know.
But as fate would have it, Aunt Euphemia passed away and Uncle Justin passed the law, upending centuries of Roman tradition and allowing patricians to marry people from the lower classes. Which is how, sometime between 522 and 525 AD, T&J became lawfully wedded.
And that’s not all. About two years later, T&J’s other dream comes true. When, no joke, on April 1, 527 AD Justinian, finally:
Procopius: …was proclaimed Emperor of the Romans co-jointly with his uncle by all men of high station, who were led to vote thus by an overwhelming fear. So Justinian and Theodora took over the Roman Empire three days before the feast of Easter.
I don’t want to gloss over this detail of Procopius’. If the senators voted for Justinian out of an overwhelming fear, that’s a terrible look. And listen, I stand by T&J being the greatest recorded love story on earth, but I’ve never said they were wonderful people. I also want to point out that Procopius just sort of tosses that smoking piece of libel in there without any examples. But. It serves the Secret History’s raison d’être, which is that T&J’s rule was by many degrees illegitimate; Justinian’s being made co-emperor was simply one strike of illegitimacy out of many, that would augur disaster for Procopius’s beloved Rome.
Because in four months’ time, the empire would be T&J’s to rule all on their own after Uncle Justin dies of an old foot wound. Damnit, I hate it when that happens. Now, I could leave T&J’s story there, but that’s not very sexy.
I prefer to leave them — bejeweled, beaming, beautiful — in the Hall of the Nineteen Couches while their coronation ceremony is taking place.
The rush must’ve been insane.
Against all odds, by the power of their forces combined, aided by the golden hand of nepotism, they had made it to the very pinnacle of power.
Where else was there to go?
Abroad, maybe? For the reclamation of lost imperial lands, perhaps?
Outro/Wrap:
Well, dear listeners, hold onto your tunics, or your crudely stitched furs, because it appears that ‘Barbarian Makeover’ is going to have to be a 2-parter. In Barbarian Makeover Part 2, I’ll get into the rest of Amalasuntha’s story as well as that of the Vandals. I hope you’ll join me. Cuz it’s really good.
Research, scripting, narration, editing and mixing for this episode were all done by me, Christine Laskowski.
Scoring and musical arrangements for T&J were also written and performed by me in collaboration with the indefatigable, Jack Butler. The T&J logo was designed by Meredith Montgomery.
Procopius of Caesarea was voiced by Michael de la Bedoyere. The Monk Jerome by Ingo Schönleber, the Roman Sycophants and the Palace Scribe were voiced by Nathan Ma, and Jesus by Marvin Köhlert.
Special thanks to David Parnell for his notes and feedback. Additional sources for this episode are available in the show notes.
If you liked what you heard, spread the word and leave a nice note in the review section wherever you’re getting your podcasts. Follow and donate on Patreon – that’s patreon.com/tandjpodcast. It’ll really help me keep the show going and give you access to all upcoming T&J episodes in addition to other objectively delectable perks.
Now, enjoy the outro because I wrote it just for you.
The Hall of the 19 Couches
No slouches
Where Emperors are found
It’s the Hall of the 19 Couches
Who vouches ‘fore this
Emperor is crowned?
Not 17?
No.
Not 18?
No.
Not 20?
No.
Not 21?
No.
It’s the Hall of the 19 Couches
Mmm mmm
Mmm mmm
The Patriarch
The Silentiaries
The Excubitors
The Scholarians
The dial is moving
To pick a leader
in the charge
against the Barbarians
You can dine
recline
unwind
Glass of wine
Dear Senator
so supine
take a bribe
life is fine
The Hall of the 19 Couches
No slouches
Where Emperors are found
It’s the Hall of the 19 Couches
Who vouches ‘fore this
Emperor is crowned?
Not 17?
No.
Not 18?
No.
Not 20?
No.
Not 21?
No.
It’s the Hall of the 19 Couches
Mmm mmm
Mmm mmm
Sources
Bockemuehl, Markus, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Jesus. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Boin, Douglas. Alaric the Goth: An Outsider’s History of the Fall of Rome. W.W. Norton & Company, 2020.
Bradley, Keith. Slavery and Society at Rome.
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Browning, Robert. Justinian & Theodora. Thames and Hudson, 1971.
Evans, James Allan. Power Game in Byzantium: Antonina and the Empress Theodora. Continuum, 2011. Greenblatt, Stephen. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.
Moorhead, John. Justinian. Longman, 1994.
Parnell, David. @byzantineprof Twitter thread. February 14, 2023.
Parry, Ken, ed. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Patristics. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2015. Procopius. The Anecdota or Secret History. Translated by H.B. Dewing, Harvard University Press, 1935.
Non-Original Music
(Courtesy of Internet Archive, in order of appearance)
Victor Sorlin. "Berceuse." Victor, 1908.
Sicilian Instrumental Quartette. “Love’s Dream.” Columbia, 1918.
Mendelssohn. Paul Eisler’s Instrumental Quartette. “Spring Song.” Okeh, 1922.
Conrad-Friend. Velvet Dance Orchestra. “California Remix." Cameo, 1922.
Strauss, Johan. Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. “Blue Danube Waltz.” Victrola, 1919.
Reitz, William. “Dance California.” Victor, 1913.
Estudiantina Trio. “Araby March.” Victor, 1911.
Neopolitan Trio. “Sound of the Harp (Harfenklänge).” Victor, 1914.
Agar. Isham Jones Orchestra. “A Young Man’s Fancy.” Brunswick, 1920.
Straus, Stamper, Thompson. Joe Ryan & His Orchestra. “Dance Away the Night.” Regal, 1921.
Boldi. Taylor, Hackel and Berge Trio. “Bohemian Song.” Columbia, 1915.
Saint-Saens. Prince’s Orchestra. “Dance Macabre.” Columbia, 1915.
Chopin, Frederick. Arthur Pryor’s Band. “Funeral March.” Victor, 1915.
Logé. Neopolitan Trio. “Across the Still Lagoon.” Victor, 1913.
D’Hardelot, Guy. Rialto Trio. “Because.” Cameo, 1922.
* Under the Music Modernization Act, all recordings published prior
to 1923 will enter the public domain and will be free to use and reuse.
Non-Original Natural Sounds
‘Only in Lapland’ Audio Library