Talk:Theodora (6th century)

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"Theodora was history's first pro-choice advocate. . ."

Mmm. . . presentism, anyone? First, abortion was hardly rare throughout the pre-Christian Roman world; Augustus' vitriolic speech against childless patricians suggests that it was common even at the beginning of the imperial era. Second, Procopius' Secret History, hardly an unbiased source, mentions Theodora's abortions three times; the closest he comes to saying that she advocated abortion is when he says that she "boasted of her many abortions" -- and that's in the context of a passage that rails against Justinian's marriage to someone of whom Procopius thought very little, so I don't know how seriously to take it. --MIRV 13:03, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

There is another article Theodora describing another byzantine empress who reigned 500 years after this Theodora. That is somewhat confusing. Is there a possibility to disambiguate the two Theodoras, maybe by adding a suffix I. or II.? -- Baldhur 22:45, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't use I/II if they didn't. How about Theodora, Empress of Byzantium (6th century) and Theodora, Empress of Byzantium (11th century)? - Nunh-huh

I always just ignored that and hoped no one would ever mention it :) There are a couple of problems here:

"Empress of Byzantium" is a very strange thing to say, because even though "Byzantium" is sometimes used figuratively for the Byzantine Empire, it's really just the city of Constantinople (so it wasn't called Byzantium at the time anyway)
- Not quite. Just as "emperor of Rome" referred to the whole empire, "empress of Constantinople" would refer to the whole empire -- except that it is now fashionable to use the even older name of that city. More authoritatively for this usage, Charles Diehl entitled his biography "Theodora, Empress of Byzantium" [1972 Eng. transl. from French]. If I had written a definitive bio on her, I'd have entitled it "Theodora, Empress of the Roman Empire", but I haven't and he did, so I'll live with his choice. Jmacwiki (talk) 00:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
She had a lot of power, but she was not an emperor or empress in her own right, like the later Theodora was. At this point, the empire is still more-or-less Roman, so she's like a lot of other Roman woman who wielded power behind the scenes.
- Not according to Diehl: During Justinian's illness with bubonic plague in 542(?), she ruled so fully that Belisarius had to warn her that she would be deposed by the army if she tried to continue in that role if Justinian died. (It's not clear if it would have worked, but he didn't die, so it was moot.) How much more in-front-of-the-scenes could she have been?
- BTW, what does "empress in her own right" mean here? that the Senate gave a pro-forma vote conferring that title? I'm sure they didn't, but that's not how most empresses have become empresses, anyway. Jmacwiki (talk) 00:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
  - Further research: Diehl reports that Theodora was crowned as Augusta (empress) in the same ceremony as Justinian was crowned Augustus, i.e., (co-)emperor. Jmacwiki (talk) 06:43, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Theodora is a very common Byzantine (and Roman) name and could also refer to a number of other people (there is a mini-disambiguation page at the bottom of Theodora, which lists some of them).
- So is Julius Caesar. So what? For practical purposes, there is one who matters to history far more than all of the others. Among "Theodoras", it's the the wife of Justinian. Disambiguation is the standard way to handle this in WP. Jmacwiki (talk) 00:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

So, I don't really know what to do with this...maybe put their birth and death dates in the title? There is a precedent for that with John Hamilton Gray (1811-1887) and John Hamilton Gray (1814-1889).

Adam Bishop 23:32, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't quite understand what you mean by 'still more or less Roman', do you mean by this 'Still more or less Latin'? The East had never been predominantly Latin, and even by the early 6th Century it was Greek speaking peoples who held the reigns of the Empire. Why do you despise Greece to this extent?

- What does despising Greece have to do with that phrase? The Eastern Roman Empire regarded its collective self as the continuation of the Mediterranean empire founded by Augustus, and large parts of its identity were direct inheritances from Rome. (Example: The law was not not only largely Roman, it was still written in Latin.) Whether that qualifies as "more-or-less Roman" is a matter of taste, I suppose. But it isn't anti-Greek. (For the record, I myself am a Hellenophile [a Greek-derived word ;-].) Jmacwiki (talk) 00:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

That would be cool if their dates are known exactly. I was suggesting use of centuries as a sort of fl. date because I don't know the exact dates. How about just leaving out the Empress stuff:

Theodora (6th century), and
Theodora (11th century)?

- Nunh-huh

Sounds good. If there is no opposition in the next hours, I will do as Nunh-huh suggested. -- Baldhur 17:57, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Done. -- Baldhur 18:55, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Why does this article misrepresent feminism?

Other scholars (and those who venerate Theodora as a saint) instead regard Theodora's achievements for women not as a modern feminist "liberation" to commit abortion or adultery but rather as a truly egalitarian drive to give women the same legal rights as men...

This is an unneccesary juxtaposition. The writer of this passage implies slyly that feminism is by nature 'immoral', when in fact the majority of feminists would argue that what is dismissively referred to as "modern feminism," is precisely "a truly egalitarian drive to give women the same legal rights as men." I propose this section be changed to reflect this.

I was about to make exactly this same point. The passage strongly implies that modern feminism is false in its talk of "liberation" (or else why use the scare-quotes?), and that it supports abortion and adultery. (I also agree with your point regarding the negative part of the statement, but it's the positive part that I find the more offensive of the two (and note that by "positive" I mean only "asserting" and by "negative" only "denying").) NPOV anyone? Because I'm just that sort of loose cannon I'm going to go ahead and (try to) clean it up, but if anyone objects feel free to revert the change, or, I suppose, if you feel I've ballsed it up, fix my fix. --24.159.215.162 02:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, and I'm just going to throw this out there, how does creation of homes for prostitutes amount to granting women equal rights to those enjoyed by their corresponding menfolk? That's nonsensical, unless there were male prostitutes in the empire that had such homes beforehand... This needs more work than I'm able to give it at the moment. --24.159.215.162 02:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

You're right, it doesn't. She did both, but they aren't very related. Jmacwiki (talk) 00:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Name

What a strange title for this article. Something should be done about this. --—Ghirla | talk 13:04, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed above (about 2 years ago). What would you rather call it? There are many Theodoras, some of whom do not have a family name to distinguish them. Adam Bishop 16:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be mentioned that Theodora was Greek, or at least Greek-speaking r part of the greek population of the time, in contrast to Justinian, who spoke Latin ?

[edit] Fact check

Justinian Article: Justinian would have, in earlier times, been unable to marry her because of her class, but his uncle Emperor Justin I had passed a law allowing intermarriage between social classes.

Theodora article: She convinced Justinian to change the law that forbade noblemen to marry lower class women (like herself).

The Justinian article is correct, though marrying Theodora was the obvious rationale for Justinian to ask his uncle to change the law. (I doubt that Justinian himself needed any convincing, though -- and he wasn't the one who changed that law.)

- I have inserted a sentence to clarify the change in law. Jmacwiki (talk) 06:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of shame

"Procopius also repeatedly notes her lack of shame and cites a number of scenes to demonstrate it, and also the low regard in which she was held by respectable society."

The above is a severe understatement (this from Procopius):

"Often, even in the theater, in the sight of all the people, she removed her costume and stood nude in their midst, except for a girdle about the groin: not that she was abashed at revealing that, too, to the audience, but because there was a law against appearing altogether naked on the stage, without at least this much of a fig-leaf. Covered thus with a ribbon, she would sink down to the stage floor and recline on her back. Slaves to whom the duty was entrusted would then scatter grains of barley from above into the calyx of this passion flower, whence geese, trained for the purpose, would next pick the grains one by one with their bills and eat. "

12.34.246.4 13:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC) Gary

It's true that it's a severe understatement compared to Procopius. Whether it's a severe understatement compared to reality is another question. Procopius may have been faithfully recording anecdotes from her early adulthood, but not necessarily relevant activities in the minds of "respectable society" decades later. There are by now many original sources of records of Theodora's life, not only Procopius' biased accounts. Diehl lists the 9th-C. biography of her uncle Theodore, bishop of Chora; Lives of the Eastern Saints from the mid-6th C.; History of the Church from the same time & author; an anonymous chronicle from the time; contemporary biographies of patriarch Severus and of Jacob Baradaeus; and various other writings from the time. Procopius is much more than a footnote here, but he is not authoritative. Jmacwiki (talk) 00:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP links

There seems to be some promiscuous linking here (by one meaning of "promiscuous" or another): We have links to WP articles on (for example) prostitution and rape. These strike me as no more topical, or needing of links in this article, than "bear", "actress", or "society", words which aren't linked. Or if we feel some need to emphasize her lurid youth (probably a 5-8 year interval in a 50-year life), surely we could have the spine to quote more extensively from Procopius. That would give us LOTS of new salacious words to link: "groin", for instance, to pick one that even occurs in the above-quoted passage about her stage act with geese.

Is there any rationale here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmacwiki (talk • contribs) 02:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

In the absence of feedback, I have removed a reference or two, and added a couple that seem more central, like Constantinople. Jmacwiki (talk) 06:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References need help

Why does Belisarius get more references here than Theodora herself does? (He has his OWN page! ;-) I have added Diehl's book, an obvious choice, but aren't there other sources worth quoting here, esp. true biographies of Theodora or at least Justinian?

BTW, there are complete copies of Gibbons' Decline and Fall available on the web. E.g., http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/home.html and various pages at Fordham.edu. Jmacwiki (talk) 23:41, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Wise decision"?

When Justinian made Theodora a co-emperor, it was certainly a consequential choice, and she brought many strengths in political governance that he lacked. But a "wise" choice (the current wording of the article) is not so obvious: She clearly saved his throne during the Nika riots. However, Diehl lays no small part of the causes of the riots at her biased and sometimes grotesquely unjust feet. Perhaps she (and Justinian) learned some valuable lesson with Nika that, when combined with their strengths, made for a much more effective reign. But that is not clear to me. Jmacwiki (talk) 06:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Theodora (6th century)

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