A bear keeper's daughter became Byzantium's empress and talked Justinian out of fleeing
Theodora's father kept bears for the Green chariot faction at Constantinople's Hippodrome. She became empress in 527, and when rioters crowned a rival emperor five years later, she argued in council that dying a ruler beat living in exile. Justinian stayed, and the revolt was put down.
Born around 495 and most likely raised in the capital, Theodora grew up in the world of the circus factions. After her father Acacius died, a bribed Green official gave her stepfather's post away. Her mother paraded her daughters before the crowd as suppliants; the Greens turned them away, but the rival Blues took pity and gave the family the job. As a young woman she worked on stage as an actress and courtesan, later travelling to North Africa with Hecebolus, governor of the Libyan Pentapolis, then drifting to Alexandria and Antioch before returning home.
Justinian wanted to marry her, but a law dating from Constantine forbade men of senatorial rank to wed former prostitutes, and Empress Euphemia opposed the match. After Euphemia died in 524, Emperor Justin issued an edict lifting the ban. When Justinian took the throne in 527, Theodora was crowned augusta, and in a 535 anti-corruption law he named her his partner in deliberations, requiring provincial officials to swear loyalty to both.
Her firmness proved decisive in January 532, when Blues and Greens united under the chant Nika, meaning conquer, burned public buildings and proclaimed Hypatius emperor. With the couple she ordered grand building projects, the Hagia Sophia among them, and she worked to end prostitution. She also schemed at court, helping bring about the exile of John the Cappadocian and the replacement of Pope Silverius by Vigilius. Backing the Miaphysites while her husband was Chalcedonian, she sometimes softened his treatment of them.
Theodora died of cancer on 28 June 548. Most of what is known comes from Procopius, who praised her in public writings but, in his Secret History, painted her as shameless and cruel, though loyal; modern historians such as David Potter treat that account as exaggerated. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches honour her as a saint on 14 November.
Source: Theodora (wife of Justinian I)
