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Theodora adalah salah satu wanita paling berpengaruh pada abad pertengahan. Ia istri Kaisar Justinian, penguasa imperium byzantium. Sebelum menjadi istri Kaisar Justinian I, ia adalah seorang aktris dan menjadi simpanan para bangsawan. Kemudian dia bertobat dan meninggalkan gaya hidupnya. Meskipun dia ratu, namun dia boleh dibilang lebih tangguh daripada suaminya. Ketika pecah pemberontakan di Nika, Constantinople, karena korupsi, pajak tinggi, justru Theodora lah yang menahan kaisar agar tidak melarikan diri. Justru ia mengatur strategi sehingga pemberontakan berhasil dipadamkan. Berkat Theodora pula pembangunan Contantinople digalakkan dan menjadi kota tercanggih masa itu. “Hagia Sophia” yang dibangun antara 532 M. dan 537 M. Dianggap sebagai salah satu contoh arsitektur Byzantine yang paling luar biasa. Theodora juga menjadikan tegaknya hak-hak kaum perempuan. Ia juga membuat undang-undang yang melarang pelacuran paksa dan penutupan rumah bordil. Theodora tampil sebagai ‘pendekar pembela hak para perempuan’. Lewat undang-undang ia memberi wanita kepemilikan harta gono-gini lebih banyak saat bercerai, memberi hak asuh anak, serta meberi hukuman mati pada pemerkosa serta melarang pembunuhan seorang istri yang melakukan perzinaan. Sungguh luar biasa!!! Kehidupan ‘kaum wanita’ seolah dijamin keamanannya selama Theodora berkuasa. Ia meninggal karena kanker pada 28 Juni, 548.

Mosaic of Empress Theodora in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna

ca. 547 A.D.

San Vitale, Ravenna

The basilica was begun by Bishop Ecclesio in 527, when Ravenna was under the rule of the Ostrogoths, and completed by the 27th Bishop of Ravenna, Maximian in 548 during the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. The architect of this church is unknown, but he was certainly among the best architects of his time.

Gereja mempunyai rencana octogonal. Bangunan menggabungkan unsur-unsur Romawi (kubah, bentuk pintu, melangkah menara) dengan Bizantium (poligonal apse, ibu, sempit batu bata, dll). Namun, Basilika yang paling terkenal karena kekayaan mosaik Byzantium, yang terbesar dan paling lestari di luar Konstantinopel itu sendiri. Gereja adalah yang sangat penting dalam seni Bizantium, karena merupakan satu-satunya gereja utama dari periode Kaisar Justinian untuk bertahan hidup hampir utuh sampai sekarang

Theodora

(Romisch-Germanisches Zentral museum,Mainz)

She was the kind of comedienne who delights the audience by letting herself be cuffed and slapped on the cheeks, and makes them guffaw by raising her skirts to reveal to the spectators those feminine secrets here and there which custom veils from the eyes of the opposite sex. With pretended laziness she mocked her lovers, and coquettishly adopting ever new ways of embracing, was able to keep in a constant turmoil the hearts of the sophisticated. And she did not wait to be asked by anyone she met, but on the contrary, with inviting jests and a comic flaunting of her skirts herself tempted all men who passed by, especially those who were adolescent.

On the field of pleasure she was never defeated. Often she would go picnicking with ten young men or more, in the flower of their strength and virility, and dallied with them all, the whole night through. When they wearied of the sport, she would approach their servants, perhaps thirty in number, and fight a duel with each of these; and even thus found no allayment of her craving. Once, visiting the house of an illustrious gentleman, they say she mounted the projecting cornerof her dining couch, pulled up the front of her dress, without a blush, and thus carelessly showed her wantonness. And though she flung wide three gates to the ambassadors of Cupid, she lamented that nature had not similarly unlocked the straits of her bosom, that she might there have contrived a further welcome to his emissaries.

Frequently, she conceived but as she employed every artifice immediately, a miscarriage was straightway effected. 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. When she rose, it was not with a blush, but she seemed rather to glory in the performance. For she was not only impudent herself, but endeavored to make everybody else as audacious. Often when she was alone with other actors she would undress in their midst and arch her back provocatively, advertising like a peacock both to those who had experience of her and to those who had not yet had that privilege her trained suppleness.

So perverse was her wantonness that she should have hid not only the customary part of her person, as other women do, but her face as well. Thus those who were intimate with her were straightway recognized from that very fact to be perverts, and any more respectable man who chanced upon her in the Forum avoided her and withdrew in haste, lest the hem of his mantle, touching such a creature, might be thought to share in her pollution. For to those who saw her, especially at dawn, she was a bird of ill omen. And toward her fellow actresses she was as savage as a scorpion: for she was very malicious.

Later, she followed Hecebolus, a Tyrian who had been made governor of Pentapolis, serving him in the basest of ways; but finally she quarreled with him and was sent summarily away. Consequently, she found rherself destitute of the means of life, which she proceeded to earn by prostitution, as she had done before this adventure. She came thus to Alexandria, and then traversing all the East, worked her way to Constantinople; in every city plying a trade (which it is safer, I fancy, in the sight of God not to name too clearly) as if the Devil were determined there be no land on earth that should not know the sins of Theodora.

Thus was this woman born and bred, and her name was a byword beyond that of other common wenches on the tongues of all men. But when she came back to Constantinople, Justinian fell violently in love with her. At first he kept her only as a mistress, though he raised her to patrician rank. Through him Theodora was able immediately to acquire an unholy power and exceedingly great riches. she seemed to him the sweetest thing in the world, and like all lovers, he desired to please his charmer with every possible favor and requite her with all his wealth. The extravagance added fuel to the flames of passion. With her now to help spend his money he plundered the people more than ever, not only in the capital, but throughout the Roman Empire. As both of them had for a long time been of the Blue party, they gave this faction almost complete control of the affairs of state.