Image and Reality The Public and Persuasive Power of the Empress Theodora

This contribution analyses the often-quoted speech of Theodora during the Nika riots in Procopius’ History of the Wars (1.34.33–37) and the famous Theodora mosaic on one of the side walls of the apse in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna. Our (mis)understanding of both sources has had a lasting impact on the way in which our presentation of Theodora’s personality has developed over the centuries. The analysis demonstrates that the speech and the mosaic offer us an image of Theodora that was carefully crafted for a specific purpose by its creators. That image allowed Theodora to discard traditional gendered boundaries of what would have been expected of a woman even if she was the wife of an emperor. The creators of this image deliberately used Theodora to transgress those boundaries as a public way of positioning Justinian within their description and depiction which opened up opportunity to even criticise the emperor.