She was one of the most influential and powerful of the Eastern Roman empresses, albeit from a humble background. Along with her spouse, she is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church , commemorated on November The main historical sources for her life are the works of her contemporary Procopius. The historian offered three contradictory portrayals of the Empress. The Wars of Justinian , largely completed in , paints a picture of a courageous and influential empress who saved the throne for Justinian.
Later he wrote the Secret History , which survives in only one manuscript suggesting it was not widely read during the Byzantine era. The work has sometimes been interpreted as representing a deep disillusionment with the emperor Justinian, the empress, and even his patron Belisarius.
Justinian is depicted as cruel, venal, prodigal and incompetent; as for Theodora, the reader is treated to a detailed and titillating portrayal of vulgarity and insatiable lust, combined with shrewish and calculating mean-spiritedness; Procopius even claims both are demons whose heads were seen to leave their bodies and roam the palace at night.
Alternatively, scholars versed in political rhetoric of the era have viewed these statements from the Secret History as formulaic expressions within the tradition of invective. Procopius' Buildings of Justinian , written about the same time as the Secret History , is a panegyric which paints Justinian and Theodora as a pious couple and presents particularly flattering portrayals of them.
Besides her piety, her beauty is praised within the conventional language of the text's rhetorical form. Although Theodora was dead when this work was published, Justinian was alive, and perhaps commissioned the work. Her contemporary John of Ephesus writes about Theodora in his Lives of the Eastern Saints as the daughter of a pious Monophysite priest. He mentions an illegitimate daughter not named by Procopius. Various other historians presented additional information on her life.
