Theodora — Acrobat, Whore, Empress, Saint: Great Sluts of History

If we could have asked Theodora, would she have said whore or empress was the harder job?

Born about 500 A.D., the middle of three daughters to an actress and a bear-trainer in Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire, Theodora (meaning, gift of God) did not have an easy childhood.

By some accounts trained as a child acrobat (think gymnast), her father died (mauled by one of his own bears?) when she was young, and there are accounts of a dramatically choreographed appeal, featuring all three girls, in the Hippodrome for her father’s position to be passed to her new stepfather.

Let’s backtrack. Hippodrome? Constantinople? Rome?

If you’re like me, you were taught only the vaguest notion of 6th century world history. Here’s my quick-and-dirty version:

Roman Emperor Diocletian, decided around 283 A.D. that the Roman Empire had grown too damn big to govern effective from one landlocked Italian city. (Think sending signals to and from the Mars Rover.) He split the empire administratively, with a western capital and an eastern one.

Constantine, the emperor who converted to Christianity, changed the name of Byzantium to Nova Roma, and designated it the main capital of Rome in 330 A.D. The government change stuck (mostly); the name change failed and the city became known as…