An unusual & fascinating figure sat the the heart of imperial power during the Byzantine Empire’s Golden Age.
During a time of great conquests & generals, it was a common woman who steered the imperial court & the fate of the Empire.
A thread on Theophano the “Scarlet Empress”
During a time of great conquests & generals, it was a common woman who steered the imperial court & the fate of the Empire.
A thread on Theophano the “Scarlet Empress”
Theophano, named Anastasia, was born in Laconia, Greece around 941 AD. Her father, Craterus, a poor tavern-keeper, moved the family to Constantinople after a revolt by the Melingoi, mountain-dwelling Slavic tribes in the Peloponnesus, devastated their hometown.
The Queen of Cities offered refuge, opportunity, & danger to all who made their home behind her impenetrable walls & under her golden domes. Theophano was no different. Despite her lowly origins, she was known for her enchanting beauty and caught the eye of Prince Romanos II.
Romanos was a pleasure-loving young man & his father, Constantine VII, disapproved of marrying the commoner Anastasia. Romanos; however, was determined & was allowed to marry Anastasia, who chose the name Theophano as princess.
Theophano was an outsider at court & unpopular with the elites. Among duplicitous eunuchs, ambitious generals, & wily courtiers, Theophano, the tavern girl, learned to survive by necessity. Soon, the Emperor was dead, & Theophano found herself elevated to Empress.
Some say Theophano poisoned Constantine to ensure her position at court, Empress Theophano could do much more with her impressionable husband in charge than his distrusting father. Rumors swirled as Romanos banished his mother from court & sent his five sisters to convents.
Theophano’s enemies had been expelled & her future looked bright, Romanos at her side and a toddler Basil II on her hip. However, Romanos fell ill on one of his many hunting trips, dying on March 15th, 963. Theophano was to blame, surely, she wished to have all the power herself.
Gossip spread that Theophano devilishly had poisoned her husband like her father. But what did she have to gain as a widow? And Theophano was still bedridden after giving birth to her daughter Anna two days before Romanos’s death.
Poisoner or not, the widowed Theophano & her three young children found themselves in a precarious position. With few allies & many enemies, Theophano did what she needed to in order to survive. Nikephoros Phokas had been a great ally of her husband, & was commander of the army.
Nikephoros the conqueror of Crete & vanquisher of Saracens, he could help keep her family safe. Nikephoros pledged to protect her children in exchange for her hand in marriage. Overpowering the scheming eunuch, Joseph Bringas, Nikephoros donned the purple.
The remarriage caused trouble with the Orthodox Church, which only sparingly allows remarriage. Nikephoros, a devout man, did penance & swore he was not the godfather of any of Theophano’s children. Patriarch Polyeuctus relented after this & blessed the marriage.
Nikephoros was an austere military man. Used to being obeyed without question he lacked the guile required at court. His early campaigns brought Byzantium glory & strength, but increased taxes, poor harvests, & attempts to extract money from the Church made him unpopular.
After military failures in Sicily & allowing the Rus under Sviatoslav to overrun Bulgaria & threaten Constantinople; Nikephoros found himself in trouble. Relying on the loyalty of his army he turned the palace into a military camp, walling it off from the rest of the City.
Enough was enough & a conspiracy developed against him. Nikephoros’s nephew John Tzimiskes was hailed as Emperor by the Eastern Armies & he marched to Constantinople. Nikephoros sat secure behind Constantinople’s walls, but Tzimiskes, the always daring commander, had a plan.
On a stormy night, Tzimiskes & a few trusted warriors sailed across the Bosporus to the Sea Walls next to the palace. A basket was lowered & the men were hauled up one by one. The group made their way into Nikephoros’s chamber only to find his bed empty.
The men panicked, believing they had been betrayed until they found the ascetic Emperor asleep on the ground. Nikephoros was butchered & his severed head displayed to his soldiers. Tzimiskes had won his crown & immediately sought the twice-widowed Theophano’s hand in marriage.
The scandal was too much. Who but Theophano could’ve helped Tzimiskes into the palace? It was claimed Theophano ensured the Emperor’s chambers were unguarded & unlocked. Rumors had already circulated that they were lovers.
Tzimiskes had killed his own uncle, in cold blood, & once again Theophano had “orchestrated the death of an Emperor.” Patriarch Polyeuctus wouldn’t hear it. The “scarlet empress” must be punished for their heinous crime. Tzimiskes exiled Theophano & took the throne.
Theophano flew into a rage at the news, screaming at her former lover Tzimiskes & the treacherous eunuch Basil Lekapenos who she called a “Barbarian & Scyth,” striking him with her fists. Theophano was in a convent for 5 years. Some say Tzimiskes visited her once before his death
When Tzimiskes’s died, Basil II, Theophano’s son, took the throne. His first act as Emperor was brining his mother home. Theophano lived & died in the palace, helping quash a Phokas rebellion by persuading the monk-general Tornik of Tao to come out of retirement on Mount Athos.
Theophano’s maneuvering introduced the great military families of Anatolia to the Imperial throne for the first time, while also preserving the Macedonian Dynasty by keeping her young sons alive & nominally in power.
These tensions between the Macedonians & their generals would define Basil’s reign & the political chaos that would lead to Byzantine collapse in the late 11th century. Much of Basil II’s rule can be explained by what he experienced as a child in the palace.
Basil witnessed the tumultuous relationship between his mother & her husbands & lovers, Nikephoros’s austerity & warlike nature, Tzimiskes’s charm & his painful separation of Theophano from her children. Even after Theophano’s return, the Anatolian aristocrats staged rebellions.
These great families hungering for another taste of imperial power. It is plausible Basil learned his proclivity for war from his guardians Nikephoros & Tzimiskes, his distrust of the noble families from rebellions, & was disillusioned with marriage by his mother’s experience.
Basil’s peculiar rule as warrior-emperor will bring Byzantium to dizzying heights. But he will die without an heir. The tensions between the Macedonian Dynasty & the magnates of Anatolia will weaken Byzantium as it faced a new threat, the Turks, with devastating consequences.
The decisions made by Theophano shaped the trajectory of the Byzantine Empire & there is no doubt she was one of the most influential women in Byzantine History; not bad for the daughter of a tavern-keeper.
Despite the electrifying nature of Theophano’s story, our sources for her life are generally hostile & blame her for death & intrigue at court, possibly on account of her beauty & common birth. It is unknown, but unlikely, Theophano was responsible for all she is credited with.
@byzantinetales has written an excellent comic book summarizing the life of Theophano, if you’re interested in learning more about her this is an entertaining read.
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