The Secret History · Chapter
X: How Justinian Created a New Law Permitting Him to Marry a Courtesan on Her Promise to Repent Her Past; and the Truth About the Apparent Quarrels of a Happy Pair explained
Justinian, after the death of Empress Euphemia, manipulates the senile Emperor Justin to create a new law permitting marriage to a courtesan, enabling him to wed Theodora.
What happens
Justinian, after the death of Empress Euphemia, manipulates the senile Emperor Justin to create a new law permitting marriage to a courtesan, enabling him to wed Theodora. He then seizes imperial power, and the couple ascends the throne. The chapter reveals their coordinated hypocrisy: they feign disagreements to divide and control their subjects, ruin political factions, and confiscate wealth through a calculated charade of opposition.
Themes in this chapter
Hypocrisy and Deception
Justinian and Theodora feign opposition to each other to manipulate public opinion and consolidate power.
Abuse of Power
Justinian uses his influence over the senile Justin to change laws and seize the throne, then exploits his position to defraud subjects.
Moral Decadence
The marriage of a senator to a courtesan, and the shamelessness of the imperial couple, exemplify moral decay.
Characters to notice
- Justinian
Manipulates law to marry Theodora, seizes power, and feigns opposition to her to control subjects.
- Theodora
Former courtesan, now empress; feigns support for the Blues and pretends to oppose Justinian to confuse the public.
- Justin
Doting and senile emperor, laughed at by subjects, used by Justinian to pass the marriage law.
- Procopius
Narrator and historian, providing critical commentary on the events.
Key passages
“But as it was impossible for a man of senatorial rank to make a courtesan his wife, this being forbidden by ancient law, he made the Emperor nullify this ordinance by creating a new one, permitting him to wed Theodora, and consequently making it possible for anyone else to marry a courtesan.”
Since ancient law forbade a senator from marrying a courtesan, Justinian had the emperor repeal that law and enact a new one allowing him—and anyone else—to marry a courtesan.
Justinian's manipulation of law to enable his marriage.
“For some time it was generally supposed they were totally different in mind and action; but later it was revealed that their apparent disagreement had been arranged so that their subjects might not unanimously revolt against them, but instead be divided in opinion.”
People initially thought the couple disagreed, but it later emerged that their quarrels were staged to prevent unified opposition and keep the populace divided.
The strategic feuding of Justinian and Theodora.