On her accession Sophia already had a married daughter, Arabia, and it can be assumed that
Sophia herself was therefore born no later than 535 and must have been married and Arabia born
by 550. In fact, it is probable that her marriage took place before Theodora's death in June 548,
and she was probably born c. 530. According to Theophanes, she had also had a son, Justus, who
had died prior to 565.[[7]] Under Justinian, Justin had held the prestigious post of curopalates, the
major-domo of the imperial palace responsible for its organisation and construction work, and
Arabia's husband, Badouarios, was to succeed Justin in this influential position.[[8]] Sophia appears
to have played an important part in helping to orchestrate Justin's accession to the throne, for
Justinian had nominated no successor. Justin had the advantage over his cousin of being on the
spot, and with the senate's backing he was secretely acclaimed in the palace on 14 November 565
before his accession was proclaimed to the people and factions.[[9]] The acclamations of the people
treated the couple as a pair, the "two lights of the world", according to Corippus,[[10]] and Sophia
appears to have been the dominant partner at their accession. In Corippus' poem, the first three
books of which were probably written in 566, Sophia is invoked as queen of all, who protects the
world ("summa regens Sapientia protegis orbem"), the appeal to her preceding one to the
Theotokos, the "Mother of God", and as "divine and propitious empress, holy and venerable
name, immortal good, the Wisdom (Sapientia) of our tongue".[[11]] Sophia in Greek means "wisdom"
and Corippus frequently translates her name as "Sapientia", the Latin equivalent. In Justin's
accession speech made in the palace, as presented by Corippus, she is linked indelibly with him:
"this holy head Wisdom (ie, Sophia) is made the consort, to rule with me together in honour the
world entrusted to me, sitting in the same place".[[12]] Sophia is shown as having organised the
funerary arrangements at Justinian's death and as having woven a sumptuous shroud for him,
decorated with scenes of triumph from his reign.[[13]] Corippus even pretends that Justinian had
prophetically named St Sophia in her honour, though the church had had this name since its
original foundation, and points out that Theodora was ruling at the time the church was rebuilt,
thus giving Sophia a dynastic claim to the throne as well as Justin.[[14]]
Sophia also showed a great concern with financial measures and treasury reserves. There appears
to have been general concern among financiers at the time of the couple's accession. A conspiracy
by leading senators Aitherios and Addaios in 566 may have been connected with dissatisfaction on
the part of the financial community, for Aitherios had been involved in the bankers' conspiracy of
562/3, caused by Justinian's demands against wealthy financiers. Decisive action was taken against
the conspiracy and the two leaders were beheaded on the grounds that they had attempted to
poison Justin.[[19]] One of Justin's first actions was to repay debts and cancel taxation arrears, as well
as repaying loans, which Justinian had demanded from the wealthy, from out of his private
resources.[[20]] In Theophanes's account it is Sophia who summons the bankers and money-lenders
and orders that the financial records of contracts and receipts be produced. She then reads the
receipts, hands them over to the debtors and repays the amounts owed.[[21]] Theophanes places this
in the wrong year, but it is clear that his source portrayed Sophia as the instigator of financial
measures after Justin's accession. In general, and despite Justin's distribution of largesse at his
reestablishment of the consulship (which had lapsed since 541),[[22]] the imperial couple's priority
was to restock the treasury, exhausted during Justinian's reign, though the accumulation of large
reserves was attributed to avarice on their part.[[23]] Sophia was to show a deep concern with
imperial spending and treasury reserves during the reign of her protege Tiberius and accused him
of denuding the treasury of money which she had taken pains to accumulate.
The keynote to Sophia's perception of her status is struck by her adoption of the official title
Aelia, the title given to empresses of the Theodosian house and their successors Verina, Ariadne
and Zenonis, and which Euphemia and Theodora had dropped. Sophia was also the first empress
whose portrait was shown on coins alongside that of the emperor, and was depicted from the first
year of Justin's reign on the folleis, copper coins used in the day-to-day transactions of the empire.
Like Justin she was shown enthroned, in full imperial dress, holding a sceptre and with a nimbus,
denoting her imperial status; on coins minted at Carthage her name was even added to that of
Justin.[[24]] Other Byzantine empresses had
appeared on the coinage -- notably Helena, Fausta, Pulcheria and
Licinia Eudoxia -- but Sophia's collegial status, vis-à-vis Justin, was shown by her appearance
alongside him as emperor with equally royal insignia. Justin's dependence on Sophia, and his
desire to flatter her, is also shown by the fact that he rebuilt the harbour of Julian and named it
after her (the Sophia), and called two new palaces after his wife, the Sophiae near the harbour of
Julian, built before their accession, and the Sophianae across the Bosporus, probably built shortly
afterwards.[[25]] Theophanes also claims that Justin restored the public bath of the Taurus and named
it Sophianae after Sophia.[[26]] The couple were also depicted in statuary in the capital; John of
Ephesus mentions two bronze statues of Justin and Sophia,[[27]] while two groups of statues featured
Sophia with, in one case, Justin, Arabia and Vigilantia, Justin's mother, and in the other, Arabia
and Sophia's niece Helena.[[28]] The couple maintained a high profile in the capital through their
building program, and epigrams celebrating their dedications speak of Justin and Sophia as a
pair,[[29]] while they also promoted their philanthropic image by the construction and repair of many
of the capital's churches and commissioned a new throne-room in the palace, known as the
Chrysotriklinos, or golden chamber.[[30]]
In fact Sophia may well have retained monophysite leanings. Despite her conversion to orthodoxy,
and Justin's deep commitment to church unity, the couple remained on good terms with at least
one member of Theodora's family, her grandson, the wealthy ultra-monophysite monk Athanasios,
who actually made the couple his main heirs.[[36]] It may therefore be conjectured that Sophia's
conversion was a matter of policy, rather than inner conviction, and it should be noted that in his
eulogy of the couple Corippus included a prayer to Mary spoken as if by Sophia which stressed
the divine nature of Christ, and which would have caused no problems for a monophysite.[[37]] On
the other hand, like Justin, Sophia was personally concerned in the persecution of monophysite
believers later in their reign, as a result of the couple's preoccupation with the need to unite
conflicting religious groups, and both Justin and Sophia clearly felt the need to prove their
unexceptionable orthodoxy to the empire at large.
"the following day [after the patriarch's visit] the king visited the monasteries in person; and the
next day the queen in like manner, offering each of them gifts, and restoring such monks as either
had, or were ready to make their submissions. But such as resisted were exiled, or sent into close
confinement, or made over without mercy to the praetorian guards to torture..."[[43]]
Members of Sophia's own family were targeted in the persecution, including Georgia and
Antipatra, the wife and mother-in-law of John, one of Theodora's grandsons by her illegitimate
daughter, and John's name was also struck from the consular diptychs.[[44]]
Sophia in sole control
Following the recommencement of hostilities with Persia in 572, after Justin had refused to pay an
installment of tribute which was due, the Persians devastated Syria and captured Dara. Justin had
already been showing signs of madness, and with this news his dementia set in in earnest. Sophia was
forced to have bars fixed to the windows of his rooms, after he had attempted to throw himself
out, and despite lucid intervals Justin
was totally unable to continue in the role of emperor.[[45]]
Sophia herself was able to negotiate first a one-year and then a three-year truce with Persia,[[46]] but
under these circumstances it was natural that, like Ariadne at Zeno's death, she should be
consulted by the senate and asked to give her views on possible successors to Justin. Although
there were family members, including her son-in-law Badouarios, who might have been suitable,
Sophia fixed on Tiberius, leader of the excubitors (one of the corps of imperial guards), whom
Justin was persuaded to make his adopted son and heir in December 574, and then in 578 joint
emperor.[[47]] Sophia may have had plans to marry Tiberius after Justin's death, and there were even
rumours that she had taken him as her lover,[[48]] though her main priority was that there should be
no diminution of her status as empress, and Tiberius was made to swear that he would pay her
every honour.[[49]] Sophia maintained a strong interest in the treasury, even with Tiberius as Caesar,
scolding him for his lavish expenditure and finally taking the keys of the treasury away from him.[[50]]
After Justin's death, when Tiberius was sole emperor, she still rebuked him for his lavish
spending: "All that we by great industry and care have gathered and stored up, you are scattering
to the winds as with a fan", she is reported to have said after Tiberius had spent no less than 7,200
pounds of gold,[[51]] and, according to Gregory of Tours, Sophia told Tiberius more than once that he
had reduced the state to poverty and was squandering money that it had taken her years to
accumulate.[[52]] Sophia can hardly have been pleased with his reply: "What you collected by iniquity
and plunder and rapine, I am doing my best that not a fragment of it may remain in my palace," or
with his remission of one-quarter of all taxes and cancellation of the charge of 4 solidi imposed by
Justin and Sophia on recipients of the bread dole.[[53]]
The choice of Tiberius had a further snag, as far as Sophia's status was concerned -- he was
married. According to Theophanes, Sophia did not know that Tiberius was married until his wife
Ino arrived in Constantinople and was acclaimed, and was hoping to marry Tiberius and remain
empress,[[54]] though it is hardly tenable that Tiberius' marriage was unknown. But the fact that
Tiberius had a wife meant that in matters of imperial rank and ceremonial Sophia would have a
rival. Sophia managed by simply ignoring Ino, and prevented her from entering the palace during
the four years that Tiberius was Caesar, even ignoring Justin's appeals on the subject. John of
Ephesus records her as saying to Justin: "Fool, do you wish me to make myself as great a
simpleton as yourself? You! who have invested your slave with the insignia of sovereignty!" And
then she vowed with oaths, "I, as long as I live, will never give my kingdom and my crown to
another, nor shall another enter here as long as I am alive."[[55]] Tiberius' wife and two daughters
therefore lived in the neighbouring Hormisdas palace and Sophia even refused to let the noble
ladies of the court pay their respects to the Caesar's wife. So embarrassed was Ino at the
situation, and perhaps fearing at the same time some attempt on her life by Sophia, that she
actually left Constantinople.[[56]]
Sophia may have hoped that Tiberius would divorce Ino and marry her and proposals were made
to him through the patriarch Eutychius, on Justin's death in October 578, that he should rid
himself of Ino and marry Sophia or her daughter Arabia.[[57]] Tiberius refused, and instead invited
Sophia to consider herself as his mother and permitted her to remain in the palace. That Tiberius
and Ino feared that Sophia may have had designs on Ino's safety is shown by the way that Ino was
smuggled in a small boat into the capital and palace and proclaimed empress without Sophia's
knowledge.[[59]]
While Tiberius was prepared to maintain Sophia's imperial status, she seems to have been
dissatisfied with the situation. According to Gregory of Tours, Sophia was implicated in a plot
against Tiberius in favour of Justin's distant cousin Justinian, as a result of which she was deprived
of her, doubtless extensive, property, and left only a small allowance, while her servants were
dismissed and others appointed.[[60]] Since Justinian was later taken into favour, Tiberius apparently
considered Sophia the main force behind the conspiracy, and John of Ephesus states that she "set
on foot plots without number against king Tiberius... in bitter malice and wicked violence, being
indignant at seeing him and his wife resident in the palace, and invested with the royal authority;
and herself now in her lifetime deprived of her kingdom".[[61]] She continued to live in the palace,
even after Tiberius had found that prior to Justin's death she had removed several hundred
pounds' worth of gold from there to her own house, but despite this concession she was unhappy
at her loss of status ("humiliated, and reduced in rank, and deserted by all men") and the presence
of a rival.[[62]] In fact, because she showed no signs of leaving the state apartments, Tiberius was
forced to remodel the whole northern side of the palace, sacrificing a beautiful garden and other
buildings to do so.[[63]] Theophanes' account for the year 579/80 records that Sophia finally moved
to the palace of Sophiai (which had been built for her by Justin, not Tiberius as Theophanes
claims), and that she had her own cubicularii, and every other amenity, being honoured as
Tiberius' mother.[[64]] However, a surviving chapter heading from a part of John of Ephesus's Ecclesiastical
History in which thirteen chapters have been lost in the manuscript is devoted to the three queens
who inhabited the imperial palace after Tiberius' death, which suggests that Theophanes may have
been mistaken about her removal.[[65]]
Significantly, as the senior empress, her influence was still paramount. Prior to Tiberius' death in
582, it was Sophia who was consulted as to a possible successor, and her recommendation of the
general Maurice was adopted. If she planned to marry Maurice, as Gregory of Tours states, she
was outmanoeuvred, and Maurice chose Tiberius' daughter Constantina.[[66]] Sophia's eventual end
is not known, though she may have died prior to Phokas' take-over in 602 as she is not mentioned
in the context of his measures against the imperial family. Certainly she was still alive in 601, and
on good terms with the new empress Constantina, for on March 26, 601 Sophia is shown as
joining her in making an Easter present of a stemma, or crown, to Maurice, which Maurice hung
up above the altar in St Sophia, thus offending both Augustas.[[67]]
In her love of imperial status and its public recognition, and in her overt wielding of power as
empress-consort, Sophia more than matched her aunt Theodora. Her legitimising factor in the
succession was fully recognised: she was able to appoint two successors to her husband, and
retained an interest in government even after Justin's death, while as the dominant figure in
Justin's reign she was, if not the first, perhaps the most marked example of collegial rule in
Byzantium.
Bibliography:
Bellinger, A.R.Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore
Collection, vol. I: Anastasius to Maurice 491-602 Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1966.
Brennan, B."Venantius Fortunatus: Byzantine Agent?", Byzantion 65 (1995), esp. 12-13.
Cameron, Averil. "The Artistic Patronage of Justin II," Byzantion 50 (1980), pp. 62-84.
________. "The Byzantine Sources of Gregory of Tours," Journal of Theological Studies 26 (1975), 421-26.
________. "The Empress Sophia," Byzantion 45 (1975), pp. 5-21.
________."An Emperor's Abdication," Byzantinoslavica 37 (1986), 161-67.
________. "Images of Authority: Elites and Icons in Late Sixth-Century Byzantium," Past & Present 84 (1979), 17.
________. "Notes on the Sophiae, the Sophianae, and the Harbour of Sophia," Byzantion 37 (1968),
11-20.
Garland, Lynda. Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium, AD 527-1204. London:
Routledge, 1999, pp. 40-57.
MacCormack, S. Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.
[[1]]John of Ephesus, Ecclesiastical History, 2.10; cf. Victor Tonnenensis, Chronicle, s.a. 567.
[[2]]Malalas 430.
[[3]]John Eph., EH, 3.4 (tr. Payne Smith (1860) 171).
[[4]]John Eph., EH, 1.22, 2.4-7.
[[5]]Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History, 5.1, cf. 5.11.
[[6]]Flavius Cresconius Corippus in laudem Iustini Augusti minoris libri IV, ed. & tr. Averil Cameron (University of London:
Athlone Press, 1976), 1.10-11 (also ed. & tr. S. Antès, Corippe. Éloge de l'empereur Justin II (Paris: Budé, 1981)).
[[7]]Theophanes, Chronographia, AM 6061 [AD 568/9].
[[8]]Corippus, Iust. 2.285; cf. Theophanes AM 6065 [AD 572/3].
[[9]]Corippus, Iust. 2.84-330; Evagr. 5.1; on Sophia and her political role, see esp. Averil Cameron, "The Empress
Sophia," Byzantion 45 (1975), 5-21.
[[10]]Corippus, Iust. 2.171-72.
[[11]]Ibid., 1.9; 3.147-48.
[[12]]Ibid., 2.198-200.
[[13]]Ibid., 1.272-90.
[[14]]Ibid., 4.264-87; 4.270-71; cf. 1.208-10.
[[15]]Cameron, "The Empress Sophia," 8; Life of Eutychius, 66, PG 86, 2349 (Eutychius saw the couple depicted in
imperial costume in a dream); Life of St Symeon the Younger, 203.
[[16]]John of Biclaro, Chronicle, s.a. 568, "Justin, son of Germanos, was killed in Alexandria by the supporters of
Augusta Sophia"; Evagr. 5.1-2; cf. Agathias, History, 4.22.
[[17]]Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards, 2.5.
[[18]]Zonaras, Epitome Historiarum, 3.174.
[[19]]Theophanes AM 6059 [AD 566/7]; AM 6055 [AD 562/3]; Evagr. 5.3; cf. Corippus, Iust. 1.60-61.
[[20]]Ibid., 2.361-406.
[[21]]Theophanes AM 6060 [AD 567/8]; cf. Zon. 3.175.
[[22]]Corippus, Iust. 2.351-52, 357-58; 4.10-12, 100-04; Theophanes AM 6059 [AD 566/7].
[[23]]Evagr. 5.1; John Eph., EH, 5.20; Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, 4.40; Paul Diac. HL, 3.11.
[[24]]See A.R. Bellinger, Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore
Collection, vol. I: Anastasius to Maurice 491-602 (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1966), 204-17, 221-25,
226-39, 243-50, 254-58.
[[25]]See Averil Cameron, "Notes on the Sophiae, the Sophianae, and the Harbour of Sophia," Byzantion 37 (1968),
11-20.
[[26]] Theophanes AM 6062 [AD 569/70].
[[27]]EH, 3.24.
[[28]]See Averil Cameron, "The Artistic Patronage of Justin II," Byzantion 50 (1980), 70-71.
[[29]]Anthologia Graeca, 9.779, 810, 812-13; cf. 16.41, though this epigram may be from the reign of Justinian and
Theodora; for an epigram celebrating a portrait of Sophia at the entrance to the Baths of Zeuxippus, see Anth. Gr.
9.803.
[[30]]See Averil Cameron, "Images of Authority: Elites and Icons in Late Sixth-Century Byzantium," Past & Present 84 (1979), 17
for their possible contribution to imperial ceremonial.
[[31]]S. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981) 84-85, pl.
24.
[[32]]Venantius Fortunatus, Appendix Carminum 2: "Ad Iustinum et Sophiam Augustos" (tr. J. George Venantius
Fortunatus: Personal and Political Poems (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995) 111-15); for discussion, see
B. Brennan, "Venantius Fortunatus: Byzantine Agent?", Byzantion 65 (1995), esp. 12-13.
[[33]]John Eph., EH, 2.10 (tr. Payne Smith (1860) 105).
[[34]]Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, 10.7 (tr. J.-B. Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, Patriarche Jacobite d'Antioche
1166-1199, Paris: Leroux, 1899-1924, vol. 2, p. 306).
[[35]]John Eph., EH, 2.10.
[[36]]John Eph., EH, 5.7, who gives the will in detail; Mich. Syr. 10.1 (Chabot 2.283).
[[37]]Corippus, Iust. 2.52-69.
[[38]]Theophanes AM 6058 [AD 565/6]; cf. John Eph., EH, 1.32.
[[39]]Evagr., 5.4; cf. John Eph., EH, 1.19-20; Mich Syr. 10.4 (Chabot 2.295-99).
[[40]]John Eph., EH, 1.24-25.
[[41]]John Eph., EH, 1.26.
[[42]]Ibid.,, 1.5, 2.17; ibid. 1.10.
[[43]]John Eph., EH, 1.11 (tr. Payne Smith (1860) 9).
[[44]]Ibid., 2.11, 12; cf. Mich. Syr. 10.7 (Chabot 2.306).
[[45]]John Eph., EH, 3.5; for the recurrence of lucid intervals in which he was well enough to give audiences and appear
in the hippodrome, see also 3.6. Ibid., 3.2 he was ill for five years.
[[46]]Evagr. 5.12, "urging the unseemliness of trampling upon a widowed female, a prostrate monarch, and a desolate empire...";
John Eph., EH, 6.8.
[[47]]John Eph., EH, 3.5; cf. Evagr. 5.13; Greg. Tur., HF, 5.19, "the empire fell under the sole rule of the empress
Sophia".
[[48]]Theophanes AM 6071 [AD 578/9].
[[49]]John Eph., EH, 3.7.
[[50]]John Eph., EH, 5.20; cf. Paul Diac., HL, 3.11.
[[51]]John Eph., EH, 3.14 (tr. Payne Smith (1860) 190); cf. Evagr. 5.13.
[[52]]Greg. Tur., HF, 5.19; cf. Paul Diac., HL, 3.11. For Gregory (d. 594) as a valuable source, see Averil Cameron,
"The Byzantine Sources of Gregory of Tours," Journal of Theological Studies 26 (1975), 421-26.
[[53]]John Eph., EH, 3. 14.
[[54]]Theophanes AM 6071.
[[55]]EH, 3.7 (tr. Payne Smith (1860) 179); cf. Mich. Syr. 10.17 (Chabot 2.343).
[[56]]Ibid., 3.8.
[[57]]Ibid., 3.7.
[[58]]Ibid., 3.5, 7; Evagr. 5.13; Theophanes AM 6070 [AD 577/8]; cf. Theophylact Simocatta, History,
3.11.5-13. See Averil Cameron, "An Emperor's Abdication," Byzantinoslavica 37 (1986), 161-67.
[[59]]John Eph., EH, 3.9; Theophanes AM 6071 [AD 578/9].
[[60]]Greg. Tur., HF, 5.30; cf. Paul Diac., HL, 3.12.
[[61]] EH, 3.10 (tr. Payne Smith (1860) 183-84).
[[62]]John Eph., EH, 3.10 (tr. Payne Smith (1860) 185).
[[63]]Ibid., 3.24, 23.
[[64]]Theophanes AM 6072 [AD 579/80]; John Eph., EH 3.23, cf. 3.10.
[[65]]Payne Smith (1860) 243.
[[66]]HF, 6.30; John Eph., EH, 5.13; Theophanes AM 6074 [AD 581/2].
[[67]]Theophanes AM 6093 [AD 600/1).
Copyright (C) 1999, Lynda Garland. This file
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Comments to: Lynda Garland.
Updated: 15 August 1999
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