Empresses-in-Waiting: Female Power and Performance at the Late Roman Court

Empresses-in-Waiting comprises case studies of late antique empresses, female members of imperial dynasties, and female members of the highest nobility of the late Roman empire, ranging from the fourth to the seventh centuries AD. Situated in the context of the broader developments of scholarship on late antique and byzantine empresses, this volume explores the political agency, religious authority, and influence of imperial and near-imperial women within the Late Roman imperial court, which is understood as a complex spatial, social, and cultural system, the centre of patronage networks, and an arena for elite competition. The studies explore female performance and representation in literary and visual media as well as in court ceremonial, and discuss the opportunities and constraints of female power within a male dominated court environment and the broader realms of imperial activity. By focusing on imperial women, the volume not only addresses questions of gendered rhetoric and agency but throws into relief general dynamics in the exercise of imperial power during a period in which the classical Mediterranean world at large, as well as the Roman monarchy, underwent crucial transformations. Cover 1 Contents 5 Acknowledgements 7 Contributors 9 Empresses-in-Waiting? An Introduction 13 Christian Rollinger and Nadine Viermann 13 Towards a History of Scholarship on Late Antique Imperial Women: From Theodora, the Tigress to Matronage 27 Anja Wieber 27 I Political Agency and Power Brokerage 53 2 Empress with Agency: Eusebia’s Efforts to Consolidate the Constantinian Dynasty 55 Silvia Holm* 55 3 John Chrysostom’s Letter to a Young Widow: Reflections on Imperial Women’s Roles at Regime Change 79 Belinda Washington 79 4 The Empress Sophia Reconsidered 109 Silvio Roggo 109 5 The Empress Sophia and East Roman Foreign Policy 127 Lewis Dagnall 127 6 Dynasty, Endogamy, and Civil Strife: 149 Martina Augusta and the Role of Imperial Women in the Early Seventh Century 149 Nadine Viermann 149 II Performance and Representation 167 7 Constructing Power through Rituals: 169 The Case of Theodora 169 Mads Ortving Lindholmer 169 8 Empresses on Early Byzantine Coins (Sixth to Seventh Centuries): Evidence of Power? 189 Pavla Gkantzios Drápelová 189 III Non- and Near-Imperial Women at the Imperial Court 215 9 Augusta Unrealized: Anicia Juliana and the Logistics of Place 217 Geoffrey Nathan 217 10 Antonina Patricia: Theodora’s Fixer at the Female Court and the Politics of Gender in Procopius 235 Christopher Lillington-Martin 235 11 Matasuintha: From Gothic Queen to Imperial Woman 255 Marco Cristini 255 Conclusion: Imperial Women after Curtains 273 Julia Hillner 273 Bibliography 285 Indices 341