Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Quick and Easy Sign Up!

It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.

Sign Up Browse

Popular Genres

Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

  • Download on iOS
  • Download on Android
  • Download on iOS

The Empresses of Constantinople: Verina – Empress Theodora – Sophia – Martina – Irene - Saint Theodora – Zoe - Eudocia - Irene - Anna Comnena - ... of Savoy - The Last Byzantine Empresses …

The Empresses of Constantinople: Verina – Empress Theodora – Sophia – Martina – Irene - Saint Theodora – Zoe - Eudocia - Irene - Anna Comnena - ... of Savoy - The Last Byzantine Empresses …

William Mann
0/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
Few Courts in the world have, in their thousand years of history, witnessed so much adventure, intrigue, comedy and tragedy, as that of the Byzantine Empresses. From all quarters of the Empire, in the most varied ways, all sorts of women, from princesses to village girls, tavern girls or circus girls, make their way to the bronze-roofed palace and wear for a season the prodigious jewels and the glittering robes of an Empress of Constantinople; and, as there is no law or method of succession to the throne, the rise and fall of Emperors and Empresses gives a dramatic movement to the story. The notion that the eastern Empresses are enwrapped in a rigid piety and formalism, as they are in their stiff tunics of gold-cloth, is a ludicrous mistake. Their piety is usually external and superficial, and often they make not the least pretence of it; while, even when it is obviously sincere, it is associated with a skill in casuistry which allows a free play of their ambitions, their passions, and even their criminal impulses. Indeed, it is only fair to say at the outset that if a reader passes from the gallery of the “pagan” Empresses into that of the Empresses of Constantinople in the hope of encountering more restful, more virtuous and more domestic types of womanhood, he will be grievously disappointed. We may not find a Messalina among them, but irregularity of life is more evenly distributed than among the Roman Empresses, ambition and intrigue are far more cultivated, and there is a strain of barbaric cruelty running through the greater part of the story which it would have been more pleasant, had it been consistent with truthfulness, to omit. But the biographer should not be a moralist. My simple purpose is to depict, as far as it is possible, the very varied types of womanhood which come into “the fierce light that beats about a throne” in that strange world where Greek and Roman and Syrian blood blend to produce a new character.
In my “Empresses of Rome,” which includes all Empresses down to the fall of Rome, I necessarily included the early Empresses of the eastern series, when east and west were branches of one dominion. It is therefore not necessary to repeat the story of the beautiful and languid Eudoxia, the daughter of a Frankish chief whom a palace intrigue raised to the purple, and who is one of the butts of St Chrysostom’s fiery sermons; nor of Eudocia, the Athenian girl who set out to find her father’s money and obtained a kingdom, who wrote poems in her native tongue and at last passed from the Court under a cloud of suspicion; nor of Pulcheria, the virgin-sister of Theodosius and rival of Eudocia, who ruled the Empire for her brother and, after his death, took to herself a nominal husband and, with Marcian, was governing the Eastern world at the time of the fall of Rome. I have adequately described her in the preceding volume, and the present story opens at her death in the year 453.
[ from the PREFACE]

CONTENTS

I. Verina and her Daughters
II. The Early Life of Theodora
III. The Empress Theodora
IV. Sophia
V. Martina
VI. The most pious Irene
VII. Saint Theodora
VIII. The Wives of Leo the Philosopher
IX. The Tavern-keeper’s Daughter
X. Two Imperial Sisters
XI. Eudocia
XII. Irene and Anna Comnena
XIII. A Breath of Chivalry
XIV. Euphrosyne Ducæena
XV. The New Constantinople
XVI. Irene of Montferrat
XVII. Maria of Armenia
XVIII. Anna of Savoy
XIX. The Last Byzantine Empresses

Also available:
Livia Drusilla and the Empresses of Rome by Joseph McCabe
Format
Paperback
Release
June 11, 2021
ISBN 13
9798518580329

The Empresses of Constantinople: Verina – Empress Theodora – Sophia – Martina – Irene - Saint Theodora – Zoe - Eudocia - Irene - Anna Comnena - ... of Savoy - The Last Byzantine Empresses …

William Mann
0/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
Few Courts in the world have, in their thousand years of history, witnessed so much adventure, intrigue, comedy and tragedy, as that of the Byzantine Empresses. From all quarters of the Empire, in the most varied ways, all sorts of women, from princesses to village girls, tavern girls or circus girls, make their way to the bronze-roofed palace and wear for a season the prodigious jewels and the glittering robes of an Empress of Constantinople; and, as there is no law or method of succession to the throne, the rise and fall of Emperors and Empresses gives a dramatic movement to the story. The notion that the eastern Empresses are enwrapped in a rigid piety and formalism, as they are in their stiff tunics of gold-cloth, is a ludicrous mistake. Their piety is usually external and superficial, and often they make not the least pretence of it; while, even when it is obviously sincere, it is associated with a skill in casuistry which allows a free play of their ambitions, their passions, and even their criminal impulses. Indeed, it is only fair to say at the outset that if a reader passes from the gallery of the “pagan” Empresses into that of the Empresses of Constantinople in the hope of encountering more restful, more virtuous and more domestic types of womanhood, he will be grievously disappointed. We may not find a Messalina among them, but irregularity of life is more evenly distributed than among the Roman Empresses, ambition and intrigue are far more cultivated, and there is a strain of barbaric cruelty running through the greater part of the story which it would have been more pleasant, had it been consistent with truthfulness, to omit. But the biographer should not be a moralist. My simple purpose is to depict, as far as it is possible, the very varied types of womanhood which come into “the fierce light that beats about a throne” in that strange world where Greek and Roman and Syrian blood blend to produce a new character.
In my “Empresses of Rome,” which includes all Empresses down to the fall of Rome, I necessarily included the early Empresses of the eastern series, when east and west were branches of one dominion. It is therefore not necessary to repeat the story of the beautiful and languid Eudoxia, the daughter of a Frankish chief whom a palace intrigue raised to the purple, and who is one of the butts of St Chrysostom’s fiery sermons; nor of Eudocia, the Athenian girl who set out to find her father’s money and obtained a kingdom, who wrote poems in her native tongue and at last passed from the Court under a cloud of suspicion; nor of Pulcheria, the virgin-sister of Theodosius and rival of Eudocia, who ruled the Empire for her brother and, after his death, took to herself a nominal husband and, with Marcian, was governing the Eastern world at the time of the fall of Rome. I have adequately described her in the preceding volume, and the present story opens at her death in the year 453.
[ from the PREFACE]

CONTENTS

I. Verina and her Daughters
II. The Early Life of Theodora
III. The Empress Theodora
IV. Sophia
V. Martina
VI. The most pious Irene
VII. Saint Theodora
VIII. The Wives of Leo the Philosopher
IX. The Tavern-keeper’s Daughter
X. Two Imperial Sisters
XI. Eudocia
XII. Irene and Anna Comnena
XIII. A Breath of Chivalry
XIV. Euphrosyne Ducæena
XV. The New Constantinople
XVI. Irene of Montferrat
XVII. Maria of Armenia
XVIII. Anna of Savoy
XIX. The Last Byzantine Empresses

Also available:
Livia Drusilla and the Empresses of Rome by Joseph McCabe
Format
Paperback
Release
June 11, 2021
ISBN 13
9798518580329

More books from William Mann

Project Interrupted: Lectures by British Housing Architects

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Krzysztof Penderecki: His Life and Work

3.2/5 ( ratings)

Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail: with Especial Reference to the Hypothesis of its Celtic Origin / Conte del Graal / Gawain Diu Crône / Joseph ... / Sir Perceval / Mabinogi of Peredur (A4)

4/5 ( ratings)

Thin Slivers of Light

4/5 ( ratings)

Richard Strauss

4/5 ( ratings)

Characters and Events from Roman History (from Caesar to Nero): The History and Legend of Antony and Cleopatra / Corruption in Ancient Rome / Social ... / Julia and Tiberius / Emperor Nero ...

4/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?

loader