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Porphyrogenita - born in the purple. It was a rare honour, bestowed only on those who were born to a ruling Roman emperor. In the Great Palace of Constantinople, there was a special room where only empresses gave birth. The walls were lined with the rare stone porphyry, quarried in Egypt centuries earlier. Overlooking the sparkling Sea of Marmara, the room was known as the Porphyry Chamber, and anyone born here was permanently imbued with the ability to transmit power in the Byzantine Empire. If it was a son, he was known forevermore as Porphyrognnetos, and a daughter was Porphyrogenita. Women who were born in the purple could technically rule in their own right, but it was considered improper - their real purpose was to serve as wives who could legitimize the imperial ambitions of Byzantine noblemen. But two sisters would push the role of Porphyrogenita to a limit no one had pushed it to before.

Three daughters were born to Constantine VIII, who ruled as co-emperor with his brother Basil II. Known as the Bulgar-Slayer, Basil took the leading role in Byzantium's military campaigns. Constantine, who chroniclers considered to be a man swayed primarily by the sensual pleasures of life, took a back seat and was entrusted with overseeing the education of his daughters. The eldest daughter, Eudokia, suffered from smallpox in childhood. The disease scarred her face forever, and when she came of age, she begged her father to let her become a nun. He granted her wish, but her two younger sisters, Zoë and Theodora, remained behind in the palace. Zoë was considered the more beautiful of the two, with her plump curves, almost-aquiline nose, pale skin, and golden hair like her father's. Theodora, on the other hand, inherited Constantine's extraordinary height, but she was skinnier and plainer than her sister. Those who knew them said that Zoë was quicker to understand, while Theodora was quicker to speak and quicker to smile, generally being of a more cheerful disposition than her sister.

Each sister was considered rather odd in her own way. Zoë hated jewellery and heavy brocaded dresses, and she eschewed traditional women's activities such as weaving and embroidery. Her passion? Cosmetics. Much as her father spent his free time concocting recipes for new sauces in foods, Zoë set up an entire laboratory in her quarters where she experimented with new types of perfumes and makeup. Working with the most expensive spices and perfumes imported from India and Egypt, she employed several female servants to help her improve her recipes. Some of these perfumes and ointments she gave as offerings to an icon of Christ she cherished, and which she claimed could predict the future when it changed colour. Others she used for herself, whitening her skin and keeping it looking youthful well into her old age. She was also extremely generous with imperial funds, distributing them liberally with lavish gifts. Theodora, on the other hand, was a miser. She was loathe to spend money but loved to collect coins, commissioning special ivory boxes to house them. Both she and her sister cared little for the outdoors and preferred to stay inside, each absorbed with her own hobby.

And stay inside they did, for many decades. For as long as their uncle Basil lived, neither Zoë nor Theodora ever married. Basil, who had no children of his own, feared that betrothing one of his nieces to a Byzantine nobleman would create a new enemy who would seek to kill him and usurp his throne. After all, anyone who married either of the sisters would gain a strong imperial claim, since Zoë and Theodora were born in the purple. On the other hand, foreign princes considered Zoë and Theodora to be two of the most eligible bachelorettes in the known world. As the surviving half of the great Roman Empire, Byzantium was prized as a diplomatic ally and a paragon of culture. Byzantine brides could bestow a sense of legitimacy on their husbands, such as the noblewoman Theophanu had done when she married Otto II, enhancing his domestic claims to the title Holy Roman Emperor and ultimately ruling as regent for their son. Zoë and Theodora's aunt Anna had married the Russian potentate Vladimir, Christianizing an entire kingdom in her wake.

In the years leading up to 1000, then, Zoë and Theodora were the subject of various attempts at arranged marriages. The most successful came from the Ottonians, as the young Otto III was looking for a wife. His own mother, after all, had been a formidable Byzantine woman. But Theophanu was not born in the purple, so for his own partner, he set his sights even higher. His representatives had been coming to the court at Constantinople on and off throughout the 990s, negotiating with Basil and Constantine for the hand of one of the sisters. In the year 1000, then, the two sisters were anticipating a dramatic change in their life circumstances. Would one of them cross the lengths of Europe to perpetuate the Ottonian dynasty, leaving the women's quarters of the palace forever? Alas, it was not meant to be. In 1002, Zoë was chosen as the bride of Otto III on account of her incredible beauty. She boarded a ship and sailed with her attendants to Bari in Italy where she was meant to meet her future husband. But Otto died suddenly of a fever, aged only twenty-one. When Zoë reached Italy, she was informed of his untimely death, and so she returned home to Constantinople.

Nearly thirty more years would pass until Zoë got the chance to marry again. She and Theodora remained in the gynaeceum, or the women's quarters of the palace. It was widely known that after being cooped up together for so long, the two sisters had grown to resent each other. In spite of being considered the more beautiful of the two, Zoë was intensely jealous of Theodora. This rivalry only worsened after the death of their uncle Basil. Constantine too was dying, and he hurried to arrange for a successor. Theodora was singled out as the preferred heir, since at age 48, she perhaps had a small chance of conceiving a child. However, Theodora objected to her father's choice of husband. Romanos Argyros was sixty years old, but the bigger problem was that he was already married. Constantine called his wife into the palace and threatened that if she didn't become a nun, he would have her husband blinded. Fearing for her beloved husband, she obliged, but Theodora didn't consider the divorce valid because the woman had been coerced. Zoë, on the other hand, had no such qualms, so at the age of 50, she married Romanos and became Empress.

At first, Zoë and Romanos tried everything to get pregnant. He submitted himself to medicinal massages, and Zoë festooned herself in amulets and tried out increasingly unorthodox treatments. But menopause was a cruel mistress. When it became clear that their efforts were in vain, Romanos began to avoid his wife entirely. He confined her to the gynaeceum and cut off her access to the imperial treasury. Meanwhile, he granted favourable titles to Theodora, which Zoë could not tolerate. After rumours circulated that Theodora was plotting against her, Zoë had her exiled to a monastery. Theodora was forced to take the tonsure and live as a nun, estranged from the imperial palace. Finally, Zoë was rid of her hated sister, but still she was plagued with troubles as her husband continued to humiliate her by locking her up in her quarters.

So Zoë turned her sights to a new man. Michael the Paphlagonian was only in his early 20s when he caught the aging empress's eye. His brother John the Orphanotrophos was Romanos's chief court eunuch, and he brought his brother up from life as a lowly money-changer to one in the orbit of the imperial family. When Zoë saw Michael, she was enamoured by his beauty and soon came up with excuses to run into him. When it became clear that her intention was to seduce him, Michael was canny. While it's said that he was not attracted to Zoë at all, he played along with her attentions as he knew she was his ticket to true power. Soon people were walking in on the two of them all over the palace, Michael embarrassed to be discovered while Zoë bragged about how many times she'd had him. Once the two were even discovered on the throne, where Zoë was sitting on Michael's lap, dressing him in her husband's imperial regalia, and proclaiming that she would make an emperor of him.

Zoë made good on that promise. Soon, everyone noticed that Romanos had started to take ill. He slowly deteriorated, almost as if he were being poisoned... and his wife knew how to make poisons in her laboratory. Eventually, the sickly king was drowned in his bath. Zoë married Michael the same night, issuing an imperial summons to the Patriarch. When the Patriarch arrived to find Michael on the throne instead of Romanos, only a steep bribe convinced him to perform the marriage and proclaim Michael emperor. Thus, Zoë Porphyrogenita brought a second man into the imperial family, but he too would soon turn on her. Fearing that Zoë would do to him what she did to Romanos, Michael too cast Zoë to the side and restricted her activities. His brother John took over the bulk of the imperial administration while Michael travelled the kingdom, desperately seeking a cure for his epilepsy. John kept Zoë under strict watch, dismissing all of her servants and replacing them with women from his own family. Zoë couldn't so much go to the royal bathhouse without getting John's permission. Naturally, Zoë resented him for this, and she convinced a doctor to poison John. The plot was discovered, however, and Zoë was kept on an even shorter leash. As Michael's illness worsened, John persuaded Zoë to adopt his nephew, also called Michael, as her heir. When Michael lay dying, Zoë threw off John's guards and crossed the city on foot to see him one last time, but he refused to see her. He died, and his nephew became Emperor Michael V, with Zoë continuing in the role as co-regent.

Like his predecessors, Michael was hardly inclined to treat Zoë well, but he went a step further. Disregarding the warnings of the court astrologers, who foretold disaster if he tried to eject Zoë from the palace, Michael invented charges and conspiracy against Zoë. Condemning her before the Senate, he had his men seize her and forced her to become a nun. He ordered them to tonsure her, and as proof, he wanted them to bring him back her shorn tresses of long blonde hair. As she boarded the ship to take her out to the island monastery, however, it's said she made the following tearful speech:

It was you, my uncle and emperor, you who wrapped me in my swaddling clothes as soon as I was born, you who loved me, and honoured me too, more than my sisters, because, as I have often heard them say who saw you, I was like yourself. It was you who said, as you kissed me and held me in your arms, "Good luck, my darling, and may you live many years, to be the glory of our family and the most marvellous gift to our Empire!" It was you, also, who so carefully brought me up and trained me, you who saw in my hands a great future for this same Empire. But your hopes have been brought to nothing, for I have been dishonoured. I have disgraced all my family, condemned on most horrible charges and expelled from the palace, driven away to I know not what place of exile, convicted of crime. For all I know, they may throw me a prey to wild beasts, or drown me in the sea. I beg you, watch over me from Heaven and with all your strength protect your niece!

Far from an innocent display of emotion, Zoë's speech had a clear political motive. Try as he might to remove her, Zoë was forever Porphyrogenita, the apple of her uncle Basil's eye and embodiment of the centuries-old Macedonian dynasty. Her appeal to protection of her person as a representative of the imperial line was, as it turns out, a warning. For when word spread around Constantinople that Zoë had been exiled, anger bubbled up among the people. An angry mob began to form outside the palace, and most prominent among them were the women of Constantinople. Streaming out from the women's quarters of the city, they shouted, "Where can she be? She who alone is noble of heart and alone is beautiful. Where can she be, she who alone of all women is free, the mistress of all the imperial family, the rightful heir to the Empire, whose father was emperor, whose grandfather was monarch before him? How was it this low-born fellow dared to raise a hand against a woman of such lineage?" They screamed for their "mother Zoë" to be returned to them. Armed with only common household appliances, they led the mob to the palace, where women and children alike began to tear down the luxurious houses of Michael's family. They were joined by others, such as the Varangian guards, who wielded their axes on Zoë's behalf. Michael was unmoved, and the palace reacted with deadly force: Over 3,000 people are thought to have died.

Still, the crowd did not relent, so Michael summoned Zoë back from the monastery. He told her that she could live in the palace if she continued to live as a nun, and perhaps frightened of his wrath, Zoë complied. He brought her out on a balcony dressed in the drab black robes on a nun. Far from being pacified, the people became only more incensed, demanding to see her restored to her imperial glory. Within the palace, Michael's enemies felt the pressure of the situation. Concerned that Zoë would give in to Michael, they turned to their only other option. For Michael, young and foolhardy as he was, had made one fatal oversight: He did not know that on an island monastery in the Sea of Marmara, another Porphyrogenita still lived.

Theodora had been living as a nun for over ten years, mostly untroubled by the highs and lows of palace politics. So it was with utter shock that she regarded the armed force that came to collect her in 1042. She refused to come out to meet them and took refuge inside the church. With daggers drawn, however, men stormed the sanctuary and dragged her outside. There, they forced her out of her nun's habit and into imperial robes and hoisted her onto a horse. They paraded her back into Constantinople and took up residence in the mighty church of Hagia Sophia, where they crowned her Empress of the Roman Empire. One can only imagine the shellshock that Theodora felt as she was surrounded by the glittering mosaics and triumphant cries of the mob after such a violent expulsion from her home of ten years. But it's said that she herself then commanded the troops who retook the city and captured Michael V.

With one empress ruling in the palace and one in the basilica, the various court factions waited with baited breath to see if Zoë would accept her sister as co-regent. Theodora left Hagia Sophia and went to the palace, where her sister came down to greet her. Much to everyone's surprise, Zoë embraced her sister and welcomed her as co-empress. Fearing that it was a ploy, and that Zoë's hatred of her sister would overpower her judgement and make her side again with Michael, Theodora ordered that Michael be blinded and exiled to a monastery. Zoë, for her part, accepted this, and allowed Theodora to rule alongside her.

And so for several months in the year 1042, something happened that was unprecedented in the long history of the Roman Empire: Two sisters ruled it together. The two sisters issued coinage and commissioned art which showed them ruling together. Some of this art was downright provocative, such as the image of Zoë in the place of the Virgin Mary at the Annuniciation - still, perhaps, invoking the imagery of miraculous fertility at the age of 64. Zoë and Theodora ruled jointly on all matters of justice and imperial administration, though Theodora's throne was situated slightly behind her sister's to show due deference. While they let their advisors speak for them at times, on certain matters they would issue their own opinions in soft voices, possibly trying to maintain an appropriately demure image of femininity while ruling the empire with absolute power.

Remarkable as their joint rule was, Zoë could only tolerate it for a few months before she sought to get rid of Theodora's influence by marrying a third time. Her preferred candidate was a former lover of hers from the days of Romanos, but when his wife learned that the empress was considering marrying him, she poisoned him so that he would never love another. So instead, Zoë chose a man called Constantine Monomachos. Constantine had been exiled for conspiring against her second husband, but that was all water under the bridge now as he married Zoë and became Constantine IX. There was only one catch: He wanted his mistress to come too. Maria Skleraina had been his companion in exile, and he refused to come to the palace if she couldn't come with him. Zoë obliged, even as Constantine's demands for Maria's recognition reached greater and greater heights. He had the Senate convened with Zoë on one side and Maria on the other, demanding that the government recognise Maria as "Augusta", a title normally only reserved for empresses. While the senators blushed and muttered amongst themselves, they ultimately granted his wish: And while they all looked nervously to Zoë to see how she'd react, she only smiled enigmatically. Maria, for her part, kept the empresses on side by gifting them with sweet herbs and rare coins to satisfy each of their collections. Even when the crowds of Constantinople got riled up after seeing Maria accompany Zoë, Theodora, and the emperor to the theatre, shouting that they didn't want Maria killing and replacing their empress, Zoë and Theodora appeared to pacify the rioters.

Had they softened in their old age? One interesting anecdote about their life in the palace during the time of Constantine Monomachos shows that in spite of all the plots against each other over the years, the sisters could still share a sense of humour. Constantine favoured a buffoon called Romans Boilas. Michael Psellus, a historian of the period who was himself working in the court at the time, writes with distaste about how Boilas entertained the empresses. Allowed access into the gynaeceum, as court jesters and mimes usually were, he regaled the empresses with a rather bawdy tale. He was, he insisted, the son of Empress Zoë, born of her aging womb. But that wasn't all - he knew that Theodora too had given birth, and he reenacted her geriatric childbirth in graphic detail. The empresses roared with laughter and indulged Romans in his every whim, much to Michael Psellus's disapproval. These two elderly and childless women, the last of the Macedonian dynasty, had experienced so much turmoil over the question of succession. But in their old age, perhaps it was cathartic to laugh at the ridiculousness of a jester acting out the childbirths they had never gotten to experience.

Towards the end of her life, Zoë's behaviour started to change in other ways. She became rather erratic, ordering that people at court be blinded for arbitrary reasons - only Constantine's intervention could stop her orders from being carried out. She amused herself by expecting that men who came into her presence act as if they'd been struck by lightning because of her beauty. If they acted it out well, she'd reward them with gold chains, but if she thought they over-hammed the performance, the chains were made of iron. She continued to advise her husband on political matters, although it's said he preferred the counsel of his beloved Maria until her early death. At the end of her life, Zoë lost all appetite and developed a tremour. Some historians think that the poisonous leads and other toxins of her cosmetic collection may have contributed to her illness. Whatever the cause, Zoë finally passed away in 1050 at the age of 72. Thrice married and responsible for the death of at least one of her husbands, she had certainly lived an eventful life. Although those who knew her personally had wildly different opinions on her, she remained beloved by the people, who gathered to worship under the mosaic she'd commissioned of herself in Hagia Sophia. (Though, true to form, she'd had the face of her first husband on the mural replaced by the face of her third, and updated her own portrayal to look perpetually youthful while she was at it.)

Constantine ruled without her for a few years, but his health too began to fail. When word got out that he was looking to appoint a successor, Theodora came out of retirement for a final time. Against Constantine's own wishes, she asserted herself as empress, and he died powerless to stop her. She had, after all, already been crowned empress in 1042, and in her opinion, she had never stopped being empress since. And who could argue with Theodora III, Porphyrogenita, the last of the Macedonians? Although she was in her seventies, it's said her back was not bent and she still stood as tall as she always had. She dedicated herself to working long hours on behalf of the empire. She replaced Constantine's courtiers with her own eunuchs, and she administered the empire with considerably more fiscal prudence than her sister had. The draining of the imperial coffers had been a problem ever since the reign of her father, and so she tightened the palace purse strings. This caused some grumbling among the nobles who expected to be given the customary gifts upon the accession of a new emperor, but Theodora stubbornly maintained that she'd been empress for 13 years already so there was no need for the usual pomp and ceremony.

While Theodora had her long-standing allies at court, she was not universally loved. Plots against her had to be put down, though none of these ever amounted to anything as serious as that of Michael V. But her greatest enemy was perhaps the Patriarch Michael Cerularius. When Theodora appointed a senior member of the clergy, as was the emperor's prerogative, the Patriarch protested that it was completely inappropriate for a woman to do so. The empress, he insisted, should marry, no matter that she was 76 years old, so that a man could rule the empire once again and order would be restored. Theodora had little patience for this argument, and it's thought that if her health hadn't started to fail, she might have exercised a little more of her imperial prerogative by removing him from his post.

Michael Psellus writes that the empress often sought his own opinion on matters of state much as Constantine had, and though she acted with a "tenacity of purpose" once she had set her mind to something, she often doubted her own opinions and sought the validation of others. Overall, he thought that Theodora's sole rule was much more effective than when Zoë had led their joint tenure, but Psellus had one major criticism. The empress, he said, allowed her sycophants to convince her that she would live forever. Taken in by their flattery, she made no provisions for the succession until her deathbed. But was Theodora really delusional that she would never die? Or was she, like her uncle Basil before her, afraid to invest power in a young man while she still reigned? After all, she had seen what husband after husband had done to her sister Zoë, culminating in the revolt of her adopted son. Rather than marry or adopt, then, Theodora put off the matter of succession as long as possible. Once she was bedridden with a terminal illness, her courtiers chose the civil servant Michael Bringas as her successor, reasoning that he would be easy for them to control. Theodora could no longer speak, but it's said that she nodded her assent. With that, Theodora died, and the Macedonian dynasty died with her.

What to make of the legacy of Zoë and Theodora? Men died and were blinded on their orders and on their behalf, leaving a bloody trail behind the two sisters. Such was the case, however, for many emperors as well, making the women hardly unique. To wield power in the Roman Empire was a dangerous game, and they played it well. Unlike many women of the period who came into power through marrying royal men, power was their birthright, and to some extent it was theirs to give and take away as they chose. Many men sought to control them, from John the Orphanotrophos to Zoë's many husbands. But they could make their own fortunes too, whether it was Zoë poisoning her unloving and controlling husband, or Theodora striding in to clutch power from the dying Constantine's hands. The portrait of their personalities that emerges from Michael Psellus's account makes them hard to pin into boxes: In some ways he portrays them as typically feminine, particularly when he tries to discredit their attempts to rule in their own right by saying that they confused the trifles of the gynaeceum with the business of the empire. But at the same time that Zoë lusts after beautiful men, she also refuses to sit at a loom or wear heavy dresses and jewellery. She is extremely pious, but some of her devotions border on the unorthodox. Theodora, too, is idiosyncratic, refusing to marry when it went against her morals, and ruling as a man would at the end of her life. What emerges is a portrait of two women who could manipulate the expectations put upon them by their gender and their status when they wanted to, but were not bound by those expectations either. For better or for worse, hating each other much of the way, Zoë and Theodora left their mark forever on the history of the Roman Empire.

Okay, this was a long one, but how could it NOT be? Zoë and Theodora are two marvellous characters to write about. I love how much they emerge from the histories as individuals, each with her own merits, flaws, personality and hobbies. My world has been pretty consumed by reading about them and thinking about them the past two weeks. As many people have said to me recently, how has their story not been adapted for a period drama yet?! The Byzantines certainly earn their reputation for courtly scheming and drama when you read about these two. It's great to finally cover the Byzantine Empire in my project, and what a pair of women to do it with!

The colours got a little psychedelic in this one, but hey, the Middle Ages was a colourful time! Thanks to everyone who has supported me while working on this illustration. My health wasn't great during a lot of the time spent researching this picture, so it was a very welcome distraction. I used this reference picture which was very helpful. Drawing this one was definitely a challenge, but I hope you have enjoyed learning about the remarkable lives of Zoë and Theodora Porphyrogenita.

Learn more on the website: womenof1000ad.weebly.com/zoeum…

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High Priestess Senshi

Sophia and Adelheid

Kokannon

Duong Van Nga and Le Thi Phat Ngan

Dobira

Thorgunna

The Deaconess of Lucca
Karima al-Marwaziyya

Sembiyan Mahādevi and Kundavai Pirāttiyār

The Parishioner of North Elmham

Description
Porphyrogenita - born in the purple. It was a rare honour, bestowed only on those who were born to a ruling Roman emperor. In the Great Palace of Constantinople, there was a special room where only empresses gave birth. The walls were lined with the rare stone porphyry, quarried in Egypt centuries earlier. Overlooking the sparkling Sea of Marmara, the room was known as the Porphyry Chamber, and anyone born here was permanently imbued with the ability to transmit power in the Byzantine Empire. If it was a son, he was known forevermore as Porphyrognnetos, and a daughter was Porphyrogenita. Women who were born in the purple could technically rule in their own right, but it was considered improper - their real purpose was to serve as wives who could legitimize the imperial ambitions of Byzantine noblemen. But two sisters would push the role of Porphyrogenita to a limit no one had pushed it to before.

Three daughters were born to Constantine VIII, who ruled as co-emperor with his brother Basil II. Known as the Bulgar-Slayer, Basil took the leading role in Byzantium's military campaigns. Constantine, who chroniclers considered to be a man swayed primarily by the sensual pleasures of life, took a back seat and was entrusted with overseeing the education of his daughters. The eldest daughter, Eudokia, suffered from smallpox in childhood. The disease scarred her face forever, and when she came of age, she begged her father to let her become a nun. He granted her wish, but her two younger sisters, Zoë and Theodora, remained behind in the palace. Zoë was considered the more beautiful of the two, with her plump curves, almost-aquiline nose, pale skin, and golden hair like her father's. Theodora, on the other hand, inherited Constantine's extraordinary height, but she was skinnier and plainer than her sister. Those who knew them said that Zoë was quicker to understand, while Theodora was quicker to speak and quicker to smile, generally being of a more cheerful disposition than her sister.

Each sister was considered rather odd in her own way. Zoë hated jewellery and heavy brocaded dresses, and she eschewed traditional women's activities such as weaving and embroidery. Her passion? Cosmetics. Much as her father spent his free time concocting recipes for new sauces in foods, Zoë set up an entire laboratory in her quarters where she experimented with new types of perfumes and makeup. Working with the most expensive spices and perfumes imported from India and Egypt, she employed several female servants to help her improve her recipes. Some of these perfumes and ointments she gave as offerings to an icon of Christ she cherished, and which she claimed could predict the future when it changed colour. Others she used for herself, whitening her skin and keeping it looking youthful well into her old age. She was also extremely generous with imperial funds, distributing them liberally with lavish gifts. Theodora, on the other hand, was a miser. She was loathe to spend money but loved to collect coins, commissioning special ivory boxes to house them. Both she and her sister cared little for the outdoors and preferred to stay inside, each absorbed with her own hobby.

And stay inside they did, for many decades. For as long as their uncle Basil lived, neither Zoë nor Theodora ever married. Basil, who had no children of his own, feared that betrothing one of his nieces to a Byzantine nobleman would create a new enemy who would seek to kill him and usurp his throne. After all, anyone who married either of the sisters would gain a strong imperial claim, since Zoë and Theodora were born in the purple. On the other hand, foreign princes considered Zoë and Theodora to be two of the most eligible bachelorettes in the known world. As the surviving half of the great Roman Empire, Byzantium was prized as a diplomatic ally and a paragon of culture. Byzantine brides could bestow a sense of legitimacy on their husbands, such as the noblewoman Theophanu had done when she married Otto II, enhancing his domestic claims to the title Holy Roman Emperor and ultimately ruling as regent for their son. Zoë and Theodora's aunt Anna had married the Russian potentate Vladimir, Christianizing an entire kingdom in her wake.

In the years leading up to 1000, then, Zoë and Theodora were the subject of various attempts at arranged marriages. The most successful came from the Ottonians, as the young Otto III was looking for a wife. His own mother, after all, had been a formidable Byzantine woman. But Theophanu was not born in the purple, so for his own partner, he set his sights even higher. His representatives had been coming to the court at Constantinople on and off throughout the 990s, negotiating with Basil and Constantine for the hand of one of the sisters. In the year 1000, then, the two sisters were anticipating a dramatic change in their life circumstances. Would one of them cross the lengths of Europe to perpetuate the Ottonian dynasty, leaving the women's quarters of the palace forever? Alas, it was not meant to be. In 1002, Zoë was chosen as the bride of Otto III on account of her incredible beauty. She boarded a ship and sailed with her attendants to Bari in Italy where she was meant to meet her future husband. But Otto died suddenly of a fever, aged only twenty-one. When Zoë reached Italy, she was informed of his untimely death, and so she returned home to Constantinople.

Nearly thirty more years would pass until Zoë got the chance to marry again. She and Theodora remained in the gynaeceum, or the women's quarters of the palace. It was widely known that after being cooped up together for so long, the two sisters had grown to resent each other. In spite of being considered the more beautiful of the two, Zoë was intensely jealous of Theodora. This rivalry only worsened after the death of their uncle Basil. Constantine too was dying, and he hurried to arrange for a successor. Theodora was singled out as the preferred heir, since at age 48, she perhaps had a small chance of conceiving a child. However, Theodora objected to her father's choice of husband. Romanos Argyros was sixty years old, but the bigger problem was that he was already married. Constantine called his wife into the palace and threatened that if she didn't become a nun, he would have her husband blinded. Fearing for her beloved husband, she obliged, but Theodora didn't consider the divorce valid because the woman had been coerced. Zoë, on the other hand, had no such qualms, so at the age of 50, she married Romanos and became Empress.

At first, Zoë and Romanos tried everything to get pregnant. He submitted himself to medicinal massages, and Zoë festooned herself in amulets and tried out increasingly unorthodox treatments. But menopause was a cruel mistress. When it became clear that their efforts were in vain, Romanos began to avoid his wife entirely. He confined her to the gynaeceum and cut off her access to the imperial treasury. Meanwhile, he granted favourable titles to Theodora, which Zoë could not tolerate. After rumours circulated that Theodora was plotting against her, Zoë had her exiled to a monastery. Theodora was forced to take the tonsure and live as a nun, estranged from the imperial palace. Finally, Zoë was rid of her hated sister, but still she was plagued with troubles as her husband continued to humiliate her by locking her up in her quarters.

So Zoë turned her sights to a new man. Michael the Paphlagonian was only in his early 20s when he caught the aging empress's eye. His brother John the Orphanotrophos was Romanos's chief court eunuch, and he brought his brother up from life as a lowly money-changer to one in the orbit of the imperial family. When Zoë saw Michael, she was enamoured by his beauty and soon came up with excuses to run into him. When it became clear that her intention was to seduce him, Michael was canny. While it's said that he was not attracted to Zoë at all, he played along with her attentions as he knew she was his ticket to true power. Soon people were walking in on the two of them all over the palace, Michael embarrassed to be discovered while Zoë bragged about how many times she'd had him. Once the two were even discovered on the throne, where Zoë was sitting on Michael's lap, dressing him in her husband's imperial regalia, and proclaiming that she would make an emperor of him.

Zoë made good on that promise. Soon, everyone noticed that Romanos had started to take ill. He slowly deteriorated, almost as if he were being poisoned... and his wife knew how to make poisons in her laboratory. Eventually, the sickly king was drowned in his bath. Zoë married Michael the same night, issuing an imperial summons to the Patriarch. When the Patriarch arrived to find Michael on the throne instead of Romanos, only a steep bribe convinced him to perform the marriage and proclaim Michael emperor. Thus, Zoë Porphyrogenita brought a second man into the imperial family, but he too would soon turn on her. Fearing that Zoë would do to him what she did to Romanos, Michael too cast Zoë to the side and restricted her activities. His brother John took over the bulk of the imperial administration while Michael travelled the kingdom, desperately seeking a cure for his epilepsy. John kept Zoë under strict watch, dismissing all of her servants and replacing them with women from his own family. Zoë couldn't so much go to the royal bathhouse without getting John's permission. Naturally, Zoë resented him for this, and she convinced a doctor to poison John. The plot was discovered, however, and Zoë was kept on an even shorter leash. As Michael's illness worsened, John persuaded Zoë to adopt his nephew, also called Michael, as her heir. When Michael lay dying, Zoë threw off John's guards and crossed the city on foot to see him one last time, but he refused to see her. He died, and his nephew became Emperor Michael V, with Zoë continuing in the role as co-regent.

Like his predecessors, Michael was hardly inclined to treat Zoë well, but he went a step further. Disregarding the warnings of the court astrologers, who foretold disaster if he tried to eject Zoë from the palace, Michael invented charges and conspiracy against Zoë. Condemning her before the Senate, he had his men seize her and forced her to become a nun. He ordered them to tonsure her, and as proof, he wanted them to bring him back her shorn tresses of long blonde hair. As she boarded the ship to take her out to the island monastery, however, it's said she made the following tearful speech:

It was you, my uncle and emperor, you who wrapped me in my swaddling clothes as soon as I was born, you who loved me, and honoured me too, more than my sisters, because, as I have often heard them say who saw you, I was like yourself. It was you who said, as you kissed me and held me in your arms, "Good luck, my darling, and may you live many years, to be the glory of our family and the most marvellous gift to our Empire!" It was you, also, who so carefully brought me up and trained me, you who saw in my hands a great future for this same Empire. But your hopes have been brought to nothing, for I have been dishonoured. I have disgraced all my family, condemned on most horrible charges and expelled from the palace, driven away to I know not what place of exile, convicted of crime. For all I know, they may throw me a prey to wild beasts, or drown me in the sea. I beg you, watch over me from Heaven and with all your strength protect your niece!

Far from an innocent display of emotion, Zoë's speech had a clear political motive. Try as he might to remove her, Zoë was forever Porphyrogenita, the apple of her uncle Basil's eye and embodiment of the centuries-old Macedonian dynasty. Her appeal to protection of her person as a representative of the imperial line was, as it turns out, a warning. For when word spread around Constantinople that Zoë had been exiled, anger bubbled up among the people. An angry mob began to form outside the palace, and most prominent among them were the women of Constantinople. Streaming out from the women's quarters of the city, they shouted, "Where can she be? She who alone is noble of heart and alone is beautiful. Where can she be, she who alone of all women is free, the mistress of all the imperial family, the rightful heir to the Empire, whose father was emperor, whose grandfather was monarch before him? How was it this low-born fellow dared to raise a hand against a woman of such lineage?" They screamed for their "mother Zoë" to be returned to them. Armed with only common household appliances, they led the mob to the palace, where women and children alike began to tear down the luxurious houses of Michael's family. They were joined by others, such as the Varangian guards, who wielded their axes on Zoë's behalf. Michael was unmoved, and the palace reacted with deadly force: Over 3,000 people are thought to have died.

Still, the crowd did not relent, so Michael summoned Zoë back from the monastery. He told her that she could live in the palace if she continued to live as a nun, and perhaps frightened of his wrath, Zoë complied. He brought her out on a balcony dressed in the drab black robes on a nun. Far from being pacified, the people became only more incensed, demanding to see her restored to her imperial glory. Within the palace, Michael's enemies felt the pressure of the situation. Concerned that Zoë would give in to Michael, they turned to their only other option. For Michael, young and foolhardy as he was, had made one fatal oversight: He did not know that on an island monastery in the Sea of Marmara, another Porphyrogenita still lived.

Theodora had been living as a nun for over ten years, mostly untroubled by the highs and lows of palace politics. So it was with utter shock that she regarded the armed force that came to collect her in 1042. She refused to come out to meet them and took refuge inside the church. With daggers drawn, however, men stormed the sanctuary and dragged her outside. There, they forced her out of her nun's habit and into imperial robes and hoisted her onto a horse. They paraded her back into Constantinople and took up residence in the mighty church of Hagia Sophia, where they crowned her Empress of the Roman Empire. One can only imagine the shellshock that Theodora felt as she was surrounded by the glittering mosaics and triumphant cries of the mob after such a violent expulsion from her home of ten years. But it's said that she herself then commanded the troops who retook the city and captured Michael V.

With one empress ruling in the palace and one in the basilica, the various court factions waited with baited breath to see if Zoë would accept her sister as co-regent. Theodora left Hagia Sophia and went to the palace, where her sister came down to greet her. Much to everyone's surprise, Zoë embraced her sister and welcomed her as co-empress. Fearing that it was a ploy, and that Zoë's hatred of her sister would overpower her judgement and make her side again with Michael, Theodora ordered that Michael be blinded and exiled to a monastery. Zoë, for her part, accepted this, and allowed Theodora to rule alongside her.

And so for several months in the year 1042, something happened that was unprecedented in the long history of the Roman Empire: Two sisters ruled it together. The two sisters issued coinage and commissioned art which showed them ruling together. Some of this art was downright provocative, such as the image of Zoë in the place of the Virgin Mary at the Annuniciation - still, perhaps, invoking the imagery of miraculous fertility at the age of 64. Zoë and Theodora ruled jointly on all matters of justice and imperial administration, though Theodora's throne was situated slightly behind her sister's to show due deference. While they let their advisors speak for them at times, on certain matters they would issue their own opinions in soft voices, possibly trying to maintain an appropriately demure image of femininity while ruling the empire with absolute power.

Remarkable as their joint rule was, Zoë could only tolerate it for a few months before she sought to get rid of Theodora's influence by marrying a third time. Her preferred candidate was a former lover of hers from the days of Romanos, but when his wife learned that the empress was considering marrying him, she poisoned him so that he would never love another. So instead, Zoë chose a man called Constantine Monomachos. Constantine had been exiled for conspiring against her second husband, but that was all water under the bridge now as he married Zoë and became Constantine IX. There was only one catch: He wanted his mistress to come too. Maria Skleraina had been his companion in exile, and he refused to come to the palace if she couldn't come with him. Zoë obliged, even as Constantine's demands for Maria's recognition reached greater and greater heights. He had the Senate convened with Zoë on one side and Maria on the other, demanding that the government recognise Maria as "Augusta", a title normally only reserved for empresses. While the senators blushed and muttered amongst themselves, they ultimately granted his wish: And while they all looked nervously to Zoë to see how she'd react, she only smiled enigmatically. Maria, for her part, kept the empresses on side by gifting them with sweet herbs and rare coins to satisfy each of their collections. Even when the crowds of Constantinople got riled up after seeing Maria accompany Zoë, Theodora, and the emperor to the theatre, shouting that they didn't want Maria killing and replacing their empress, Zoë and Theodora appeared to pacify the rioters.

Had they softened in their old age? One interesting anecdote about their life in the palace during the time of Constantine Monomachos shows that in spite of all the plots against each other over the years, the sisters could still share a sense of humour. Constantine favoured a buffoon called Romans Boilas. Michael Psellus, a historian of the period who was himself working in the court at the time, writes with distaste about how Boilas entertained the empresses. Allowed access into the gynaeceum, as court jesters and mimes usually were, he regaled the empresses with a rather bawdy tale. He was, he insisted, the son of Empress Zoë, born of her aging womb. But that wasn't all - he knew that Theodora too had given birth, and he reenacted her geriatric childbirth in graphic detail. The empresses roared with laughter and indulged Romans in his every whim, much to Michael Psellus's disapproval. These two elderly and childless women, the last of the Macedonian dynasty, had experienced so much turmoil over the question of succession. But in their old age, perhaps it was cathartic to laugh at the ridiculousness of a jester acting out the childbirths they had never gotten to experience.

Towards the end of her life, Zoë's behaviour started to change in other ways. She became rather erratic, ordering that people at court be blinded for arbitrary reasons - only Constantine's intervention could stop her orders from being carried out. She amused herself by expecting that men who came into her presence act as if they'd been struck by lightning because of her beauty. If they acted it out well, she'd reward them with gold chains, but if she thought they over-hammed the performance, the chains were made of iron. She continued to advise her husband on political matters, although it's said he preferred the counsel of his beloved Maria until her early death. At the end of her life, Zoë lost all appetite and developed a tremour. Some historians think that the poisonous leads and other toxins of her cosmetic collection may have contributed to her illness. Whatever the cause, Zoë finally passed away in 1050 at the age of 72. Thrice married and responsible for the death of at least one of her husbands, she had certainly lived an eventful life. Although those who knew her personally had wildly different opinions on her, she remained beloved by the people, who gathered to worship under the mosaic she'd commissioned of herself in Hagia Sophia. (Though, true to form, she'd had the face of her first husband on the mural replaced by the face of her third, and updated her own portrayal to look perpetually youthful while she was at it.)

Constantine ruled without her for a few years, but his health too began to fail. When word got out that he was looking to appoint a successor, Theodora came out of retirement for a final time. Against Constantine's own wishes, she asserted herself as empress, and he died powerless to stop her. She had, after all, already been crowned empress in 1042, and in her opinion, she had never stopped being empress since. And who could argue with Theodora III, Porphyrogenita, the last of the Macedonians? Although she was in her seventies, it's said her back was not bent and she still stood as tall as she always had. She dedicated herself to working long hours on behalf of the empire. She replaced Constantine's courtiers with her own eunuchs, and she administered the empire with considerably more fiscal prudence than her sister had. The draining of the imperial coffers had been a problem ever since the reign of her father, and so she tightened the palace purse strings. This caused some grumbling among the nobles who expected to be given the customary gifts upon the accession of a new emperor, but Theodora stubbornly maintained that she'd been empress for 13 years already so there was no need for the usual pomp and ceremony.

While Theodora had her long-standing allies at court, she was not universally loved. Plots against her had to be put down, though none of these ever amounted to anything as serious as that of Michael V. But her greatest enemy was perhaps the Patriarch Michael Cerularius. When Theodora appointed a senior member of the clergy, as was the emperor's prerogative, the Patriarch protested that it was completely inappropriate for a woman to do so. The empress, he insisted, should marry, no matter that she was 76 years old, so that a man could rule the empire once again and order would be restored. Theodora had little patience for this argument, and it's thought that if her health hadn't started to fail, she might have exercised a little more of her imperial prerogative by removing him from his post.

Michael Psellus writes that the empress often sought his own opinion on matters of state much as Constantine had, and though she acted with a "tenacity of purpose" once she had set her mind to something, she often doubted her own opinions and sought the validation of others. Overall, he thought that Theodora's sole rule was much more effective than when Zoë had led their joint tenure, but Psellus had one major criticism. The empress, he said, allowed her sycophants to convince her that she would live forever. Taken in by their flattery, she made no provisions for the succession until her deathbed. But was Theodora really delusional that she would never die? Or was she, like her uncle Basil before her, afraid to invest power in a young man while she still reigned? After all, she had seen what husband after husband had done to her sister Zoë, culminating in the revolt of her adopted son. Rather than marry or adopt, then, Theodora put off the matter of succession as long as possible. Once she was bedridden with a terminal illness, her courtiers chose the civil servant Michael Bringas as her successor, reasoning that he would be easy for them to control. Theodora could no longer speak, but it's said that she nodded her assent. With that, Theodora died, and the Macedonian dynasty died with her.

What to make of the legacy of Zoë and Theodora? Men died and were blinded on their orders and on their behalf, leaving a bloody trail behind the two sisters. Such was the case, however, for many emperors as well, making the women hardly unique. To wield power in the Roman Empire was a dangerous game, and they played it well. Unlike many women of the period who came into power through marrying royal men, power was their birthright, and to some extent it was theirs to give and take away as they chose. Many men sought to control them, from John the Orphanotrophos to Zoë's many husbands. But they could make their own fortunes too, whether it was Zoë poisoning her unloving and controlling husband, or Theodora striding in to clutch power from the dying Constantine's hands. The portrait of their personalities that emerges from Michael Psellus's account makes them hard to pin into boxes: In some ways he portrays them as typically feminine, particularly when he tries to discredit their attempts to rule in their own right by saying that they confused the trifles of the gynaeceum with the business of the empire. But at the same time that Zoë lusts after beautiful men, she also refuses to sit at a loom or wear heavy dresses and jewellery. She is extremely pious, but some of her devotions border on the unorthodox. Theodora, too, is idiosyncratic, refusing to marry when it went against her morals, and ruling as a man would at the end of her life. What emerges is a portrait of two women who could manipulate the expectations put upon them by their gender and their status when they wanted to, but were not bound by those expectations either. For better or for worse, hating each other much of the way, Zoë and Theodora left their mark forever on the history of the Roman Empire.

Okay, this was a long one, but how could it NOT be? Zoë and Theodora are two marvellous characters to write about. I love how much they emerge from the histories as individuals, each with her own merits, flaws, personality and hobbies. My world has been pretty consumed by reading about them and thinking about them the past two weeks. As many people have said to me recently, how has their story not been adapted for a period drama yet?! The Byzantines certainly earn their reputation for courtly scheming and drama when you read about these two. It's great to finally cover the Byzantine Empire in my project, and what a pair of women to do it with!

The colours got a little psychedelic in this one, but hey, the Middle Ages was a colourful time! Thanks to everyone who has supported me while working on this illustration. My health wasn't great during a lot of the time spent researching this picture, so it was a very welcome distraction. I used this reference picture which was very helpful. Drawing this one was definitely a challenge, but I hope you have enjoyed learning about the remarkable lives of Zoë and Theodora Porphyrogenita.

Learn more on the website: womenof1000ad.weebly.com/zoeum…

Others in the series include...

High Priestess Senshi

Sophia and Adelheid

Kokannon

Duong Van Nga and Le Thi Phat Ngan

Dobira

Thorgunna

The Deaconess of Lucca
Karima al-Marwaziyya

Sembiyan Mahādevi and Kundavai Pirāttiyār

The Parishioner of North Elmham