Penthesilea's Wish [Vol.1]

Chapter Twenty-three

(Constantinople, Early Roman Empire c.530 CE)

Theodora stood at the top terrace of her marble palace, looking over an empire that had in only a few years became at least partly hers. Many who were privileged to know Emperor Justinian I and his young wife knew that her stamina and single-mindedness had been at the core of his strong rule and the respect. It had brought stability to the vast Roman territories, carrying its power base recently to the city called Constantinople.

This shapely royal wife stood in her sumptuous purple silk, gold bracelets and rings glittering in the bright sun. A pageantry of chariots, armored soldiers, and wild animals paraded below her. Many had questioned Theodora's legitimacy to the throne, indeed her legitimacy at birth, as it was commonly believed her humble father, an animal keeper for the Coliseum in Rome and later this royal house, had foisted his daughter into the echelons where her physical beauty would eventually bring her unimaginable wealth and power.

It had even been rumored that her first public exposure, as a dancer at fifteen years of age, attracted the attentions of senators and praetorian generals who had vied to keep her as their concubine-all handsomely contracted and orchestrated by her ambitious mother. Theodora and her family had come from the eastern regions of Colchis, beyond the Black Sea, while some say it was Paphalagonia in Anatolia-both locales where many legends were born. It was fitting that she was seen as exotically imported from the same lands as the mythical gorgons. Media, and Medusa herself-both frightful female characters to the Greeks were thought to have haunted this region at the edge of the known world. In the tradition of such enchantresses, and monstrous personalities, Theodora had entered onto the stage of notoriety while still in her teens, and from then strategically elevated herself into a position capable of casting that spell upon the most powerful men in Constantinople.

After traveling in the company of a Roman general into North Africa, then leaving him to spend time in Alexandria, she returned at the age of twenty-two with the knowledge of certain esoteric maters which her intelligence and charm had assured her access to. This would become of great influence to history as she embarked for Constantinople as a beautiful and independent women, determined to put her ambition to the peak of its worth. And Theodora would eventually meet and charm the man who would soon become the Eastern Augustus of the Roman Empire, Justinian I.

Prior to acquiring the throne from his uncle, Emperor Justin I, Justinian had him repeal a law forbidding public officials from marrying actresses-an occupational title Theodora was maligned with at the time of her involvement with him. After this liberating decree they were married in 525 CE and by 527, with the death of the Emperor Justin I, Justinian and Theodora were crowned "Augustus and Augusta," elevating them to the position of supreme rulers of the Byzantine Empire.

Theodora bathed in the warmth and light of this power and some said all the while she steadily controlled and guided it from the hands of her husband into her own. Her strength of character and intelligence was instrumental in shoring up the resolve of Justinian when it waned and needed to make itself known to his fractious populous.

At times her own resolve stepped clearly into the light alone when critical decisions had to be executed for the good and survival of her husband's reign. It was, for instance, her bold stance against the public's 'Nike Revolt,' which had risen up in a civil demonstration at the Hippodrome. It was a massive demonstration, restive and violent, a formidable challenge capable of toppling Justinian's political legitimacy were it not handled quickly and decisively by his queen. For it was Theodora's resolve to hold the line on her husband's power that gained her apologists in history. Her orders were to not vacate the palace under seige, but instead to recapitulate with a full military assault against the insurrection. This show of resolve on her part was historically what saved the Empire from total collapse and chaos in 579 CE.

But it was also Theodora's personal involvement with the civil rights and privileges of the empire's masses-particularly women, which earned her respect and veneration among clearly one-half of the citizens. Though she had adopted Christianity, along with her husband in deference to the swelling spiritual current of the times, she had her own ideas about how prostitutes, actresses, dancers and women who were left destitute without a man should be treated by the state and by the public. She enacted laws for the purpose of all women's wellbeing in the aftermath of their husbands' death or abandonment-not only affecting the privileged class, but all females in the Eastern Roman Empire.

Having the luxury of private tutors, Theodora, took advantage of the acumen of the best and brightest historians, mathematicians, philosophers and poets of her times. It was only natural that she would become entranced by the writings and lecturers brought to her court elucidating upon, among other fascinating curiosities, the existence of a certain tribe of women whom she became introduced to while visiting Alexandria-the Amazons. And it was a handful of females who further enlightened her as to their ongoing secret cause. Through this she was charmed to learn that the original tribe of ancient women warriors was from the north and east of her own territories and coincidently possibly the origin of her own beginnings, some 1500 years before. What she learned was that these women had formed a clan of all females for the independent survival and respect of their gender.

Understanding that one of the great tragic legends of these heroines was played out somewhere within the vast region of her own present domain and control, she sought out to learn all there was to know of it. Her secret interest and personal quest for information about the Amazons and their sad demise at the Trojan War, somewhere on the Bosporus to the south, became a personal passion of Theodora's. Reading the accounts in the texts of the Amazon's defeat at the hands of the great Greek heroes, played out in her mind often, and particularly her identification with their own great leader, Penthesilea. For it was she whom Theodora had first heard of through the influence of Hypatia's secret sisterhood, the Αδεφες Αμασοnες-"Amazonian Sisterhood," and with whom she had secretly pledged to be instrumental. She was also told of the secret location of Penthesilea's remains, discovered by Artemis I, and where they were being housed beneath the floor of that queen's glorious Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.

Theodora, though supporting many edicts of Christianity for the good and well-being of her people, secretly believed it was somewhat divine that she should now be able to further advance the efforts of the society-the 'Adelphes Amazonas,' for whom she personally adopted as her own symbolic avatar, their queen, Penthesilea.

It would never be revealed to history that Theodora herself carried forth the clandestine energies of this Amazonian revival into an emerging world. For it was there where women would need even more assistance and protection. That it should be a society for the benefit of females, intended to continue and grow into the future, became Theodora's tiring aim. A royal extension of this came about through her own private wealth and power. It was a secret governing body known as the 'Consilium Reginae'-the "Compact of Queens," a secret society with a pact to champion the plight of all women in the present and future by their female rulers.

This silent edict was to remain in force for the next thousand years and under the strictest confidentiality of a chosen few women. Its power was confined to the distribution of royal bloodlines and appointed titles only. This very exclusive agreement was only shared among members of the female elite, regardless of the many kingdoms to rise and fall over time. It eventually spread slowly and carefully across various classes of society in certain influential communities. This all-woman society would next pass through austere oaths and secret participation, crossing quietly over various political, religious, and ethnical boundaries, once held sacred and unbreakable in kingdoms traditionally controlled by men.

The original 'Consilium Reginae,' laid down the will and potentials of a unique all-female movement from the top down. It was projected to govern the interests and policies concerning women everywhere while silently being directed by a few of the most powerful women rulers in history. The dynamic effects of their hidden efforts would only begin to be fully realized in the present time-the early decades of this third millennium CE.

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