Roman Emperors Dir Sophia
Sophia, wife of Justin II (565-578), was the niece of Theodora, presumably being the daughter of one of Theodora's sisters.[[1]] Since we hear nothing of the career of Theodora's younger sister Anastasia, Sophia may well have been the daughter of Comito, the elder sister, who in 528 made a prestigious marriage with Justinian's general Sittas.[[2]] True to her policy of promoting the interests of her family whenever possible, Theodora ensured that her niece Sophia was married to Justinian's nephew Justin, the son of Justinian's sister Vigilantia, and it was perhaps not coincidental that it was Justin and Sophia who succeeded Justinian at his death on November 14, 565, for during her lifetime Theodora clearly favoured as Justinian's successor Justin over his cousin, the son of Germanus and also named Justin. Sophia was a worthy successor to her aunt. From the time of her accession, she emerges as a powerful and influential empress, who believed that she had inherited the right to power. According to the monophysite bishop, John of Ephesus, Sophia attributed her husband's madness to his failure to appreciate her status sufficiently: "The kingdom came through me, and it has come back to me: and as for him, he is chastised, and has fallen into this trial on my account, because he did not value me sufficiently, and vexed me."[[3]] Such was the force of her personality that, even as empress-consort, her role in government was publicly recognised, unlike that of her aunt Theodora, while the fact that her husband was to suffer from dementia resulted in Sophia's having unparalleled influence over both government and the succession.
Sources for the reign of Justin II and Sophia are in general unfavourable, not least because the imperial couple instituted a persecution of monophysites throughout the empire (monophysites were considered heretics, in as much as they believed that Christ had only one nature, and that divine). John of Ephesus, one of our main sources, was himself imprisoned as part of their campaign to impose orthodoxy,[[4]] and his portrait of Sophia shows an empress who was both arrogant and domineering. His unflattering picture of the imperial pair is supplemented by that of Evagrius, who stresses avarice as a characteristic feature of the reign.[[5]] In contrast the lengthy laudatory poem of Corippus, In laudem Iustini Minoris (In Praise of Justin the Younger) written shortly after their accession, was specifically intended to flatter the couple, and pays marked reverence to Sophia. Indeed, it appears from Corippus that Sophia herself was his source for events which took place behind the scenes.[[6]]
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]]
Justin's accession was supposedly predicted by both the patriarch of the time, John of Sirimis (otherwise known as John Scholastikos), and the ex-patriarch Eutychius, who had been exiled by Justinian in 565.[[15]] Nevertheless, Justin had a serious rival in his second cousin, also called Justin, the son of Justinian's cousin Germanus. Sophia ensured that this rival was soon dispatched. According to Evagrius, he was initially welcomed in Constantinople, but was soon removed to Alexandria and murdered; the Spanish chronicler John of Biclar, who was in Constantinople at the time, ascribes this decision specifically to Sophia. In Evagrius' account, the imperial couple are shown as sending for the head and kicking it to indulge their "boiling spite".[[16]] In 568 the veteran general Narses was recalled from Italy, and Sophia is said to have had a hand in this decision as well. Paul the Deacon records that she was said to have sent Narses the message that she would give him the job of assigning the duties of weaving to the girls in the gynaikonitis (women's quarters), as a task more suited to a eunuch than generalship, and that Narses was so afraid of the empress that he dared not return to Constantinople.[[17]] Sophia was clearly a femme formidable who had the full confidence of her husband, and it is not surprising that Justin crowned her Augusta, an honour which had been denied Theodora.[[18]]
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]]
Justin and Sophia also took pains to broadcast their collegiality and religious orthodoxy overseas, by presenting a relic of the True Cross to St Radegund in Gaul and making a gift of a superbly enamelled cross, the "Vatican Cross", to Rome in both their names, which bore a portrait of both Justin and Sophia on its two arms and contained another relic of the True Cross.[[31]] The gift to Radegund gave rise to the composition by Venantius Fortunatus of two hymns and a poem, in which Sophia is called the new Helena and which suggests that the relic was sent on Sophia's initiative.[[32]]
In their earlier years, Sophia and Justin, like so many of Theodora's family, were seen as inclining towards the monophysite heresy, and John of Ephesus depicts Sophia as a champion of monophysitism until the 560s, when she found it politic to adopt an orthodox stance in religion. According to John, a monophysite presbyter named Andrew used to administer the communion to Sophia and all her household, while Justin was thought to take the monophysite communion more covertly: Sophia would ask Andrew to place one "pearl" or piece of consecrated bread upon the patten under the cloth, and it was supposed that Justin later took it in secret.[[33]] In the later history of the monophysite Michael the Syrian Sophia is shown as maintaining the faith even after her accession,[[34]] though it is clear that, in order to gain Justinian's approbation and the possible designation of Justin as his official successor, she found it expedient to adopt orthodoxy in the early 560s: Theodore bishop of Caesarea is said to have warned her that Justinian was unwilling to see power pass into the hands of one who was not committed to orthodoxy,[[35]] though, as it happened, Justinian was by this point still not willing to nominate an heir. Perhaps he was not convinced by her change of faith.
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.
Until the early 570s Justin and Sophia seem to have aimed at a working compromise with the monophysites and at reconciling schismatic monophysite groups with each other, as they attempted to do, unsuccessfully, in Egypt.[[38]] After attempts at conciliation had failed, Justin tried in another edict, probably in 571/2, to reconcile religious differences.[[39]] Monophysite leaders, who felt that they had been enticed into agreeing to church union on false pretences, only intensified their resistance at this point,[[40]] and Justin and Sophia's attempt to conciliate recalcitrant bishops met again with failure: John of Ephesus records them as saying, "Cheer up, and be comforted: for we purpose in God to content you, and unite you to us in perfect unity."[[41]] But repeated failure led to anger on the part of the imperial couple and intensive persecution of monophysite monks, nuns, and clergy resulted.[[42]] In the 570s Justin and Sophia are seen as personally visiting monophysite monasteries and offering gifts in attempts to persuade monks to convert to orthodoxy:
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]]
[[67]]Theophanes AM 6093 [AD 600/1).
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