Theodora (Macedonian)
Theodora was the last of the Macedonian dynasty, reigned in her own name at seventy-one, and was buried with an empire that outlived her by four centuries. She was the younger daughter of Constantine VIII and spent most of her life in enforced obscurity: unmarried by her father's arrangement, so that the succession ran through her sister Zoe alone, and confined to a convent for years on suspicion of conspiracy. The city brought her out in April 1042. Michael V had exiled Zoe, and the crowd that rose against him demanded Theodora as well, dragged her from the monastery of Petrion into Hagia Sophia in her nun's habit, and had her proclaimed. She and Zoe reigned jointly for two months, with two thrones, which is the only time in Byzantine history that two women held the throne together in their own right. The arrangement worked less badly than expected and was ended by Zoe marrying Constantine IX. Theodora returned to the background for twelve years and took power again in January 1055 on his death, at seventy-one, against the assumption of the court that a general would be brought in. She governed personally, presided at the council, appointed and dismissed, and did it with a severity the chroniclers disliked and a competence they conceded. She refused to name a husband or an heir until she was dying, and then named Michael VI on the advice of her officials. She died in September 1056, and the dynasty ended with her. The dynasty she ended had ruled for 189 years and had taken the empire to its greatest extent since Justinian. Fifteen years after her death the eastern army was destroyed at Manzikert, and the succession crises of the intervening period are why there was no one able to prevent it.
- Lived: 981 CE – 1056 CE
- Nationality: Byzantine
- Roles: empress, head_of_state
