Thread by @byzantineprof

How I wrote #BelisariusAndAntonina Part 19: The most damaging allegation made against Antonina is that she had a sexual affair with her adopted son. This would make her a practitioner of adultery, incest, and maybe also pedophilia. Is it true?? 🧵 #History #Book #Byzantine

In the Secret History, Procopius alleges that Antonina was “smitten with desire and driven by erotic passion” for her adopted son, Theodosios, who was perhaps a young teenager at the time he was adopted.

According to the story, Antonina first seduced Theodosios in Carthage in late 533 or early 534, and carried on an on-and-off affair with him for years until the young man’s untimely death ca. 542.

This allegation has colored modern opinions of Antonina for literally centuries. Modern historians, when they bother to discuss Antonina in their works, have accepted this story as more or less the truth. This focuses attention on her alleged personal life, not on her career.

Similarly, the allegation has affected opinions of Belisarius, because historians have agreed with Procopius that Belisarius must have been too “infatuated” with Antonina to put a stop to her outrageous affair, which was occurring right beneath his nose. Thus, he was a pushover.

Here’s the thing, though. Our only evidence for this alleged affair comes from the Secret History, a work of invective. In this book, Procopius’ goal is to make Belisarius and Antonina look bad, as prelude to his written assault on Justinian and Theodora.

If Procopius were to invent a single story that would equally smear Belisarius and Antonina in the eyes of his contemporaries, he could scarcely come up with one that better attacks the character of both these two individuals.

The story makes Belisarius the opposite of a strong, manly husband, and Antonina the opposite of a loyal, virtuous wife, all at once. To modify a popular aphorism, the story is “too bad to be true.” It is simply too convenient as a means of smearing B&A’s reputations.

However, good invective, today as back then, is often based on a kernel or nugget of truth. This helps the invective to be more believable! If you want to slander, you don’t make up something completely, but start with something known to be true, and expand from there.

In the book, I argue that Procopius’ outrageous story about Antonina’s affair with Theodosios is indeed based on real events. There is no need to speculate about these real events, because Procopius admits to them in the Secret History.

Theodosios was amassing considerable wealth, most likely with the connivance of Antonina, who clearly favored the boy. Belisarius seems to have preferred Antonina’s son from a previous marriage, Photios. I think it likely that B&A argued over their favorite children.

From these arguments over which child was more worthy of wealth and inheritance, which seem likely to have been witnessed by multiple people, Procopius built a fictional story of adultery, infatuation, and other various horrors, fit for a work of invective.

I make this argument in much greater depth and detail in the book. In short, my answer to the question in the first tweet of this thread: no, Antonina did not have an affair with her adopted son. It’s too bad to be true.

Tomorrow: The twilight of the army career of Belisarius.