THE EMPRESS IRENE

by
THE HONORABLE SIR STEVEN RUNCIMAN
In these days of Women's Liberation it may be of interest to trace the career of
someone who was a pioneer in that movement some twelve centuries ago. The
Empress Irene was the only member of her sex in all the history of Christendom to
assume officially the masculine title of Emperor.* But whether she was, in her
methods and her achievements, an ornament to the movement, is a matter of
opinion.
The Empress Irene was born in Athens in about the year
A.D. 753. We know
nothing of her family nor how it was that she was chosen to be the bride of an
Emperor. But to understand what it meant to be an Empress in Byzantium we must
first glance at the Imperial constitution. The Empire was, in theory, a theocracy.
The old pagan Roman Empire had been, men thought, divinely ordained; and
when the Emperor Constantine the Great adopted Christianity it became, so to
speak, an image of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and its ruler was the Viceroy
of God, the supreme representative under God of majesty and power. This notion,
which was of Persian and Hellenistic origin, was put into Christian terms in
Constantine's day by Eusebius of Caesarea; and it remained a basic article of faith
so long as the Christian Empire lasted at Constantinople.
But
how was the Viceroy of God to be chosen? Rome had been ruled by the
Senate and the People,
Senatus Populusque Romanus. By the semi-fictitious Lex de
Imperio
the People had transferred their sovereignty to Augustus and his successors,
but they remained official electors to the Imperial throne along with the Senate.
Meanwhile a third partner came in. More often than not the Emperor had been
appointed by the army. His title Imperator
signified Commander-in-Chief. In those
days it would have been impossible to hold a ballot; so the role of the electors was
betokened by their acclamation of the Emperor at his installation or coronation; and
it was not long after the triumph of Christianity that the coronation became a
religious ceremony, performed by the highest ecclesiastic within the Empire, the
Patriarch of Constantinople. If there was a vacancy the army might still, as in
Roman times, elevate its favourite general to the throne. But in fact, once the
government was concentrated in Constantinople, it was the man who controlled
the Palace who became Emperor or nominated an Emperor of his choice. No army
leader could be established on the throne unless the Palace, with its civil servants
and the Imperial Guard, was in his power. But a smooth succession was obviously
* The Chinese Empress Wu (690-705), assumed several masculine prerogatives, while, far
earlier, the Egyptian Queen.-Regnant Hatshepsut (sixteenth century B.c.) wore a formal bear on
her official portraits.
BAH