Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/371

 vivacity, insight, and social address. He was now verging on his fortieth year, and, as we shall recognize more fully hereafter, must always have been of a staid disposition, as free as possible from the wildness of youth. How far he was acquainted with her past is altogether unknown; if her travels had extended to a few years her former intimates might now for the most part be scattered, her person might be half forgotten, and her meretricious enormities but faintly remembered. Her scenic extravagances may never have been witnessed by Justinian, but it is certain that before long her former mode of life was at least partially revealed to him. Their intercourse soon ripened into familiarity; he made her his mistress, but without concealment, and with the fixed intention of marrying her; and as the first step towards that end he raised her to the rank of a patrician. Theodora was now removed from her sordid surroundings and housed in a style suitable to her enhanced fortunes. At the same time her sisters, Comito and Anastasia, were rescued from their degrading vocation and maintained in a, quae illo tempore patricia erat." She is often mentioned in this work in a laudatory strain, with which this sentence, as Diehl (op. cit.) forcibly observes, is decidedly incongruous. Probably, therefore, it has been introduced by a copyist, but of what date I cannot surmise.]