"Potter’s discursive style obscures numerous surprising anecdotes, particularly those of Theodora’s detractors, but this is still a notable biography of an overlooked figure."

The present one included, five books have appeared since the turn of the millennium focused on Theodora, Late Roman empress (d. 548), and we also have a plethora of broader studies of imperial women, most recently Anja Busch, Die Frauen der theodosianischen Dynastie (2015). The subject of women and power is now an established research topic that brings with it two questions. First, did empresses actually wield emperorship, descended from magisterial power accessible only to males, or did they rule only through influence ? Second, do we know enough about any empress to make the study of a single one advisable, or to write anything like biography, or is the result actually narrative history of a reign with special and somewhat awkward attention to a Theodora, a Sophia, or a Pulcheria?

Potter’s approach to the second question is to put the woman “in the world in which she lived” (213). “World” here means the imaginative universe of angels and demons, and of contentious Christological debates over the Council of Chalcedon (451). It means the social world in which by merit a man or woman could advance to the highest rank from no rank at all. It means also locating Theodora in the palaces and streets that she inhabited and the costume she wore, and recovering her daily habits and diet. These help Potter to extrapolate an authentic personality and to create an engaging, up-to-date narrative of Justinian’s reign, enriched by focus on one of its most fascinating figures.