his secret prison. Her silent wonder burst into
passionate exclamations of gratitude and joy, and she named Theodora
her queen, her benefactress, and her savior. The monk of Ephesus
was nourished in the palace with luxury and ambition; but instead
of assuming, as he was promised, the command of the Roman armies,
Theodosius expired in the first fatigues of an amorous interview. [1162]
The grief of Antonina could only be assuaged by the sufferings of her
son. A youth of consular rank, and a sickly constitution, was punished,
without a trial, like a malefactor and a slave: yet such was the
constancy of his mind, that Photius sustained the tortures of the
scourge and the rack, [1163] without violating the faith which he had
sworn to Belisarius. After this fruitless cruelty, the son of
Antonina, while his mother feasted with the empress, was buried in her
subterraneous prisons, which admitted not the distinction of night
and day. He twice escaped to the most venerable sanctuaries of
Constantinople, the churches of St. Sophia, and of the Virgin: but his
tyrants were insensible of religion as of pity; and the helpless youth,
amidst the clamors of the clergy and people, was twice dragged from the
altar to the dungeon. His third attempt was more successful. At the end
of three years, the prophet Zachariah, or some mortal friend, indicated
the means of an escape: he eluded the spies and guards of the empress,
reached the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem, embraced the profession of a
monk; and the abbot Photius was employed, after the death of Justinian,
to reconcile and regulate the churches of Egypt. The son of Antonina
suffered all that an enemy can inflict: her patient husband imposed on
himself the more exquisite misery of violating his promise and deserting
his friend.

[Footnote 116: Theophanes (Chronograph. p. 204) styles him Photinus, the
son-in-law of Belisarius; and he is copied by the Historia Miscella and
Anastasius.]

[Footnote 1161: This and much of the private scandal in the
"Anecdota" is liable to serious doubt. Who reported all these private
conversations, and how did they reach the ears of Procopius?--M.]

[Footnote 1162: This is a strange misrepresentation--he died of a
dysentery; nor does it appear that it was immediately after this scene.
Antonina proposed to raise him to the generalship of the army. Procop.
Anecd. p. 14. The sudden change from the abstemious diet of a monk to
the luxury of the court is a much