ely, and handed him over
to one of her confidential attendants, with instructions to carry him
to the furthest boundaries of the empire. In the dead of night, her
agent, having bound the unfortunate man and muffled his face, put him
on board a ship, and, having accompanied him to the place whither he
had been instructed to convey him, departed, having first delivered
him secretly to another who was experienced in this kind of service,
with orders that he was to be kept under the strictest watch, and that
no one should be informed of it, until either the Empress took pity
upon the unfortunate man, or, worn out by his sufferings, he at length
succumbed and died a miserable death.

A youth of distinguished family, belonging to the Green faction, named
Basianus, had incurred the Empress's displeasure by speaking of her in
sarcastic terms. Hearing that she was incensed against him, he fled
for refuge to the church of St. Michael the Archangel. Theodora
immediately sent the Praetor of the people to seize him, bidding him
charge him, however, not with insolence towards herself, but with the
crime of sodomy. The magistrate, having dragged him from the church,
subjected him to such intolerable torments, that the whole assembled
people, deeply moved at seeing a person of such noble mien, and one
who had been so delicately brought up, exposed to such shameful
treatment, immediately commiserated his sufferings, and cried out with
loud lamentations that reached the heavens, imploring pardon for the
young man. But Theodora persisted in her work of punishment, and
caused his death by ordering him to be castrated, although he had been
neither tried nor condemned. His property was confiscated by the
Emperor. Thus this woman, when infuriated, respected neither the
sanctuary of the church, nor the prohibitive authority of the laws,
nor the intercession of the people, nor any other obstacle whatsoever.
Nothing was able to save from her vengeance anyone who had given her
offence. She conceived a hatred, on the ground of his belonging to the
Green faction, for a certain Diogenes, a native of Constantinople, an
agreeable person, who was liked by the Emperor and everyone else. In
her wrath, she accused him, in like manner, of sodomy, and, having
suborned two of his servants, put them up to give evidence against and
to accuse their master. But, as he was not tried secretly and in
private, as was the usual custom, but in public, owing to the
re