Theodora is the empress who rules Constantinople in 1055 with her companion Zoe. The name also belongs to one of the Invisible Cities, a “fantasy city” born of an act of forgetting; the two are not merged.
| Type | Character; city |
| Co-ruler | Zoe |
| Spanish entry | Teodora |
The empress
She is “the other lady who always played with the crystal ball” and speaks ancient Greek. Near her appears a slender girl with a yellowish iris, a sign of power or supernatural nature.
She and Zoe are “two women governing”. The court formula: «Nadie puede desobedecer a Teodora, la que tiene el alcance de la juventud y de la génesis, apoyada por su compañera» (“No one may disobey Theodora, who has the reach of youth and genesis, supported by her companion”). Obedience to her exceeds that owed to Zoe and rests on her dominion over beginnings and the age of bodies; all that begins or ages in Antiterra falls within her reach. She rules with court, guards and archers, and consults angels. Zoe, of equal power, holds the other half of command, with influence over archers and special guards.
The court colors, green, blue and red, come from Constantine’s founding of the guards; in the hippodrome they become the “factions of Theodoras”.
Zoe died young. Theodora “went alone on her last journey”; her grief left inherited legends, and some keep hope only because they “liked to hear the stories of Theodora”.
The city
The city sits on a “black sea” and has no connection to the southern plane: “the connection is with the spherical world”. It survived the plagues, “but not all of them”. Born of magical forgetting, it is isolated and seeks God. The Lady of the Ivy made a pilgrimage “to say something to the world of Theodora”.
Other uses
An opera tells of the Christian martyr Theodora, executed in Antioch. In Anatolia, emperors and masters are associated with a “Saint Theodora”.
Open questions
- Whether city and empress are one entity or namesakes; itineraries also list a city “Theodoro”, distinct from Llovirra and Diomirra.
- Whether the yellow iris is Theodora’s or Zoe’s.
- What the “black sea” is and what lacking a southern connection means.
- Who performed the founding forgetting, and which plagues the city survived; its appearance is undescribed.
- How many “factions of Theodoras” exist, and whether the saint of Anatolia and the martyr of Antioch are one figure.
Gallery
