Theodora, the consummate temptress, corrupted Constantinople.*
*A highly abbreviated summary of Procopius’ “The Secret History of the Court of Justinian”. Worth a good read if you’re tired of all this WordPress crap. Procopius gets right down to business and talks about some of the wackiest characters to ever run a nation, at least until the 20th and 21st Centuries. If you thought the Bolsheviks were odd, with their bank robbers, kidnappers, bombers, rapists and purges; or if the Nazis were off with their sympathetic magic, strange myths and rituals, and genocide; or if the public corruption, moral hypocrisies, trillion-dollar bailouts, and political theater of today are disturbing, then take a look at Justinian the Law-Giver and his coterie of prostitutes, crooks, extortionists, thugs, and Quixotic generals. The political violence, violent entertainments, plagues, crop failures and extortion are impressive and entertainingly described.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12916
Sincerely,
Finnegan
The Lamentations of Finnegan Daley 