Thekla (daughter of Theophilos)

Thekla (right) with her brother Michael III on the reverse of a solidus minted during the regency of her mother, Theodora

Thekla (Greek: Θέκλα; around 822/23 – after 867, Constantinople) was a princess of the Amorian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire.

Life

She was probably the eldest daughter of emperor Theophilos and Theodora. She had four sisters (Anna, Anastasia, Pulcheria, Maria) and two brothers, Constantine and Michael III.

On Theophilos' death in 842, she joined her mother as a co-empress (Augusta) and appeared as such on coins with her younger brother. However, government was really in the hands of the eunuch Theoktistos. There are different accounts of Thekla's fate after her mother's fall in late 855 or early 856, but in 858 Thekla and her sisters Anna, Anastasia and Pulcheria (Maria had already died in 840) seem to have entered a nunnery in Constantinople. Thekla is said to have been living there at the time of her brother's murder by his successor Basil I in 867, with some sources stating Basil was Thekla's lover.

Sources

• Joseph Genesius 4, 11
• Johannes Skylitzes 52−53; 56; 97−98
• Pseudo-Symeon 658; 686
• Theophanes Continuatus 3, 5; 4, 22
• Johannes Zonaras 15, 26; 16, 3

Bibliography

• Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Claudia Ludwig, Thomas Pratsch, Ilse Rochow, Beate Zielke: Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit. 1. Abteilung: (641−867). Band 4: Platon (#6266) – Theophylaktos (#8345). De Gruyter, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-11-016674-7, S. 332–335 Nr. 7261.
• Georg Ostrogorsky: Byzantinische Geschichte 324–1453. 2. Auflage. Verlag C. H. Beck, München 2006 (unveränderter Nachdruck der Sonderausgabe von 1965), ISBN 3-406-39759-X, S. 183.
• Warren Treadgold: A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA 1997, ISBN 0-8047-2630-2, S. 453.