It’s not until she spends some time with a religious community in the desert that Theodora finally reaches a turning point and starts to think about what she really wants from her life. She agrees to go to Africa with him but she knows that as a former actress she will not be allowed to marry and that Hecebolus will eventually lose interest in her. When Theodora attracts the attention of Hecebolus, the newly appointed Governor of the Pentapolis (five cities in North Africa), he asks her to accompany him. A successful stage career follows but the darker side of this is that the girls are also forced into a life of prostitution from an early age. Menander gives the girls and their friends instruction in dancing, singing, acting and acrobatics, but Theodora finds that her true talent is in making her audience laugh. When her father, a bear-keeper at the Hippodrome, is killed by one of his own bears, Theodora and her two sisters are sent to the teacher Menander who prepares them for a career in the theatre. Theodora’s story begins in 6th century Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. The book follows Theodora’s rise from her early days as an actress to her position as one of the most powerful women in the Empire. Theodora by Stella Duffy is a historical fiction novel based on the life of Empress Theodora of the Byzantine Empire.
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