It's funny how married couples always look like each other. Theodora began her career as an actress, dancer, and possible prostitute before becoming empress. And she may have saved her husband's rule by convincing him not to flee the city during riots between the Blues and the Greens. She also mentored a eunuch who went on to become a hugely important general. Mentoring a eunuch sounds like a euphemism, but it's not. And she fought to expand the rights of women in divorce and property ownership, and even had a law passed taking the bold stance that adulterous women should not be executed. So, in short, the Byzantines continued the Roman legacy of empire and war and law for almost a thousand years after Romulus Augustus was driven out of Rome.