Death
Theodora died of what Victor of Tonnena described as "cancer" on 28 June 548 at the age of 48. Later accounts frequently attribute the death to breast cancer, although it was not identified as such in the original report where the use of the term "cancer" probably referred to "a supperating ulcer or malignant tumor". Justinian wept bitterly at her funeral. Her body was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles, in Constantinople.
Both Theodora and Justinian are represented in mosaics that exist to this day in the Basilica of San Vitale of Ravenna, Italy, which was completed a year before her death.
Read more about this topic: Theodora (wife Of Justinian I)
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.... Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.
And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid
Its bruises in the earth, but crawled no further,
Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,
And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.”
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“Do but consider this small dust, here running in the glass,
By atoms moved.
Could you believe that this the body was
Of one that loved?
And in his mistress’ flame playing like a fly,
Turned to cinders by her eye?
Yes, and in death as life unblest,
To have’t expressed,
Even ashes of lovers find no rest.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)