Aelia Eudocia

Aelia Eudocia, originally named Athenais, was born in Athens in the early fifth century, the daughter of Leontius, a pagan philosopher and teacher of rhetoric. Later Byzantine chroniclers, notably John Malalas, relate that after Leontius died he left his property to her brothers and only a small sum to Athenais, who then went to Constantinople to seek justice. There she came to the attention of the court of Theodosius II. Traditional accounts say that Pulcheria, the emperor's sister, selected the young Athenian, already known for beauty and classical learning, as a bride for her brother. Athenais accepted Christian baptism from Patriarch Atticus of Constantinople, received the name Eudocia, and married Theodosius II in 421. She was proclaimed Augusta in 423. Modern historians treat folkloric details of her arrival at court with caution, but her Athenian origin, conversion from paganism, and marriage into the Theodosian house are well established.

Eudocia was among the most highly educated women of the late antique imperial family. Trained in Greek literature and rhetoric by her father, she composed poetry in Homeric diction. Works attributed to her include a cento that rearranges lines of Homer into a Christian biblical narrative, verse paraphrases of the Octateuch and of prophetic books, and a poem on the conversion and martyrdom of Cyprian of Antioch. These compositions illustrate the Christian appropriation of classical paideia at the Constantinopolitan court. She and Theodosius II had a daughter, Licinia Eudoxia, born in 422, who later married the Western emperor Valentinian III. Sources also mention a daughter named Flaccilla who died in childhood. As empress, Eudocia took part in court ceremonial and in the patronage of learning and churches in the capital.

In 438 or 439 Eudocia made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and returned with relics, among them objects identified as the chains of the apostle Peter, which were placed in a church in Constantinople. In the early 440s her position at court collapsed. Later chronicles tell a famous story in which Theodosius gave her a remarkable apple that she then presented to the magister officiorum Paulinus, arousing the emperor's jealousy; Paulinus was executed. Whether or not the apple episode is historical, Eudocia left Constantinople around 443 and settled permanently in the Holy Land, retaining her title of Augusta. From Jerusalem she at first supported opponents of the Council of Chalcedon after 451. Following the death of Theodosius II in 450, and under the influence of Chalcedonian figures including the stylite Symeon, she was reconciled to the Chalcedonian definition in the mid-450s.

During her long residence in Palestine, Eudocia used imperial wealth to endow churches, monasteries, and charitable works. She is credited with building a large basilica in honor of Saint Stephen north of Jerusalem, with construction at other holy sites, and with extending the city walls so that Mount Zion was enclosed within them. She also supported monastic communities and the poor. She died in Jerusalem in 460 and was buried in the church of Saint Stephen that she had founded. Her life joins the pagan philosophical schools of Athens, the Christian court of Constantinople, and the sacred landscape of Jerusalem, and she remains a principal example of female literary and architectural patronage in the fifth-century Eastern Roman Empire.