Eudocia

Eudocia, the name of several Byzantine princesses. Of these the most celebrated was the wife of Theodosius II. Pulcheria, the emperor's sister, who from her sixteenth year (414) had directed the government under the weak-minded emperor, chose Athenais (born 401), the beautiful and accomplished daughter of an Athenian sophist Leontius, to be her brother's wife. She renounced paganism, took the name of Eudocia, and was married to Theodosius in 421. Soon afterwards a violent rivalry arose between the two sisters-in-law. On the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy, Eudocia took the side of Nestorius, and Pulcheria, conspiring with Cyril of Alexandria, brought about his fall. During the last four years of Theodosius, Pulcheria was banished from the court, and the doctrines of Eutyches (q.v.) and Dioscuros—the opposite of Nestorianism—were victorious at the 'Robber Synod' of Ephesus (449) through the influence of Eudocia. But shortly before the emperor's death (450) Pulcheria regained her former influence, while Eudocia fell into disgrace and retired to Jerusalem, where she spent the remainder of her life in works of piety and charity, and died in 460. Eudocia wrote a panegyric on the victories of Theodosius over the Persians, paraphrases of Scripture, and a poem on the legend of St Cyprian. The Homero-cento on the Life of Christ (consisting of 2343 hexameters made up of verses and half-verses culled from Homer), which are doubtfully attributed to her, was edited by Teucher (Leip. 1793). See F. Gregorovius, Athenais (1882).