Saint Aelia Eudocia

Aelia Eudocia Augusta , also called Saint Eudocia, was an Eastern Roman empress by marriage to Emperor Theodosius II (r. 408–450). Daughter of an Athenian philosopher, she was also a poet, whose works include Homerocentones, or Homeric retellings of Biblical stories. After an estrangement with Theodosius, she permanently settled in Jerusalem, where she supported the local population. Aelia Eudocia was born with the name Athenaïs in Athens. The 6th century chronicler John Malalas describes her as Greek. Her exact year of birth is not known, but it is often given as c. 400 or c. 401 on the assumption that she was born around the same time of Emperor Theodosius II (401 AD). She was said to be of pagan background, and according to her contemporary Socrates Scholasticus, she was baptized shortly before her marriage to Theodosius. Her father, an Athenian sophist named Leontius, taught rhetoric at the Academy of Athens, where people from all over the Mediterranean came to either teach or learn. Eudocia's birth name, Athenaïs, was a pagan name probably chose for her parents' devotion to Attic culture, or perhaps in honour of the city's protector, the goddess Pallas Athena. She had two brothers, Gessius and Valerius, who would later receive honours at court from their sister and brother-in-law. Eudocia's father took charge of her education after her mother's death, and she was later taught by the scholars Hyperechios, one the Desert Fathers of Christianity, and Orion. John Malalas preserves a tale that when her father died, he left all his property to her brothers, with only 100 coins reserved for her in his will, saying that "ufficient for her is her destiny, which will be the greatest of any woman." Athenaïs had been her father's confidante and had expected more than this meager 100-coin inheritance. She begged her brothers, to give her an equal share of their father's property, but they refused.