Charles Oman - History of the Byzantine Empire - From the Foundation until the Fall of Constantinople (328-1453)

Next year, however, the war between the empress and the patriarch broke out again. John took the occasion of the erection of a statue of Eudoxia in the Augustaeum to recommence his polemics. Some obsolete semi-pagan ceremonies at its dedication roused his wrath, and he delivered a scathing sermon in which—if his enemies are to be believed—he compared the empress to Herodias, and himself to John the Baptist. The Emperor, at his wife's demand, summoned another council, which condemned Chrysostom, and on Easter Day, a.d. 404, seized the patriarch in his cathedral by armed force, and banished him to Asia. That night a fire, probably kindled by the angry adherents of Chrysostom, broke out in St. Sophia, which was burnt to the ground. From thence it spread to the neighbouring buildings, and finally to the Senate-house, which was consumed with all the treasures of ancient Greek art of which Constantine had made it the repository.

Meanwhile the exiled John was banished to a dreary mountain fastness in Cappadocia, and afterwards condemned to a still more remote prison at Pityus on the Euxine. He died on his way thither, leaving a wonderful reputation for patience and cheerfulness under affliction. This fifth-century Becket was well-nigh the only patriarch of Constantinople who ever fell out with the imperial Court on a question of morals as distinguished from dogma. Chrysostom's quarrel was with the luxury, insolence, and frivolity of the Empress and her Court; no real ecclesiastical question was involved in his deposition, for the charges against him were mere pretexts to cover the hatred of his disloyal clergy and the revenge of the insulted Aelia Eudoxia. [a.d. 407.]

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The feeble and inert Arcadius died in a.d. 408, at the early age of thirty-one; his imperious consort had preceded him to the grave, and the empire of the East was left to Theodosius II., a child of seven years, their only son. There was hardly an instance in Roman history of a minor succeeding quietly to his father's throne. An ambitious relative or a disloyal general had habitually supplanted the helpless heir. But the ministers of Arcadius were exceptionally virtuous or exceptionally destitute of ambition. The little emperor was duly crowned, and the administration of the East undertaken in his name by the able Anthemius, who held the office of Praetorian Praefect. History relates nothing but good of this minister; he made a wise commercial treaty with the king of Persia; he repelled with ease a Hunnish invasion of Moesia; he built a flotilla on the Danube, where Roman warships had not been seen since the death of Valens, forty years before; he reorganized the corn supply of Constantinople; and did much to get back into order and cultivation the desolated north-western lands of the Balkan Peninsula, from which Alaric and his Visigothic hordes had now taken their final departure. The empire was still more indebted to him for bringing up the young Theodosius as an honest and god-fearing man. The palace under Anthemius' rule was the school of the virtues: the lives of the emperor and his three sisters, Pulcheria, Arcadia, and Marina, were the model and the marvel of their subjects. Theodosius inherited the piety and honesty of his grandfather and namesake, but was a youth of slender capacity, though he took some interest in literature, and was renowned for his beautiful penmanship. His eldest sister, Pulcheria, was the ruling spirit of the family, and possessed unlimited influence over him, though she was but two years his senior. When Anthemius died in a.d. 414, she took the title of Augusta, and assumed the regency of the East. Pulcheria was an extraordinary woman: on gathering up the reins of power she took a vow of chastity, and lived as a crowned nun for thirty-six years; her fear had been that, if she married, her husband might cherish ambitious schemes against her brother's crown; she therefore kept single herself and persuaded her sisters to make a similar vow. Austere, indefatigable, and unselfish, she proved equal to ruling the realms of the East with success, though no woman had ever made the attempt before.

When Theodosius came of age he refused to remove his sister from power, and treated her as his colleague and equal. By her advice he married in a.d. 421, the year that he came of age, the beautiful and accomplished Athenaïs, daughter of the philosopher Leontius. The emperor's chosen spouse had been brought up as a pagan, but was converted before her marriage, and baptized by the name of Eudocia. She displayed her literary tastes in writing religious poetry, which had some merit, according to the critics of the succeeding age. The austere Pulcheria—always immersed in state business or occupied in religious observances—found herself ere long ill at ease in the company of the lively, beautiful, and volatile literary lady whom she had chosen as sister-in-law. If Theodosius had been less easy-going and good-hearted he must have sent away either his sister or his wife, but he long contrived to dwell affectionately with both, though their bickerings were unending. After many years of married life, however, a final quarrel came, and the empress retired to spend the last years of her life in seclusion at Jerusalem. The cause of her exile is not really known: we have only a wild story concerning it, which finds an exact parallel in one of the tales of the “Arabian Nights.”

“The emperor,” so runs the tale, “was one day met by a peasant who presented him with a Phrygian apple of enormous size, so that the whole Court marvelled at it. And he gave the man a hundred and fifty gold pieces in reward, and sent the apple to the Empress Eudocia. But she sent it as a present to Paulinus, the ‘Master of the Offices,’because he was a friend of the emperor. But Paulinus, not knowing the history of the apple, took it and gave it to the emperor as he reëntered the Palace. And Theodosius having received it, recognized it and concealed it, and called his wife and questioned her, saying, ‘Where is the apple that I sent you?’ She answered, ‘I have eaten it.’ Then he bade her swear by his salvation the truth, whether she had eaten it or sent it to some one. And Eudocia swore that she had sent it to no man, but had herself eaten it. Then the emperor showed her the apple, and was exceedingly wrath, suspecting that she was enamoured of Paulinus, and had sent it to him as a love-gift; for he was a very handsome man. And on this account he put Paulinus to death, but he permitted Eudocia to go to the Holy Places to pray. And she went down from Constantinople to Jerusalem, and dwelt there all her days.”

That Paulinus was executed, and that Eudocia spent her last years of retirement in Palestine, we know for certain. All the rest of the story is in reality hidden from us. The chief improbability of the tale is that Eudocia had reached the age of forty when the breach between her and her husband took place, and that Paulinus was also an official of mature years.

Theodosius' long reign passed by in comparative quiet. Its only serious troubles were a short war with the Persians, and a longer one with Attila, the great king of the Huns, whose empire now stretched over all the lands north of the Black Sea and Danube, where the Goths had once dwelt. In this struggle the Roman armies were almost invariably unfortunate. The Huns ravaged the country as far as Adrianople and Philippopolis, and had to be bought off by the annual payment of 700 lbs. of gold [£31,000]. It is true that they fell on Theodosius while his main force was engaged on the Persian frontier, but the constant ill-success of the imperial generals seems to show that the armies of the East had never been properly reorganized since the military system of Theodosius I. had been broken up by the revolt of Gainas forty years before. His grandson had neither a trustworthy body of German auxiliaries nor a sufficiently large native levy of born subjects of the empire to protect his borders.