The years passed tranquilly until 437, when we begin to suspect that there is friction with Pulcheria. Few things had happened, beyond the echo of the stormy movements of the West, and the disquieting advance of the Huns, to disturb the life of the court. One year (434) had, indeed, brought a strange thrill into the Imperial nunnery. A princess of the Western Empire, Honoria, came to Constantinople, enceinte by her own steward. But the hard lot of Honoria, and the romantic devices by which she sought to enliven it, will occupy us later. Pulcheria promptly enclosed the fiery young princess in a convent, and the scandal would be mentioned only in whispers. Three years later (437) the Western Emperor, Valentinian III, came to Constantinople, and led away Eudocia’s beautiful daughter, Licinia Eudoxia, to share his trembling throne. The next detail is that, in 439, Eudocia made a lengthy pilgrimage to Palestine, and there can be little doubt that her absence from the palace for a year—which is unconvincingly connected by Gibbon with the marriage of her daughter, two years before—was due, in part or entirely, to some quarrel with either Theodosius or Pulcheria, most probably the latter.
At Antioch, on the journey, Eudocia enjoyed the prestige of her solitary and independent dignity. From a golden throne she delivered a studied oration to the Senate, and the tumultuous applause and voting of statues to her must have greatly increased her self-consciousness. The shower of gold she rained upon the churches and monasteries of Palestine, and indeed all along her route, elicited a no less stimulating demonstration. She returned to Constantinople, apparently about the end of 439, with a larger sense of her importance, and with such priceless relics as the arm of St. Stephen and the authentic picture of Mary which Luke the Physician had painted. It is only at a much later date that Greek writers add to her luggage a phial of the Virgin’s milk, some underclothing of the infant Christ, and similar treasures.
The pilgrimage was the turning-point in the career of Eudocia. So far her life had been one of splendid and powerless prestige; it now rapidly darkens with intrigue, is overshadowed by tragedy and suspicion, and soon ends in a virtual exile. We are sufficiently acquainted with the writers of the time to expect that they will throw very little light on this fresh Imperial tragedy, but, using the later and less weighty Greek writers with discretion, we may obtain a fairly confident idea of its main features. Two facts are related by writers of the time, and are beyond question. In the year following Eudocia’s return, her friend, and the intimate friend of the Emperor, the charming and accomplished Paulinus, was exiled and put to death without public trial. The second fact is that, a few years later, Eudocia left the palace for ever, to spend the remainder of her life at Jerusalem.
The later Byzantine writers give a rounded story of these events, and, on the whole, one is disposed to think that in this case they are revealing the suppressed truth. Theophanes (in his “Chronographia”) says that a eunuch named Chrysaphius rose into favour, and urged Eudocia to secure the dismissal of Pulcheria. They persuade Theodosius that, since Pulcheria has taken a vow of virginity, her proper place is among the deaconesses of the Church, and Archbishop Flavian is instructed to take her away. Flavian, however, prefers to have her in the palace, and he directs her simply to live apart for a time and wait. Then, in 440, occurs the execution—one may almost say murder—of Paulinus. These later Greek writers all give a romantic story in connexion with it. As Theodosius and Eudocia go to church on Epiphany morning, a peasant presents the Emperor with a remarkably large apple. He gives it to Eudocia, who privately sends it to Paulinus. Unluckily, Paulinus in turn presents it to the Emperor, who sternly asks Eudocia what she has done with it. She declares, and repeats with a most solemn oath, that she has eaten it. Paulinus is at once sent away, and decapitated. A much nearer and more weighty authority, John Malala, confirms, in substance, this story of the apple, and says that Paulinus was suspected of intimacy with the Empress. There is no serious reason to doubt it, nor is any other reason suggested for the murder of Paulinus; but whether Eudocia was guilty, or the suspicion was inspired by the servants of Pulcheria, we are unable to determine.
The eunuch then, says Theophanes, presses Eudocia to attack Flavian and Pulcheria. He reminds her of “all the bitter things she had endured from Pulcheria,” and covers the human motive with a pretence of religious zeal. We know, at least, that Eudocia embraced the Eutychian heresy, which Chrysaphius had adopted, and that a Church-council was summoned in 441 that put an end to Flavian. The intrigue, however, runs on in obscurity until Eudocia suddenly asks permission to retire to Jerusalem. Theodosius could not divorce her, but we can easily believe that, as these writers say, he treated her with such severity, repeatedly reminding her of Paulinus, that she was driven into exile. Pulcheria returned to the palace, and resumed her control of the Emperor and the Empire.
Gibbon scouts these “Greek fictions,” but, not only has he not taken sufficient account of John Malala, whose authority he recognizes, but a detail he adds from the still more authoritative Chronicle of Marcellinus (which is almost contemporary) gives a very serious confirmation. In the suite of Eudocia, when she set out for Palestine, were a priest named Severus and a deacon named John, favourites of hers. They had not long left Constantinople when an officer named Saturninus, of the faction opposed to Eudocia, came upon them with an order to put Severus and John to death. It appears that they too were executed for supposed intimacy with the Empress. Eudocia lost her self-control at this brutal outrage, and bade her servants make an end of Saturninus. When Theodosius heard, he stripped Eudocia of her Imperial prerogatives, and left her in the position of an ordinary citizen. These authentic statements of Marcellinus strongly confirm the story, and it is clear that the Byzantine court was stained by a sordid quarrel and several brutal murders.
The romance of Eudocia’s career was not yet over. Marcellinus sends her to Jerusalem in 444: the later writers in 442. However that may be, in the year 445 we find her again embarking on an unhappy adventure. The monks of Palestine were infected with the Eutychian heresy, and they welcomed so powerful a patroness. With the aid of her servants they ousted the orthodox bishop of Jerusalem, and a vigorous monk was put in his place. The monk-bishop, with his militant army of ten thousand monkish followers, held Jerusalem for twenty months, in spite of the Imperial troops, drove all the orthodox bishops out of Palestine, and slew and cast to the dogs a number of their followers. In this quaint company the delicate Greek Empress continued to build churches and monasteries for three years, but when she hears at length of the misfortunes of her daughter, which the Bishop of Rome, as well as the courts of Ravenna and Constantinople, ascribe to her heresy, she sends to consult the famous hermit of the pillar, Simeon Stylites. Simeon recommends her to confer with a certain saintly monk of the desert. The monk will neither leave his desert for her, nor permit a woman to enter it. She therefore builds a tower on the hill some miles away, and in that safe and public elevation the monk enlightens her out of her heresy.
Eudocia brought her adventurous career to a close in 460, protesting with her last breath that she was innocent of the charge of unchastity. Pulcheria continued to rule the Eastern Empire in the name of Theodosius until he died, in the year 450, inglorious and unhonoured. It was now seen that the prosperity of the Empire in her earlier years was a hollow truce of circumstances. When the fierce and rapacious Huns approached it, in 446 and 447, the Eastern Empire tremblingly purchased peace by the most ignominious concessions. When Theodosius died, she assumed sole control of the Empire, and the head of the eunuch Chrysaphius was at once removed from his shoulders. But the pressure of her people forced her to marry, and an aged Senator, Marcian, engaged to share her throne without sharing her virginal bed. To his more vigorous hands the affairs of State now passed, and Pulcheria maintained her virtue and piety to the end. But we must now leave the Oriental pomp, the emasculated frame, and the splendid piety of the Byzantine court, to conclude our story in the West.