Euphemia

435 – 524 · Generation VIII · Empress · Justinian

Euphemia. Empress. Married Justin. Born a slave named Lupicina, took the name Euphemia as empress; wife of Justin I; childless. According to Procopius she was also a barbarian and had been her owner’s concubine before Justin — a peasant from Dardania who had risen through the army — freed and married her. When Justin, commander of the palace guard, was chosen emperor in July 518, she became empress. Her new name, that of the martyr of Chalcedon, was probably meant to lend respectability and to signal the couple’s Chalcedonian faith after Anastasius’s Monophysite sympathies. Procopius dismissed her as ignorant of state affairs, but a church chronicle of 540 credits her with shaping Justin’s religious policy. Childless, the couple were succeeded by Justin’s nephew Justinian, whose wish to marry Theodora she reportedly opposed; only after her death, probably in 523 or 524, could the match go ahead. She was buried in the church of St Euphemia that she had founded, where Justin joined her in 527.

One of 9 people of Justinian (518–602) in this archive. Justinian and Theodora’s house, which rebuilt the law and reached back into the west.

Partners

Married Justin I (450 – 527)