Aelia Eudoxia
380 – 404 · Generation XIX · Valentinian · Theodosian
Aelia (AD 380 – AD 404). Married Arcadius around AD 395. 2 of their children are recorded in this archive. A Frankish general’s daughter; her feud with John Chrysostom sent the great preacher into exile. Her father, Flavius Bauto, a Romanised Frank who had shared the consulship with Arcadius, was dead by 388, and she was raised in Constantinople in the household of the general Promotus, where she probably came to know the young emperor. The eunuch Eutropius arranged the wedding of April 395 behind the back of the regent Rufinus, hoping to bind the new empress to himself; she is thought to have had a hand in his fall and execution in 399. Proclaimed Augusta in January 400, she appeared on coins in imperial purple and championed Nicene Christianity with night processions and ceremonies for martyrs’ relics. She bore five children, among them the future Theodosius II and Pulcheria. Her quarrel with Chrysostom saw him deposed at the Synod of the Oak in 403, recalled after an earthquake alarmed her, then banished again. She died in 404 of infection after a failed pregnancy.
Place in the family
- The archive records 4 of her descendants, across 3 generations.
One of 18 people of Valentinian · Theodosian (321–493) in this archive. The last house to rule both halves of the empire at once.
Partners
- Married Arcadius Flavius (377 – 408) in 395 — 2 children together
Children
- Theodosius II Flavius (401 – 450)
- Pulcheria Aelia (399 – 453)
Life
- 380 — Born
- 395 — Married Arcadius
- 404 — Died