Licinia Eudoxia
422 – 493 · Generation XXI · Valentinian · Theodosian
Licinia Eudoxia was a Roman empress twice over and a captive of the Vandals. Born in 422, she was the daughter of the Eastern emperor Theodosius II and Aelia Eudocia, a woman from Athens. In 424, at the age of two, she was betrothed to her four-year-old cousin Valentinian III, who was about to be made emperor of the West, and they married at Thessalonica on 29 October 437, uniting the two halves of the Theodosian house. She was named Augusta in 439, when their first daughter, Eudocia, was born, and a second daughter, Placidia, followed.
On 16 March 455 Valentinian was murdered in Rome, apparently on the orders of the senator Petronius Maximus, who bought his way to the throne and forced Eudoxia to marry him within days, on pain of death. Chroniclers later claimed that she called in Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, against him, perhaps copying her sister-in-law Honoria, who had appealed to Attila. Gaiseric sacked Rome that year and carried Eudoxia and her daughters off to Carthage.
They were held there for seven years, and Gaiseric married the younger Eudocia to his son Huneric. In 462 the Eastern emperor Leo I bought the freedom of Eudoxia and Placidia with a large ransom, and Eudoxia returned to Constantinople after twenty-five years away. Through Eudocia she was the grandmother of Hilderic, king of the Vandals from 523 to 530.
One of 18 people of Valentinian · Theodosian (321–493) in this archive. The last house to rule both halves of the empire at once.
Line of descent: Theodosius I the Great → Arcadius Flavius → Theodosius II Flavius → Licinia Eudoxia.
Parents
- Theodosius II Flavius (401 – 450)
- Aelia Eudocia (401 – 460)
Partners
- Married Valentinian III Placidus (419 – 455) in 437 — one child together
Children
- Placidia the Younger (440 – 484)
Life
- 422 — Born
- 437 — Married Valentinian III
- 493 — Died
Sources
- Licinia Eudoxia · Wikipedia
- Valentinian III · Wikipedia