Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/103

Rh sister of Leontius, instituted a process against her brothers; and, taking her to Constantinople, made the princess Pulcheria acquainted with her situation.

The graceful figure, the fine eyes, and fair curling hair of the suppliant; her eloquence and modesty, strongly interested Pulcheria, who was then seeking a wife for her brother Theodosius, surnamed the Young; and when she found her mind so highly gifted, and her morals irreproachable, she contrived that he and his friend Pauiinus, without her knowledge, should see her while conversing with the princess. Theodosius was deeply smitten; she was instructed in the truths of the Christian religion, which she embraced in 421, being baptized by the name of Ælia Eudocia and married to the emperor the same year, but not declared empress till after the birth of her daughter Eudoxia in 422. Hearing of her good fortune, her brothers fled; but causing them to be brought to Constantinople, she engaged the emperor to make one prefect of Illyria, and to bestow upon the other one of the principal employments in the royal palace: "I regard you," said she, "as the instruments of my elevation. It was not your cruelty, but the hand of Providence, which brought me here, to raise me to the throne."

Arrayed in the imperial purple of the east, she forgot not her former taste for study. She improved herself in Latin as well as Greek literature, was mistress both of the active and contemplative parts of philosophy; perfectly understood the art of speaking with elocution, and reasoning with judgment: in all the methods of proving and conversing by arguments, as well as of refuting opponents, no male philosopher was ever a greater proficient: she attained to a more perfect knowledge of astronomy, of geometry, and the tion