Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/94

Rh no EUDOCIA. Genseric, king of the Vandals, when he sacked Rome (a. d. 455), together with her mother and her younger sister Placidia. Genseiic married Eudocia (a. d. 456), not to one of his younger sons, Gento, as Idatius says, but to his eldest son Hunneric (who succeeded his father, A. d. 477, as king of the Vandals)'; and sent Eudoxia and Pla- cidia to Constantinople. After living sixteen years with Hunneric, and bearing him a son, Hulderic, who also afterwards became king of the Vandals, Eudocia, on the ground of dislike to the Arianism of her husband, secretly left him, and went to Je- rusalem, where she soon after died (a. v. 472), having bequeathed all she had to the Church of the Resurrection, and was buried in the sepulchre of her grandmother, the empress Eudocia; (Eva- grius. Hist. Eccles. ii. 7 ; Marcellinus, Chroiiicon ; Idatius, Chronicon ; Nicephorus Callisti, Hist. Ec- cles^ XV. 1 1 ; Procopius, de Belio Vandalico, i. 5 ; Theophanes, Chronographia, A. M. 5947 and 5964, Alex, era ; Zonaras, Amudes, vol. iii. p. 40, ed. Basil, 1557 ; Tillemont, Hist, des Enip. vol. vi.) 3. Eudocia Fabia, wife of the emperor Heraclius. She was the daughter of a certain African noble, and was at Constantinople (a. d. 610) when Heraclius, to whom she was betrothed, having assumed the purple in Africa, sailed to Constantinople to de- throne the tyrant Phocas. Phocas shut her up in a monastery with the mother of Heraclius ; but his fall led to their release. She was married on the day oi Heraclius's coronation, and crowned with him, and, according to Zonaras, received from him the name of Fabia ; but Cedrenus makes Fabia her original name, which is more likely. She had by Heraclius, according to Zonaras, three children, a daughter Epiphania, and two sons, the elder named Heraclius and the younger Constantine. She died soon after the birth of the youngest child. Cedre- nus assigns to them only a daughter and one son, who was, according to him, called both Heraclius and Constantine. He places the death of Eudocia in the second year of Heraclius, A. D. 612. (Zona- ras, Annates^ vol. iii. pp. 66, 67, ed. Basil, 1557 ; Cedrenus, Compendium^ pp. 713 — 14, ed. Bonn, 1838-9.) 4. Eudocia, daughter of Incer or Inger, and concubine of the emperor Michael III., by whom she was given in marriage (about a. d. 866) to Basil the Macedonian, afterwards emperor. She bore Basil a son, afterwards the emperor Leo the Philosopher, so soon after their marriage, that it was said that Michael was the child's father, and that she was pregnant at the time of her marriage. Cedrenus speaks of the marriage of Basil with Eudocia, whose noble birth and beauty he celebrates ; but, far from making her the concubine of Michael, speaks of her as excelling in modesty. (Zonaras, Annates, vol. iii. p. 132, ed. Basil, 1577 ; Cedrenus, Compendium, vol. ii. p. 198, ed. Bonn, 1838-9.) 5. Eudocia, third wife of the emperor Constan- tine V. (Copronymus). She was crowned and re- ceived the title of Augusta from her husband in the twenty-eighth year of his reign, a. d. 768. (Cedreni Compendium, vol. ii. p. ] 6, ed. Bonn.) 6. Eudocia, third wife of Leo the Philosopher, son of Basil the Macedonian and of Eudocia. (No. 3.) She died in childbirth soon after, and the child died also. She was the daughter, or of the race of Opsicius. Of the date of her marriage and (leath we have no account. It was probably near EUDOCIA. . the beginning of the tenth century ; at any rate before a. n. 904. (Zonaras, Annates, vol. iii. p. 143, ed. Basil, 1567; Cedrenus, Compeiidium, p. 492, ed. Basil, 1566.) 7.. Eldest daughter of the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX., became a nun in consequence of some disease by which she was disfigured. She appears to have survived her father, who died a. d. 1028. (Zonaras, Annates, vol. iii. p. 182, ed. Basil, a. d. 1557.) 8. Eudocia Augusta of Macrkmbolis, wife of the emperors Constantine XL (Ducas) and Romanus IV. (Diogenes). She was married to Constantine while he was yet in a private station, and bore him two sons, Michael and Andronicus, before his accession in a. d. 1059, and one son, Constantine. born afterwards ; they had also two daughters, Theodora and Zoe. On the accession of Constantine she received the title of Augusta ; and on his death, A. D. 1067, he bequeathed the empire to her and to their three sons, Michael VII. (Parapinaces), Andronicus I., and Constantine XII. (Porphyrogenitus). He bound Eudocia by an oath not to marry again. Eudocia had in fact the management of the government, the children being all young. Perceiving that the protection of the eastern frontier, which was threatened with inva- sion, required a stronger hand, she married Roma- nus IV. (Diogenes). Romanus, who was eminent for his fine figure, strength, and warlike qualities, had, on the death of Constantine XL, prepared to seize the throne, but was prevented by Eudocia, who threw him into prison, and exiled him ; but, either for reasons of state, or from affection, soon recalled him, and raised him to the command of the army. Her oath not to marry had been given in writing, and committed to the custody of the patriarch of Constantinople; but by a trick she recovered it, and, within eight months after her husband's death (a. d. 1068), married Romanus, and raised him to be colleague in the empire with herself and her sons. She had hoped to govern him, but was disappointed, and his asser- tion of his own will led to quarrels between them. During the captivity of Romanus, Joannes or John Ducas, brother of the late Constantine, who had been invested with the dignity of Caesar, declared Michael Parapinaces sole emperor, and banished Eudocia to a convent which she had herself built on the shore of the Propontis. On the death of Diogenes, who on his release had fallen into the hands of Andronicus, the eldest son of Joannes Ducas, and died from the cruel usage he received, a. d. 1071 [Romanus IV. (Diogenes)], Eudocia buried her unhappy husband with great splendour. She appears to have long survived this event. (Zonaras, An?iales, vol. iii. pp. 218 — 226, ed. Basil, 1557; Michael Glycas, Anjiales, pars iv. p. 606, &c., ed. Bonn.) Eudocia compiled a dictionary of history and mythology, which she called 'Iwftc^, i. e. CoUection or bed of Vioiets. It was printed for the first time by Villoison, in his Anecdota Graeca, 2 vols. 4to. Venice, 1781. It is prefaced by an address to her husband Romanus Diogenes, in which she describes the work as *' a collection of genealogies of gods, heroes, and heroines, of their metamorphoses, and of the fables and stories respecting them found in the ancients ; containing also notices of various philosophers." The sources from which the work was compiled are in a great degree the same as