Eusebia (empress) - Family

Family

The primary source on her ancestry is the "Panegyric In Honour Of Eusebia" by Julian the Apostate. According to it, "she is of a family line that is pure Greek, from the purest of Greeks, and her city is the metropolis of Macedonia". Eusebia was born in Thessaloniki and was a Macedonian by origin. Her father was reportedly the first member of the family to serve as a consul. While not identified by name in the speech, modern historians identify him with Flavius Eusebius, consul in 347. This Eusebius is identified elsewhere as a former Magister Equitum and Magister Peditum, which means he had served as a military commander of both the cavalry and infantry of the Roman army. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire considers it probable that his consulship came at the end of his military career. He is later styled "Comes". The Panegyric mentions that Eusebia's father was dead by the time she married Constantius.

The Panegyric says, "Now though I have much to say about her native land". Julian goes on to mention the history of Macedon, identifying her native city, then proceeds to speak of her family. "She is the daughter of a man who was considered worthy to hold the office that gives its name to the year, an office that in the past was powerful and actually called royal, but lost that title because of those who abused their power". ... "And if there be anyone who thinks that, because he I spoke of was the first of his line to win that title and to lay the foundations of distinction for his family, he is therefore inferior to the others, he fails to understand that he is deceived exceedingly. For it is,in my opinion, altogether nobler and more honourable to lay the foundations of such great distinction for one's descendants than to receive it from one's ancestors." ...Eusebia, the subject of my speech, was the daughter of a consul".

Her mother is not named but mentioned briefly: Constantius "Judging also from her mother of the daughter's noble disposition. Of that mother why should I take time to say more, as though I had not to recite a special encomium on her who is the theme of my speech? But so much perhaps I may say briefly, and you may hear without weariness, that her family is Greek of the purest stock, and the native city was the metropolis of Macedonia, and she was more self-controlled than Evadne the wife of Capaneus and the famous Laodameia of Thessaly. For these two, when they had lost their husbands who were young, handsome and still newly-wed, whether by the constraint of some envious, or because the threads of the fates were so woven, threw away their lives for love. But the mother of the Empress, when his fate had come upon her wedded lord, devoted herself to her children, and won a great reputation for prudence, so great indeed that whereas Penelope, while her husband was still on his travels and wanderings, was beset by those young suitors who came to woo her from Ithaca and Samos and Dulichium, that lady no man however fair and tall or powerful and wealthy ever ventured to approach with any such proposals. And her daughter the Emperor deemed worthy to live by his side".

Ammianus Marcellinus mentions two siblings of Eusebia: "Eusebia, sister of the ex-consuls Eusebius and Hypatius" Ammianus mentions that during the reign of Valens, both were accused of treason by Palladius. Palladius had "gained leave to name all whom he desired, without distinction of fortune, as dabbling in forbidden practices, like a hunter skilled in observing the secret tracks of wild beasts, he entangled many persons in his lamentable nets, some of them on the ground of having stained themselves with the knowledge of magic, others as accomplices of those who were aiming at treason." ... "I will recount this one case, showing with what audacious confidence he smote the very pillars of the patriciate. For, made enormously insolent by secret conferences with people of the court, as has been said, and through his very worthlessness easy to be hired to commit any and every crime, he accused that admirable pair of consuls, the two brothers Eusebius and Hypatius (connections by marriage of the late emperor Constantius) of having aspired to a desire for higher fortune, and of having made inquiries and formed plans about the sovereignty; and he added to the path which he had falsely devised for his fabrication that royal robes had even been made ready for Eusebius. Eagerly drinking this in, the menacing madman, to whom nothing ought to have been permitted, since he thought that everything, even what was unjust, was allowed him, inexorably summoned from the farthest boundaries of the empire all those whom the accuser, exempt from the laws, with profound assurance had insisted ought to be brought before him, and ordered a calumnious trial to be set on foot. And when in much-knotted bonds of constriction justice had long been trodden down and tied tightly, and the wretched scoundrel persisted in his strings of assertions, severe tortures could force no confession, but showed that these distinguished men were far removed even from any knowledge of anything of the kind. Nevertheless, the calumniator was as highly honoured as before, while the accused were punished with exile and with fines; but shortly afterwards they were recalled, had their fines remitted, and were restored to their former rank and honour unimpaired."

Her siblings have been identified with Flavius Eusebius and Flavius Hypatius, co-consuls in 359. Eusebius is described as a rhetor in an epistle by Libanius. In the Panegyric, Julian alludes to both brothers having secured high offices through the influence of Eusebia. Libanius identifies Eusebius as governor of the Hellespont c. 355. He was next sent to Antioch and then appointed governor of Bithynia. He held no known offices following his term as consul. Hypatius was possibly vicarius of the city of Rome in 363. Libanius mentions Hypatius appointed Praefectus urbi, c. 378-379. Gregory of Nazianzus mentions Hypatius visiting Constantinople in 381. He served as Praetorian prefect of both the Praetorian prefecture of Italy and the Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum, c. 382-383. An inscription of Gortyn, Crete praises him as the most illustrious of the consuls and praetorian prefects.