Pulcheria - Relationship With Aelia Eudocia

Relationship With Aelia Eudocia

The relationship between Pulcheria and Aelia Eudocia, Theodosius II's wife, was a strained one. Two women over the years had developed a rivalry based on their different backgrounds and religious beliefs, despite the fact that Pulcheria had arranged the marriage of Eudocia to Theodosius. When Theodosius was twenty years old, Pulcheria sought out to find her brother a wife, Theodosius had many demands as to what kind of wife he wanted to have, "I want you to find me a young girl, very, very comely, the most beautiful ever seen in Constantinople, of royal or patrician family. And if she isn't marvelously good-looking, I have no use for her, however worthy or royal or rich she may be. But whoever was her father, if she is a virgin and very so good to look at, I take her." Pulcheria searched throughout the Empire and found a suitable wife in Eudocia. Eudocia was originally named Athenais, her name was later changed when she became empress. Born in Athens, her father was a Greek philosopher and a professor of rhetoric. When Eudocia's father died he left her with little means, only "one hundred gold coins" Eudocia then went to her aunt in Constantinople out of desperation, and it was decided that Eudocia would come before Pulcheria to petition for her lost fortune. Pulcheria saw in Eudocia the wife she wanted for her brother, "...Pulcheria felt that here was the bride she had long sought. Athenais was not only a girl of striking beauty and charm; she was one could see, of unusual intelligence and knowledge. Her father, she told the Empress, had given all care to her education in Athens, especially in matters literary and artistic." On June 7, 421, Theodosius married Athenais, her name was changed to her Christian name of Eudocia. The rivalry between the two woman was influenced by Eudocia's jealousies over Pulcheria's power in court, She had always felt jealous of her sister-in-law, Pulcheria, who for many years had held greater influence at Court then she herself had enjoyed, as Empress, as wife." Together Eudocia and the Court chamberlain Chrysaphius influenced Theodosius to rely less on the influence of his sister, Pulcheria, and more on the influence of his new wife Eudocia. This made Pulcheria leave the palace and live in "...Hebdomon, a seaport seven miles from Constantinople." The rivalry of Eudocia and Pulcheria came to a head when Eudocia left for the Holy Land, and openly supported Nestorism, "But she had been brought up in Athens in pagan ways; she had ever been devoted to the literature of her native Greece." The fact that Eudocia had openly opposed the ideas of the Theotokos meant that she had openly opposed Pulcheria, and her religious ideals as well.