Aelia Eudoxia

Aelia Eudoxia (; ; died 6 October 404) was a Roman empress consort by marriage to the Roman emperor Arcadius. The marriage was the source of some controversy, as it was arranged by Eutropius, one of the eunuch court officials, who was attempting to expand his influence. As Empress, she came into conflict with John Chrysostom, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was popular among the common folk for his denunciations of imperial and clerical excess. She had five children, four of whom survived to adulthood, including her only son and future emperor , but she had two additional pregnancies that ended in either miscarriages or stillbirths and she died as a result of the latter one. Family She was a daughter of Flavius Bauto, a Romanised Frank who served as magister militum in the Western Roman army during the 380s. The identity of her father is mentioned by Philostorgius. The fragmentary chronicle of John of Antioch, a 7th-century monk formerly identified with John of the Sedre, Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch considers Bauto to have also fathered Arbogast. The relation is not accepted by modern historians. The History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian (1923) by J. B. Bury and the historical study Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (1982) by Kenneth Holum consider her mother to be Roman and Eudoxia to be a "semibarbara", half-barbarian. However, the primary sources are silent on her maternal ancestry, though she would have been Roman. Early life Aelia Eudoxia's father was last mentioned as Roman Consul with Arcadius in 385 and was already deceased by 388. According to Zosimus, Eudoxia started her life in Constantinople as a household member of Promotus, magister militum of the Eastern Roman Empire. She is presumed to have been orphaned at the time of her arrival Her entry into the household of Promotus may indicate a friendship of the two magisters or a political alliance. Promotus died in 391 and, according to Zosimus, he was survived by his widow Marsa and two sons, Arcadius and his younger brother Honorius, who were raised alongside the sons and co-emperors of Theodosius I. Zosimus asserts that Eudoxia lived alongside one of the surviving sons in Constantinople and is assumed to have already been acquainted with Arcadius during his years as junior partner to his father. Eudoxia was educated by Pansophius, who was later promoted to bishop of Nicomedia in 402.