in History

On This Day (October 20)

On this day in 460, Aelia Eudocia, wife of the emperor Theodosius II, died in Jerusalem (see here and here).

In addition to being Augusta, Eudocia, the daughter of the Athenian sophist Leontius, was a poet who wrote about Roman military victories over Persia, a poem about the martyrdom of Cyprian, a paraphrase of part of the Old Testament, and centones composed of Homeric verses (which, along with the poem on Cyprian, survive).

Aelia Eudocia tremissis