that there must be something amiss, asked the empress about it. By a most unlucky falsehood she replied that she had eaten it. Her gentle husband, who was intensely fond of her, at once suspected mischief. There was, in fact, a scene—old Paulinus was banished, and Eudocia had to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But there is another account which attributes her final downfall to ecclesiastical squabbles, in which she and Pulcheria took opposite sides. It is said that for a time she had the advantage, that she won over the emperor to her own views, and that Pulcheria had to withdraw from Constantinople. She was, however, soon recalled and recovered her influence. Eudocia, it is said, ruined herself by procuring the murder of a minister, through whose agency two of her favourite ecclesiastics had been put to death. By this she quite destroyed her position, and lost the state and even title of empress. But the accounts we have are confused and contradictory. She was, it is certain, a considerable author, and wrote paraphrases of certain portions of the Scriptures, and she was something of a poet. In one of her poems she commemorated the victories won by her husband's armies over the Persians. The emperor, it may be presumed, knew next to nothing about this. The most fulsome panegyric was the fashion of the day, and was one of the worst disgraces of the Byzantine court. It was indeed the fitting companion of vulgar show and luxury. There had indeed been in 422 some fighting in Armenia and Mesopotamia between the empire of the East and Persia. But nothing decisive—or worthy of commemoration had been accomplished.
