A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Eudocia, or Eudoxia
EUDOCIA, or EUDOXIA,
Surnamed Macrembolitissa, widow of Constantine Ducas, caused herself to be proclaimed empress with her three sons, on the death of her husband, in 1067. Romanus Diogenes, one of the greatest generals of the empire, attempted to deprive her of the crown; and Eudoxia had him condemned to death, but happening to see him, she was so charmed by his beauty, that she pardoned him, and made him commander of the troops in the East. He there effaced by his valour his former delinquency, and she resolved to marry him. But it was necessary to obtain a deed, then in the hands of Patriarch Xiphilinus, by which she had promised Constantino Ducas never to marry again. She did this by pretending that she wished to espouse a brother of the Patriarch, and gave her hand to Romanus in 1068. Three years after, her son Michael caused himself to be proclaimed emperor, and shut her up in a convent.
She had displayed the qualities of a great sovereign on the throne; in a convent she manifested the devotion of a recluse. She cultivated literature successfully. There was a manuscript in her writing in the French king's library, on the genealogies of the gods, and of the heroes and heroines of antiquity, shewing a vast extent of reading.