EIIDO'CIA, the name of several Byzantine princesses, of whom the most important is the wife of the emperor Theodosius II. She was the daughter of the sophist Leontius or Leon, and was educated by her father, who instructed her in the literature of Greece and Rome, in rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy. Her accomplishments and her singular beauty were reckoned by Leontius a sufficient fortune, for at his death lie left all his property to her two brothers. E. appealed to the emperor at Constanti nople. Pulcheria, the sister of Theodosius, was interested in the maiden, and thought she would make a suitable wife for the emperor. But as E. (or, more properly, Athe nais, for this was her name until her baptism) had been brought up a pagan, it was neces sary first to convert her. This was easily accomplished. E..was married to the emperor in 421 A.D. For many years, however, Pulcheria ruled in the imperial household and councils, E., according to Nicephorus, " submitting to her as mother and Augusta;" but in 447, a quarrel broke out between them in regard to the Eutychian heresy, of which E. had become a supporter. At first, E. was triumphant, and Pulcheria was banished;
but in a short time the emperor was reconciled to his sister, and treated E. so sharply that she retired to Jerusalem, where she died 460-61 A.D. Her latter days were spent in works of piety and charity. She enriched churches, rebuilt the walls of the holy city, and founded many monasteries and hospitals. Through the influence of the famous Symeon Stilites, she was induced to renounce Eutychianism, and become an orthodox Catholic Christian. E. was a poetess of considerable merit. She wrote a poem in heroic verse on the victory obtained by the troops of Theodosius over the Per sians, 421-or 422 A.D.; a paraphrase of eight books of Scripture, a paraphrase of Daniel and Zechariah; and a poem in three books on the history and martyrdom of Cyprian. and Justina. The authorship of Romero- Centones has also (but without sufficient reason) been attributed to her. This is a work composed of. verses taken from Homer, and so arranged as to appear a history of.the fall of man and of his redemption by Christ. It has been often published.