So Athenais received baptism, and under the name of Eudocia became the bride of the Emperor of the East Like Portia, her father had scanted her and hedged her by his wit that she might reach the pinnacle of human joys. And with the spirit of Joseph in Egypt she forgave the brothers who had injured her, summoned them to Constantinople, and secured for them high positions. Her talents appeared in her writings, and in her friendship with the mast intelligent men of the day.

But erelong clouds began to gather on this sunny sky. First came the natural rivalry between herself and Pulcheria as to whether a wife's influence or a sister's would be stronger over the mind of the Emperor; then estrangement, due to their different temperaments and education; then diversity of theological opinion, Eudocia taking the side opposite to Pulcheria in the controversy raised by Nestorius. But perhaps these clouds might have passed away, and the heavens grown radiant again, had not the friendship between the Empress and Paulinus aroused the jealousy of Theodosius, and excited his worst suspicions.

According to a discredited tale the crisis was brought about under the following circumstances:—"One day the Emperor was met by a peasant who presented him with a Phrygian apple of enormous size, so that the whole Court marvelled at it. And he gave the man a hundred and fifty gold pieces in reward, and sent the apple to the Empress Eudocia. But she sent it, as a present to Paulinus, the Master of the Offices, because he was a friend of the Emperor. But Paulinus, not knowing the history of the apple, took it and gave it to the Emperor as he reentered the palace.

And Theodosius having received it, recognised it and concealed it, and calling his wife asked her, "Where is the apple that I sent you?" She replied, " I have eaten it" Then he bade her swear by his salvation the truth, whether she had eaten it or sent it to some one. And Eudocia swore that she had sent it to no man, but had herself eaten it Then the Emperor showed her the apple, and was exceedingly angry, suspecting that she was enamoured of Paulinus, and had sent it to him as a love-gift; for he was a very handsome man." But however idle this tale may be, the fact is that Paulinus was put to death, and the Empress was banished to Jerusalem. She spent the last sixteen years of her life there in retirement and abounding charities, and died protesting her innocence.

Account of the making of Constantinople

Before concluding this account of the making of Constantinople, we must note another of the characteristics which the city gradually manifested in the development of its life—the tendency to cease to be Roman and to become Greek. It is true, that in one sense Constantinople always remained Roman, and this character of the city should never be ignored wooden workmanship byzantium. The people preferred to be known as Romans rather than by any other name. No title of the Eastern Emperors was so glorious in their view as to be styled the Great Emperor of the Romans.

Roman law ruled in the Empire of which Constantinople was the head. The autocratic power inherited from strictly Roman days was maintained there to the last. Names of offices, epithets of officials, the denomination of taxes, legends upon the coinage of the realm, the terms in which Emperors were acclaimed by the army or the Factions were long preserved in their old Latin forms, but slightly, if at all, altered, and showed clearly the family connection that bound Rome upon the Bosporus to Rome upon the Tiber. Nevertheless, the daughter-city, though proud of her lineage, was also eager to declare her independence and to assert her individuality.

It could not be otherwise. A city exalted to be the capital of the part of the Empire under the sway of Greek traditions, and employing the Greek language as a vernacular speech, would inevitably consider itself called upon to embody and champion the peculiar properties of the society of which it was the constituted head. Nor could a community whose religious life was under the direction of a Church that worshipped in the Greek tongue, and was stirred by the eloquence of the Chrysostoms, the Gregories, and the Basils of the East retain a Roman complexion and character without serious modifications. So long, indeed, as the western division of the Empire existed, the political union between Rome and Constantinople proved a check upon the Greek bias of the latter city, owing to the necessity of using Latin, as the language whose writ could run equally in both parts of the Roman world.

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