), Fatih,
Istanbul. Archeological Museum. Eudocia was a prolific poet: though most of her work does not survive, almost 3,500 lines do, which is remarkable especially for a female poet of the time. Her literary style is reflective of the contemporary traditions of
paraphrasing and her thorough sophist education. She wrote in epic hexameters on Christian themes. though in recent years there has been increasing academic attention.
Photius provides crucial evidence for some of her poetry which was lost. In his catalogue of Eudocia's poetry, he mentions her eight-book paraphrasis of the
Octateuch into epic hexameters and a
paraphrasis in the same metre of the books of two prophets, Zachariah and Daniel. Photius praises her work as of remarkable quality. Each part also survives in several different
recensions; it is unclear which recensions were in Eudocia's
exemplar, and most scholars agree that she used a copy which does not survive to us. The narrative is fictional; Common opinion dated the poem to the latter part of Eudocia's life, during her exile (c. 441–460): Livrea, however, criticises these arguments as illogical and dates the text to c.438–39 in alignment with her first pilgrimage to Jerusalem and visit to Antioch. The entirety of her first book survives (322 lines) alongside part of the second book (479 lines). A full translation of the text can be found in the appendix of Brian Sowers (2020)
In Her Own Words: The Life and Poetry of Aelia Eudocia. Book 1: The Conversion The first book narrates the story of Justa, a young virgin in Antioch. Upon hearing a priest's sermon from her window, she falls in love with
Christ. She criticises her parents'
pagan faith and
idolatry. That night, her father has a dream in which Christ entreats him to join his faith; he immediately takes his wife and daughter to church where they convert to Christianity. Justa frequently walks between her house and the church to pray; a young man, Aglaïdas, sees her and instantly desires her. He sends people to Justa's house to propose marriage; she refuses, saying that
her only suitor is Christ. Aglaïdas sends a band of men to take her, but the other church-goers rout them. He then attacks her, but she throws him on his back and tears and his face and clothes, drawing a direct parallel to the story of
St. Thecla. Enraged, he turns to the magician
Cyprian. Cyprian summons three
demons in his attempts to seduce Justa. The first two, armed with various charms and spells, cannot even enter her house; each time, Justa prays and makes the sign of the cross and the demon flees, terrified. The third demon summoned is
Satan himself. Satan transforms himself into the guise of a young virgin, sits upon Justa's bed and attempts to persuade her to forsake her virginity. Justa almost leaves her house, but soon recognises the evil and routs Satan. Satan returns to Cyprian who is shocked at Justa's power. Satan tells him that all demonic power is merely deception, that God has the only true power and how punishment awaits those who have sinned. Cyprian exorcises Satan and converts to Christianity. He rapidly rises in the ecclesiastic ranks, eventually becoming the
Bishop of Antioch. He makes Justa a
deaconess and renames her Justina.
Book 2: The Confession What survives of the second book is a confessional speech in which Cyprian relates his childhood, upbringing and the events which led to his conversion. He describes his early life, being dedicated to
Apollo and undergoing numerous mythical initiations, including rites related to
Mithras,
Athena and
Kore. He travels widely, gaining much esoteric knowledge about spirits, gods, the
occult and deceptive magical arts. He masters
divination and
demonology and sees the monstrous, allegorical
personifications of vices such as Hatred, Greed and Hypocrisy. He relates his first meeting with Satan, who flatters him and offers him demonic leadership. He presents all these experiences as impious and warns against the deceptive and corruptive influence of magic and demon worship. He then relates his clash with Justa. Since the second part of the prose original was written by a different anonymous author than the first, there are numerous narrative discrepancies which do not align with the events of book one. His account details a more drawn out attack which spans over ten weeks, with legions of demons instead of just three. He narrates an occasion where he transformed Aglaïdas into a bird, who flew to Justa's house only to be struck down. Satan is given far more agency in this struggle, sending countless evils and even a plague onto the city. Cyprian's struggle of faith and conscience is presented as more gradual and complicated: he went to battle against the demons and questions their reliability several times before breaking with them completely. What survives ends with an audience member standing up to reply to his confession. The rest of the narrative can be seen from Photius' summaries or the prose original. Other influences include
Apollonius,
Hesiod, the
Greek romance novels, and later, imperial poets such as
Oppian. The poem also contains numerous
hapax legomena. Bevegni gives a general overview of her lexical influences, calling the poem a linguistic
pastiche. Eudocia's poetry has been understudied; though her work was praised in antiquity, or "uncouth and ignorant". The majority of attention has been from Italian scholars, particularly Claudio Bevegni. There has been increased attention to Eudocia's poetry in English scholarship, though writing about the
Martyrdom is still scarce.
The Hamat Gader poem The poem inscribed on the baths at
Hamat Gader was very short, and can be included here, as evidence of her hexameter writing style. The poem was inscribed so visitors could read it as they went into the pool. The line "Of the Empress Eudocia" flanked by two crosses is set above the poem. This title line was added after the carving of the main inscription, making room for some doubt whether the poem was indeed authored by Eudocia. Clibanus is the name given to the source of the hot water. After praising his qualities and those of his many springs ("the thousandfold swell"), the poem enumerates "four-fold four", thus sixteen different parts of the bath complex, fourteen of which bear a name; these names include
Hygieia (the pagan goddess of health), a whole range of pagan personal names, "holy
Elijah" referring to the prophet, and two refer to Christians – a nun and a patriarch.
Homeric centos The
Homeric centos that Eudocia composed are her most popular poems, as well as those most analyzed by modern scholars, because Homer was a popular choice on which to write a cento. Eudocia's centos are the longest Homeric centos, and consist of 2,344 lines. These centos are a clear representation of who Eudocia was, and what she believed in—an epic poem combining her Athenian classical educational background, but adding stories from the book of
Genesis and the
New Testament stories of the life of
Jesus Christ. The most extensive surviving portion of Eudocia's work is 2,354 lines about Adam and Eve, based upon an incomplete poem by a man named Patricius. Mark Usher analyzed this poem as a way to understand why Eudocia chose to use Homeric themes as a means to express her biblical interpretations. According to Usher, Eudocia needed to convey human experience relating to the Bible. She used themes from the
Iliad and
Odyssey because "they contained all Eudocia needed to tell the
Gospel story. Whenever and wherever Eudocia needed to express greatness, pain, truthfulness, deceit, beauty, suffering, mourning, recognition, understanding, fear, or astonishment, there was an apt Homeric line or passage ready in her memory to be recalled." Some scholars view Eudocia’s Homeric poetry as a valuable lens into the identity of Christian women in the
Eastern Roman Empire, and understanding her role as empress. Scholars have noted that her poetry reveals traces of classical education, including possible use of acrostics. She made a point to connect her background love for studying classical
Greek literature to her Christian beliefs. ==Legacy==