EASTERN ROMAN Aelia Eudoxia wife of Arcadius AD 400-404 AE3 Nummus/Cross NGC. 01

ROMAN EMPIRE

CERTIFIED BY NGC

Aelia Eudoxia AD 400-404

AE3 NUMMUS

Obverse:  Diademed, draped bust right, being crowned by Hand of God
Reverse:  empress enthroned facing, hands on breast, being crowned by the hand of God; cross in right field;

Aelia Eudoxia (died 6 October 404 ) was the Empress consort of the Eastern Roman emperor Arcadius .

She was a daughter of Flavius Bauto , a Romanised Frank who served as magister militum in the Western Roman army during the 380s. The identity of her father is mentioned by Philostorgius . The fragmentary chronicle of John of Antioch, a 7th century monk tentatively identified with John of the Sedre , Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch from 641 to 648 considers Bauto to have also fathered Arbogast . The relation is not accepted by modern historians. The History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian (1923) by J. B. Bury ] and the historical study Theodosian Empresses. Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (1982) by Kenneth Holum consider her mother to be Roman and Eudoxia to be a "semibarbara", half-barbarian. However the primary sources are silent on her maternal ancestry.

Her father was last mentioned as Roman Consul with Arcadius in 385. He was already deceased in 388.  According to Zosimus , Eudoxia entered started her life in Constantinople as a household member of Promotus , magister militum of the Eastern Roman Empire. She is presumed to have been orphaned at the time of her arrival  Her entry into the household of Promotus may indicate a friendship of the two magisters  or a political alliance.

Promotus died in 391. According to Zosimus, he was survived by his widow Marsa and two sons who were raised alongside the sons and co-emperors of Theodosius I . Said sons were Arcadius and his younger brother Honorius . Zosimus asserts that Eudoxia lived alongside one of the surviving sons in Constantinople. She is therefore assumed to have already been acquainted with Arcadius during his years as junior partner to his father. Zosimus reports that Eudoxia was educated by Pansophius. Her former tutor was promoted to bishop of Nicomedia in 402. Wendy Mayer considers Eudoxia to have been groomed as a vehicle for the ambitions of her foster family. 

On 17 January 395, Theodosius I succumbed to death by oedema in Milan . Arcadius succeeded him in the Eastern Roman Empire and Honorius in the Western Roman Empire . Arcadius was effectively placed under the control of Rufinus , Praetorian prefect of the East. Rufinus reportedly intended to marry his daughter to Arcadius and establish his own relation to the Theodosian dynasty. Eudoxia and Arcadius had five known children.

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