This short story wants to highlight the important role of Empresses or Empress consorts in the Late Antiquity. Although they had no direct military power, their influence on the politics of 5th century can’t be underestimated. They had a great influence on their male family members, who often were blamed to have no back bone.
Empresses of the late antiquity gradually achieved a great deal of autonomy and exerted influence akin to co-rule, an unheard concept for women in ancient Greece and Rome or in any Western medieval state.
First, a cursory glance at the pattern of their prominence. The best known is without doubt Helena, the mother of the first Constantine, founder of the “New Rome”, the city that bears his name – Constantinople - in the fourth century. She went to Jerusalem probably to quell military unrest and organized the building of churches and charitable institutions.
During the fifth century, Galla Placidia, Pulcheria, Verina, and Ariadne took the stage. In the
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Most of these women were very intelligent and ambitious. Some of them were independent from the Imperial policy, others were used to strengthen the bond between the courts of the East and the West and the Church, and still others devoted their life and works to the Church, the way the Church Fathers wanted. One woman in particular, Licinia Eucoxia (widow of Valentian III) played a major role in the sack of Rome of 550 by the Vandals.
Writing a history about indiviuals and trying to place them in their “space of time” is not an easy job. There will always be interactions with facts, developments and events that go beyond the storyline. Nevertheless, I try to get the readers’ attention by giving them an overview in what shape the Roman Empire was before Diocletian and Constantine, the two Emperors who changed the Empire – some might say - introduced it into the Late