generation,
and thirty years later, at the earnest solicitation of the people,
Chrysostom's remains were brought to Constantinople. The Emperor
Theodosius advanced to receive them as far as Chalcedon, and implored
the forgiveness of the injured saint in the name of his guilty parents,
Arcadius and Eudoxia.

Less than four years after the birth of her son, Theodosius, Eudoxia, in
the bloom of her youth and the height of her power, came to her end as
the result of a miscarriage; and this untimely death confounded the
prophecy of Porphyrius of Gaza, who had foretold that she would live to
see the reign of her son. Pious Catholics saw in her untimely death the
vengeance of Heaven for the persecution of Saint Chrysostom; and few
save the emperor and her children bewailed the loss of the worldly and
ambitious empress.

X

THE RIVAL EMPRESSES--PULCHERIA AND EUDOCIA

Beside the deathbed of the gentle Arcadius, whom destiny snatched from
life in the fulness of manhood, stood four weeping orphans of tenderest
years, three maidens and a little lad--all too young to realize the
greatness of their loss. These were the seven-year-old Theodosius, heir
to the throne, the nine-year-old Pulcheria and her two younger sisters,
Arcadia and Marina. In the orphanage of the children, it was natural
that the eldest daughter should feel that upon herself rested the
responsibility of acting as mother to her brother and sisters; and
Pulcheria possessed the mental endowments and the rapidly developing
nature which peculiarly fitted her for this task. Fortunately the
administration of the Empire was in the hands of the praetorian prefect
Anthemius, a wise and able counsellor, who acted as the guardian of the
young prince and his sisters and directed their education. He, with the
Patriarch Atticus, who was their religious guide and spiritual adviser,
provided them with every possible advantage for intellectual and
spiritual growth. Pulcheria early exhibited an earnest and almost manly
intelligence. Along with the sympathetic and mystical temperament of a
saint, she possessed the strong, practical sense of her grandfather,
Theodosius the Great. Hence she was quick to turn her attention to
problems of statecraft and displayed a precocious capacity for
administration. Her duties as guardian of her brother and sisters also
developed her innate love of mastery, so that as a child she gradually
conceived a longing for the duties and responsibi