he public baths, and accepted the statues, which were decreed by the
gratitude of Antioch. In the Holy Land, her alms and pious foundations
exceeded the munificence of the great Helena, and though the public
treasure might be impoverished by this excessive liberality, she enjoyed
the conscious satisfaction of returning to Constantinople with the
chains of St. Peter, the right arm of St. Stephen, and an undoubted
picture of the Virgin, painted by St. Luke. [76] But this pilgrimage was
the fatal term of the glories of Eudocia. Satiated with empty pomp, and
unmindful, perhaps, of her obligations to Pulcheria, she ambitiously
aspired to the government of the Eastern empire; the palace was
distracted by female discord; but the victory was at last decided, by
the superior ascendant of the sister of Theodosius. The execution of
Paulinus, master of the offices, and the disgrace of Cyrus, Praetorian
praefect of the East, convinced the public that the favor of Eudocia
was insufficient to protect her most faithful friends; and the uncommon
beauty of Paulinus encouraged the secret rumor, that his guilt was that
of a successful lover. [77] As soon as the empress perceived that
the affection of Theodosius was irretrievably lost, she requested
the permission of retiring to the distant solitude of Jerusalem. She
obtained her request; but the jealousy of Theodosius, or the vindictive
spirit of Pulcheria, pursued her in her last retreat; and Saturninus,
count of the domestics, was directed to punish with death two
ecclesiastics, her most favored servants. Eudocia instantly revenged
them by the assassination of the count; the furious passions which she
indulged on this suspicious occasion, seemed to justify the severity of
Theodosius; and the empress, ignominiously stripped of the honors of her
rank, [78] was disgraced, perhaps unjustly, in the eyes of the world.
The remainder of the life of Eudocia, about sixteen years, was spent in
exile and devotion; and the approach of age, the death of Theodosius,
the misfortunes of her only daughter, who was led a captive from Rome
to Carthage, and the society of the Holy Monks of Palestine, insensibly
confirmed the religious temper of her mind. After a full experience of
the vicissitudes of human life, the daughter of the philosopher Leontius
expired, at Jerusalem, in the sixty-seventh year of her age; protesting,
with her dying breath, that she had never transgressed the bounds of
innocence and frie