Content warning: this talk includes references to incidents of sexual violence.

The Empress Licinia Eudoxia (c. 422–470CE) lived an extraordinary life. Born the daughter of an east Roman emperor at Constantinople, as a teenager she travelled to Italy to marry her cousin, the west Roman emperor, and gave birth to two daughters. When her husband Valentinian III was assassinated in 455, she was abducted by the Vandal king of North Africa, and held hostage at his court in Carthage for seven years before finally being permitted to return to Constantinople, where she lived out her final years as a major religious benefactor. 

In this presentation I will explore some of the key challenges of writing about the life and experiences of a woman who lived 1,500 years ago and whose voice remains largely silent in our source material. I will particularly examine the questions of what credence we may give rumours in our literary sources about her activities following her husband’s death, and the degree to which we may – or may not – ascribe influence to her in the design of her distinctive official images on contemporary Roman coinage in the 450s. 

Please note the date for this session has changed to Friday 30 October (same time and place).

Meaghan McEvoy is a Senior Lecturer in the School of History at ANU. She completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford and has held research fellowships in Rome, Washington DC and Frankfurt am Main. She specialises in the history of the late antique, Byzantine and early medieval period, particularly exploring issues of politics, gender, military leadership and ecclesiastical patronage, and has published on all of these areas.