Theodosius II

Theodosius II (April, 401 - July 28, 450 ). The eldest son of Eudoxia and Arcadius who at the age of 7 became the Roman Emperor of the East.

He was heavily influenced by his eldest sister Pulcheria who pushed him towards orthodox Christianity. Pulcheria was the primary driving power behind the emperor and many of her views became official policy. These included her anti-Semitic view which resulted in the destruction of synagogues.

On the death of his father Arcadius in 408, he became Emperor. In June 421 Theodosius married the poet Aelia Eudocia.

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The Theodosian Code

In 429 Theodosius appointed a commission to collect all of the laws since the reign of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, and create a fully formalized system of law. This plan was left unfinished, but the work of a second commission that met in Constantinople, assigned to collect all of the general legislations and bring them up to date was completed, and their collection published as the Codex Theodosianus in 438. The law code of Theodosius II, summarizing edicts made since the first Christian emperor Constantine, provided a basis for the law code of Justinian in the following century. Roman intolerance of impiety with respect to ritual was now extended to crimes of conscience and of thought.

During this time he was responsible for the creation of the J. B. Bury's History of the Later Roman Empire)

Sections concerning religious observances (English)

This is a list of Byzantine Emperors.

Note: It is difficult to determine when exactly the Roman Empire ends and the Byzantine Empire begins; Diocletian split the Roman Empire into eastern and western halves for administrative purposes in 284. Candidates for the "first" Byzantine emperor include Constantine I (the first Christian emperor, who moved the capital to Constantinople), Valens (the Battle of Adrianople (378) provides one of the traditional cut-off events to mark the start of the medieval period), Arcadius (treating Theodosius I as the last emperor of a single Roman Empire), and Zeno I (as the last western emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed during his reign). Others date the beginning of the Empire even as late as Heraclius (who replaced the traditional Roman imperial title of "Augustus" with "Basileus", the Greek word for "Emperor", and discontinued the use of Latin by making Greek the official language). Numismatists note the monetary reforms of Anastasius I in 498, which used the Greek numbering system. Of course, the Byzantines themselves continued to think of their empire as "Roman" for over a millennium.


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Theodosius II

The Theodosian Code

Constantinian dynasty

Non-dynastic

Valentinian-Theodosian dynasty

Dynasty of Leo

Justinian dynasty

Non-dynastic

Heraclian dynasty

Non-dynastic

Isaurian dynasty

Non-dynastic

Amorian (or Phrygian) dynasty

Macedonian dynasty

Non-dynastic

Ducaian-Comnenan dynasty

Angelan dynasty

Lascaran dynasty (in exile in the Empire of Nicaea during the time of the Latin Empire)

Palaeologan Dynasty (restored at Constantinople)