This work is devoted to a complex, little-studied and underestimated era: the period of the reign of Emperor Theodosius II (401-450), the longest in the history of Byzantium. At this time, the empire was going through contradictory processes: the decline and instability in the West correspond to the rise and heyday in the East, in which historians paradoxically did not see any merit of the reigning emperor for a long time. The work attempts to look at the results of his reign in a new way, taking into account modern research. The wife of Theodosius II, Empress Athenaida-Eudokia (c. 405-460) - the daughter of an Athenian professor, a pagan who became a Christian, ruler, poetess and ascetic - is one of the symbolic figures of this era. Her name is surrounded by legends, not all of which are reliable, but their occurrence in itself is significant and has its own reasons, which the author seeks to understand.