AELIA PULCHERIA (Augusta, 414-453). GOLD Tremissis. Constantinople.

Obv: AEL PVLCHERIA AVG.
Diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right.
Rev: CONOB (star).
Cross within wreath.

RIC 280 (wreath ties 8); Depeyrot 72/4.

Aelia Pulcheria was empress of the Eastern Roman Empire from 414, when she was only 16 years old, as regent for her younger brother, emperor Theodosius II, and then as wife of Marcian after Theodosius' childless death. This was a fervently Christian family: her father Theodosius I had been a disciple of St. Ambrose, and Pulcheria took a vow of virginity, convincing her sisters to do the same. She undertook to find a wife for her brother herself and convinced the pagan Athenais to convert to Christianity. The latter agreed and became empress under the name Eudocia. Pulcheria also convinced Theodosius to have the Jews driven out of Constantinople, depriving them of all their property, and to declare war on the Persians because they did not follow the Christian religion. He prohibited pagans from entering public offices and expelled the patriarch Nestorius, considered a heretic, from Constantinople. Upon the death of Theodosius II, who died without an heir, Pulcheria married Marcian, after rejecting all marriage proposals she had had up to that point. Marcian thus became emperor, provided, however, that the marriage was never consummated. As empress she sponsored the building of many churches and shrines, and engaged in intense correspondence with Pope Leo the Great, who especially begged her to help him suppress the Monophysite heresy of Eutyches, later condemned in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon. Pulcheria died in 453. In her will, drafted by Marcianus, she left all her property to the poor.

Condition: Mint State.

Weight: 1.51 g.
Diameter: 14 mm.