have claimed for her--"one of the grandest
women of the earlier centuries."

PULCHERIA of CONSTANTINOPLE: THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN HORN

(Afterward known as "Pulcheria Augusta, Empress of the East.") A.D. 413.

There was trouble and confusion in the imperial palace of Theodosius
the Little, Emperor of the East. Now, this Theodosius was called "the
Little" because, though he bore the name of his mighty grandfather,
Theodosius the Great, emperor of both the East and West, he had as yet
done nothing worthy any other title than that of "the Little," or "the
Child." For Theodosius emperor though he was called, was only a boy of
twelve, and not a very bright boy at that.

His father, Arcadius the emperor, and his mother, Eudoxia the empress,
were dead; and in the great palace at Constantinople, in this year
of grace, 413, Theodosius, the boy emperor, and his three sisters,
Pulcheria, Marina, and Arcadia, alone were left to uphold the tottering
dignity and the empty name of the once mighty Empire of the East, which
their great ancestors, Constantine and Theodosius, had established and
strengthened.

And now there was confusion in the imperial palace; for word came in
haste from the Dacian border that Ruas, king of the Huns, sweeping down
from the east, was ravaging the lands along the Upper Danube, and with
his host of barbarous warriors was defeating the legions and devastating
the lands of the empire.

The wise Anthemius, prefect of the east, and governor or guardian of
the young emperor, was greatly disturbed by the tidings of this new
invasion. Already he had repelled at great cost the first advance of
these terrible Huns, and had quelled into a sort of half submission the
less ferocious followers of Ulpin the Thracian; but now he knew that his
armies along the Danube were in no condition to withstand the hordes of
Huns, that, pouring in from distant Siberia, were following the lead
of Ruas, their king, for plunder and booty, and were even now encamped
scarce two hundred and fifty miles from the seven gates and the triple
walls of splendid Constantinople.

Turbaned Turks, mosques and minarets, muftis and cadis, veiled eastern
ladies, Mohammedains and muezzins, Arabian Nights and attar of roses,
bazars, dogs, and donkeys--these, I suppose, are what Constantinople
suggests whenever its name is mentioned to any girl or boy of
to-day,--the capital of modern Turkey, the city of the Sublime Porte.
But the greatest g