Phrygian apple, of enormously large size, and
the emperor was surprised at it, and all his court. And straightway the
emperor gave one hundred and fifty nomismata to the man who brought the
apple, and sent it to Eudocia Augusta; and the Augusta sent it to
Paulinus, the master of offices, as being a friend of the emperor. But
Paulinus, not being aware that the emperor had sent it to the empress,
took it and sent it to the Emperor Theodosius, even as he was entering
the palace. And when the emperor received it, he recognized it and
concealed it. And having called Augusta, he questioned her, saying:

"'Where is the apple that I sent you?' And she said, 'I ate it.'--Then
he caused her to swear the truth by his salvation, whether she ate it or
sent it to some one; and she swore, 'I sent it unto no man, but ate it.'
And the emperor commanded the apple to be brought, and showed it to her.
And he was indignant against her, suspecting that she was enamored of
Paulinus, and sent him the apple and denied it. And on this account
Theodosius put Paulinus to death. And the Empress Eudocia was grieved,
and thought herself insulted, for it was known everywhere that Paulinus
was slain on account of her, for he was a very handsome young man. And
she asked the emperor that she might go the holy place to pray; and he
allowed her; and she went down from Constantinople to Jerusalem to
pray."

In the opinion of Gregorovius, Eudocia's apple of Phrygia eludes
interpretation as completely as Eve's apple of Eden, but Bury explains
the story as an example of Oriental metaphor. He recalls a parallel to
it in the Arabian Nights, and fancies that its germ may have been an
allegorical mode of expression in which someone covertly told the story
of the suspected intrigue. In Hellenistic romance the apple was a
conventional love gift, and when presented to a man by a woman signified
a declaration of love. Hence, as the basis of the tale was presumed to
be the amorous intercourse of Paulinus and the empress, we can conceive
one accustomed to Oriental allegory saying or writing that Eudocia had
given her precious apple to Paulinus, symbolizing thereby that she had
surrendered her chastity.

Such is the legend of the fall of the empress. All we know for certain
is that about this time a marked discord between husband and wife was
apparent, and that Paulinus, the emperor's boyhood friend and most
trusted confidant, was put to death by imperial order during