Eudocias () or Eudocia () was an ancient town in the

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

Pamphylia Secunda Pamphylia (; , ''Pamphylía'' ) was a region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus (all in modern-day Antalya province, Turkey). It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was the ...

, in the neighbourhood of

Termessus Termessos (Greek Τερμησσός ''Termēssós''), also known as Termessos Major (Τερμησσός ἡ μείζων), was a Pisidian city built at an altitude of about 1000 metres at the south-west side of Solymos Mountain (modern Gül ...

. According to William Smith's ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography'' (1854), the ''

Synecdemus The ''Synecdemus'' or ''Synekdemos'' () is a geographic text, attributed to Hierocles, which contains a table of administrative divisions of the Byzantine Empire and lists of their cities. The work is dated to the reign of Justinian Justinia ...

'' of Hierocles mentions four towns in

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

, including one in Pamphylia, called Eudocia (Εὐδοκία), but other scholars report the ''Synecdemus'' as calling the Pamphylian town Eudocias.

Le Quien Michel Le Quien (8 October 1661, Boulogne-sur-Mer – 12 March 1733, Paris) was a French historian and theologian. Biography Le Quien studied at , Paris, and at twenty entered the Dominican convent in Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he made ...

says the ''Synecdemus'' spoke of the Pamphylian town as Eudoxias but himself, in line with other sources, uses the form "Eudocias". Parthey's 1866 edition of the ''Synecdemus'' gives the name of the Pamphylian town as Eudocia, but notes that the earlier editions of Wesseling (1735) and Bekker (1840) gave the name as Eudocias. In recent studies, "Eudocias" is the form of the name given by George E. Bean, and by Hülya Yalçınsoy and Süleyman Atalay. The original name of the town seems to have been Anydros. It was rebuilt in the 5th century and renamed Eudocias in honour of

Empress The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

Aelia Eudocia Aelia Eudocia Augusta (; ; 460 AD), also called Saint Eudocia, was an Eastern Roman empress by marriage to Emperor Theodosius II (). Daughter of an Athenian philosopher, she was also a poet, whose works include ''Homerocentones'', or Homeric re ...

, the wife of

Theodosius II Theodosius II ( ; 10 April 401 – 28 July 450), called "the Calligraphy, Calligrapher", was Roman emperor from 402 to 450. He was proclaimed ''Augustus (title), Augustus'' as an infant and ruled as the Eastern Empire's sole emperor after the ...

, and under this name is mentioned in the ''Synecdemus''. Bishop Timotheus of Termessus and Eudocias took part in the

Council of Ephesus The Council of Ephesus was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus (near present-day Selçuk in Turkey) in AD 431 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius II. This third ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church th ...

in 431 and Bishop Sabinianus of Termessus, Eudocias and Iobia in a synod held in

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

in 448. But in 458, the

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Catholic Church, a suffragan bishop leads a diocese within an ecclesiastical province other than the principal diocese, the metropolitan archdiocese; the diocese led ...

s of the

metropolitan see Metropolitan may refer to: Areas and governance (secular and ecclesiastical) * Metropolitan archdiocese, the jurisdiction of a metropolitan archbishop ** Metropolitan bishop or archbishop, leader of an ecclesiastical "mother see" * Metropolitan ...

Perge Perga or Perge (Hittite language, Hittite: ''Parha'', ''Perge'', ) was originally an ancient Lycian settlement that later became a Greeks, Greek city in Pamphylia. It was the capital of the Roman province of Pamphylia Secunda, now located in ...

(the capital of Pamphylia Secunda) who signed a joint letter to the

Byzantine Emperor The foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, which Fall of Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers and exercised s ...

regarding the murder of

Proterius of Alexandria Pope Proterius of Alexandria (died 457) was Patriarch of Alexandria from 451 to 457. He had been appointed by the Council of Chalcedon to replace the deposed Dioscorus. He regarded as hieromartyr by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic ...

included both Auxentius of Termessus and Innocentius of Eudocias, showing that Eudocias had by then become a distinct

episcopal see An episcopal see is the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the geographical significance of the term, making it synonymous with ''diocese'' ...

. From then on Eudocias and Termessus appear as separate sees in the ''

Notitiae Episcopatuum The ''Notitiae Episcopatuum'' (singular: ''Notitia Episcopatuum'') were official documents that furnished for Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church. In the Roman Church (the mos ...

'' even as late as the 10th century.Frank Kolb (editor), ''Chora und Polis''
(Oldenbourg Verlag 2004 ), pp. 104–105 Other sources too give the names of these bishops of Eudocias, adding to them Callistus (or Calixtus), who took part in the

Second Council of Nicaea The Second Council of Nicaea is recognized as the last of the first seven ecumenical councils by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. In addition, it is also recognized as such by Old Catholic Church, Old Catholics and others. ...

in 787.Pius Bonifacius Gams
''Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae''
Leipzig 1931, pp. 450–451 No longer a residential

bishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

, Eudocias is today listed by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

as a

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

. Its site is tentatively located near Evdirhan in Asiatic Turkey.

References

{{coord, 36.98837, N, 30.57988, E, format=dms, display=title, source:http://dare.ht.lu.se/places/27722.html Populated places in ancient Pamphylia Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Former populated places in Turkey Catholic titular sees in Asia

See also

References