Theodosius II

Theodosius II reigned for forty-eight years, longer than any other Roman emperor, and is remembered chiefly for a wall and a law code he had little to do with. Born in 401, he became Augustus at one and sole eastern emperor at seven when his father Arcadius died in 408. He was governed throughout. The praetorian prefect Anthemius ran the state for six years; his elder sister Pulcheria, who took a public vow of virginity at fifteen partly to prevent any husband claiming the throne through her, dominated the court thereafter; and various eunuchs and officials held periods of influence. He was pious, scholarly and physically frail, and his contemporaries called him the calligrapher for the quality of his handwriting. The land walls of Constantinople were built under Anthemius from 408 — a triple line of moat, outer wall and a great inner wall with ninety-six towers, which no attacker breached for a thousand and twenty-two years, and which is the single reason the eastern empire survived when the west did not. The Theodosian Code of 438 collected every general law issued since Constantine, and is the foundation of Justinian's later compilation and of most of what we know about the late Roman state. He founded the university of Constantinople in 425. He also called the councils of Ephesus in 431 and 449, the second of which was so violently mismanaged that it is known as the Robber Synod. He died in 450 after falling from a horse, without a son.

• Lived: 401 CE – 450 CE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: emperor, head_of_state, scholar