Holum Kenneth G. Theodosian Empresses. Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity

University of California Press, 1982. — 258 p.This is an excellent little history of the critical role women in the Byzantine court played in the Christological controversies of the early 5th century. Pulcheria's vital interventions offset her brother Theodosius' Nestorian leanings and helped to set up the Council of Chalcedon. That synod established the imperial support for Cyrillian diaphytism but alas did little to resolve the disparate factions in the Empire. A valuable contribution to Byzantine and early Christian history. The author focusses more on the Christology and the religious disputes of the 5th century with the Ecumenical Councils of Ephesus (431), the Second Council of Ephesus (449) or the so-called Robber Council and the Council of Chalcedon (451). Hollum spends too much attention to the complex issue of Trinitarian theology, the Theotokos and the influence the Church Fathers, the bishops, monks, eunuchs and others.