Eudocia. By Eden Phillpotts. (Heinemann. 7s. 6d. net.)— It is
a far cry from nineteenth century Dartmoor to eleventh century Byzantium, but such divergencies of time and space do not appear to inconvenience Mr. Phillpotts. After all, perhaps this, too, is only a matter of relativity. In any case, in describing the " rotten state " of the old Byzantine Empire in the days immediately succeeding the death of Constantine, when Eudocia reigned alone, Mr. Phillpotts has achieved an interesting study.
The main theme of the book is concerned with the plots and counterplots—political and religious—which troubled the tottering Empire of the East, and whose immediate result
was the marriage of Eudocia with her great genefal, Romanus
Diogenes. The dignified treatment which the author is accus- tomed to accord to his West Country idylls is recognizable in his handling of this widely different material, although in the opinion of the present writer he has hardly made as much of the wonderful opportunities it offers for pictorial effects as might have been expected. Incidentally, ho dealt' faithfully, if severely, with the eternally unstable character of the Greek.
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