280

Chosroes restored by Maurice

[591-600 crown for himself but veiled his real plan under the pretext of championing the cause of Chosroes, Ormizd's eldest son. At the same time a plot was formed in the palace, and Bahram was forestalled: the conspirators dethroned the king and Chosroes was crowned at Ctesiphon. But after the assassination of Ormizd the new monarch was unable to maintain his position: his troops deserted to Bahram, and he was forced to throw himself upon the mercy of the Emperor. As a helpless fugitive the King of kings arrived at Circesium and craved Rome's protection, offering in return to restore the lost Armenian provinces and to surrender Martyropolis and Dara. Despite the counsels of the senate, Maurice saw in this strange reversal of fortune a chance to terminate a war which was draining the Empire's strength: his resolve to accede to his enemy's request was at once a courageous and a statesmanlike action. He furnished Chosroes with men and money, Narses took command of the troops, and John Mystakon marched from Armenia to join the army. The two forces met at Sargana (probably Sirgan, in the plain of Ushnei2) and in the neighbourhood of Ganzaca (Takhti-Soleïmán) defeated and put to flight Bahram, while Chosroes recovered his throne without further resistance. The new monarch kept his promises to Rome and surrounded himself with a Roman body-guard (591). By this interposition Maurice had restored the Empire's frontier3 and had ended the long-drawn struggle in the East.

In 592 therefore he could transport his army into Europe, and was able to employ his whole military force in the Danubian provinces. Maurice himself went with the troops as far as Anchialus, when he was recalled by the presence of a Persian embassy in the capital. The chronology of the next few years is confused and it is impossible to give here a detailed account of the campaigns. Their general object was to maintain the Danube as the frontier line against the Avars and to restrict the forays of the Slavs. In this Priscus met with considerable success, but Peter, Maurice's brother, who superseded him in 597, displayed hopeless incompetency and Priscus was reappointed. In 600 Comentiolus, who was, it would appear, in command against his own will, entered into communications with the Khagan in order to secure the discomfiture of the Roman forces: he was, in fact, anxious to prove that the attempt to defend the northern frontier was labour lost. He ultimately fled headlong to the capital and only the personal interference of the Emperor stifled the inquiry into his treachery. On this

1 There seems no sufficient evidence for the theory that Bahram Cobin relied on a legitimist claim as representing the prae-Sassanid dynasty.

2 See H. C. Rawlinson, "Memoir on the site of the Atropatenian Ecbatana," Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1840), pp. 71 ff.

'See maps by H. Hübschmann in "Die altarmenischen Ortsnamen," Indogermanische Forschungen, xvI. (1904), and in Gelzer's Georgius Cyprius.

For the siege of Thessalonica in this year, cf. Wroth, op. cit. 1. p. XXI.

600-602]

Campaigns on the Danube Frontier

281

occasion the panic in Constantinople was such that the city guard-the μwere sent by Maurice to man the Long Walls.1

On the return of Comentiolus to the seat of war in the summer of 600, Priscus, in spite of his colleague's inactivity, won a considerable victory, but the autumn of 601 saw Peter once again in command and conducting unsuccessful negotiations for a peace. Towards the close of 602 the outlook was brighter, for conditions had changed in favour of Rome. The Antae had acted as her allies, and when Apsich was sent by the Khagan to punish this defection, numbers of the Avars themselves deserted and joined the forces under Peter. Maurice would seem to have thought that this was the moment to drive home the advantage which fortune offered, for if the soldiers could support themselves at the expense of the enemy, the harassed provincials and the overburdened exchequer might be spared the cost of their maintenance. Orders were sent that the troops were not to return, but should winter beyond the Danube. The army heard the news with consternation: barbarian tribes were ranging over the country on the further side of the river, the cavalry was worn out with the marches of the summer, their booty would purchase them the pleasures of civilised life. The Roman forces mutinied and, disobeying their superiors, crossed the river and reached Palastolum.

Peter withdrew from the camp in despair but meanwhile the officers had induced their men to face the barbarians once again, and the army had returned to Securisca (near Nikopol). Floods of rain, however, and extreme cold renewed the discontent; eight spokesmen, among whom was Phocas, covered the twenty miles between Peter and the camp and demanded that the army might return home to winter quarters. The commander-in-chief promised to give his answer on the following day : between the rebellious determination of the troops and the imperative dispatches of his brother he could see no loophole of escape; of one thing alone he was assured: that day would start a train of ills for Rome. True to his promise he joined his men and to their representatives he read the Emperor's letter. Before the tempest of opposition which this evoked the officers fled, and on the following day, when the soldiers had twice assembled to discuss the situation, Phocas was raised upon a -hield and declared their leader. Peter carried the news with all speed to the capital; Maurice disguised his fears and reviewed the troops of the demes. The Blues, on whose support he relied, numbered 900, the Greens 1500. On the refusal of Phocas to receive the Emperor's ambassadors, the demesmen were ordered to man the city walls. Phocas had been chosen as champion of the army, not as emperor: the army had refused allegiance to Maurice personally but not to his house;

'It seems probable that in some source hostile to Maurice the treachery of Comentiolus was transferred to the Emperor himself and to this was added the story of the failure to ransom the prisoners. The basis of fact from which the story sprang may perhaps be discerned in Theophylact, e.g. p. 247, 18 (edn. de Boor).

282

Death of Maurice

[602

accordingly the vacant throne was offered to Theodosius, the Emperor's eldest son, or, should he decline it, to his father-in-law Germanus, both of whom were hunting at the time in the neighbourhood of the capital. They were at once recalled to Constantinople. Germanus, realising that he was suspected of treason, armed his followers and surrounded by a body-guard took refuge in the Cathedral Church. He had won the sympathies of the populace, and when the Emperor attempted to remove him by force from St Sophia, riots broke out in the city, while the troops of the demes deserted their posts on the walls to join in the abuse of Emperor and patriarch. Maurice was denounced as a Marcianist and ribald songs were shouted against him through the streets. The house of the praetorian praefect, Constantine Lardys, was burned to the ground, and at the dead of night, with his wife and children, accompanied by Constantine, the Emperor, disguised as a private citizen, embarked for Asia (22 Nov. 602). A storm carried him out of his course and he only landed with difficulty at the shrine of Autonomus the Martyr; here an attack of gout held him prisoner, while the praetorian praefect was despatched with Theodosius to enlist the sympathy of Chosroes on behalf of his benefactor. The Emperor fled, the Greens determined to espouse the cause of Phocas and rejected the overtures of Germanus, who now made a bid for the crown and was prepared to purchase their support; they feared that, once his end was gained, his well-known partiality for the Blues would reassert itself. The disappointed candidate was driven to acknowledge his rival's claims. Phocas was invited to the Hebdomon (Makrikeui) and thither trooped out the citizens, the senate, and the patriarch. In the church of St John the Baptist the rude halfbarbarian centurion was crowned sovereign of the Roman Empire, and entered the capital "in a golden shower" of royal gifts.

But the usurper could not rest while Maurice was alive. On the day following the coronation of his wife Leontia, upon the Asian shore at the harbour of Eutropius five sons of the fallen Emperor were slain before their father's eyes, and then Maurice himself perished, calling upon God and repeating many times "Just art thou, O Lord, and just is thy judgment." From the beach men saw the bodies floating on the waters of the bay, while Lilius brought back to the capital the severed heads, where they were exposed to public view.

Maurice was a realist who suffered from an obstinate prejudice in favour of his own projects and his own nominees; he could diagnose the ills from which the Empire suffered, but did not always choose aright the moment for administering the remedy. He had served a stern apprenticeship in the eastern wars, and saw clearly that while Rome in many of her provinces was fighting for existence, the importance of the leader of armies outweighed that of the civil governor. In some temporary instances Justinian had entrusted to the praefect the duties of a general, and had thus broken through the sharp distinction between the two

602]

Character and Rule of Maurice

283

spheres drawn by the Diocletio-Constantinian reforms. Maurice however did not follow the principle of Justinian's tentative innovations: he chose to give to the military commander a position in the hierarchy of office superior to that of the civil administration, conferring on the old magistri militum of Africa and Italy the newly coined title of exarch: this supreme authority was to be the Emperor's vicegerent against Berber and Lombard. It was the first step towards the creation of the system of military themes. It was doubtless also considerations of practical convenience and a recognition of the stubborn logic of facts which led to Maurice's scheme of provincial redistribution. Tripolitana was separated from Africa and joined like its neighbour Cyrenaica to the diocese of Egypt; Sitifensis and Caesariensis were fused into the single province of Mauretania Prima, while the fortress of Septum and the sorry remnants of Tingitana were united with the imperial possessions in Spain and the Balearic Isles to form the province of Mauretania II, thus solidifying under one government the scattered Roman territories in the extreme West. Similar motives probably determined the new arrangements (after the treaty with Persia in 591) on the Eastern frontier. It was again Maurice the realist who disregarded the counsels of his ministers and made full use of the unique opportunity which the flight of Chosroes offered to the Empire.

In Italy the incursion of the Lombards presented a problem with which the wars on the Danube and in Asia rendered it difficult for Maurice to cope. Frankish promises of help against the invaders were largely illusory, even though the young West-Gothic prince Athanagild was held in Constantinople as a pledge for the fulfilment by his Merovingian kinsfolk of their obligations. It was further unfortunate that the relations between pope and Emperor were none of the best; many small disagreements culminated in the dispute concerning the title of oecumenical patriarch which John the Faster had adopted. The contention between Gregory and Maurice has certainly been given a factitious importance by later historians-the over-sensitive Gregory alone seems to have regarded the question as of any vital moment and his successors quietly acquiesced in the use of the offending word-but the disagreement doubtless hampered the Emperor's reforms; when he endeavoured to prevent soldiers from deserting and retiring into monasteries, the pope seized on the measure as a new ground of complaint and raised violent protest in the name of the Church.

As general in Asia Maurice had restored the morale of the army, and throughout his life he was always anxious to effect improvements in military matters. He was the first Emperor to realise fully the importance of Armenia as a recruiting ground, and it may well be from

1 See Ch. xiii.

When an Emperor is at great cost transporting men from Armenia to the Danube provinces, is the story probable that he sacrificed thousands of prisoners of war through refusal to pay to the Khagan their ransom?

284

Phocas

[602-603

this fact that late tradition traced his descent from that country. It was just in this sphere of military reform, however, that he displayed his fatal inability to judge the time when he could safely insist on an unpopular measure; his demand that the army should winter beyond the Danube cost him alike throne and life. It was further an ill-advised step when Maurice in his later years (598 or 599) reverted, as Justin had done before him, to a policy of religious persecution. By endeavouring to force Chalcedonian orthodoxy on Mesopotamia he effected little save the alienation of his subjects. It was left to Heraclius to follow Tiberius in choosing the better part and endeavouring by conciliation to introduce union amongst the warring parties. But the great blot on the reign of Maurice is his favouritism towards incapable officials; the ability of men like Narses and Priscus had to give place to the incompetency of Peter and the treachery of Comentiolus. Time and again their blunders were overlooked and new distinctions forced upon them. The fear that a victorious general of to-day might be the successful rival of to-morrow gave but a show of justification to this ruinous partiality.

But despite all criticisms Maurice remains a high-minded, conscientious, independent, hard-working ruler, and if other proof of his worth were lacking it is to be found in the universal hatred of his murderer.

Other executions followed those of Maurice and his sons: Comentiolus and Peter were slain, while Alexander dragged Theodosius from the sanctuary of Autonomus and killed both him and the praefect Constantine. Constantina and her three daughters were confined in a private house. Phocas was master of the capital. But elsewhere throughout the Empire men refused to ratify the army's choice: through Anatolia and Cilicia, through the Roman province of Asia and in Palestine, through Illyricum and in Thessalonica civil war was raging: on every side the citizens rose in rebellion against the assassin whom Pope Gregory and the older Rome delighted to honour; even in Constantinople itself a plot hatched by Germanus was only suppressed after a great part of the city had been destroyed by fire. The ex-empress as a result of these disorders was now immured with her daughters in a convent, while Philippicus and Germanus were forced to become priests.

A persistent rumour affirmed that Theodosius was still alive; for a time Phocas himself must have believed the report, for he put to death his agent Alexander; furthermore Chosroes was thus furnished with a fair-sounding pretext for an invasion of the Empire: he came as avenger of Maurice to whom he owed his throne, and as restorer of Maurice's heir. When in the spring of 603 Phocas despatched Lilius to the Persian court to announce his accession, the ambassador was thrown into chains, and in an arrogant letter Chosroes declared war on Rome. About this time1

1 Cf. H. Celzer, Die Genesis, etc., pp. 36 ff.