1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maurice (emperor)

MAURICE (Mauricius Flavius Tiberius) (c. 539–602), East Roman emperor from 582 to 602, was of Roman descent, but a native of Arabissus in Cappadocia. He spent his youth at the court of Justin II., and, having joined the army, fought with distinction in the Persian War (578–581). At the age of forty-three he was declared Caesar by the dying emperor Tiberius II., who bestowed upon him the hand of his daughter Constantina. Maurice brought the Persian War to a successful close by the restoration of Chosroes II. to the throne (591). On the northern frontier he at first bought off the Avars by payments which compelled him to exercise strict economy in his general administration, but after 595 inflicted several defeats upon them through his general Crispus. By his strict discipline and his refusal to ransom a captive corps he provoked to mutiny the army on the Danube. The revolt spread to the popular factions in Constantinople, and Maurice consented to abdicate. He withdrew to Chalcedon, but was hunted down and put to death after witnessing the slaughter of his five sons.

The work on military art (στρατηγικά) ascribed to him is a contemporary work of unknown authorship (ed. Scheffer, Arriani tactica et Mauricii ars militaris, Upsala, 1664; see Max Jähns, Gesch. d. Kriegswissensch., i. 152–156).

See Theophylactus Simocatta, Vita Mauricii (ed. de Boor, 1887); E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ed. Bury, London, 1896, v. 19–21, 57); J. B. Bury, The Later Roman Empire (London, 1889, ii. 83–94); G. Finlay, History of Greece (ed. 1877, Oxford, i. 299–306).