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:[1] 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 time
- ↑ Cf. H. Celzer, Die Genesis, etc., pp. 36 ff.
