Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

maurice 99
Tiberius attempted to avoid being drawn into religious disputes. He
achieved a good reputation with Monophysites even though persecution was
allowed to continue, since blame was ascribed to Eutychius, who had
returned as patriarch of Constantinople in 577. Tiberius was believed to have
asserted that he could see nothing wrong with Monophysites, and that it was
senseless to contemplate persecution at a time of external crisis; he also
invited the Monophysite Ghassanid leader al-Mundhir to Constantinople in
an unsuccessful attempt to promote unity between splintered Monophysite
groups, and gave him an honourable reception. He appears to have favoured
inaction in two other religious disputes, first when the people of
Constantinople rioted against concessions supposedly made to Arian
Germans recruited for military service, and second when an embarrassing
scandal implicated imperial administrators and even the patriarch of
Antioch, Gregory, in pagan worship. Such toleration could give rise to accusations
of being too passive. 28
In August 582, Tiberius fell ill, allegedly after eating a dish of poisoned
mulberries. His first intention was to appoint two successors: the comes excubitorum
Maurice and Germanus, son of the Ostrogoth princess Matasuintha
and Justinian’s cousin Germanus, were proclaimed Caesars on 5 August and
betrothed to Tiberius’ two daughters, Constantina and Charito. One source,
hostile to Maurice, alleges that Germanus was Tiberius’ real preference,
although another claims that the dowager empress Sophia was consulted
and declared support for Maurice. In retrospect Maurice’s accession
attracted the usual predictions from contemporary holy men, predictions
which boosted the reputations of both the saint involved and the secular
beneficiary: Symeon Stylites outside Antioch, who had already prophesied
the rise of Justin II and Tiberius, identified Maurice as the next emperor, as
did Theodore of Sykeon in central Anatolia. Whatever the truth, Tiberius’
health deteriorated; on 13 August Maurice alone was proclaimed Augustus
and successor in a ceremony at the palace at the Hebdomon, and on the next
day Tiberius died, his corpse being escorted into Constantinople for burial
in the Holy Apostles. 29
iii. maurice
1. Internal affairs
Finance was the key problem throughout Maurice’s reign: Tiberius’ generosity
had apparently exhausted the central treasuries, so that Maurice had
to tackle the various external threats to the empire while struggling at the
28 John Eph. HE iii.17–22; iv.39–43; iii.26, 29–32. Cameron (1977) 13.
29 Whitby, Maurice 5–9.
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