Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

100 4. the successors of justinian
same time to acquire the necessary resources: ‘I do not scatter and disperse,
but amass and store away so that I may pay for the peace of the state’ is a
statement of policy attributed to him by John of Ephesus. When Maurice,
like his two predecessors, held the consulship at the start of his reign, he
entered office on Christmas Day 583, which probably enabled him to avoid
some of the expenditure associated with the post. A significant change in
financial administration may be represented by the appearance of a logothete,
and the first known holder of this senior financial post, Constantine
Lardys, shared Maurice’s unpopularity and fate in 602. 30
Financial stringency generated accusations of avarice. When Maurice
attempted in 588 to reduce military expenditure on the eastern army, the
soldiers mutinied and castigated him as a ‘shopkeeper’. The Balkan army
was equally hostile when Maurice imposed analogous changes in pay and
conditions in the winter of 593/4, and in Egypt Maurice was believed to
have greedily sold Constantinople’s grain for gold; in the capital itself
during a food shortage in 602 Maurice was heckled as a Marcianist, an
adherent of a heresy which rejected normal standards of charity. The imperial
family, however, had money to spend on building projects in
Constantinople. Even if many of the constructions were of a charitable or
more broadly religious nature, expenditure on palaces, on statues of the
imperial family at prominent places such as the façade of the Chalke, the
ceremonial entry to the Great Palace, and even on private monasteries
would not win sympathy from ordinary people faced by famine. 31
The contrast with Tiberius’ munificence was bound to cause problems,
but Maurice made matters worse by showing generosity to his relatives,
who in common with members of other new dynasties received titles, high
office and property. His father Paul became head of the senate, Philippicus,
husband of his sister Gordia, was appointed comes excubitorum and commander
of the eastern armies, his brother Peter was made curopalatus and
became a general in the Balkans, and another relative, Domitian, for whom
Maurice had obtained the bishopric of Melitene in 577/8, was an influential
adviser. Such patronage was no greater than that bestowed on Justin’s relatives,
and indeed Maurice could economize to some extent by ‘recycling’
the property of Justin’s brother Marcellus, but Tiberius had not had an
extensive family on which to lavish gifts, so that the new direction of patronage
would be more obvious. Prominent individuals from outside the
family included Comentiolus, who progressed from being a scribon, an
officer in the excubitores, to one of Maurice’s most regular if not successful
generals, and Priscus, another frequent commander. Of these relatives and
favourites only Priscus remained prominent under Phocas; most of the
chosen clique were executed in the coup of 602. 32
30 John Eph. HE v.20; Hendy, Studies 193; Haldon (1979) 33–4; Whitby, Maurice 17.
31 Whitby, Maurice 286–7, 166–7, 19–21. 32 Ibid. 14–17.
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