Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

maurice 101
Maurice was faced with the same religious problems as his predecessors.
With regard to the Monophysites, the contemporary John of Ephesus
praised him for resisting moves to stimulate persecution, and in this
Maurice was supported by the patriarch John Nesteutes, but later Syriac
writers criticized him for allowing Domitian of Melitene to punish
Monophysites in the east towards the end of his reign; four hundred monks
are said to have been slain outside the walls of Edessa. Maurice was also
inclined to be tolerant towards lapses into pagan practices: Paulinus, a
‘magician’ discovered at Constantinople, was only executed after strong
insistence by John Nesteutes, and Gregory, patriarch of Antioch, was
acquitted on various obscure charges that probably included paganism. 33
A new source of trouble was an increasingly heated argument with pope
Gregory: a significant factor was the Constantinopolitan patriarchs’ use of
the title ‘oecumenical’, to whose alleged universalist claim Gregory took
exception, misguidedly, but questions of ecclesiastical control in the
Balkans and imperial policy in Italy also played their part. Maurice continued
the imperial practice of associating himself with the acquisition of
relics, and with popular cults, such as that of the Virgin: the weekly Friday
feast of the Virgin at Blachernae was developed, and the commemoration
of the Virgin’s Assumption on 15 August was instituted as a feast; the holy
man Theodore of Sykeon was invited to Constantinople to bless the imperial
family. Maurice was deeply religious, spending the night in church
before a major expedition, marking victory with religious celebrations, and
apparently showing concern for the need to justify his worldly actions
before the eternal throne of judgement. 34
Maurice’s rule has been characterized as both negligent and unpopular,
but the evidence is insufficient to justify such an assessment. 35 Most emperors
experienced bouts of unpopularity, especially when famine or other
misfortune disrupted normal patterns of life, and attempts to change longstanding
arrangements in financial or military matters were bound to
provoke opposition. In many respects, perhaps, Maurice was an interventionist
or reformer, as might be suggested by his reputation as a military
commander in the east. He was also, directly or indirectly, associated with
the Strategikon that bears his name, a military manual that shows good
knowledge of contemporary Balkan warfare and overall is less attached to
the traditions of this genre than most such texts. He attempted to tackle
the key financial problem of the late Roman empire, the cost of the army,
and the appearance of a logothete suggests there may have been some
redefinition of duties in civilian administration. His quarrels with pope
Gregory sprang, in part, from his willingness to interfere in areas that the
western church regarded as its traditional prerogative. His unpopularity,
33 John Eph. HE v.15–17; Michael the Syrian x.23,vol.ii pp. 372–3; Theophylact i.11.
34 Whitby, Maurice 20–4. 35 Olster (1993) 49.
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