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conclusion 109
could then be summoned for military action. The factions were prominent
in imperial ceremonial outside as well as inside the Hippodrome, the original
focus of their activities, and the closeness of their connection with the
emperor persuaded both Maurice in 602 and Phocas in 610 that they might
support an unpopular ruler in a crisis. 49
During this period the frontiers of the empire contracted, except in the
east, where Roman authority was re-established as far as the Caucasus.
Justinian’s western reconquests ceded priority to the defence of the east, so
that Lombards in Italy and Visigoths in Spain took over Roman territory,
but this might have been a temporary phenomenon: Maurice’s friendly relations
with Khusro and reassertion of Roman control in the Balkans could
have permitted the transfer of attention and resources to the far west again,
and the division of the empire between his sons proposed in his will of 597
suggests a traditional Roman view of the Mediterranean world. If peaceful
co-existence had continued on the eastern frontier, it is arguable that the
Islamic raids and attacks of the 630s would not have achieved the dramatic
success which they did. Maurice had acted timeously in curbing the power
of the Ghassanid federation at a point when it threatened, like any oversuccessful
quasi-client neighbour, to become too powerful for the good of
its supposed patron.
The usurper Phocas was a convenient scapegoat for the misfortunes that
befell the empire in the early seventh century, and some of the blame should
certainly be allocated to the considerable disruption that attended the coup
of Heraclius’ family in 609–10, 50 but Phocas’ seizure of power does mark a
break. Previous emperors – Zeno when briefly ousted by Basiliscus,
Anastasius when faced by religious rioting and the challenge of Vitalian, or
Justinian during the Nika riot – had been seriously threatened, but in 602 for
the very first time a Constantinopolitan emperor had been overthrown and
killed, and his corpse displayed for public humiliation. A precedent had
been created. Furthermore, the new emperor was a man with no obvious
experience of court life or administration at Constantinople. It is true that
the empire was a military monarchy, and that military ability was about to
become important again as an imperial quality after a lapse of two centuries,
but the secular machinery of rule had to be regulated and, when necessary,
dominated. Phocas seems to have been insensitive to the niceties of
the emperor’s ceremonial existence within the capital, and this caused
tension, plotting and hence further misfortunes for the empire.
Heraclius’ coup generated conflicts within many of the empire’s major
cities, with rival supporters appropriating the confrontation of the circus
partisans – Greens for Heraclius, Blues for Phocas – even in places with no
immediate access to a hippodrome. It took time for Heraclius to assert his
49 Theophylact viii.7.10–11; Cameron, Circus Factions 120–2. 50 Olster (1993) ch. 7.
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