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Phocas
Emperor of the Romans
An illustration of Phocas, based upon coins bearing his image
Emperor of the Byzantine Empire
Reign	23 November 602 – 5 October 610
Predecessor	Maurice and Theodosius
Successor	Heraclius
Died	5 October 610 Constantinople
Spouse	Leontia
Issue	Domentzia
Names Flavius Phocas Regnal name Flavius Phocas Augustus
Mother	Domentzia

Phocas (Latin: Flavius Phocas Augustus; Greek: Φωκᾶς, Phokas; – 5 October 610) was Byzantine Emperor from 602 to 610.

History

Background and rise to power

Map showing the re-conquest of territory under Justinian, with the lighter orange representing the land re-taken under his rule

At the time of Phocas' rise to power, the Byzantine Empire was outwardly very powerful but beleaguered by internal issues and external threats. Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565) massively increased the size of the Byzantine Empire through his re-conquest of lost territory, however, this put a massive strain upon the resources and infrastructure of the empire. His successor, Justin II (r. 565–578) attempted to reign in the financial burden of the new conquests but was unwilling to concede the newly gained territory, and thus resolved to cut costs through other means; one such method was to refuse tribute payments to the Avars, whom Justinian had preferred to appease rather than confront. This policy change had few immediate consequences, but ultimately proved devastating for the Byzantines; without access to the funds of the tribute payments, the Avars allied with the Lombards, themselves often allies of the Byzantines, and together invaded the Gepids, seizing control of their land and granting the Avars a powerful position on the Danube. After launching an indecisive war against the Byzantines, they would remain a threat for years to come. Additionally, nearly every territory re-incorporate by Justinian came under attack under the reign of Justin: The Visigoths attacked Byzantine Spain, the Lombards attacked Byzantine Italy, and the Moors attacked Byzantine Africa. Justin neither reinforced these areas, nor did he withdraw from them, but rather, like Justinian before him, sought to expand outwards; hearing the appeals of the Armenians under Persian rule, who were seeking to foment a revolt against the Persians, invaded Persian territory in 572; this invasion was repelled, and by late 573 the Persians had launched a serious counter-attack, seizing the Byzantine stronghold of Dara, this loss allegedly drove Justin to insanity, leading to his abdication in 574, in favor of Tiberius II Constantine (r. 578–582.

The emperors following Justin were likewise unable to solve the problems faced by the Byzantine Empire; although Justin, unlike Justinian before him, left Tiberius with a treasury surplus. Tiberius immediately utilized the treasury to bribe the Avars into peace, and pay several Lombard war leaders to prevent the election of a new king. Despite this, Tiberius was not able to secure peace across the whole empire, as the Slavs began to raid Illyricum, and would penetrate so far into Greece as to reach Athens before the end of his reign. However, the truce with the Avars and Lombards allowed Tiberius to focus his efforts on fighting the Persians. Maurice (emperor), the [comes excubitorum]] (count of the Excubitors), defeated the invading Persians, forcing them to fall back to Dara. Maurice was unable to press his advantage, as he had to hurry back to Constantinople, as Tiberius was mortally ill. With no heir, Tiberius crowned Maurice (r. 582–602) as emperor the day before his death. Tiberius had failed to permanently address the problems of the empire, opting instead to bribe key threats, and thus Maurice gained charge of an empire not much stronger than the one Tiberius had gained from Justin. Maurice quickly ascertained that to secure the safety of the empire, he would have to confront the three largest threats to the Byzantine Empire: The Persians to the east, the Lombards in Italy, and the Slavs in the Balkans; additionally, by the spring of 583, shortly after Maurice gained the throne, the Avars began to demand an increase in their tribute payments. Maurice was therefore faced with the possibility of fighting three, or even four, major wars, with the treasury and manpower only to fight one. Maurice, fearing the financial impact of giving into the Avar's demands, as well as the fear that submission would lead to yet higher demands, initially refused to pay the higher tribute; however, after the Avars invaded the empire captured several cities, Maurice capitulated and agreed to the higher demand.

Maurice's drive to reduce costs proved yet more dangerous; after securing temporary peace with the Avars by way of agreeing to higher tribute, Maurice was able to focus more of his forces on the Persian war. In another attempt to cut spending, Maurice attempted to supply his troops with their weapons directly, instead of the custom of paying generous arms allowances, which effectively cut their income by a quarter, causing the army to rebel, with discipline only being restored once the troops were given full pay once more. In spite of this brief rebellion, Maurice gained the upper hand in the fight against the Persians: A Persian general by the name of Bahram Chobin, after suffering humiliation at the hands of the Persian King Hormizd, rose up in revolt, and defeated an army sent to engage him. When news spread of his victory, the Persian nobility launched a coup, installing Hormisdas' son Khosrow II as king; this change of power did not last long, however, as Bahram defeated Khosrow and seized the throne for himself. Khosrow sought the aid of the Byzantine Empire in regaining his thrown, pleading with Maurice and offering to surrender Persian Armenia and the cities of Dara and Martyopolis to the Byzantines in exchange for support. Although Maurice was still dealing with the Slav occupation of the Balkans, and the threat of the Avars loomed overhead, Maurice agreed to help Khosrow retake his throne. Maurice was successful in restoring Khosrow to the throne, who returned the promised territories to the Byzantines, and peace was secured between the Persians and the Byzantines.

Maurice then sought to defeat the other threats to the empire, invading the Slavs in the Balkans but was soon unable to produce the resources needed to conduct the invasion. Maurice again attempted to cut the wages of his army but was soon after forced to increase their pay to prevent another mutiny. Realizing that he had only the resources to wage one war at a time, he chose to cease reinforcements to other areas under threat until the Slavs were defeated; Byzantine Africa, under renewed threat from the Moors, and Byzantine Italy, threatened by the Lombards, were therefore left to fend for themselves. Despite securing victory over the Slavs, the Balkans still remained unstable, and the Avars struck while the Byzantine forces were dispersed to remove the remaining remnants of Slav forces; unable to quickly consolidate forces and mount a defense, the Byzantines were swiftly pushed back almost to Constantinople. This Avar invasion was soon struck with the plague, devastating their forces, and they, therefore, accepted peace with the Byzantines for the promise of increased tribute. Maurice managed to raise the payments promised to the Avars, but the task was made daunting by the spread of the same plague to Constantinople, Anatolia, Italy, Africa, and other regions of the empire. In spite of the added loss of income from the plague, Maurice decided to launch an offensive against the Avars, who were still suffering from the plague. This campaign proved successful, and Maurice finally managed to repel his enemies back across the Danube, although the expense of this campaign was enormous; in order to dissuade the Avars and Slavs from further invasion, Maurice was forced to station large numbers of troops along the river, stretching the empire's resources to the limits. Soon after, in 602, Constantinople was struck by famine, leading to riots; Maurice once again attempted to cut army expenses, this time withholding rations and ration-pay from the army along the Danube, and ordering them to cross into Slavic territory and live off the land. The resulting mutiny proved fatal for Maurice, with Phocas, then a junior officer, being declared emperor by the army stationed along the Danube.

Reign

In spite of heavy historical revision surrounding the reign of Phocas, even his fiercest accusers, such as Theophylact, admit that Phocas was cheered by the mob as he made his triumphal entry into Constantinople; Pope Gregory I praised Phocas as a tool of God who had removed the "yoke of tribulation", meaning Maurice, from the necks of the Byzantine citizens. This idyllic start would not last, however, as Phocas was soon faced with the same form of issues which had brought down Maurice, and forced to rely on the extant institutions of the Byzantine Empire, which had already been proven incapable, whether due to necessity or lack of drive to reform. While previous scholars had suggested that the senatorial elite of the Byzantine Empire was similar in stature and make to the erstwhile Western Roman Senate, in that it was centered around powerful aristocratic land-owners who could decisively oppose imperial authority, recent scholars have found this unlikely; the aristocrats of the Eastern Roman Empire never approached the power of their western counterparts, nor did their lands hold near the dominant position within the empire's economy. The Byzantine economy of the time was instead largely made up on small plots owned by free peasants, rather than aristocrats; the elite of Constantinople were therefore far from being the power-brokers of the empire, rather existing as the officials of the emperor, often very dependent upon his patronage, and therefore unlikely to oppose him. This system, a form of institutional spoils system, put a larger premium upon loyalty than ability and therefore tended to benefit the relatives of the emperor disproportionately, resulting in key positions being filled by the imperial family; in the sixth and early seventh century of the Byzantine Empire, the safety of the imperial family based in Constantinople was of far greater import than the security of the empire's frontiers.

While the emperors succeeding Justinian often proved capable of retaining firm control of the capital, their grip upon the distant provinces was far less secure; due to high taxes and billeted troops, many provinces despised the centralized government. Religious disputes within the empire proved a further catalyst for conflict, with the reliance of the central government upon the Chalcedonian clergy to govern the provinces incensing the majority Monophysite populace of the Syrian and Egyptian provinces, leading to tense relations and frequent outbursts of violence. Phocas, therefore, came to power in an empire where many provincial governments were run by a despised minority who enforced their will with military might. Phocas, while having to contend with the wavering stability of the provinces, also had to face the renewed threat of Persia on its eastern border; while Khosrow had retained good relations with Maurice due to the Byzantines assistance in regaining his throne, he likely viewed the concessions he made in order to gain it as humiliating. While Khosrow had been preoccupied with dealing with rebellions in the eastern part of Persia for much of the rest of Maurice's reign, by 602 he had suppressed these threats, and, with the ousting of Maurice in November of that same year, he had gained a pretext to invade the Byzantine Empire. Khosrow, presenting himself as an avenger of the slain emperor, launched an invasion to retake the land which he had previously ceded to Maurice in 603, starting a war which would last more than two decades and cripple both empires.

References

Bibliography

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