320 
The Eastern Empire. R O 
Maurice ascended the throne at the age of forty-three, 
and reigned twenty years over the East, amidst almost con¬ 
tinual turbulence; yet he was endued with sense and cou¬ 
rage to promote the happiness of his people, and in his 
administration he followed the model of Tiberius. 
Rome, assailed by the Lombards and afflicted with famine, 
implored the assistance of Maurice. A feeble co-operation 
on the part of the imperial troops was afforded. 
Under the reign of Maurice, Gregory the First filled the 
papal throne. His birth and abilities had raised him to the 
office of prsefect of the city, when he renounced his station, 
and dedicated his fortune to the foundation of monasteries. 
His virtues rendered him dear to the church; and from the 
gloom of a cell he was called, by the unanimous voice of the 
clergy, to the chair of St. Peter. The bishops of Italy and 
the adjacent islands acknowledged the Roman pontiff as 
their special metropolitan ; and his successful claims on the 
provinces of Greece, of Spain, and of Gaul, might well coun¬ 
tenance the more lofty pretensions of succeeding popes. As 
a Christian bishop, he preferred the salutary offices of peace to 
success in war, however great; and presumed to save his 
country without the consent, either of the emperor or the 
exarch. His merits-were treated by the Byzantine court with 
reproach and insult; but he found the best right of a sove¬ 
reign, and the purest reward of a citizen, in the attachment of 
a grateful people. 
Maurice successfully engaged in the politics of Persia, 
but was harassed by the warlike and audacious Avars, 
under Baian the kagan, who occupied the rustic palace of 
Attila, and appears to have imitated his policy. During 
the reign of Maurice, frequent and furious seditions had 
agitated the camps both in Europe and Asia; and the mild 
indulgence of the emperor, served only to discover to the 
soldiers their own strength, and his weakness. The army 
beyond the Danube had been commanded to establish their 
winter quarters in the hostile country of the Avars: their 
private murmurs on this occasion, were soon converted into 
open rage 5 they voted Maurice unfit to reign; and, under 
the command of a centurion, named Phocas, they returned 
by rapid marches into the vicinity of Constantinople. 
The emperor might still have escaped the impending dan¬ 
ger, could he have relied on the fidelity of the capital; but 
his rigid virtues had long alienated the affections of the in¬ 
habitants. In a nocturnal tumult the lawless city was aban¬ 
doned to every species of rapine and licentiousness: the 
unfortunate Maurice, with his wife and nine children, es¬ 
caped in a small boat to St. Autonomus, near Chalcedon, 
and from thence he urged his eldest son Theodosius to im¬ 
plore the gratitude and protection of the Persian monarch. 
On his abdication, Constantinople opened her gates to 
Phocas, who entered the city amidst the usual acclamations 
to fortunate power. His jealousy combining with the cruel¬ 
ty of his disposition, soon prompted him to dispatch the 
ministers of death to Chalcedon: they dragged the emperor 
from his sanctuary, and murdered his five sons one after 
the other before his eyes. Maurice bore this agonising sight 
with heroic fortitude and resignation; repeating at every 
wound, while the tears trickled down his cheeks, the words 
of the prophet David, “Thou art just, O Lord! in all thy 
judgments.” His rigid attachment to honour revealed even 
the generous falsehood of a nurse, who presented her own 
child in the place of a royal infant. The tragic scene was 
closed with the execution of the emperor himself, who fell 
on the dead bodies of his children, at the age of sixty- 
three. 
Of the family of Phocas, or that of his wife Leontia, no¬ 
thing is known. He was of a middling stature, deformed, 
and of a fierce countenance; his hair was red, and he had 
a scar on one cheek, which became black when inflamed 
with anger. Sanguinary and inexorable, he was addicted 
both to wine and women; while his wife’s character was 
nearly as base as his own.—Against the unhappy family of 
the late emperor, he continued to exercise his barbarity; and 
under pretence of their holding a correspondence with some 
conspirators, a conduct which they had abundant provocation 
M E. The Eastern Empire. 
to justify, he caused the empress Constantina and her three 
daughters to be executed on the same spot where her husband 
and sons had suffered three years before. Theodosius, the 
eldest son, had been intercepted in his flight to the Persian 
court, and instantly beheaded: but though the legal claim¬ 
ants to the throne were extirpated, Phocas was never free 
from the danger of plots. Numerous victims were sacrificed 
to his fears and jealousies: some expired under the lash, 
others in the flames; at length the standard of rebellion was 
raised by Heraclius, the son of a governor of Africa of the 
same name. The ships of Heraclius steered their triumphant 
course through the Propontis : his cause was espoused by 
troops who poured in from all parts of the empire ; and the 
tyrant attempting to fly was seized loaded with chains, and 
transported in a small boat on board the galley of Heraclius. 
After suffering every variety of insult and torture, which he 
had too long and too often inflicted on others, his head 
was separated from his body, and his trunk cast into the 
flames. 
Heraclius ascended the throne with the voice of the 
clergy, the senate, and the people. He was of a noble fa¬ 
mily, had a majestic appearance, and was well versed in 
war, a science which was extremely necessary, when the 
empire was assailed on all sides by powerful and implacable 
enemies. 
Chosroes, king of Persia, after the melancholy fate of 
his friend Maurice, disclaimed all connection with the usur¬ 
per, and declared himself the avenger of his benefactor. 
An impostor, who attended his camp as the son of Maurice, 
and lawful heir of the Roman empire, afforded a decent 
apology for the submission of several capital cities of the 
East. 
The first intelligence which Heraclius received was the 
loss of Antioch; Caesarea next yielded to the Persians, and, 
after a short repose, Jerusalem fell under their power: Egypt 
itself, which had been exempted from war since the time of 
Dioclesian, was again subdued by the successor of Cyrus; 
and for the space of ten years a Persian camp was maintain¬ 
ed in the presence of Constantinople. Heraclius hopeless 
of' relief, meditated to transfer the scat of his government 
to Carthage ; but being dissuaded by the patriarch, he bound 
himself at the altar of St. Sophia, to live and die with the 
people whom God had entrusted to his care. 
From the treacherous reconciliation of the kagan of the 
Avars, Heraclius was saved only by the fleetness of his horse; 
while Chosroes, who had menaced, “that he would never 
give peace to the emperor of Rome till he had abjured his 
religion, and embraced the worship of the sun,” was at last 
prevailed on to relinquish the conquest of Constantinople for 
an annual tribute of a thousand talents of gold, a thousand 
talents of silver, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses, 
and a thousand virgins. 
The interval allowed for collecting the treasures was sedu¬ 
lously employed by Heraclius in preparations' for war 5 but 
the exhausted state of the provinces compelled him to borrow 
the consecrated wealth of the churches, under the solemn 
vow of restoring, with usury, whatever he had been reduced 
to expend in the cause of religion and the empire. New 
levies were allured by the holy gold from every country of 
the East and West. Two hundred thousand pieces of gold 
were devoted to conciliate the friendship, or suspend the 
hostilities, of the kagan ■ and two days after the festival of 
Easter, the emperor assumed the martial garb, and gave the 
signal of his departure. To the discretion of the patriarch 
and senate, he entrusted the discretionary power of saving 
or surrendering the city, according to the imperious circum¬ 
stances which might arise in his absence. 
After a tempestuous voyage, Heraclius landed his troops 
on the confines of Syria and Cilicia. His camp was pitched 
nearlssus, on the same ground where Alexander vanquish¬ 
ed the host of Darius. The patience of the emperor was 
severely tried in restoring the discipline and perfecting the 
exercises of his soldiers; but whatever hardships he imposed 
on his troops, he inflicted with honourable impartiality on 
himself; and from hence the Romans began to repose a due 
confidence 
