CHAP. rapid pursuit, or a deceitful message: he was beheaded at Nice, and the last hours of the young prince were soothed by the comforts of religion and the consciousness of innocence. Yet his phantom disturbed the repose of the usurper: a whisper was circulated through the East, that the son of Maurice was still alive: the people expected their avenger, and the widow and daughters of the late emperor would have adopted as their son and brother the vilest of mankind. In the massacre of the Imperial family,50 the mercy, or rather the discretion, of Phocas had spared these unhappy females, and they were decently confined to a private house. But the spirit of the empress Constantina, still mindful of her father, her husband, and her sons, aspired to freedom and revenge. At the dead of night, she escaped to the sanctuary of St. Sophia; but her tears, and the gold of her associate Germanus, were insufficient to provoke an insurrection. Her life was forfeited to revenge, and even to justice: but the patriarch obtained and pledged an oath for her safety; a monastery was allotted for her prison, and the widow of Maurice accepted and abused the lenity of his assassin. The discovery or the suspicion of a second conspiracy, dissolved the engagements and rekindled the fury of Phocas. A matron who commanded the respect and pity of mankind, the daughter, wife, and mother of emperors, was tortured like the vilest malefactor, to force a confession of her designs and associates; and the empress Constantina, with her three innocent daughters, was beheaded at Chalcedon, on the and ty same ground which had been stained with the blood of her husband and five sons. After such an example, it would be superfluous to enumerate the names and sufferings of meaner victims. Their condemnation was seldom preceded by the forms of trial, and their punishment was embittered by the refinements of cruelty: their eyes were pierced, their tongues were torn from the root, the hands 50 The family of Maurice is represented by Ducange (Familiæ Byzantinæ, p. 106, 107, 108): his eldest son Theodosius had been crowned emperor when he was no more than four years and a half old, and he is always joined with his father in the salutations of Gregory. With the Christian daughters, Anastasia and Theocteste, I am surprised to find the Pagan name of Cleopatra. ranny. CHAP. and feet were amputated: some expired under the lash, XLVI. His fall A. D. 610, others in the flames, others again were transfixed with arrows; and a simple speedy death was mercy which they could rarely obtain. The hippodrome, the sacred asylum of the pleasures and the liberty of the Romans, was polluted with heads and limbs, and mangled bodies; and the companions of Phocas were the most sensible, that neither his favour, nor their services, could protect them from a tyrant, the worthy rival of the Caligulas and Domitians of the first age of the empire.511 A daughter of Phocas, his only child, was given in marriage to the patrician Crispus," and the royal images of the bride and bridegroom were indiscreetly placed in the circus, by the side of the emperor. The father must desire that his posterity should inherit the fruit of his crimes, but the monarch was offended by this premature and popular association: the tribunes of the green faction, who accused the officious error of their sculptors, were condemned to instant death: their lives were granted to the prayers of the people; but Crispus might reasonably doubt, whether a jealous usurper could forget and pardon his involuntary competition. The green faction was alienated by the ingratitude of Phocas and the loss of their privileges; every province of the empire was ripe for rebellion; and Heraclius, exarch of Africa, persisted above two years in refusing all tribute and obedience to the cen turion who disgraced the throne of Constantinople. By the secret emissaries of Crispus and the senate, the independent exarch was solicited to save and to govern his country: but his ambition was chilled by age, and he resigned the dangerous enterprise to his son Heraclius, and to Nicetas, the son of Gregory his friend and lieutenant. The powers of Africa were armed by the two adventurous 51 Some of the cruelties of Phocas are marked by Theophylact, I. viii. c. 13, 14, 15. George of Pisidia, the poet of Heraclius, styles him (Bell. Avaricum, p. 46. Rome, 1777) της τυραννίδος ὁ δυσκάθεκτος και βιοφθορος paxy. The latter epithet is just... but the corrupter of life was easily vanquished. 52 In the writers, and in the copies of those writers, there is such hesitation between the names of Priscus and Crispus (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 111.) that I have been tempted to identify the son-in-law of Phocas with the hero five times victorious over the Avars. XLVI. youths; they agreed that the one should navigate the fleet CHAP. from Carthage to Constantinople, that the other should lead an army through Egypt and Asia, and that the Imperial purple should be the reward of diligence and success. A faint rumour of their undertaking was conveyed to the ears of Phocas, and the wife and mother of the younger Heraclius were secured as the hostages of his faith: but the treacherous art of Crispus extenuated the distant peril, the means of defence were neglected or delayed, and the tyrant supinely slept till the African navy cast anchor inthe Hellespont. Their standard was joined at Abidus by the fugitives and exiles who thirsted for revenge; the ships of Heraclius, whose lofty masts were adorned with the holy symbols of religion,53 steered their triumphant course through the Propontis; and Phocas beheld from the windows of the palace, his approaching and inevitable fate. The green faction was tempted, by gifts and promises, to oppose a feeble and fruitless resistance to the landing of the Africans; but the people, and even the guards, were determined by the well-timed defection of Crispus; and the tyrant was seized by a private enemy, who boldly invaded the solitude of the palace. Stripped of the diadem and purple, clothed in a vile habit, and loaded with chains, he was transported in a small boat to the Imperial galley of Heraclius, who reproached him with the crimes of his abominable reign. "Wilt thou govern better?" were the last words of the despair of Phocas. After suffering each variety of insult and torture, his head was severed from his body, the mangled trunk was cast into the flames, and the same treatment was inflicted on the statues of the vain usurper and the seditious banner of the green faction. The voice of the clergy, the senate, and the people, invited Heraclius to ascend the throne which he had purified from guilt and ignominy; after some graceful hesitation, he yielded to their intreaties. His coronation was accompa 53 According to Theophanes, xßertia, and ɛixova BEOμNTEPOS. Cedrenus adds an αχειροποίητον είκονα το κυρία, which Heraclius bore as a banner in the first Persian expedition. See George Pisid. Acroas I. 140. The manufacture seems to have flourished; but Foggini, the Roman editor (p. 26.) is at a loss to determine whether this picture was an original or a copy. CHAP. nied by that of his wife Eudoxia; and their posterity, till the fourth generation, continued to reign over the empire of the East. The voyage of Heraclius had been easy and the tedious march of Nicetas was not accomprosperous, plished before the decision of the contest; but he submitA. D. 642, ted without a murmur to the fortune of his friend, and Reign of Feb. 11. his laudable intentions were rewarded with an equestrian statue, and a daughter of the emperor. It was more difficult to trust the fidelity of Crispus, whose recent services were recompensed by the command of the Cappadocian army. His arrogance soon provoked, and seemed to excuse, the ingratitude of his new sovereign. In the presence of the senate, the son-in-law of Phocas was condemned to embrace the monastic life; and the sentence was justified by the weighty observation of Heraclius, that the man who had betrayed his father, could never be faithful to his friend.54 Even after his death the republic was afflicted by the crimes of Phocas, which armed with a pious cause the most formidable of her enemies. According to the friendly and equal forms of the Byzantine and Persian courts, he announced his exaltation to the throne; and his ambassador Lilius, who had presented him with the heads of Maurice and his sons, was the best qualified to describe the circumstances of the tragic scene.55 However it might be varnished by fiction or sophistry, Chosroes turned with horror from the assassin, imprisoned the pretended envoy, disclaimed the usurper, and declared himself the avenger of his father and benefactor. The sentiments of grief and resentment which humanity would feel, and honour would dictate, promoted, on this occasion, the interest of the Persian king; and his interest was powerfully magnified by the national and religious prejudices of the Magi and 54 See the tyranny of Phocas and the elevation of Heraclius, in Chron. Paschal. p. 380...383. Theophanes, p. 242...250. Nicephorus, p. 3...7. Cedrenus, p. 404...407. Zonaras, tom. ii. I. xiv. p. 80...82. 55 Theophylact, 1. viii. c. 15. The life of Maurice was composed about the year 628 (1. viii. c. 13.) by Theophylact Simocatta, ex-præfect, a native of Egypt. Photius, who gives an ample extract of the work (cod. lxv. p. 81...100), gently reproves the affectation and allegory of the style. His preface is a dialogue between Philosophy and History; they seat themselves under a plane-tree, and the latter touches her lyre. satraps. In a strain of artful adulation, which assumed. the language of freedom, they presumed to censure the excess of his gratitude and friendship for the Greeks; a nation with whom it was dangerous to conclude either peace or alliance; whose superstition was devoid of truth and justice, and who must be incapable of any virtue, since they could perpetrate the most atrocious of crimes, the impious murder of their sovereign." For the crime of an ambitious centurion, the nation which he oppressed was chastised with the calamities of war; and the same calamities, at the end of twenty years, were retaliated and redoubled on the heads of the Persians. The general who had restored Chosroes to the throne still commanded in the East; and the name of Narses was the formidable. sound with which the Assyrian mothers were accustomed to terrify their infants. It is not improbable, that a native subject of Persia should encourage his master andhis friend to deliver and possess the provinces of Asia. It is still more probable, that Chosroes should animate his troops by the assurance that the sword which they dreaded the most would remain in its scabbard, or be drawn in their favour. The hero could not depend on the faith of a tyrant; and the tyrant was conscious how little he deserved the obedience of an hero: Narses was removed from his military command; he reared an independent standard at Hierapolis in Syria: he was betrayed by fallacious promises, and burnt alive in the market-place of Constantinople. Deprived of the only chief whom they could fear or esteem, the bands which he had led to victory were twice broken by the cavalry, trampled by the elephants, and pierced by the arrows of the Barbarians; 56 Christianis nec pactum esse, nec fidem nec fœdus . . . quod si ulla illis fides fuisset, regem suum non occidissent. Eutych. Annales, tom. ii. p. 211. vers. Pocock. 57 We must now, for some ages, take our leave of contemporary historians, and descend, if it be a descent, from the affectation of rhetoric to the rude simplicity of chronicles and abridgments. Those of Theophanes (Chronograph. p. 244...279.) and Nicephorus (p. 3...16.) supply a regular, but imperfect, series of the Persian war; and for any additional facts I quote my special authorities. Theophanes, a courtier who became a monk, was born A. D. 748; Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople, who died A. D. 829, was somewhat younger: they both suffered in the cause of images. Hankius de Scriptoribus Byzantinis, p. 200...246. CHAP. XLVI. |