Catastrophe: An Investigation Into the Origins of the Modern World by David Keys Page A

slogans and filthy insults against the emperor and hurled insults and even made fun of the Patriarch,” noted Theophanes. At midnight, Maurice at last realized his position was untenable. After shedding “his official insignia and dress, and clad as a private citizen, he boarded a warship at midnight with his wife, children and [his most trusted official] Constantine [Lardys] and sought safety by fleeing.” 7
    Germanus tried to bribe the Greens into making him emperor, but they turned him down. Instead, they left the city and joined forces with the mutineers’ leader, Phocas. Phocas immediately convened a conference to decide who should be emperor and was himself nominated by the Greens and others. He was then crowned by the Patriarch of Constantinople in the great church of St. John the Baptist, just outside the metropolis, and entered the capital two days later in the imperial chariot.
    The following week a reign of terror began. Phocas decided to eliminate the former imperial family completely, so “he sent soldiers with orders to kill Maurice and his family.
    “His five boys,” wrote Theophanes, “were first killed before the emperor’s own eyes, thereby first punishing the emperor through the murder of his children. 8 Maurice bore the tragedy with firmness of mind, continuously invoking God, the presider over all things, and saying reflectively over and over again: ‘Just art thou, O Lord, and just are thy judgements.’ ” Then the former emperor himself was executed.
    Phocas issued orders that the heads of Maurice and his sons be put on public display. According to Theophanes, “The citizens all went out of the city to witness this show while the heads rotted.”
    Maurice’s wife and daughters were not executed at this time but were placed in a convent. 9 Other supporters of the former government were systematically rounded up and murdered. The former praetorian prefect, Constantine Lardys, and Maurice’s eldest son, Theodosius, were executed at the Diadromos (probably a stadium), 10 while the army’s commander in chief, the patrician Comentiolus, “was slain on the far side of the Golden Horn [waterway], by the Church of St. Conon, by the shore, and his body was eaten by the dogs.” 11
    The following year the empire began to feel the repercussions of revolution. Both internally and externally, the destabilization caused by the mutiny and the fall of Maurice began to make itself felt. In Constantinople, riots broke out. The new authorities, ruthless as they were, lost control, and a large section of the city was burned to the ground by disaffected citizens. The leader of the Greens, who had helped bring Phocas to power, was himself killed in the mayhem.
    Externally, the relationship between the Roman Empire and its archrival, the Persian Empire, was fatally undermined. The Persian ruler, Chosroes II, had enjoyed an extremely cordial relationship with Maurice (to whom he owed both his life and his throne). 12 He was very angry when he heard that his friend had been murdered, and refused point-blank even to receive ambassadors from the new Roman government. 13
    The mutiny and revolution not only resulted in civil unrest but also split the army itself in places. In the east, an experienced Roman general, Narses—who had in the past been much feared by the Persians—rebelled against Phocas, took control of the city of Edessa (now Urfa in southeastern Turkey), and “wrote to King Chosroes begging him to assemble his army and invade Roman territory.” 14
    In direct response to the destabilization of the Roman imperium, the Persians swooped like vultures on the stricken empire in late 603. At the first encounter the Roman commander, Germanus, was fatally wounded, and Phocas withdrew troops from the Avar frontier to the new Persian one. At the first major battle—at the river Arzamon (near Mardin in southeastern Turkey) in early 604—the imperial forces were utterly crushed.
    Theophanes wrote that the