Maurice

Maurice (Latin: Mauricius; Ancient Greek: Μαυρίκιος, romanised: Maurikios; 539 – 27 November 602) was Eastern Roman emperor from 582 to 602 and the last member of the Justinian dynasty. A successful general, Maurice was chosen as heir and son-in-law by his predecessor Tiberius II.

Maurice's reign was troubled by almost constant warfare. After he became emperor, he brought the war with Sasanian Persia to a victorious conclusion. The empire's eastern border in the South Caucasus was vastly expanded and, for the first time in nearly two centuries, the Romans were no longer obliged to pay the Persians thousands of pounds of gold annually for peace.

Afterward, Maurice campaigned extensively in the Balkans against the Avars—pushing them back across the Danube by 599. He also conducted campaigns across the Danube, the first Roman emperor to do so in over two centuries. In the west, he established two large semi-autonomous provinces called exarchates, ruled by exarchs, or viceroys of the emperor. In Italy, Maurice established the Exarchate of Italy in 584, the first real effort by the empire to halt the advance of the Lombards. With the creation of the Exarchate of Africa in 591 he further solidified the power of Constantinople in the western Mediterranean.

Maurice's successes on the battlefield and in foreign policy were counterbalanced by the empire's mounting financial difficulties. Maurice attempted to remedy this with several unpopular measures which ended up alienating both the army and the general populace. In 602, dissatisfied soldiers elected an officer named Phocas to lead them, who after usurping the throne, ordered the execution of Maurice and his six sons. This event would prove a disaster for the empire, sparking a twenty-six-year war with a resurgent Sassanid Persia which left both empires devastated prior to the Arab conquests.

Maurice's reign is a relatively well-documented era of late antiquity, in particular by the historian Theophylact Simocatta. The Strategikon, a manual of war which influenced European and Middle Eastern military traditions for well over a millennium, is traditionally attributed to Maurice.