accepted without gratitude the tardy and
reluctant gifts of the emperor: their insolence was elated by the
discovery of his weakness and their own strength; and their mutual
hatred was inflamed beyond the desire of forgiveness or the hope of
reconciliation. The historians of the times adopt the vulgar suspicion,
that Maurice conspired to destroy the troops whom he had labored to
reform; the misconduct and favor of Commentiolus are imputed to this
malevolent design; and every age must condemn the inhumanity of avarice
[42] of a prince, who, by the trifling ransom of six thousand pieces of
gold, might have prevented the massacre of twelve thousand prisoners in
the hands of the chagan. In the just fervor of indignation, an order
was signified to the army of the Danube, that they should spare the
magazines of the province, and establish their winter quarters in the
hostile country of the Avars. The measure of their grievances was full:
they pronounced Maurice unworthy to reign, expelled or slaughtered
his faithful adherents, and, under the command of Phocas, a
simple centurion, returned by hasty marches to the neighborhood of
Constantinople. After a long series of legal succession, the military
disorders of the third century were again revived; yet such was the
novelty of the enterprise, that the insurgents were awed by their
own rashness. They hesitated to invest their favorite with the vacant
purple; and, while they rejected all treaty with Maurice himself,
they held a friendly correspondence with his son Theodosius, and with
Germanus, the father-in-law of the royal youth. So obscure had been the
former condition of Phocas, that the emperor was ignorant of the
name and character of his rival; but as soon as he learned, that the
centurion, though bold in sedition, was timid in the face of danger,
"Alas!" cried the desponding prince, "if he is a coward, he will surely
be a murderer."

[Footnote 40: Maurice himself composed xii books on the military art,
which are still extant, and have been published (Upsal, 1664) by John
Schaeffer, at the end of the Tactics of Arrian, (Fabricius, Bibliot
Graeca, l. iv. c. 8, tom. iii. p. 278,) who promises to speak more fully
of his work in its proper place.]

[Footnote 41: See the mutinies under the reign of Maurice, in
Theophylact l iii c. 1--4,.vi. c. 7, 8, 10, l. vii. c. 1 l. viii. c. 6,
&c.]

[Footnote 42: Theophylact and Theophanes seem ignorant of the conspiracy
and avarice of M