Phocas Byzantine Emperor 602-610AD Biography Ancient Coins
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Example of Authentic Ancient
Coin of:
Phocas - Byzantine Emperor: 23
November 602 A.D. - 5 October 610 A.D.
Phocas & Leontina
Bronze Follis Theoupolis (Antioch) mint:: 603-610 A.D.
Reference: Sear 671
O . N . FOCA . NЄ . PЄ . AV . Phocas (on
left) and Leontina (on right) standing facing; the Emperor holds globe
cross, the Empress, holds cruciform sceptre; between their heads, cross.
Large m between A / N / N / O and numerals representing the regnal year;
above, cross; in exergue, τHЄuP'.
Flavius Phocas (Φωκάς,
Phokas) was
Byzantine Emperor from 602 to 610. He
usurped the throne from the Emperor
Maurice, and was himself overthrown by
Heraclius after losing a civil war.
Origins
Almost nothing is known of Phocas's early life, although he may have
been a native of
Thrace. The name of his father, is
unknown, his mother was named Domentia (or
Domentzia). He had at least two
brothers,
Comentiolus and
Domentziolus.
By 600, he was a subaltern officer in the
Byzantine army that served during
Maurice's Balkan campaigns, and
apparently was viewed as a leader by his fellow soldiers. He was a
member of a delegation sent by the army in that year to
Constantinople to submit grievances to
the government. The
Avars had defeated the Byzantines in
598, had taken a large number of prisoners, and demanded a ransom.
Maurice refused to pay and all the prisoners were killed, causing
consternation among the army. The delegation's complaints were rejected,
and, according to several sources, Phocas himself was slapped and
humiliated by prominent court officials at this time.
Accession
In 602, having created unrest in the legions by reforms intended to
reduce the expenses of their maintenance, Maurice ordered the Balkan
army, then campaigning against the Avars, to winter on the north side of
the
Danube, the unprotected far side of the
river's
protective boundary. The army almost
immediately revolted and marched on the capital, with Phocas at its
head. Within a month, Maurice's government had collapsed, the emperor
abdicated and fled the city, and the "Green" faction in Constantinople
acclaimed Phocas as emperor. He was crowned in the Church of St. John
the Baptist and his wife
Leontia was invested with the rank of
Augusta. Maurice, who represented little genuine threat, was dragged
from his monastic sanctuary at
Chalcedon, and killed along with his
five sons. It is said that he had to watch as his sons were executed in
front of his eyes. The bodies were thrown in the sea and the heads of
all were exhibited in Constantinople before Phocas made arrangements for
a
Christian burial for the relics of his
deeply pious predecessor.
Phocas's rule was welcomed at first by many because he lowered taxes,
which had been high during the reign of Maurice. Fulsome letters of
courtly praise from
Pope
Gregory I are attested. The pope, Saint Gregory, appreciated
his acceptance of the reforms he had begun. The agrarian reforms of the
Church in
Italy and particularly in
Sicily had been followed in Egypt by
the Orthodox Patriarchs. The reform consisted in naming "rectores" as
administrators of the latifunds and eliminating all sort of contractors
and parasites who exploited the tenant farmers, reducing them to misery,
while undermining the income of the owners.
The Church needed money to pay for hospitals, maternities,
orphanotrophies - all social infrastructures that the state had left to
the clergy. Phocas faced great opposition and was regarded by many as a
"populist". His coup d'état was the first violent regime change in
Constantinople since its foundation by
Constantine. He is reported to have
responded to this opposition with cruelty, allegedly killing thousands
in an effort to keep control of the government. This was probably an
exaggeration. No histories actually written under Phocas survive, and
thus we are dependent for information on historians writing under his
successors, who had an interest in blackening Phocas' reputation.[citation
needed]
Reign
The
Column of Phocas was the last Imperial
monument ever to be erected in the
Roman forum. In Phocas's reign, the
Byzantines were sovereign over the city of
Rome, although the
Pope was the most powerful figure
resident in the city. Phocas tended to support the popes in many of the
theological controversies of the time, and thus enjoyed good relations
with the papacy. Phocas gave the
Pantheon to
Pope Boniface IV for use as a church
and intervened to restore
Smaragdus to the
Exarchate of Ravenna. In gratitude
Smaragdus erected in the Roman Forum a gilded statue atop the
rededicated "Column
of Phocas" (illustration, right), which featured a new
inscription on its base in the emperor's honour. The fluted
Corinthian column and the marble plinth
on which it sits were already standing in situ, scavenged
previously from yet other monuments.
Despite popularity Phocas enjoyed early on during his reign, it was
during his reign that the traditional frontiers of the Byzantine Empire
began to collapse. The Balkans had been pacified under Maurice, the
Avars and
Slavs having been kept at bay. With the
removal of the army from the Danube after 605, the way was paved for new
attacks which were to put an end to the Byzantine Balkans. In the east,
the situation was grave. The
Persian King
Khosrau II had been helped onto his
throne years earlier by Maurice during a civil war in Persia. Now, he
used the death of his erstwhile patron as an excuse to break his treaty
with the empire. He received at his court an individual claiming falsely
to be Maurice's son Theodosius. Khosrau arranged a coronation for this
pretender and demanded that the Byzantines accept him as emperor. He
also took advantage of the difficulties in the Byzantine military,
coming to the aid of
Narses, a Byzantine general who refused
to acknowledge the new emperor's authority and who was besieged by
troops loyal to Phocas in
Edessa. This expedition was part of a
war of attrition Khosrau waged against Byzantine forts in northern
Mesopotamia, and by 607 or so he had advanced Persian control to the
Euphrates.
Overthrow
and death
In 608, the
Exarch of Africa and his son, both
named
Heraclius, began a revolt against
Phocas, issuing coins depicting the two of them in
consular (though not imperial) regalia.
Phocas responded with executions, among them of the ex-Empress
Constantina and her three daughters.
Nicetas, a nephew of Heraclius the
Elder, led an overland invasion of
Egypt; the younger Heraclius began to
sail westward with another force via
Sicily and
Cyprus. With the outbreak of civil war
came serious urban rioting in
Syria and
Palestine; Phocas sent his general
Bonosus to quell the disturbances and reconquer Egypt. Bonosus dealt
with the eastern cities so harshly that his severity was remembered
centuries later. He then took almost the entire eastern army with him to
Egypt, where he was defeated by Nicetas after some hard fighting. The
Persians took advantage of this conflict to occupy a significant part of
the eastern provinces and even begin a penetration into Anatolia.
By 610, the younger Heraclius had reached the vicinity of
Constantinople, and most of the military loyal to Phocas had gone down
in defeat or defected. Some prominent Byzantine aristocrats came to meet
Heraclius, and he arranged to be crowned and acclaimed as Emperor. When
he reached the capital, the
Excubitors, an elite imperial guard
unit led by Phocas's own son-in-law
Priscus, deserted to Heraclius, and he
entered the city without serious resistance. Phocas was captured and
brought before Heraclius, who asked, "Is this how you have ruled,
wretch?" Phocas replied, "And will you rule better?" Enraged, Heraclius
personally killed and beheaded Phocas on the spot. Phocas's body was
mutilated, paraded through the capital, and burned.
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