Tiberius II Constantine

Tiberius II ConstantineTemplate:Efn (Template:Langx; Template:Langx;Template:Efn died 14 August 582) was Eastern Roman emperor from 574 to 582. Tiberius rose to power in 574 when Justin II, prior to a mental breakdown, proclaimed him caesar and adopted him as his own son. In 578, the dying Justin II gave him the title of augustus, thus becoming co-emperor alongside him. Tiberius became sole ruler less than two weeks later, assuming the regnal name of "Constantine" under which he reigned until his death.

Early career

Born in Thrace in the mid-6th century,<ref name=ODB/> Tiberius was appointed to the post of notarius. There, sometime after 552, he was introduced by the Patriarch Eutychius to the future emperor, Justin II,Template:Sfn with whom he became firm friends.Template:Sfn Under Justin's patronage, Tiberius was promoted to the position of Comes excubitorum, which he held from approximately 565 through to 574. He was present during Justin's imperial accession on 14 November 565 and also attended his inauguration as consul on 1 January 566.Template:Sfn

Justin ceased making payments to the Avars, which had been implemented by his predecessor, Justinian. In 569, he appointed Tiberius to the post of Magister utriusque militiae, with instructions to deal with the Avars and their demands. After a series of negotiations, Tiberius agreed to allow the Avars to settle on Roman territory in the Balkans, in exchange for male hostages taken from various Avar chiefs.Template:Sfn Justin, however, rejected the agreement, insisting on taking hostages from the family of the Avar Khan himself. That condition was rejected by the Avars and so Tiberius mobilized for war.Template:Citation needed

Avar War of 570

In 570, he defeated an Avar army in Thrace and returned to Constantinople.Template:Sfn While attempting to follow up that victory in late 570 or early 571, Tiberius was defeated in a battle in the Danube regions in which he narrowly escaped death, as his army was fleeing the battlefield.Template:Sfn<ref>Theophanes AM 6066</ref> Agreeing to a truce, Tiberius provided an escort to the Avar envoys to discuss the terms of a treaty with Justin. On their return, the Avar envoys were attacked and robbed by local tribesmen, prompting them to appeal to Tiberius for help. He tracked down the group responsible and returned the stolen goods.Template:Sfn

Elevation as caesar (574–578)

In 574, Justin had a mental breakdown, forcing Empress Sophia to turn to Tiberius to manage the empire, which was fighting the Persians to the east and dealing with the internal crisis of the plague.Template:Sfn To achieve a measure of breathing space, Tiberius and Sophia agreed to a one-year truce with the Persians, at the cost of 45,000 solidi.Template:Sfn On 7 December 574, Justin, in one of his more lucid moments, had Tiberius proclaimed Caesar and adopted him as his own son. Tiberius added the name Constantine to his own.Template:Sfn<ref name=ODB>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Although his position was now official, he was still subordinate to Justin. Sophia was determined to remain in power and kept Tiberius tightly controlled until Justin died, in 578.<ref name=ODB />Template:Sfn

The day after his appointment as Caesar, the plague abated, giving Tiberius more freedom of movement than Justin had been able to achieve. Tiberius also charted a very different course from his predecessor and proceeded to spend the money that Justin had saved in order to defend the imperial frontiers and win over the populace who had turned against him.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to Gregory of Tours,Template:Efn who was based in Merovingian Gaul, Tiberius found two treasures: the treasure of Narses and 1,000 centenaria: 100,000 pounds of gold or 7,200,000 solidi (nomismata), under a slab. The treasures were given away to the poor, to the consternation of Sophia.Template:Sfn John of Ephesus, a contemporary East Roman, wrote that Tiberius lavishly gave presents to "all men" and later as emperor, gave money away to the rich rather than the poor.<ref>John of Ephesus, Ecclesiastical History 3.3.11, 3.3.14</ref> During his time as caesar, his spending was opposed by Justin and Sophia, who set a ceiling for his expenditure and restricted his access to the treasury.<ref>John of Ephesus, Ecclesiastical History 3.3.11</ref>

Alongside generous donations, he also proceeded to reduce state revenue by removing taxes on wine and bread instituted by Justinian I and continued Justin's ban on the sale of governorships.Template:Sfn In 575, he remitted tax arrears down to 571 and reduced taxes by a quarter for four years.Template:Sfn

He also negotiated a truce with the Avars, paying them 80,000 solidi per year for which the Avars agreed to defend the Danube frontier, thereby allowing Tiberius to transfer troops across to the east for a planned renewal of the conflict against the Persians.Template:Sfn In 575, Tiberius began moving the armies of Thrace and Illyricum to the eastern provinces. Buying time to make the necessary preparations, he agreed to an additional truce with the Persians for three years, paying 30,000 solidi annually, though the truce excluded the wars in Armenia.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Not content with making preparations, Tiberius also used this period to send reinforcements to Italy under the command of Baduarius with orders to stem the Lombard invasion. He saved Rome from the Lombards and allied the Empire with Childebert II, the King of the Franks, to defeat them. Unfortunately, Baduarius was defeated and killed in 576, allowing even more imperial territory in Italy to slip away.Template:Sfn Tiberius was unable to respond as the Sassanid Emperor Khosrau I struck at the empire's Armenian provinces in 576, sacking Melitene and Sebastea. Shifting his attention eastward, Tiberius sent his general Justinian with the eastern armies to push Khosrau and the Persians back across the Euphrates. The Byzantines led by Justinian pushed deep into Persian territory, culminating in a raid on Atropatene. In 577, however, Justinian was defeated in Persian Armenia, forcing a Byzantine withdrawal.Template:Sfn In response to that defeat, Tiberius replaced Justinian with the future emperor Maurice.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn During the truce that Tiberius concluded with Khosrau, he busily enhanced the army of the east not only with transfers from his western armies but also through barbarian recruits, which he formed into a new foederati unit, amounting to some 15,000 troops by the end of his reign.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Throughout 577 and into 578, Tiberius avoided all other entanglements that would have distracted him from the approaching Persian conflict. He appeased, quite successfully, both Chalcedonian and Monophysite Christians by the use of strategic appointments and the easing of persecutions.Template:Sfn He paid the Lombard tribal chieftains some 200,000 nomismata in an attempt to keep them divided and to prevent the election of a king. When the Slavs invaded Illyricum, he transported Avar armies to attack them and force their retreat. Consequently, when Khosrau invaded Roman Mesopotamia in 578, his general, Maurice, was able to invade Persian Arzanene and Mesopotamia, sacking a number of key towns and forcing the Persians to abandon their advance and defend their own territory.Template:Sfn It was during that period that the ailing emperor, Justin, finally died on 5 October 578.Template:Sfn

Reign as augustus (578–582)

File:Solidus-Tiberius II-Sear 421x422.jpg

Solidus of Tiberius II Constantine in consular uniform

On 26 September 578, Tiberius was made Augustus by the rapidly failing Justin.Template:Sfn He used that opportunity to give away 7,200 pounds of gold, a practice that he continued annually throughout the four years of his reign.Template:Sfn

Sophia, Justin's widow, tried to maintain her power and influence by marrying the new emperor, but he refused her proposal because he was already married to Ino. When Tiberius had first been raised to the rank of Caesar, Sophia had refused the request for Ino and her children to move into the Imperial palace with her husband, forcing them to reside in a small residence nearby and prohibiting them from entering the palace.Template:Sfn Once Tiberius was elevated to the rank of Augustus, however, he had his family moved into the palace and renamed Ino as Anastasia, much to Sophia's resentment. Therefore, Sophia sought revenge, and a secret pact was made between the dowager empress and general Justinian, whom Tiberius had replaced the year before. They conspired to overthrow the emperor and seat Justinian in his place. The conspiracy failed, however, and Sophia was reduced to a modest allowance; Justinian was forgiven by Tiberius.Template:Sfn

The ongoing success against the Persians in the East once again allowed Tiberius to turn his gaze westward. In 579, he again extended his military activities into the remnants of the Western Roman Empire. He sent money and troops to Italy to reinforce Ravenna and to retake the port of Classis.Template:Sfn He formed an alliance with one of the Visigothic princes in Spain, who was fomenting rebellion, and his general Gennadius defeated the rebellious Berbers under their king Garmul in North Africa.Template:Sfn He also intervened in Frankish affairs in the former province of Gaul, which had been largely free of imperial contacts for close to a century.<ref name=ODB /> Consequently, he might have been the basis for the fictional emperor Lucius Tiberius of Arthurian legend, who sent envoys to former Roman provinces after a long period without an imperial presence.

It has been argued that the empire was seriously overextended. In 579, with Tiberius occupied elsewhere, the Avars decided to take advantage of the lack of troops in the Balkans by besieging Sirmium.Template:Sfn At the same time, up to 100,000 Slavs began to migrate into Thrace, Macedonia and southern Greece, which Tiberius was unable to halt as the Persians refused to agree to a peace in the east, which remained the emperor's main priority.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Furthermore, the army of the East was beginning to become restless, as it had not been paid, and it threatened to mutiny.Template:Sfn

In 580, general Maurice launched a new offensive, raiding well beyond the Tigris. The following year, he again invaded Persian Armenia and almost succeeded in reaching the Persian capital, Ctesiphon, before a Persian counterinvasion of Byzantine Mesopotamia forced him to withdraw in order to deal with that threat.Template:Sfn By 582, with no apparent end to the Persian war in sight, Tiberius was forced to come to terms with the Avars, and he agreed to resume the payments, including back payments for the siege, and hand over the vital city of Sirmium, which the Avars then looted.Template:Sfn The migration of the Slavs continued, with their incursions reaching as far south as Athens.Template:Sfn Although a new Persian invasion was halted with a significant defeat at Constantina in June 582, by now, Tiberius was dying, apparently having eaten some poorly prepared food.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

In this state, Tiberius initially named two heirs, each of whom married one of his daughters. Maurice was betrothed to Constantina, and Germanus, related to emperor Justinian, was married to Charito.Template:Sfn Some historians believe that his plan was to divide the empire in two, with Maurice receiving the eastern provinces and Germanus the western provinces.Template:Sfn This plan was never implemented. On 11 August 582, only Maurice is recorded as Caesar in the subscription of a law of Tiberius,Template:Sfn and on 13 August 582, Tiberius elevated Maurice to the rank of Augustus.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Tiberius died on the following day, 14 August 582.

Legacy

File:40-manasses-chronicle.jpg

Miniature of Tiberius II (left) from the 12th century Manasses Chronicle.

A native of the Latin-speaking part of Thrace,Template:Sfn Tiberius reportedly was tall and handsome, with a regal bearing. He was gentle and humane, both as a man and a ruler, with a reputation for generosity. Unlike his predecessor, he largely refrained from persecuting his Monophysite subjects,Template:Sfn but his Arian subjects in the west did not fare as well.Template:Sfn He also spent a good deal of money on building projects, most notably the continued expansion of the Great Palace of Constantinople.<ref name=ODB />

In the 18th century, Edward Gibbon assessed Tiberius II as a model emperor who benevolently distributed wealth to the population.Template:Efn

That opinion was not shared by John Bagnall Bury in the 19th century, who criticized Tiberius as fiscally irresponsible.Template:Efn

Family

Originally betrothed as a young man to the daughter of Ino, Tiberius eventually married Ino after her daughter and husband died. She took on the name Anastasia in 578 after his accession to the throne.

They had three children together, one of whom died before Tiberius was created Caesar in 574.Template:Sfn Of his other two, both daughters, Constantina was married to Tiberius's successor, Maurice, and Charito was married to Germanus.Template:Sfn His wife and two daughters all outlived him.

Sources

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• Theophylact Simocatta, History