FLAVIUS TIBERIUS, Emperor of Constantinople, descended from an old Roman family, was born at Arabissus in Cappadocia about A.D. 539. His youth was spent in the camp; but as the sword was the only weapon of influence he could wield, he remained for a long time in obscurity. The sagacious Tiberius, however, on his accession to the throne in 578, discovered the eminent talents of the poor soldier of fortune, and appointed him to supersede Justinian in the conduct of the war against the Persians. Maurice repaired to the quarters of the army in Mesopotamia, and began his generalship by attempting to restore the severity of the old Roman discipline; then facing the enemy in the open field, he drove them out of Mesopotamia, and ended the first campaign by penetrating beyond the Tigris. After making a bold irruption into Media, he completely humbled the Persian power in two decisive battles, and in 582 entered Constantinople in triumph. In the same year Tiberius died, after bequeathing his crown to Maurice, and bestowing upon him the hand of his eldest daughter Constantina. Mature in age, and well-tried by experience, the new emperor began his reign amid the general rejoicing of his subjects. No sooner had he sat down on the throne, than the Persians, under their king Hormisdas, the son of Chosroes, revolted, and defeated John Mystacon, the general of the imperial forces. Other reverses in the following year induced Maurice in 584 to send out his brother-in-law Philippicus to supersede Mystacon. But this general, though at first successful in checking the inroads of the enemy, was at last defeated, and obliged to retreat in confusion. He was stripped of his command in 588 by the order of Maurice; but a dangerous revolt among the soldiers caused him to be restored to his former office, only to suffer another defeat and another degradation in 589. His successor, Comentolius, would have fallen into the same mishaps had not Heraclius virtually assumed the command, and retrieved the Roman fortunes by the brilliant victory of Sissabene. The rebellion against King Hormisdas in 590 withdrew the hostility of the Persians, and restored tranquillity to the Asiatic provinces. That tranquillity was confirmed by an event which happened in the subsequent year. Chosroes, the son of Hormisdas, driven into exile by Baram, the leader of the rebel Mauritius, Persians, sought refuge in the Roman territory, and sent a letter to the emperor imploring assistance for the recovery of his ancestral throne. Moved by the deepest generosity, Maurice presented the royal fugitive with a diadem and a large sum of money, and sent him back, under the protection of a large army, to demand his father's sceptre. His entrance into Persia revived the loyalty of his subjects; and the insurgent Baram, deserted by nearly one-half of his troops, was completely routed at Balarat. Thus restored to his father's throne, Chosroes was ever afterwards a faithful friend of Maurice.

Scarcely had war been quelled in one part of the empire when it began to break out in another. The prowling hordes of the Avars, under their chagan or khan, had for some time menaced the European provinces, and had now become a scourge that could no longer be tolerated. Accordingly, Maurice threw off the sloth that had for two centuries been considered a necessary part of imperial state. He placed himself at the head of the entire force of the empire, set out on the march toward the hostile territory, and would have faced all the hardship and peril of the field, had not the remonstrances of his subjects, and some unfavourable omens, induced him to return to Constantinople. The command then devolved upon Priscus, and afterwards upon the emperor's brother Peter; but the latter proved weak and cowardly, and the former was restored in 598. Not so successful as was expected, Priscus was superseded in 600 by Comentiolus. This weak-minded and cowardly impostor was worsted by the enemy on every side. In one battle 12,000 Romans were captured, and greater misfortunes were impending, when the brave Priscus, resuming the command, defeated the Avars in five successive battles, and drove them before him as far as the Danube. Meanwhile Maurice, for some reason unknown, had refused to ransom the prisoners taken by the khan of Avars at the defeat of Comentiolus, and had left them to be butchered in cold blood. At this inhumanity a spirit of revenge had been excited among the pampered and self-willed soldiers of the imperial army, and only waited for an opportunity to vent itself in open revolt. This opportunity was now given by the infatuated emperor himself. In 602 he ordered his army to cross the Danube, and to winter in the Avarian territory. Crying out that they were now doomed to be butchered like their comrades, the soldiers threw off their allegiance, massacred the faithful adherents of the emperor, and placing Phocas, a centurion, at their head, hastened by forced marches towards Constantinople. The report that the army was approaching raised an insurrection in the capital; and Maurice, during a night of general rapine and consternation, escaped by sea with his wife and children, and took refuge in the church of St. Autonomus, near Chalcedon. There the emissaries of Phocas soon afterwards found him bending under despair and bodily disease. They dragged him from his sanctuary, and murdered five of his sons while he stood by uttering pious ejaculations. He met his own fate with firmness on the 27th November 602. The bodies of the father and sons were thrown into the sea, and their heads were exposed on pikes in the streets of Constantinople.

The Emperor Maurice was a good man and a wise ruler. Strong self-command, an affectionate disposition, and sincere piety, marked his private conduct. His public authority was always exerted in lightening taxes, in enforcing beneficial laws, in patronizing art and learning, or in repelling foreign invasion. It was his misfortune to fall upon an age in which his economy was mistaken for avarice, and his military discipline for cruelty. A Greek treatise which he wrote on military science was translated into Latin, and published, along with Arrian's Tactica, by John Scheffer, Upsala, 1664, 8vo. There is a Life of Maurice by Theophylactus Simocatta, a writer of the seventh century.