File:Bronze steelyard-weight - the emperor Phocas (14755093876).jpg

Identifier: historyofdeclin05gibb (find matches)
Title: The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794 Bury, J. B. (John Bagnell), 1861-1927
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Publisher: London : Methuen
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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rician Crispus,^^ and the royal images of the bride andbridegroom were indiscreetly placed in the circus, by the sideof the emperor. The father must desire that his posterityshould inherit the fruit of his crimes, but the monarch wasoffended by this premature and popular association; the tribunes «•* Some of the cruelties of Phocas are marked by Theophylact, 1. viii. o. 13, 14,15. George of Pisidia, the poet of Heraclius, styles him (BeU. Abaricum, p. 46 (1.49). Rome, 1777) rrjs rvpawlSos 6 Sv(TKadeKTOs koI fiio<p06pos SpdKoov. The latter epi-thet is just—but the corrupter of life was easily vanquished. ^^ In the writers, and in the copies of those writers, there is such hesitationbetween the names of Prisctis and Crisjms (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. Ill), that Ihave been tempted to identify the son-in-law of Phocas with the hero five timesvictorious over the Avars. (Kplawos is merely a mistake for UplaKos in Mss. ofNicephorus. The mistake does not occur in Theophanes.) October i
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BRONZE STEELYARD-WEIGHT, PROBABLY REPRESENTING THE EMPERORPHOCAS (A.D. 602-610) (BRITISH .MUSEUJi) CHAP. XLVi) OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 71 of the green faction, who accused the officious error of theirsculptors, were condemned to instant death; their lives weregranted to the prayers of the people; but Crispus might reason-ably doubt whether a jealous usurper could forget and pardonhis involuntary competition. The green faction was alienatedby the ingratitude of Phocas and the loss of their privileges ;every province of the empire was ripe for rebellion; and Hera-clius, exarch of Africa, persisted above two years in refusing alltribute and obedience to the centurion who disgraced the throneof Constantinople. By the secret emissaries of Crispus and thesenate, the independent exarch was solicited to save and togovern his country ; but his ambition was chilled by age, andhe resigned the dangerous enterprise to his son Heraclius, andto Nicetas, the son of Gregory his friend and lieutenant. Thep

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