Theodosius (son of Maurice)

Biography

Theodosius was the first child of Maurice and his wife, the augusta Constantina. He was born on 4 August 583 (according to the contemporary John of Ephesus and other chroniclers) or 585 (according to the later histories of Theophanes the Confessor and Kedrenos). He was the first son to be born to a reigning emperor since the birth of Theodosius II in 401, and was accordingly named after him. The papal envoy, or apocrisiarius, to Constantinople, the future Pope Gregory the Great, acted as his godfather. The scholar Evagrius Scholasticus composed a work celebrating Theodosius' birth, for which he was rewarded by Maurice with the rank of consul.

A few years after his birth, possibly in 587, Theodosius was raised to the rank of caesar and thus became his father's heir-apparent. Three years later, on 26 March 590, he was publicly proclaimed as co-emperor.

In late 601 or early February 602, Maurice married Theodosius to a daughter of the patrician Germanus, a leading member of the Senate. The historian Theophylact Simocatta, the major chronicler of Maurice's reign, also records that on 2 February 602, Germanus saved Theodosius from harm during food riots in Constantinople.

Later in the same year, during the revolt of the Danubian armies in autumn, Theodosius and his father-in-law were hunting in the outskirts of Constantinople. There they received a letter from the mutinous troops, in which they demanded Maurice's resignation, a redress of their grievances, and offered the crown to either of the two. They presented the letter to Maurice, who rejected the army's demands. The emperor however began suspecting Germanus of playing a part in the revolt. Theodosius promptly informed his father-in-law of this and advised him to hide, and on November 21, Germanus fled first to a local church and then to the Hagia Sophia, seeking sanctuary from the Byzantine emperor's emissaries. When the attempt to guide Germanus away from the precinct via Stephen, Theodosius' eunuch tutor, failed, Maurice beat Theodosius with a staff, blaming him for communicating the secret to Germanus. Historian Michael Whitby suggests that Theodosius' marriage, which intended to unite Maurice and Germanus' family, instead gave reason for Maurice to suspect his own son.

In the middle of the night of November 22, as the crowd rioted and turned against Maurice, the emperor and his family and closest associates fled the capital before the advancing rebel army under Phocas, and crossed over to Chalcedon. From there, Theodosius was dispatched along with the praetorian prefect Constantine Lardys to seek the aid of Khosrau II, the ruler of Sassanid Persia. However, when he reached Nicaea, Maurice recalled him. On his return Theodosius fell into the hands of Phocas' men and was executed at Chalcedon. His father and younger brothers had been executed a few days earlier on November 27.