Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/111

 the deceit, choosing rather that his own son should die than that an innocent person, or rather a child innocent of being his offspring, should suffer.

The people of Constantinople soon found that they would have acted more wisely in retaining an emperor who might be wrongheaded, but who was honest and humane. And if Maurice was a bad military emperor, this soldier of fortune was worse. Everywhere the empire was laid waste and devastated by the Persians in the east and the Avars in the north and west. And meantime the tyranny of Phocas exceeded anything ever before experienced or recorded. Two or more successive seditions were repressed and punished with every kind of cruelty. The third, which was successful, was rather a general revolt than a sedition. It was carefully and deliberately planned by Heraclius, exarch of Africa, in conjunction with the leading men of Constantinople, who implored him to save the empire from ruin. He sent his nephew with an army to occupy Egypt and Syria, and his son Heraclius with a fleet to attack the city. Phocas hazarded and lost a single naval battle, fought within sight of the palace. They took him prisoner, stripped him of his imperial robes, tied his hands behind him, and threw a coarse black cloak over him. In this guise they brought him before the conqueror, who reproached him with the manner in which he had governed the empire. To each reproach Phocas answered, "Wilt thou govern better?" One feels a touch of pity for this rude and brutal soldier, thrust for his sins upon a throne, and told to undertake a task for