User:Iazyges/Historiography of Phocas

The Historiography of Phocas is the academic study of the primary and secondary sources of the life and reign of Byzantine Emperor Phocas, who was born in 547, and reigned from 23 November 602 to his deposition and execution on 5 October 610.

Background
Phocas was one of the most maligned Byzantine emperors, both in contemporary and modern sources. The historiography of Phocas' life and reign was severely damaged by the damnatio memoriae applied to him by Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, who usurped the throne from him, whereby many sources which reflected positively upon Phocas were destroyed, allowing the virtues and successes of Phocas to be removed from history, and allowing the contemporary sources of Phocas to blacken his reputation and praise Heraclius. The historical works regarding Phocas' reign were destroyed or re-written, and the history of his reign systematically re-worked to blame all the issues of the Byzantine Empire, both during Heraclius' reign and after, upon Phocas. In light of the fact that Phocas rose to the throne through usurpation, and had no legitimate dynastic ties to the throne, it is hardly surprising that many Byzantine historians portray him negatively. Heraclius is not treated likewise, even though he rose to the throne the same way, as he was able to both retain imperial power and establish a new dynasty, where Phocas failed to do so.

Contemporary historians
The most influential contemporary historians, George of Pisidia and Theophylact Simocatta, rarely mention Phocas, and, when they do so, treat him harshly; this portrayal is inherently beneficial to them, as demonizing Phocas allowed them to portray Heraclius, their patron, far better. Georgia of Pisidia's account eulogizes Emperor Maurice, and Theophylact, who served as Heraclius' court poet, praises Heraclius; both authors, one writing of the tragic fate of Phocas' predecessor, and the other the virtue of his successor passing over the reign of Phocas with little comment, except for scarce insulting references. George of Pisidia states that "speaking of suffering is itself suffering", and avoided almost all mention of Phocas' name when possible. The historian Michael Whitby states of Theopylact's account of the usurpation of Phocas that his "personal contribution was to muddle the precise chronology of events and to introduce rhetorical denunciations of Phocas, grandiloquent circumlocutions and explanations for technical terms, and moralizing comments" and that "there are no detailed touches suggestive of personal observation."

The historian John of Antioch mentions the rise of Phocas, sharing some details with Theophanes and Theophylact in his telling of Phocas' rise: Theophanes and John describe the rising resentment of the troops toward Emperor Maurice, all three tell how a delegation was sent to complain, Theophanes and John both name Phocas among the delegates, and state he was slapped by a patrician. John's writing is much shorter than both Theophanes and Theophylact's, but retains roughly the same organization, and has a few unique details, such as that Phocas had the man who slapped him beheaded after he rose to power.

The treatment of Maurice by sources close to Heraclius strike a delicate balance of praise and condemnation, whereby the sources retain possible pro-Phocas propaganda in declaring Maurice a traitor, stating that he allowed for Byzantine prisoners to be massacred by the Avars by refusing to pay a ransom, but also that he was genuinely repentant and forgiven by God, who made him a saint; this balance would allow him to retain favor with the significant, or even majority, population which disliked Maurice, while steering their sentiment against supporting Phocas for usurping him. Some sources, such as the Syriac Life of St. Maurice are openly apologetic towards Maurice, describing his virtues, and how he was given a period of time by an angel to decide whether to see his empire and family burn, or not be a saint, with him ultimately deciding and to a degree facilitating, his usurpation and the elimination of his family; many of the elements appear to be inventions of the author, but elements such as refusing to allow a maid to substitute her own baby to spare his last son, and praying for punishment, are shared with the "sin-repentance" cycle presented in more directly pro-Heraclius sources.

John of Nikiu, a late 7th-century historian, is generally more reliable, but still favors Heraclius. The first portion of his Chronicle shows strong similarities with the works of John of Antioch and John Malalas, but the second part appears to be drawn mostly from eyewitnesses to the events described, and is the only source for a revolt against Phocas taking place in Byzantine Egypt in 608.

George of Pisidia and Theophanes both do not present Heraclius' usurpation as a civil war, "but almost a triumphal procession" in the words of David Olster, with Heraclius presented as deposing Phocas seemingly unopposed, but for a single decisive naval battle waged over the harbor of Constantinople, which Heraclius easily won. Indeed, among the Byzantine sources, only John of Nikiu it as a civil war, even though he heavily favors Heraclius. John of Nikiu provides the only narrative for the Egyptian front of the civil war, stating that that the armies of Heraclius, led by his cousin Nicetas, endured bitter resistance from Phocas' forces, led by the comites orientis Bonosus; John of Nikiu reports that the fighting was fierce and protracted, in comparison to the Greek sources which fail to even suggest organized resistance within Byzantine Egypt.

Opposing contemporary sources
These biased Greek sources are not the only source for the reign of Phocas, however. Early in the reign of Phocas, Pope Gregory I and future Patriarch of Jerusalem Sophronius praise Phocas without restraint; the saintly status of these two sources allows their works to survive the damnatio memoriae applied to Phocas by Heraclius. There are also a number of Syriac writings that mention the events of Phocas' reign, which provide details that the Greek sources lack; many of these Syriac sources do not belong to orthodox sects, many being Monophysite and Nestorian Christians. Another source for Phocas' reign, the Chronicon Paschale, gives sparse but accurate mention of the reign of Phocas, but is largely overlooked in favor of the chronicle of Theophanes,, not just because of the sparsity of mentions within the Chronicon Paschale, but because of unwarranted assumptions that the chronicle of Theophanes perfectly reflects the seventh-century sources, and is free of his editorial hand; this assumption has been challenged by Hans-Georg Beck, who demonstrated how vast the changes Theophanes made upon his sources are, with Theophanes inserting his own view of history.

Later sources
Both George of Pisidia and Theophylact blame the issues that the Byzantine Empire of their day faced upon Phocas; this was not unique to these two historians, as later generations of Byzantine historians likewise cast blame upon Phocas, including the ninth-century historians Theophanes the Confessor and Patriarch Nikephoros, the tenth-century historian Leo the Grammarian, and the eleventh-century George Kedrenos. Phocas has been blamed by others for such varied things as the institutional collapse of the Byzantine Empire, to indirectly being responsible for the Muslim invasions. These assessments often fail to consider the state of the empire when Phocas came to power and the biases of the historians contemporary to his reign; at the time. Phocas became the scapegoat for both George of Pisidia and Theophylact as well as later Greek historians; their explanations for how Phocas is responsible almost never mention anything other than aspersions about Phocas' morality. The most-used source for the reign of Phocas, the chronicle of Theophanes, certainly follows this pattern; the Olster demonstrates that Theophanes put great effort into re-working his own sources "to create drama and express moral causation."

18th through early 20th century
Many more modern historians take a similar view of Phocas as the extant sources written under Heraclius, and defend the Byzantine sources' assessment of Phocas, as well as adding their own insults. 19th-century historian Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1789), declares that "The pencil of an impartial historian has delineated the portrait of a mon­ster". Ludovic Drapeyron in L'Empereur Héraclius Et l'Empire Byzantin au Viie Siècle (1869) states that "Never had the Empire fallen into the hands of one more despicable. He had neither the false jus­ tice of a Tiberius, nor the perverse folly of a Caligula, nor even the depraved imagination of a Nero." J. B. Bury in his History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene (395-800 A.D. (1889), refers to Phocas as "a shapeless monster, a suitable head for the shapeless anarchy that beset the Empire." Angelo Pernice, in L'imperatore Eraclio (1905), his biography of Heraclius, calls Phocas "the most per­verse and ferocious tyrant that ever donned the imperial diadem". Even Rudolf Spintler in his De phoca imperatore Romanorum (1905), a biography of Phocas, states "It is a fact that all, both the most ancient writers and the compilers of a later age inveigh as bitterly as possible against Phocas. It is my task to demonstrate that they have done so correctly." Even in the later half of the 20th century, Andreas Stratos, in his Byzantium in the 7th Century (1965–1977), largely introduces Phocas as Cedrenus did.

Whereas sources under Heraclius mostly focus upon Phocas' asserted moral failings, these more modern sources attribute the weakening of the Byzantine Empire in large part to Phocas. Bury, Pernice, and Stratos attribute the failures of Heraclius' early reign to damage inflicted by Phocas, George Ostrogorsky in his History of the Byzantine State (1963), states that Phocas' acts forced Heraclius to reform the government. Paul Goubert, in his Byzantium before Islam (1951), goes so far as to claim that, had Phocas never taken the throne, the Islamic Conquests would never have taken place; although his thesis is not widely accepted. Olster states that authors have followed the characterization of biased Heraclian authors, and use this to have Phocas serve as a deus ex machina of Byzantine Historiography, used to explain the victory of Arab Conquests, and the weakness of Byzantine social and political systems.

Rehabilitation of Phocas' image
Until recently, the words of these biased contemporary historians have taken precedent over more distant, but neutral, contemporary sources. Historian David Olster's 1993 book, The Politics of Usurpation in the Seventh Century is considered pivotal in exposing the bias of these contemporary sources, and rehabilitating the image of Phocas. And only around this period did historians begin to apply source criticism to the narratives of Phocas.

Some earlier historians do challenge the contemporary sources, such as Otto Veh in his Untersuchungen zu dem byzantinischen Historiker Theophylaktos Simokattes (1957), attributing Theophylact's hatred of Phocas to class antagonism against a usurper. Franz Tinnefeld in her Kategorien der Kaiserkritik in der byzantinischen Historiographie von Prokqp bis Nicetas Choniates (1971), called attention to Heraclian propaganda, stating of Phocas that "It is therefore obvious that the negative image of this emperor in the sources of the reign of Heraclius is drawn for propagandistic reasons."

Physical description
The physical description of Phocas is rife with caricatures written by contemporary sources and later sources which drew from them. On the few occasions when George of Pisidia directly references Phocas, he refers to him with insults such as "the terrestrial leviathan" and "the Gorgon-faced." Theophylact Simocatta similarly insults him, referring to him as a barbarian half-breed, a cyclops, and a centaur. Leo the Grammarian says of Phocas:

This description is mirrored by Kedrenos, although he adds "And his wife was exactly like him." to the end of the passage; certain descriptions, such as him being clean-shaven, contrast directly with existing numismatic evidence that he had a beard. Many modern scholars who follow the writings of the pro-Heraclius historians have accepted this portrait at face value, although Edward Gibbon remarks that it may be exaggerated to some degree, although others such as Barry Baldwin accept it enough to criticize those who do not.