The more I read about Maurice, Phocas and Heraclius the more I sympathies with Phocas, he did nothing wrong bros..
>>18750231Phocas is literally Judas incarnate, he doomed everything and everyone
>>18750231>Maurice says the balkans will collapse if they give up now>Gives up now>Slavjeets infest Illlyria, Thracia, Macedonia, and Greece for centuries after just as Maurice predicted>Is such a violent retard he alienates all the competent generals, sends retard family to deal with the Persians, fails horribly. >Two fronts completely collapse on his watch, dooms the empire to centuries of overextension>He's not that BÆD ACTUALLYOf all the kinds of apologists on /his/, Phocas apologists will never not be completely braindead to me.
>>18750637But the balkans didnt begin to fall apart again until the 620s when heraclius pulled troops from there to fight persia.Phocas notably left a very large chunk of the men who served during Maurice's campaigns stationed there. It was Heraclius that made the defenses so weak that it would fall apart irrevocably.And the romans were doing bad yea but if heraclius didn't start the civil war they likely could have just returned to the 5th century borders in some peace treaty cause that's about how far the persians had advanced before the civil war.Phocas was not a great emperor but it was roman resources being sapped by heraclius' civil war that caused the problems you listed.
>picture I made of his coins in the Archeological Museum of IstanbulPhocas is such a fascinating figure.
>>18752543>no beards on coins before Focas>beards after Focasthe decline and fall
>>18751256Byzantium had already lost Dara and the Euphrates frontier zones, while his treaty with the Avars was bullshit as Slavs kept pouring in just as Maurice had warned. His usurpation and destruction of Maurice + family was a total disaster, everything would have been avoided otherwise. Heraclius simply reacted to his poor unpopular rule, and had to deal with the shitshow he left him.
>>18750231>>18750637Mercury the wise was punishing the Roman Empire and Maurce specifically for persecuting the Sabians of Harran.It's not a coincidence that Rome collapses just as they tried to finish off the last pagans.
If you like Phocas over Maurice and Heraclius you may be jewish
>>18752543>Unpopular usurper hated by everyone started a 800 years old habit for the following emperors to grow a beard after centuries of shaving predominanceThis random event will never not be funny to me
>>18750231>First Emperor in like almost two centuries that managed to breed and have plenty of heirs (i suppose he discovered the lead poisoning trap)>Entire lineage genocided by a tracherous violent retardSometimes life is cruel
>>18753340>Phocas was the first bearded emperorDude, I take that as a personal insult
>>18753464>after centuries of shaving predominanceCan you capable of reading?
