Priscus ( general ) Priscus or Priskos ( ; died 613 ) was a leading East Roman ( Byzantine ) general during the reigns of the Byzantine emperors Maurice ( reign ed 582 – 602 ) , Phocas ( r . 602 – 610 ) and Heraclius ( r . 610 – 641 ) . Although the contemporary sources are markedly biased in his favour , Priscus comes across as an effective and capable military leader . Under Maurice , he distinguished himself in the campaigns against the Avars and their Slavic allies in the Balkans . Absent from the capital at the time of Maurice ' s overthrow and murder by Phocas , he was one of the few of Maurice ' s senior aides who were able to survive unharmed into the new regime , remaining in high office and even marrying the new emperor ' s daughter . Priscus , however , also negotiated with and assisted Heraclius in the overthrow of Phocas , and was entrusted with command against the Persians in 611 – 612 . After the failure of this campaign , he was dismissed and tonsure d . He died shortly after . Biography . Under Maurice . Priscus first appears in the historical sources when he was appointed , in late 587 or early 588 , to command in the East against the Persians as " magister militum per Orientem " , replacing Philippicus . He only reached the East in spring , and assumed his new command at Monocarton in April . Priscus immediately ran into trouble with the soldiers : his haughty manner in refusing to mingle with them made him unpopular , and when a decree by Emperor Maurice which reduced army pay by a quarter was announced , the soldiers mutinied on Easter day , 18 April 588 . Priscus not only failed to restore order , but was himself attacked and forced to flee to Constantina , while the soldiers elected the " dux " of Phoenice , Germanus , as their leader . Priscus ' s attempts from Constantina to calm the soldiers by employing the local bishops as mediators and rescinding the decree also failed . Philippicus was restored to command by Maurice , while Priscus returned to Constantinople . Despite this debacle , in the same summer he was entrusted with the post of " magister militum " for Thrace , and tasked with campaigning against the Avars at the head of an improvised force . His deputy ( " hypostrategos " ) Salvianus with 1 , 000 cavalry was sent to hold the passes of the Haemus Mountains , but after two days was forced by the Avars ' numerical superiority to withdraw . The Avars sacked the city of Anchialos , but an attempted siege of Drizipera was broken off and the Avars marched south , reaching Heraclea Perinthus and cutting Priscus ' s forces off from Constantinople . Outflanked , Priscus retreated to Tzurullum , where he was besieged by the Avars . The 7th - century historian Theophylact Simocatta reports that after a few days , Priscus devised a stratagem to force the Avars to withdraw : he allowed one of his guards to be captured , bearing a fake letter purportedly coming from Maurice that informed Priscus of a seaborne attack against the Avars ' homeland . The Avar " khagan " was persuaded that the letter was true and prepared to return home in haste ; he arranged for a truce in exchange for the renewed payment of an annual tribute . The 12th - century history of Michael the Syrian gives this as 800 pounds of gold ( some 60 , 000 " solidi " ) , a considerably reduced sum compared to the 100 , 000 " solidi " agreed in 584 . The Avars departed for their country , while Priscus disbanded his army and returned to Constantinople . Priscus disappears for the next few years , as he fell into disfavour with Maurice . By 593 , he had recovered his position , as a letter by Pope Gregory the Great which congratulates him on returning to the emperor ' s favour testifies . The Pope ' s letter also testifies that by this time , Priscus had been given the Empire ' s supreme honorary rank , that of " patrikios " . In spring 593 , Priscus was re - appointed in command as commander of the cavalry in Thrace , with Gentzon leading the infantry . Priscus , as the more senior of the two , also held overall command . Both generals marched to Dorostolon on the Danube , and campaigned with success against the Slavic tribes preparing to cross the river under their leaders Ardagastus and Musocius . Crossing the river , both Slavic hosts were annihilated in surprise night attacks . At the same time , however , Priscus reportedly quarrelled with his men over the distribution of the booty captured , and especially the considerable portion Priscus allocated to the imperial family . The soldiers were eventually placated , and the booty sent back to the capital with an escort . Maurice also sent orders for the army to winter north of the river , but this caused great resentment and unrest amongst the soldiers . Priscus chose to disobey the emperor ' s order and crossed again with his army to winter in the southern bank . In the autumn of 593 , he was replaced by Maurice with his own brother Peter . Before the latter could assume command , however , Priscus arranged for a truce with the " khagan " , to whom he returned all Avar captives , some 5 , 000 in number , a fact for which he was criticized by Maurice . In late 594 , however , after Peter was heavily defeated by the Slavs , Priscus was again appointed to command as " magister militum " of Thrace , a post he proceeded to hold continuously for several years . In 595 , he marched up the Danube , crossing the river and marching along its northern bank to Novae , despite the " khagan " ' s protests . There , he learned that Singidunum had been captured by the Avars . He sailed his army to the city and , after failed face - to - face negotiations with the " khagan " , sent the " taxiarch es " Goduin to recapture it . The Avars , having razed the city ' s walls , abandoned it at the approach of the Byzantine force . Next the Avars launched a raid against Dalmatia . Goduin was dispatched with 2 , 000 men to shadow them . He managed to ambush the Avar detachment carrying their booty , recovered it and sent it to Priscus . After these events , the " khagan " turned west to campaign against the Bavarians and the Franks , leaving the Byzantine territories quiet for a period of a year and a half , until the summer of 597 . Nevertheless , Priscus and his army remained on watch along the Danube border . When the Avars resumed their operations with a large invasion in autumn 597 , they appear to have caught Priscus , who was probably operating with his army at the eastern Stara Planina , off guard . They advanced quickly , and even managed to bottle up and besiege Priscus and his men at the port of Tomi , until the approach of a freshly raised army under Comentiolus forced them to abandon the siege on Easter day , 30 March 588 . Priscus , however , remained strangely inactive , and Comentiolus ' s inexperienced army was routed in battle . The Avars then advanced south into Thrace , forcing Maurice to garrison the Anastasian Wall to prevent an attack on Constantinople . The Avar army , however , was decimated by a plague , and a treaty was quickly concluded , whereby the Avars retreated beyond the Danube in exchange for an increased annual tribute of 120 , 000 " solidi " . The Byzantines used the time to regroup their forces , and in the summer of 599 , two armies under Priscus and Comentiolus headed west along the Danube . At Viminacium , Comentiolus fell ill and Priscus assumed sole command of the campaign . His army crossed the river , and fought three successive battles over ten days . These battles were won by the Byzantines , who , according to the account of Theophylact Simocatta , killed 28 , 000 barbarians in total , including some of the sons of the " khagan " . Priscus pursued the fleeing " khagan " and invaded the Avar homeland in Pannonia . There , a fourth battle was fought near the river Tisza , which was also won by the Byzantines . On the very next day , Priscus dispatched a reconnaissance force across the river , which attacked three Gepid settlements by surprise . According to Simocatta , 30 , 000 were killed and many were taken captive . Nineteen days later , another great battle was fought by the Tisza , which ended in a decisive Byzantine victory : the Avars and especially their Slavic allies suffered greatly , and Priscus took 3 , 000 Avars , 8 , 000 Slavs , and 6 , 200 other barbarians captive , who were sent south as slaves . Maurice , who had not yet realized the extent of his army ' s victory , ordered their release as a gesture of goodwill to the " khagan " . Nevertheless , Priscus ' s campaign was a remarkable act of aggressive defence . In the words of Michael Whitby , the main modern expert on Maurice ' s reign , it was " without parallel in the sixth century " for the Danube frontier , and which essentially decided the war for Byzantium . After this success , which secured the Balkans , Maurice intended to consolidate Roman control by bringing in Armenian settlers who would be given land in exchange for military service . To this end , Priscus was sent to Armenia to recruit men and their families . His mission there , however , was interrupted by a large - scale military revolt that brought about the downfall of Maurice . In 602 , Maurice again ordered his troops on the Danube frontier to winter north of the river . Again , this provoked widespread discontent , and when Peter , who had replaced Priscus , refused to bow down and rescind the order , an outright mutiny broke out . The army chose the officer Phocas as its new leader and marched down to Constantinople . Without any credible military forces of his own , Maurice had to flee , but was captured with his family and executed by Phocas , who now became emperor . Under Phocas . Due to his absence from Constantinople at the time of Phocas ' s takeover , and because he retained a large measure of support within the soldiery , Priscus was the only one of Maurice ' s senior generals who was retained by the new regime , whereas Comentiolus and Peter were executed and Philippicus was banished to a monastery . A possible explanation for this comes from the later historian Paul the Deacon , who records , possibly based on early 7th - century sources , that Phocas had once served as an equerry under Priscus . At any rate , Priscus was soon counted among the main supporters of the new regime . In the winter of 602 / 603 , he was made " comes excubitorum " , commander of the imperial bodyguard . In 606 or 607 , he also married Phocas ' s daughter , Domentzia , becoming the effective heir - apparent to the sonless ruler . In the games celebrated at the Hippodrome to honor the event , however , Phocas reacted violently when he saw portraits of Priscus and Domentzia carried alongside his by the citizens . From this moment on , the chroniclers report , Priscus turned against Phocas . Phocas ' s rule lacked legitimacy and quickly came to be resented by the populace and the elites of the Byzantine Empire . What prestige he had further eroded when the Persian shah Khosrau II ( r . 590 – 628 ) declared war , and when the Byzantine forces began to suffer their first defeats . According to a later tradition , Priscus sent a letter to the Exarch of Africa , Heraclius the Elder , urging him to revolt . This is probably a later invention , but if true , it would indicate the level of dissent even within Constantinople . Whatever the truth of the matter , in 608 Africa rose in revolt , and the Exarch ' s son , Heraclius the Younger , was dispatched against Constantinople at the head of a fleet . Unopposed by Phocas ' s forces , he landed at the suburb of Hebdomon on October 3 and marched to the capital , where pro - Heraclian riots had broken out . At this juncture , Priscus pretended to be ill , and withdrew to his mansion at the " Boraïdou " quarter , where he assembled the " excubitores " and his own retainers ( " bucellarii " ) , thus depriving Phocas of his major armed support . He is also recorded by John of Nikiu to have safeguarded the women of Heraclius ' s family from retribution by Phocas . Under Heraclius . After Phocas ' s fall , Heraclius became emperor of Byzantium . The Patriarch Nikephoros claims in his " Short History " that the crown was first offered to Priscus , who refused it . As commander of the " excubitores " , a " protopatrikios " ( first among the patrician order ) and one of the few senior and influential officials with ties to past regimes , Priscus represented a potential threat to Heraclius . Nevertheless , facing a critical situation in the East , where the Persians had overrun much territory and were raiding Anatolia , Heraclius appointed Priscus in command of the Anatolian army in the autumn of 611 . The Persian general Shahin captured Caesarea in Cappadocia , only to be blockaded and besieged there by Priscus . Heraclius himself decided to visit the army camp at Caesarea during winter , but Priscus refused to meet him , on the pretext of an illness . This snub alienated Heraclius from his general , and when Shahin and his army managed to break out and escape in summer , Priscus was recalled to Constantinople , ostensibly to become godfather to the Byzantine emperor ' s son , Heraclius Constantine . At the capital , he was removed from his post as " comes excubitorum " , which went to Heraclius ' s cousin Nicetas , while command in Anatolia went to the other surviving general of Maurice , Philippicus , brought out of retirement . Priscus was brought before the Byzantine Senate and accused by Heraclius of treason . In the end , he was tonsure d as a monk on 5 December 612 and confined in the Monastery of the Chora , where he died in 613 . Assessment . Priscus comes across as an able and versatile military leader . In many instances , his operations against the Slavs resemble the prescriptions of the most influential Byzantine military manual , the " Strategikon " , ascribed to Emperor Maurice . Despite his reputation as a strict disciplinarian and his aloof stance which led to the mutiny of 588 , in later campaigns he showed ability in dealing with the soldiers and calming their discontent . This cleverness was also employed against the Avar " khagan " . For instance , during the siege of Tomi in 598 , Priscus managed to persuade the Avars to supply the Byzantine army , which was in fact close to starvation , with grain . As the scholar Walter Kaegi comments , Priscus ' s policy in defending the Danube frontier consisted in keeping the peace with the " khagan " " by sly negotiations " , allowing him focus his efforts against the Slavs raiding imperial territory . The main Byzantine source for the period , Theophylact Simocatta , displays a marked bias in favour of Priscus , especially in its account of the Balkan campaigns , where the other generals are denigrated and made to appear incompetent , with their achievements regularly belittled while Priscus ' s successes are extolled and his defeats glossed over . This may be due to the fact that for this period , Simocatta relied on a semi - official " campaign log " compiled during the years of Emperor Phocas , when Priscus was pre - eminent while most of his rivals were either executed or in exile .