How to save Emperor Maurice?

Maurice is described as being the last Great Roman Emperor before the eventual downward spiral of the Byzantine Empire. His death would lead to a series of conflicts with Persia that would importantly leave it open to invasion by the Arabs. His death would also lead to the 'Hellenization' of the Byzantines under Heraclius.

He started off so well it seems, almost seeming to have been on the verge of re-forming the Roman Empire.

His issue it appeared to be was financial. Toward the end of his reign for some reason he began making military spending cuts and blunders, such as not paying for the Ransom of troops captures by the Avars and handling the Balkans army forces which lead to the revolt that overthrew him.

Is there anyway these errors could be avoided? Simply having Phocas, his usurper, would only delay the inevitable.
 
I'll just paraphrase something that I remember reading somewhere, it ran along the lines of "Maurice was a great statesman, he had the gift of foresight when it came to state needs and managing the state finances; but he was a poor judge of men."

He had the bad luck of inheriting a rather shaky financial situation from his predecessors as well as a ten year old war, as of 582 which would run until early 591, with the Sassanians. At the same time he had to pay ever increasing subsidies to the Avars, since the majority of his forces were in the East. The measures he took in order to economize (not rescuing the prisoners of the Avars, dispensing weapons to the soldiers instead of giving them the money to purchase them; cutting back on their pay, etc. as well as taxing and regulating the sale of grain and foodstuffs in Constantinople all played a hand on his demise. He carried them out, sure of their need, but with no regard as to their popularity.

The only way out would perhaps be to not have the Persian war of 572 take place, which would have freed up manpower and funds to deal with the Avars to the north, eliminating the need to pay them off. There is also the alternative that did present IOTL, of crowning Maurice's son, Theodosius, or the patrician Germanus (I explore the first option in a TL-novel.) But in the end Maurice's jealousy prevented this; he had them both seized at which point the army proclaimed Phocas.
 
That seems to have been the final straw, but it happened as part of him wanting to cut costs.

Apparently Maurice never studied his own empires history. Every Emperor who tried to cut down military spending was overthrown. I guess he could cut costs elsewhere instead. Perhaps at court or in the Bureaucracy.
 
Apparently Maurice never studied his own empires history. Every Emperor who tried to cut down military spending was overthrown. I guess he could cut costs elsewhere instead. Perhaps at court or in the Bureaucracy.

Justinian got away with it. Narrowly, but he did.

And I'm not sure "elsewhere" was going to save significant amounts of money - military budgets have always been a burden for most states.
 
Justinian got away with it. Narrowly, but he did.

And I'm not sure "elsewhere" was going to save significant amounts of money - military budgets have always been a burden for most states.

I didn't know that about Justinian. But that would be the exception rather than the fact. If he wanted to cut military spending it would have to happen very slowly, like slowly enough for the soldiers to not notice, at least at first. Things like not paying troop ransom and giving them weapons instead of money would definitely be noticed.

It wouldn't no.Personally I fully agree that lowering the Roman military spending would help a lot long term. The problem is soldiers aren't thinking long term. Look at Emperor Macrinus. Macrinus had the makings of being a good emperor but his decision to curtail the privileges the army enjoyed and lowering their pay led to his being replaced by the arguably craziest Roman Emperor ever.
 
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