WI: Emperor Maurice dies between 597-598?

Most of you are, by now, familiar with Byzantine Emperor Maurice and the circumstances which led to the usurpation of his throne and deaths of him and his family by Phocas. You might also be aware of the will he wrote in which he named his eldest son, Theodosius, his successor in the Eastern empire, and his second son, Tiberius, co-emperor and ruler of Italy and the western islands, and divided the empire between the rest of his sons with Domitian of Melitene as their guardian. The main source for this is contemporary historian Theophylact Simocatta, who is generally regarded as trustworthy, but was writing during the reign of Heraclius, who had his own reasons for wanting to cement the legitimacy of his dynasty. And that's all I'll say on that.

Anyway, supposedly Maurice wrote this will in 597-598 when/after he fell severely ill. What if Maurice had died from that illness? Theodosius had been named co-emperor in 590, so he was the most likely choice to succeed his father. As for Tiberius, I'd reckon he'd be named co-emperor only until Theodosius had a son of his own. We know little to nothing about Theodosius' character, but I reckon if he was born and raised in Constantinople his whole life, he would act less like his father and grandfather (Tiberius II) and more like Justinian and Justin II, paying tribute and letting generals like his uncle Peter, Priscus, Narses, Philippicus, Comentiolus, and Heraclius the Elder and his family do the fighting.

In terms of enemies, there are the Persians & Lakhmids, the Avars and the Lombards in Italy. The province of Spania was pretty much lost to the Visigoths in this period, and I'm not too knowledgable about Moorish-Berber activites against the Byzantines in this period of history to make any comments. Persia is ruled by Khosrau II, who had been placed on the throne by Maurice in exchange for Armenia and other lands lost since the reign of Emperor Julian. IOTL, Khosrau used Maurice's usurpation and murder as an excuse to launch an invasion of the empire. Here, Khosrau doesn't have that excuse, but he may say that his agreement was with Maurice, not his sons, and use that as a pretext for invasion.

This POD would be before the incident where Maurice refused to pay ransom for troops captured by the Avars, but also before Maurice ravaged the lands north of the Danube, which may have contributed to the decline and fall of the Khaganate (for both points, correct me if I'm wrong). The Avars are also receiving pay-offs from the Franks. As for the Lombards, the north is currently ruled by King Agilulf, who IOTL would eventually convert from Arianism to Catholicism along with his newborn son, and who would also go to war in 599-600 when Callinicus, the Exarch of Ravenna, kidnapped his daughter. A smart emperor would focus on annexing the Lombard duchies of Sploeto and Benevento, getting the Franks to stop paying off the Avars and focus on the Lombards/their rivals.

In terms of religion (and I know I'm simplifying things a lot here, but honestly religion makes my brain hurt), one possibility I could see is Chalcedonianism and Zoroastrianism being supplanted by Oriental Orthodoxy (the kind seen in Armenia, Syria and Egypt) and Nestorianism respectively, over time. And I've already written a lot at the moment, so I won't go into Muhammed and Arabia now.

Any thoughts?
 
and I'm not too knowledgable about Moorish-Berber activites against the Byzantines in this period of history to make any comments.
From this point, the exarchate of Africa is mostly let alone by Constantinople : it is barely mentioned in most contemporary imperial archives and account, except for Heraclius' revolt.

At the beggining of Maurice's reign, you still had fights against eastern Berbers (campaign of Aristomakos), but it seems that the most significant Mauri communauties under Carthagian overseeing were usually undergoing a modus vivendi where Berber princes were integrated to the exarchate's organisation (if a bit jury-rigged way) and more on terms of alliance rather than real subservience (that said, their service was organized along the lines of semi-local dux, praesidi and foederati).

While Berber mostly let Byzantine Africa, meaning the coastal band, they created several principalties all around (and partially inside) it. It is generally understood as a period of relative withdrawal or contraction for Berbers.

This POD would be before the incident where Maurice refused to pay ransom for troops captured by the Avars, but also before Maurice ravaged the lands north of the Danube, which may have contributed to the decline and fall of the Khaganate (for both points, correct me if I'm wrong).
Avars were rather on the rise, even if they did had to withdraw temporarily from Maurice's campaign : as you said, they were beneficing from raids in Central Europe to recover from losses.
I'd say that the biggest contributor to their decline in the VIIth century was their unability to gain tributes or pay-off from their Balkanic campaigns and the Siege of Constantinople, meaning they couldn't really hold much more their hegemony over verious peoples (mostly Slavic).

A smart emperor would focus on annexing the Lombard duchies of Sploeto and Benevento, getting the Franks to stop paying off the Avars
I think it's "paying-off" in the sense of either loot from Avar raids in Frankish Germany, or tributes as "stop raiding the hell out of us". If Constantinople can't crush Avar hegemony, Franks would be in no position to stop paying of.

and focus on the Lombards/their rivals.
Then maybe Maurice shouldn't have meddled as much as he did in Gaul.

More seriously, his interventions in Spain and Gaul, in order to forge an anti-Homean alliance from Chalcedonian rulers and pretenders and Hermengild, Gondovald and Brunhild while understable, does show that he was less focused on having Franks attacking Lombards than securing Gaul as a pro-Chalcedonian entity.
(It seems he toyed with the idea forging an exarchate in Gaul from the remains of Gondovald's revolt, for instance)

From me, it looks more as a sanctuarizing strategy (as in, failsafing as much regions as possible to prevent Homean progress), than an overall offensive strategy.

In terms of religion (and I know I'm simplifying things a lot here, but honestly religion makes my brain hurt), one possibility I could see is Chalcedonianism and Zoroastrianism being supplanted by Oriental Orthodoxy (the kind seen in Armenia, Syria and Egypt) and Nestorianism respectively, over time.
Maybe in eastern provinces, but that's hardly expectable for most of what became IOTL Latin Christianity: the tendency was heavily favouring the disappearance of what remained of Homeism, but it let everyone in the region quite touchy about Orthodoxy.
 
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