Tiberius II Constantine
Tiberius II Constantine ruled Byzantium for four years and spent the treasury his predecessor had hoarded. He was a Thracian officer who rose as comes excubitorum, commander of the palace guard, under Justin II, and led campaigns against the Avars on the Danube with mixed success. Justin II went mad. He had refused the tribute Justinian had paid the Persians, lost Syria and much of Armenia in the war that followed, and lost most of Italy to the Lombards, and the news of the fall of Dara in 573 broke him — he raved, bit his attendants, and had to be wheeled about the palace on a throne with organ music played to calm him. The empress Sophia governed and, in a lucid interval in 574, had Justin adopt Tiberius as Caesar and hand him the administration. He became sole emperor on Justin's death in 578. Justin's speech at the adoption is preserved and is one of the strangest documents of the period, a mad emperor warning his successor not to be as he had been. Tiberius was remembered for generosity to the point of recklessness. He remitted taxes, distributed the accumulated reserves, and paid the Avars off rather than fight them. He used the money on the Persian front, where his general Maurice won at Constantina in 581. He died in August 582, reportedly of poisoned mulberries, having married his daughter to Maurice and named him successor days before. Maurice inherited the wars and an empty treasury, and was murdered by a mutiny twenty years later.
- Lived: 520 CE – 582 CE
- Nationality: Byzantine
- Roles: emperor, head_of_state, military_leader
