Philippicus (comes excubitorum)
Philippicus (Greek: Φιλιππικός; fl. 580s–610s) was an Eastern Roman general, comes excubitorum, and brother-in-law of Emperor Maurice (r. 582–602). His successful career as a general spanned three decades, chiefly against the Sassanid Persians.
Not to be confused with Philippikos Bardanes.
Philippicus
magister militum per Orientem, comes excubitorum
Career under Phocas and Heraclius[edit]
At some point in 602, suspicions fell upon him of plotting against Emperor Maurice, since a prophecy stated that the name of Maurice's successor would begin with a Φ (Phi).[2] Indeed, soon after, Maurice was deposed and killed by a revolt in the Balkan army led by Phocas. As a close associate of Maurice, Philippicus was tonsured and forced to enter a monastery in Chrysopolis.[2][11] He was still at the monastery when Heraclius overthrew Phocas in 610. The new emperor recalled him and sent him to negotiate with Phocas's brother, Comentiolus, who commanded the eastern army.[2] Comentiolus imprisoned him and intended to execute him, but Philippicus was saved when Comentiolus himself was murdered.[2]
In 612, he was again appointed by Heraclius as magister militum per Orientem succeeding the disgraced Priscus, and campaigned against the Persians in Armenia. In 614, as a Persian army under Shahin invaded Asia Minor and reached the shores of the Bosporus at Chalcedon, Philippicus invaded Persian territory in turn, hoping to cause Shahin to withdraw.[2]
Philippicus died shortly thereafter and was buried in a church he had built at Chrysopolis.[2]
Possible authorship of the Strategikon[edit]
As one of the leading generals of his day, and with both the time and opportunity to write it sometime after 603, during the years he spent in a monastery, Philippicus is one of the possible authors of the military treatise known as the Strategikon and traditionally attributed to Maurice.[12]