Priscus (magister militum)
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
[9][12] In late 594, however, after Peter was heavily defeated by the Slavs,[13] Priscus was again appointed to command as magister militum of Thrace, a post he proceeded to hold continuously for several years.
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.
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 598.
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.
[17][21] 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.
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.
[30] 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 main source of armed support.
[32][33] 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.
[34] 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.
[33][35] 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.
In many instances, his operations against the Slavs resemble the prescriptions of the most influential Byzantine military manual, the Strategikon, ascribed to Emperor Maurice.
[37] Despite his reputation as a strict disciplinarian and his aloof stance which led to the mutiny of 588,[33] in later campaigns he showed ability in dealing with the soldiers and calming their discontent.
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.
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.
