About this ebook
Between Justinian the Great and Maurice the Reformer stands a ruler history has nearly forgotten: Tiberius II Constantine (578–582 CE), the Thracian general who opened the imperial treasury — and gave everything away.
While Persian armies ravaged Mesopotamia and Avar horsemen terrorized the Balkans, Tiberius made an extraordinary choice. He spent 180,000 pounds of gold ransoming captives, feeding the poor, and paying soldiers' debts. His advisors wept. His enemies rejoiced. His subjects called him a second Trajan.
Was he a visionary who understood that power exists to serve the powerless? Or a dangerous idealist who bankrupted Rome at its moment of greatest peril?
This biography reconstructs Late Antiquity's most paradoxical emperor — a man who believed rulers should practice the mercy they preached. The result was disaster.
Or was it?
