Phili'ppicus
or more correctly PHILE'PICUS (
Φιλιππικός or
Φιλεπικός), emperor of Constantinople from December, A. D. 71 1, to the fourth of June, 713.
The account of his accession to the throne is related in the life of the emperor Justinian II. Rhinotmetus. His original name was Bardanes; he was the son of Nicephorus Patricius ; and he had distinguished himself as a general during the reigns of Justinian and his predecessors; he was sent into exile by Tiberius Absimarus, on the charge of aspiring to the crown.
After having been proclaimed by the inhabitants of Cherson and by the army, with which he was commanded to exterminate those people by the emperor Justinian II., he assumed the name of Philippicus, or, as extant coins of him have it, Filepicus; Theophanes, however, calls him Philippicus previous to his accession.
After the assassination of the tyrant Justinian, Philippicus ruled without opposition, though not without creating much dissatisfaction through his dissolute course of life, and his unwise policy in religious matters. Belonging to the sect of the Monothelists, he deposed the orthodox patriarch Cyrus, and put the heretic John in his stead.
The whole East soon embraced, or at least tended towards, Monothelisml; the emperor brought about the abolition of the canons of the sixth council; and the names of the patriarchs, Sergius and Honorius, who had been anathematized by that council, were, on his order, inserted in the sacred diptychs. Philippicus had scarcely arrived in his capital when Terbilis, king of Bulgaria, made his sudden appearance under its walls, burned the suburbs, and retired with many captives and an immense booty.
During this time the Arabs took and burnt Amasia (712), and in the following year (713) Antioch in Pisidia fell into their hands.
The emperor did nothing to prevent these or further disasters ; a plot, headed by the patricians Georgius, surnamed Boraphus, and Theodore Myacius, was entered into to deprive him of his throne; and the fatal day arrived without Philippicus being in the least prepared for it. On the 3rd of June, 713, he celebrated the anniversary of his death; splendid entertainments were given in the hippodrome, the emperor with a brilliant cavalcade paraded through the streets of Constantinople, and when the evening approached, the prince sat down with his courtiers to a sumptuous banquet.
According to his habit, Philippicus took such copious libations that his attendants were obliged to put him to bed in a senseless state. On a given signal, one of the conspirators, Rufus, entered the bed-room, and, with the assistance of his friends, carried the drunken prince off to a lonely place, where he was deprived of his eyesight.
A general tumult ensued, and the people, disregarding the pretensions of the conspirators, proclaimed one of their own favourites, Anastasius II. Philippicus ended his life in obscurity, but we have no particulars referring to the time of his death. (Theophan. pp. 311, 316-321 ; Niceph. Const. p. 141, &c. ed. Paris, 1616, 8vo.; Zonar. vol. ii. p. 96, &c. ed. Paris; Cedrenus, p. 446, &c.; Paul. Discon.
de Gest. Longob. 6.31-33 ; Suid.
s.v. Φιλιππικός ; Eckhel,
Doctr. Num. vol. viii. pp. 229-230.)
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W.P]
