After thirty-three years of strong government, Spain once more fell back into the state of civil strife from which it had been rescued by Leovigild. But the character of the struggle was now changed; for the future it was a contest between the Catholic hierarchy and the Visigothic nobles, as to which should appoint and control the king. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IX THE SUCCESSORS OF JUSTINIAN 565-610 Justin II. and his unhappy financial policy—His troubles with the Persians and Avars—Reign of Tiberius Constantinus—Accession of Maurice—His victory over Persia—His failure against the Slavs and Avars—Disasters in the Balkan Peninsula—Fall of Maurice—Tyranny of Phocas—His unfortunate war with Persia—He is dethroned and slain by Heraclius, 610. The forty years which followed the death of Justinian were a period of rapid decline and decay for the East-Roman world. The empire was paying, by exhaustion within and the loss of provinces without, for the spasmodic outburst of energy into which it had been galvanised by the great emperor. He left to his heirs broad and dangerous frontiers in his newly-acquired provinces, with an army which had got somewhat out of hand, and a civil population shorn to the skin by the excessive taxation of the last twenty years. Justinian’s heirs were, unhappily for the empire, princes who tried to maintain their great predecessor’s ambitious policy, at a moment when the less brilliant, but more cautious and economical, rule of a second Anastasius would have been the best thing for the East-Roman world. The Emperor’s nephew, Justinus, son of his sister Vigilantia, mounted the throne on his decease without meeting with any opposition. He had served his uncle as _Curopalata_, or Master of the Palace, for the last ten years, and had been able to make things ready for his own peaceful succession, though Justinian had never consented to allow him to be crowned as his colleague as long as he lived. [Sidenote: Justin II., 565-78.] Justin was married to Sophia, the niece of the empress Theodora, a lady who resembled her aunt in her masterful spirit, but was far from rivalling her abilities. Justin and his wife had led a somewhat repressed and constrained existence during the old emperor’s life, and were set upon asserting their individuality the moment that Justinian was buried. Justin had high ideas of the dignity of the imperial name and the majesty of the empire, and had determined to inaugurate a spirited foreign policy when he seized the helm of affairs. His first measure was to refuse to continue any of the comparatively trifling subsidies to barbarian princes on the frontier, which Justinian had been content to pay in order to keep them from petty raids—much as the Indian Government to-day subsidises the chiefs of the Khyber Pass. This