Heraclius - Ηράκλιος
born c. 575, , Cappadocia
died Feb. 11, 641, Constantinople
Eastern Roman emperor (610–641) who reorganized and strengthened
the imperial administration and the imperial armies but who, nevertheless,
lost Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Byzantine Mesopotamia to the Arab
Muslims.
Heraclius was born in eastern Anatolia. His father, probably of
Armenian descent, was governor of the Roman province of Africa when
an appeal came from Constantinople to save the Eastern Roman Empire
from the terror and incompetence of the emperor Phocas. The Governor
equipped an expeditionary force and put his devout son, the blond
and gray-eyed Heraclius, in command of it.
In October 610 Heraclius dropped anchor off Constantinople, deposed
Phocas, and was crowned emperor of a crumbling state, occupied by
invaders and wracked with internal dissension. Slavs swarmed over
the Balkan Peninsula. The Persians occupied extensive parts of Anatolia.
The Turkic Avars, who ruled over the Slavic and other tribes that
occupied the region between the Don and the Alps, exacted tribute.
With its economy disrupted, its administration disorganized, its
army depleted and demoralized, its factions engaging in civil strife,
its peasants enfeebled by excessive exactions, its religious dissenters
alienated by persecution, and its authority challenged by a powerful
aristocracy, the empire lacked the strength necessary to expel the
invaders, and possibly even to survive.
In 614 the Persians conquered Syria and Palestine, taking Jerusalem
and what was believed to be Christ's Cross, and in 619 occupied
Egypt and Libya. In an effort to placate the Avars, Heraclius met
them at Thracian Heraclea (617 or 619). They sought to capture him,
and he rode madly back to Constantinople, hotly pursued. Overlooking
their perfidy, he finally made peace with them and was free to take
the offensive against the Persians.
In 622, clad as a penitent and bearing a sacred image of the Virgin,
he left Constantinople, as prayers rose from its many sanctuaries
for victory over the Persian Zoroastrians, the recovery of the Cross,
and the reconquest of Jerusalem. He was, in effect, leading the
first crusade. Indeed, in the ensuing hostilities, a pious poet
contrasted the dancing girls in the Persian general's tent with
the psalm singers in the Emperor's. In a brilliant campaign, he
manoeuvred the Persians out of Anatolia and suggested a truce to
the Persian monarch. This offer Khosrow II contemptuously rejected,
referring to himself as beloved by the gods and master of the world,
to Heraclius as his abject and imbecilic slave, and to Christ as
incapable of saving the empire. Mindful of the propagandistic value
of Khosrow's response, Heraclius made it public.
The next two years he devoted to campaigns in Armenia, the manpower
of which was vital to the empire, and to a devastating invasion
of Persia. In 625 Heraclius retired to Anatolia. He had encamped
on the west bank of the Sarus River when the Persian forces appeared
on the opposite bank. Many of his men rushed impetuously across
the bridge and were ambushed and annihilated by the enemy.
Emerging from his tent, Heraclius saw the triumphant Persians crossing
the bridge. The fate of the empire hung in the balance. Seizing
his sword, he ran to the bridge and struck down the Persian leader.
His soldiers closed rank behind him and beat back the foe.
In 626 the Persians advanced to the Bosporus, hoping to join the
Avars in an assault on the land walls of Constantinople. But the
Romans sank the primitive Avar fleet that was to transport Persian
units across the Bosporus and repelled the unsupported Avar assault.
Heraclius again invaded Persia and in December 627, after a march
across the Armenian highlands into the Tigris plain, met the Persians
near the ruins of Nineveh. There, astride his renowned war-horse,
he killed three Persian generals in single combat, charged into
enemy ranks at the head of his troops, killed the Persian commander,
and scattered the Persian host.
A month later, Heraclius entered Dastagird with its stupendous
treasure. Khosrow was overthrown by his son, with whom Heraclius
made peace, demanding only the return of the Cross, the captives,
and conquered Roman territory. Returning to Constantinople in triumph,
he was hailed as a Moses, an Alexander, a Scipio. In 630 he personally
restored the Cross to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
Since the 4th century, when Roman emperors adopted Christianity,
they had endeavoured to preserve uniform theological belief and,
notably in Egypt, Syria, and Armenia, had persecuted those with
differing Christological views. The animosities thus created had
facilitated the Persian conquest, and Heraclius sought to conciliate
the dissenters with the doctrine of Christ's single will (monothelitism).
He failed.
It was already too late, however. United by Islam, the Arabs swept
out of their arid homeland into Syria (634). Broken in body and
spirit by disease, by long years of the cares of state, and by the
wounds and emotions of 100 battles, Heraclius did not take personal
command of the army, although the sight of him in battle armour
would have inspired the troops and silenced the bickering generals.
The Byzantines were defeated in a great battle on the Yarmuk (636).
Soon, Syria and later Egypt fell to the Arabs. Heraclius returned
northward, bearing the “holy wood,” once the object of his greatest
glory, now the companion of his deepest sorrow. Fearing water, he
remained a year on the Asiatic bank of the Bosporus before summoning
the courage to cross to Constantinople on a pontoon bridge with
foliage hiding the water.
Heraclius' first wife, Eudocia, had died in 612. A year later,
he had married his niece Martina, thus offending the religious scruples
of many of his subjects, who viewed his second marriage as incestuous
and Martina as accursed. It was apparently a happy marriage, Martina
accompanying him on his campaigns and bearing him nine children.
During his last years, Heraclius seems to have suffered from enlargement
of the prostate gland, retention of urine, and a consequent inflammation.
After violent spasms, he died in February 641, bequeathing the empire
to his two elder sons, the consumptive Constantine III of his first
marriage and Heracleonas, his son by Martina.
Although Heraclius possessed a deep Christian faith and attributed
his successes to God, the once widely accepted view of him as an
inspired visionary, who was capable of supreme but spasmodic efforts
and wondrous achievements when acting under divine promptings, would
appear to be false.
No doubt he was an inspiring military leader who fired his army
with religious fervour and whose personal intrepidity, imaginative
tactics, and constant concern for his men evoked their love and
loyalty. But he was also a cautious and calculating strategist who
did not hesitate to employ religion to serve his military ends.
Thus, when in 623 his victorious soldiers wanted to penetrate deeper
into Persia, contrary to his plan to retire, he referred the matter
to God. After his troops had fasted and prayed three days, he opened
the Bible in their presence, apparently at random, and read a passage
that could be interpreted only as a divine command to withdraw.
Moreover, even though he fostered the crusading spirit, he waged
war in a less inhumane manner than most of his contemporaries. He
did not enslave or massacre the inhabitants of conquered towns and
he treated his prisoners of war well, releasing them rather than
butchering them when he could not feed them. His mercy contrasted
sharply with Khosrow's acerbity and probably hastened his victory
in Persia.
As a statesman it is also difficult to think of him as merely a
religious fanatic. Certainly he inspired an oppressed and hopeless
people with a new spirit of faith, service, and self-sacrifice;
but the man who restored a state that was sinking under the blows
of internecine strife and foreign invasion and gave it the strength
to withstand Islam's assaults for four centuries, perhaps even contributing
to its survival until 1453, must have had a strong will, great organizing
ability, exceptional conciliatory powers, and deep insight into
the needs of both state and subjects. With a keen sense of reality,
he adjusted the empire to the needs of the 7th century, departmentalizing
the great state offices and replacing Latin with Greek as the official
language.
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