Heraclius at this time was in his thirties; he had been born either in Armenia (his father’s native land) or in Africa. He imitated Maurice and was only the second emperor at Constantinople to take the field and exercise the original role of commanding general since Theodosius more than 200 years before. Heraclius lived the role unrelentingly for the thiry-one years of his reign, also finding time to marry two wives who bore him at least eleven children. Many of those children were disabled in various ways, leading to whispered stories of divine vengeance for—incest? or worse? His thirty-one years on the throne should—if the gods were kind—have established him as one of the greatest of emperors. But the gods were not kind.
Bosporus from Constantinople
The apparent triumph and real tragedy of Heraclius’s reign lay on the Persian frontier. Phocas bought peace there for cash, while letting his grasp on the Balkans slip as well. The disruption of Roman attention that came from Heraclius’s revolt made things easier still for Khusro II, the worthy successor of his grandfather, who now ruled Persia. In short order, Persian forces led by Khusro swept into Roman domains. Damascus was lost in 613; Jerusalem, and with it the true cross, in 614; and Egypt in 619. Raids in Asia Minor reached as far as Chalcedon across the Bosporus from Constantinople, and persuasive rumors flew that Persia was in touch with the Avars for what could have been a fatal pincer maneuver. Persian forces seem at the end, however, to have backed off an attempt to establish themselves permanently to the north and west of Antioch. Some of what Asia Minor lost at this moment came from warfare and its destruction, and some from consequences as populations declined and economic vitality sank. Things were never the same.
A monk, Antiochos Strategos, recounted the desperate struggle in Jerusalem, as an eyewitness to it all. The Persians besieged the city for twenty days, from April into May. Eventually their siege engines succeeded in breaking through the city wall. Cisterns offered useful hiding places for a few, but many who took refuge in churches were discovered and hacked to death. Hundreds died in Justinian’s vast new church alone, just one part of a gruesome body count Antiochos provides, totalling 66,000 who lost their lives in the siege. This total is high but not impossible, and the sheer awfulness of the event is certain.
Historical Ottoman 