Byzantium And The Middle Ages Part 3

Endless War

565 – 711 A.D.

Heraclius

Downward Drift

The Last Persian War

A New Power Rises

The Heraclian Dynasty

The Emperor Who Lost His Nose

Justinian's death the Empire entered into a roughly half-century of decline, the situation going from merely bad to the verge of catastrophe. However, in its greatest hour of need, a hero emerged to save the Empire from catastrophe: Heraclius, who would finally bring a victorious conclusion to the thousand year long series of wars between the Persian and Greco-Roman civilizations.

Shortly after the death of Justinian the Lombard people invaded Italy, seizing the northern and central areas of the peninsula. Closer to home the war with the Persians had resumed, while the Avars and various Slavic tribes moved into the Balkans and pressed upon the Empire.

By 582 A.D. a new and relatively successful Emperor, Maurice, came to the throne. He managed to assist the young Persian monarch Chosroes II in regaining his throne after a civil war, winning great concessions while gaining Chosroes II good will.

Maurice also established new administrative units in the west, the Exarchate of Ravenna and the Exarchate of Carthage, to streamline the command & control of the Empire's distant territories.

Exarchate of Ravenna (Mainland Only)

Unfortunately for the Emperor, his campaigns against the Avars generated unpopularity with his army, and he was overthrown in 602 A.D. and brutally murdered along with his family.

The new Emperor, a former army centurion named Phocas, proved to be almost pathologically cruel. He instituted wide scale torture and when Chosroes II invaded the Empire (allegedly to avenge his friend Maurice), he failed utterly to rise to the situation.

Emperor Phocas

Merely bribing the Avars, he exacerbated the army's failures by persecuting the Jews, driving them into the Persian’s arms. The entire situation began spinning out of control, with interreligious violence, endless plotting, and near civil war it appeared the Empire was on the verge of collapse.

Then, deliverance came from Africa, where the Exarch of Carthage dispatched a fleet and army to Constantinople led by his son Heraclius. In 609 A.D. Heraclius arrived in Greece, rallied every malcontent in Europe, and in 610 A.D. set sail for the capital.

Shortly after arriving Phocas was brought to him in chains, and shortly thereafter executed. On the very same day Heraclius was married to his fiancé and immediately thereafter crowned Emperor.

After this miraculous day, Heraclius appeared as a virtual demigod. Nonetheless, the Empire was in truly desperate straits, with the Balkans entirely overrun by barbarian tribes and the Persians running rampant, seizing Antioch, Damascus, and Jerusalem itself by 614 A.D. Worse, this last city had been taken by Shahrbaraz, the most fearsome general of the Persian Empire.

With the loss of Egypt 3 years later Heraclius was on the verge of falling back on Carthage, but his subjects pleas convinced him to stay on the condition that they would do exactly as he commanded and spare nothing in the quest for victory.

For long years he laid his plans, reorganizing the empire into provinces known as Themes (based upon the Exarchates) more suited for the current military situation, while the Orthodox church offered all of its vast treasures to finance the defence of the Empire.

Finally in 622 A.D. Heraclius led an army into southern Anatolia and defeated a Persian army there under Shahrbaraz, the first great victory over the Persians.

The next years saw the Byzantines invade Azerbaijan, laying waste to the Zoroastrian Fire Temple, and even threatening the Persian capital of Ctesiphon before withdrawing for the winter.

The next several seasons saw Heraclius and his forces smash army after army, besting Shahrbaraz and slaughtering lesser generals.

After several years of such defeats, Chosroes II had tolerated enough, and ordered every able-bodied male in his empire to be put under arms, while dispatching two massive armies. One would move to destroy Heraclius, while the second would advance to Constantinople and assist the barbarian enemies of the Byzantines in taking the city.

Meanwhile, the Avars had rallied nearly every barbarian tribe from western Eurasia to march on Constantinople and constructed huge siege engines to breach the walls.

Heraclius however did not stand idly by, and divided his army into three: one would reinforce the capital, one would deal with the Persian field army, and the last under Heraclius would invade Persia itself, which was now essentially defenceless.

The two Byzantine armies in the east crushed their Persian opponents, while in the summer of 626 A.D. Constantinople managed to repulse the barbarian siege.

All the next year Heraclius ravaged his way towards Ctesiphon, and in December of 627 A.D. at the climactic Battle of Nineveh the Byzantine army met the Persians in a gruelling day long battle.

Heraclius and the Persian General Rhazates met in single combat, where Heraclius stuck down the enemy leader, while the Persian army was literally annihilated.

After this Chosroes II (now increasingly insane) fled, commanding women and children to defend Ctesiphon. Foreseeing his imminent downfall Heraclius withdrew, and shortly thereafter Chosroes II was overthrown by a coup which included Shahrbaraz (whom he had threatened with death for his failures) and executed.

Peace was then agreed to, with Persia returning all captured territories, holy relics, and captives. When Heraclius re-entered Constantinople in September of 628 A.D. to riotous celebration, it was his finest hour.

While the great war between Byzantium and Persia was raging, to the far south Mohammed had fled from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D. Espousing the new religion of Islam, he sought to spread the word among his fellow Arabs.

Likewise, the horrible social and economic conditions in 7th century Arabia sickened him, and he sought to ameliorate the conditions of his people by way of this new faith.

He succeeded, far more than he could have imagined by the time of his death in 632 A.D. He was succeeded by his friend Abu Bakr as the first Caliph (or successor), and after he in turn died in 634 A.D., it was under the second caliph Omar that the great conquests began.

By 633 A.D. the Muslim Arabs (for there were, and still are, many Arabs who followed different religions) began to expand out of the desert wastes of the Arabian Peninsula. The speed of the conquests they won was staggering: Within 3 years Damascus, 5 Jerusalem, 6 all of Syria, in a decade Egypt and Armenia, in 20 the entire Persian Empire, in 30 Afghanistan and most of the Punjab.

After a period of consolidation they resumed, having by 711 A.D. conquered North Africa and crossing into the Iberian Peninsula. It was only at the Battle of Tours in 732 A.D. that they were decisively checked.

In 633 A.D. however, Heraclius was in the process of rebuilding the eastern provinces and attempting to heal religious division, while the next year the Arabs entered Syria for the first time.

After indecisive engagements, the Byzantine army in the east was annihilated at the Battle of Yarmuk in August of 636 A.D.

Heraclius returned

to Constantinople, in 638 A.D., and after several years of suffering and illness, died in 641 A.D. While he died broken in spirit, Heraclius had proven one of Byzantium's truly great Emperors: just as Justinian had been the last 'Roman', Heraclius is often considered the first 'Greek' Emperor.

Had he not saved the Empire from Persia, it is likely that it too

would have fallen to the Arab conquests just as Persia itself did. He likewise laid the groundwork and reforms that would see the Empire through the dangers of the coming centuries. As historian John Julius Norwich eloquently summed it up, he of all the Byzantine Emperors deserves to rest in peace.

In the coming years the descendents of Heraclius stood firm against the tide of conquests that swept aside all other opposition. In the coming generations the Byzantine Empire endured many travails as it struggled to survive the Saracen tide.

Shortly after the death of Heraclius, his grandson Constans II assumed power, and his entire 27 year reign was to be overshadowed by the Saracen wars.

The Saracen conquest proceeded apace on land, the succession of the Caliph Othman saw the first Saracen fleets constructed, and under the leadership of Muawiya (governor of Syria) they captured a number of islands in the eastern Aegean.

The assassination of Othman in 656 A.D. led to a civil war over the succession between Muawiya and Mohammed's son-in-law Ali. Muawiya's triumph in 661 A.D. led to the end of the Rashidun Caliphate and the founding of the Omayyad Caliphate.

Green – Rashidun Loyalists Red & Blue - Rebels

While this disruption plagued the Islamic world, Constans II attempted to heal the divisions wrought by his grandfather's failure to address the Empire's theological issues, and in 662 A.D. left for the western provinces to establish a new capital. Ultimately his attempt was unsuccessful, and he was assassinated in Syracuse in 668 A.D. (killed with a soap dish, how embarrassing!).

Modern Syracuse

He was succeeded by his son Constantine IV, who then had to confront Muawiya's new advance. By 674 A.D. Constantinople was besieged from the sea by the Omayyad fleet, and this would continue for 5 years until 678 A.D.

One of the main advantages of the Byzantines was a recently invented weapon known as 'Greek Fire', a flammable liquid sprayed onto enemy ships which could not be extinguished by water, which allowed them to annihilate countless enemy ships.

After the failure of the siege, Constantine IV and Muawiya agreed to peace terms, including the Omayyads evacuating the conquered islands in the Aegean. Constantine IV was then congratulated by the Avars, Slavs, Lombards, and Franks alike, for by his victory would force the Saracens to traverse the entire Mediterranean to invade Europe, and even then they would never expand beyond the Pyrenees. In this way the Emperor was credited with having saved Western Civilization.

Emperor Constantine IV

The Empire proved less successful in the Balkans, where it failed to stop the incursion of the Bulgars, and their subsequent creation of a new state there (which after a fashion exists to this day).

c.700 A.D.

Constantine IV also succeeded in reducing the religious tensions inside the Empire, and was hailed for doing so. When he died in 685 A.D. he could take pride in having left the Empire stronger and more united than at any time in the last century.

Constantine IV was succeeded by his son Justinian II, who although intelligent and brave, was hit hard and young by the family penchant for madness.

While he oversaw successful campaigns against the Omayyads his onerous demands upon the populace led to a revolt in 695 A.D. that saw him deposed. Also, because a flawless appearance was required by the Emperor (to make a long story short) his nose was cut off, and he was banished to the distant Byzantine possessions in the Crimean Peninsula.

Political acrimony continued in the Empire, and when agents were sent to seize Justinian II, he fled to the Khazar people. Their king then married his sister off to Justinian II, who then made his way across the Black Sea to the Balkans where he allied with the Bulgar king Tervel. With his aid, Justinian II retook the throne in 705 A.D., executed those who had overthrown him, and unleashed a wave of vengeance. Khazar Territory

Tervel

The next 6 years saw the persecution of enemies within and clashes with the nations beyond the Empire. Eventually, the intransigence of Justinian II led to his downfall. An attempt to retake the city of Cherson in the Crimea failed, and the terrified soldiers (fearing the Emperor’s wrath) swore allegiance to a local pretender to the throne, Phillipicus Bardanes.

Emperor Phillipicus

They then returned to Constantinople, where Justinian II was caught outside the city and killed, as was his young son shortly thereafter. In this way the noble line of Heraclius ended ignominiously, and an era of confusion began. While Justinian II had not been a terrible Emperor (indeed he did much good for the Empire), his brutality was excessive and inexcusable, and overall his subjects were just as well to be rid of him.