3 – Heraclius I (610 – 641)
Heraclius I was born in 575 in Cappadocia and is credited with introducing Greek as the official language of the Byzantine Empire. By 610, the Senate was fed up with the terrible rule of the cruel and vengeful Emperor Phocas. Heraclius answered the call for help and sailed from Carthage to Constantinople to take the throne. He was able to enter the city with no resistance and beheaded the tyrannical Phocas after a brief exchange.
The new leader faced a serious challenge; he was in charge of a crumbling empire under constant attack and also facing mass internal dissension. The Byzantines needed a robust and capable Emperor, and Heraclius was the right man for the job. After suffering early setbacks at the hands of the Persians, Heraclius turned the tide and eventually pushed the Persians out of Anatolia. The Persian leader, Khosrow II, rejected an offer of peace and referred to the Byzantine emperor as an imbecilic slave. By 627, the war with the Persians was in the balance, but the Byzantines won a decisive victory at the Battle of Nineveh. Khosrau was killed in a coup led by his son Kavadh II who became king and sued for peace.
Had Heraclius died in the late 620s, he would be regarded as one of the great military leaders in Byzantine history. However, he found the newly unified Muslim forces to be too powerful. The first fight between the Byzantines and Muslims occurred in 629, and the empire suffered several defeats. The most crucial loss came at the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 when the Byzantine army was annihilated. Within five years, the empire had lost the Levant and most of Egypt. Heraclius suffered from poor health in later life and died in 641; the empire was left to his sons Heracleonas and Constantine III.
Heraclius is credited with recovering the True Cross from the Persians, and his reign was marked by military success (in the early years) and reorganization of the government and military. The government reforms, in particular, were necessary to halt the corruption that was rampant during the reign of Phocas. However, the victory over the Persians was a pyrrhic one as both empires were significantly weakened and easy pickings for the marauding Muslims. While the Sassanid Empire crumbled quickly, the Byzantines were more durable and, despite suffering numerous heavy defeats, they managed to prevent the Muslims from destroying the empire.