2 – Heraclius (575? – 641)
Heraclius’s reign is arguably one of the most misunderstood of all the Byzantine emperors. Towards the end of his reign, the Muslims took swathes of Byzantium’s territory, but this should not detract from the formidable military skill of Heraclius. Indeed, those who have studied this period of history in depth sometimes suggest that Heraclius was the equal of the (correctly) revered Belisarius.
One thing for sure; Heraclius was a survivor. He was emperor for over 30 years at a time when his empire was crumbling under pressure from the Avars, the Persians, and the Muslims. He was born in Cappadocia, Italy in around 575 and was the oldest son of Heraclius the Elder. His father gained the title Exarch of Africa in 590 after helping Emperor Maurice defeat Bahram Chobin. In 602, Phocas overthrew Maurice and became the new emperor, but his ineffectual rule angered Heraclius, the Elder who turned against him in 608. The old man knew he was unable to rule, so he helped his son defeat Phocas. Heraclius the Younger executed the former emperor and was crowned in 610.
He was now the Byzantine emperor, but Heraclius inherited an empire at a low ebb. The Lombards has taken Italy, the Visigoths were rampaging through Spain, the Slavs and Avars took Greece, and the Persian Sassanid Empire was at its peak under its greatest leader, Khosrau II. If all this wasn’t bad enough, Constantinople was ravaged by a plague which led to starvation and trade was non-existent. There was no real army and had Phocas lasted much longer; the empire would have surely been destroyed.
Fortunately, Heraclius was an exceptional leader and commander and managed to keep the empire together. He immediately shocked the people by announcing his plan to move the empire’s capital to Carthage. This gambit united the residents of Constantinople in fear and Heraclius used the opportunity to get everything he wanted from the city; this included an end to the in-city fighting while wealthy individuals had to pay their taxes.
However, he had to wait 12 years before building an army worthy of the name. Before his arrival, the empire had relied on German mercenaries for hundreds of years until the Germans no longer wanted to fight for the Romans. Heraclius was the first to train a proper Roman army in around 300 years and in 622, he led them from Constantinople to take on the Sassanids. He defeated one of the best enemy generals by tricking him; Heraclius faked an advance and then a retreat to lure the Persians into a trap.
He defeated an army led by Khosrau II in Azerbaijan, and after spending winter at the scene of his latest triumph, Heraclius led his army into Persia. He ran into deep trouble when two of Persia’s three field armies tried to combine and defeat him. Somehow, Heraclius defeated the first army just before the second one arrived and then annihilated the fresh enemies. Despite being outnumbered yet again, Heraclius advanced on the third army with remnants of the other two and destroyed them in a night attack.
In a desperate last gamble, Khosrau II paid Balkan barbarians to attack Constantinople. In an extraordinary piece of military skill, Heraclius split his army into three. One faction of 12,000 fought and defeated the 60,000 man army of Khosrau at Nineveh in 627. A second section, consisting of 12,000 cavalry, rushed to save Constantinople and defeated the Avars and Persian fleets and the third section under Heraclius, pillaged Persia where he killed almost every last enemy soldier that defended the capital.
The Senate named Heraclius ‘Scipio’ upon his return to Constantinople but the victory over Persia came at a heavy cost. It weakened the Byzantine Empire and left the Sassanid Empire on its knees. At this time, Muslim invaders had arrived, and they made short work of the Persians. To make matters worse, Heraclius became gravely ill and was unable to lead an army against the new threat. As a result, subordinates led the charge but were soundly defeated; this included a crushing loss at the Battle of Yarmouk in 636.
It is grossly unfair to blame Heraclius for the Byzantine defeat against the Muslims; had he led the army, perhaps things could have turned out differently. As it happened, he lived long enough to see most of Egypt and the Levant fall into enemy hands; he died in 641. Perhaps had Heraclius died before the Muslim invasion, he would have been seen in a completely different light. It is ironic that his defeat of the Persians paved the way for an easy Muslim conquest of the once proud Sassanids. However, by galvanizing the empire, he ensured that Constantinople was strong enough to withstand the numerous Muslim sieges a generation after his death.