 Section 6 of the Byzantine Empire. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Botez. The Byzantine Empire. The rearguard of European civilization. By Edward Ford. The onset and repulse of Iran. The coming of Islam. Of all the Byzantine emperors, focus was by far the worst. His one salient characteristic was barbarity. Of capacity he never showed any sign. His energies were employed in securing his position. He cleared his path of the friends of Maurice by a series of bloody executions. Narciss, the able general who commanded on the Persian frontier, was terrorized into revolt but repented and came under safe conduct to Constantinople to clear himself. Focus broke his word and burned him alive. He married his daughter Domencia to Priscus and advanced all available relatives to high positions. Plots were formed against him but all were delayed. One of these centered in the Empress Constantina. It was betrayed. The unhappy lady was barbarously tortured and finally put to death with her young daughters, a daughter-in-law and nearly all the surviving adherents of Maurice who could be seized. Kusru the second of Persia saw that his time had come. He had his casus belli in the murder of Maurice and perhaps a desire to avenge his benefactor really had a place among his mixed motives. Though when Rome was harassed in the west Persia could hardly remain quiet. In any case the Persian king's personal motives were soon lost to view in the vista open to him by his unexpected success. The wars of Rome with Parthia and Persia have for the most part a curious air of unreality. There is much fighting, much plundering and carrying a way of captives, immense private misery, but no decisive success on either side. But now the whole character of struggle appears to change. In 603 the Persians poured into Mesopotamia and defeated the Eastern army under Germanus and Leontius. Next year they again crossed the border and defeated Leontius at Arzaman. The year 605 was comparatively quiet but in 606 Syria was ravaged right down to the sea and Dara was taken. In 607 the Persians invaded Asia Minor and in 608 an army under Shahan made its way across Cappadocia, Galatia and Bithynia to the gates of Calcedon. It was the first time for centuries that western Asia Minor had been troubled by a foreign foe. In 609 matters appeared desperate. The forces in Europe had been transferred to Asia to act against the Persians and the Illyrian provinces were overrun more and more by Avars and Slavs. The empire held only the coast districts. Asia Minor was being ravaged. The army was beaten and demoralized. Fokas still sat on his red throne in Constantinople where he maintained a veritable reign of terror. There seemed no hope unless he could be replaced by an able man. In these wild years the one peaceful portion of the empire was Africa well governed by its capable and popular exarch the aged general Heraclius. Fokas seemed to have feared to depose him. On his side Heraclius was joined every day by desperate refugees but they're not revolt because his wife Epiphania and Eudosia the betrothed of his son were in the capital. In 608 however Prescus thoroughly sick of his miserable father-in-law and perhaps ashamed of the share which he had taken in his elevation began to correspond with the exarch. After a time Fokas got wind of these negotiations and imprisoned Epiphania and Eudosia. Their lives were obviously hardly worth an hour's purchase and Heraclius prepared for war. In the summer of 610 all was ready. The exarch's son Heraclius sailed directly for the capital with a powerful fleet while his nephew Nicetus marched eastwards to secure Egypt. On entering the Dardanelles Heraclius was joined by many adherents and the garrison of Constantinople deserted as the fleet sailed up to the walls. The ships in the harbor manned by Fokas few determined followers made resistance but were soon overpowered and Fokas seized in the palace was brought bound on board the flagship. Wretch exclaimed the conqueror you have foully misgoverned the state. See if you will do any better yelled the doomed tyrant as the seamen dragged him away to death. His chief partisans and his brother Domenciolus were executed and Heraclius entered Constantinople in triumph. The captive ladies were released. On October 5th the conqueror was crowned and married in Sancta Sophia and then was face-to-face with the gigantic difficulties of his situation. Matters could scarcely be worse. The army was a ruin. Theophanus gravely assures us that every man of the force of 602 had perished except two. Heraclius appointed Priscus commander in the east and he appears to have raised and formed a kind of private army with which he guarded the Torric frontier for some years while Theodore the emperor's brother held Cilicia. More than this Heraclius scarcely hoped to do at first and even this he was presently obliged to abandon. The European provinces were left almost unprotected outside the walls of the great cities. The Slavs colonized the deserted inland. The Avars careered far and wide. In Syria and Egypt there were hardly any troops and the population as a whole was attached to monophysite and Nestorian doctrines alienated by disasters and exactions of the government and generally sullen and disaffected. Africa ruled by the emperor's father was the one faithful and unattacked province and even from Africa little help was to be expected since any withdrawal of troops was certain to be followed by territorial losses. The Spanish garrisons were left to themselves and began to fall one by one into the hands of the Visigoths so too was Italy. At home Heraclius was confronted with a powerful and insubordinate bureaucracy and the increasingly insolent aristocracy. He was constantly hampered by the supposedly necessary task of supplying and keeping in good humor the Constantinopolitan populace. Heraclius seems to have devoted his first years to restoring some order at the center of the empire. So weak was his authority that on finding a great noble guilty of malpractices he had literally to trepan and assassinate the culprit being quite unable to deal open justice. Demoralization was rampant. In 612 the young empress Eudosia died after presenting her husband with two children Epiphania and Heraclius Constantin. She was buried with great solemnity but the occasion of her funeral afforded the most awful example of the barbarism of the times that we yet have seen worse even than the torture of Constantin and her daughters. A servant girl chanced to cough or spit as the dead empress's beer passed by and a little saliva fell on the edge of the pal. It will hardly be believed that she was seized and beheaded on the spot. The story is so horrible in its naked savagery that we can only hope that it is exaggerated. The emperor was probably justified in making a second marriage but it cast a not undeserved stigma upon his character which clung to it until the end of his life for his second wife was his niece Martina. He was frenetically in love with her and until his death lost no opportunity of manifesting his affection. Possibly he thought that he was committing no worse fault than if he had espoused a first cousin but the act seriously injured him in the eyes of both clergy and people. And when Marina's first child was born, rye naked and the second deaf and dumb we cannot wonder that man spoke of the wrath of God. A broad disaster was the order of the day. Priscus soon began to show insubordination and in 612 Heraclius enticed him to the capital and tauntured him, pacifying his mutinous troops by presence of mind and tactful words. For the moment, however, it seemed as if he had only removed another defense of the empire and the next six years were the most disastrous of his whole reign. In 614 the Persians poured into Syria and overrun the north with little resistance. The fortresses of Mesopotamia fell one after another and with the capture of Damascus the Persian power was interposed between the disconnected halves of the empire in Eurasia and Africa. Next year they marched into Palestine under a leader called Char Baraz, the royal boar, conquered the country, stormed Jerusalem, massacring or enslaving 90,000 of its Christian inhabitants and carrying off the patriarch of the true cross to Persia. All Jews were significantly spared. There were many of their core religionists in the Persian ranks. They bought Christian slaves wholesale in order to wreck their vengeance upon them, a terrible testimony to the manner in which they had been treated. In 616 the Persians advanced into Egypt and the disaffected population joined them with Alacrity so that the great grain-producing province passed into their hands almost without opposition. Nicetus, the cousin of Heraclius, its governor, was forced to abandon even Alexandria and flee to Cyprus. In 617 the Persians under Shahan penetrated to the Bosphorus and captured Calcedon. They remained there for six years. Heraclius seems really for a moment to have lost heart or a tenorate to have thought that any means, even the most disgraceful, would be justified to procure a truce. Shahan declared that his master only ward with the murderers of Maurice and offer his safe conduct to ambassadors to the Persian court. Kusru already beginning to show signs of the absolute madness of pride which ultimately ruined him, flayed the unfortunate commander alive for his presumption and imprisoned the ambassadors. To Heraclius he sent a letter demanding immediate surrender and biding him not to trust his Christ who could not say himself from crucifixion by the Jews. It was addressed to Heraclius his vile and insensate slave from Kusru, the greatest of the gods and lord of the world, an example of pride before a fall truly. In the capital matters were gloomy for plague and famine reigned. The loss of Egypt had cut off supplies and disease followed in the train of hunger. Heraclius could no longer feed the populace and he declared that he must withdraw the seat of government to faithful carthage. There was universal consternation. The selfish headless state poppers were at last galvanized into acting like men. Hitherto Constantinople, despite the patriotism shown on one or two occasions, had been little more than another Rome, a source of weakness rather than strength, draining the revenue and contributing nothing to the defensive service of the empire. Now at last it was brought home to the people that they were not the faithful subjects of the emperor but only his pampered children and that there were others more deserving. There was a great ferment resulting in a solemn covenant between Heraclius and his people. The emperor promised not to leave the capital, he would regard its inhabitants as his children, he would defend the empire to the last and would take the field in person. The patriarch Sergius offered the entire treasures of the church for the expenses of the mortal struggle, the people enlisted by thousands. The capital was at last forced from its isolation and stood out as the true leader of the empire, a position which it never afterwards lost. For a few months corn was still distributed by the government but at a fixed price, then the practice was quietly dropped. Emperor and people were united in a solemn resolve to do their best for the faith. The crusade, the first crusade had begun. First of all, however, the rear of the empire had to be relieved. Heraclius resolved to come to terms with the Avars and a meeting was arranged between the emperor and the cahan at Perianthus. Heraclius went without any misgivings but the whole affair was a piece of disgraceful treachery. The avaric host fell upon the emperor and his escort and Heraclius tearing off his crown and flinging away his robes only escaped by the speed of his horse. The avar horseman swarmed outside the walls of Constantinople and are said to have swept away 270,000 prisoners. To turn on the avars was to neglect the east. With bitterness and shame, Heraclius bowed himself to ransom the captives. The cahan perhaps may have felt some shame at his treachery. The emperor made an attempt to conciliate him by offering him the post of guardian to his son. For the present, the avars retired but next year they once more made raids on Thrace and it was not until 621 that they were temporarily got rid of by a subsidy of 200,000 solidi. In 620 reinforcements came westward from Persia to the army at Calcedon under Char Baraz. On their march they captured Ankira. On their arrival an attempt was made to pass the Bosphorus. Presumably the Persians had constructed transport vessels at Calcedon during their years of occupation but the Roman fleet was strong. They were severely defeated, losing at least 4,000 men besides the ships which they had laboriously constructed and the army of the crusade was encouraged by its first success. During 621 the final arrangements were made for the great campaign. The capital was placed in charge of the patrician bonus, a loyal and able general and the patriarch Serjuus. They had in their care the emperor's eldest son Konstantin, a boy of nine. The great fleet covered the city against the threats of Persians at Calcedon. In the spring of 622 Heraclius moved. He embarked his available troops and sailing up the Gulf of Nicomedia landed them thus turning the Persian position at Calcedon. Char Baraz at once abandoned his station and came back to attack the Romans. Heraclius then advanced eastward into Asia Minor and Char Baraz per force marched after him. Heraclius, having drawn him away nearly to the Armenian frontier, turned to bay and after some clever maneuvering severely defeated him. He left his army in cantonments and returned with prestige and popularity much enhanced to Konstantinople. In 623 Heraclius set out to join the army taking with him the wife whom he idolized. He concentrated on Caesarea in Cappadocia and moved northeastwards across Armenia into the valley of the Araxes thus turning the Persians who were prepared to pose the passage of the Euphrates. In Armenia he took Dovian and Nakhichevan and pushed on rapidly through media to Gonzaka, Takti Suleyman, where Kusru himself was in residence. Kusru was seized with panic and fled and Heraclius stormed and sucked the city. He next captured and destroyed the Barmes, the supposed birthplace of the great teacher Zorlaster and then advanced southwest towards Dasta Jaird, the favorite residence of Kusru. Now, however, for the present his success ended. When an army under Shahen, it looks as if this frequently recurring name means nothing but royal leader was in his front. Sharbaraz had come up from the west and was threatening his right flank. He therefore retreated northwards into winter quarters in Albania. In the spring of 624 he was attacked by three armies under the generals, Sharbaraz, Shahen and Shara Balakhan, respectively. By able maneuvering, he contrived to save himself from a combined attack and cut in upon their line of advance. Having obtained the interior position, he threw himself on Sharbaraz and Shara Balakhan, badly defeated them and then, swinging round upon Shahen, who was following behind, routed him also. The three defeated commanders now affected a junction and their united force, strengthened by reinforcements, was so strong that Heraclius did not venture to attack it. He retreated towards the Caucasus, followed by the Persians, but they dared not involve their hosts of cavalry among the mountains and soon withdrew. Heraclius, having reorganized and recruited his army, once more advanced and broke into the Persians' line of defense before they could concentrate their forces. Sharbaraz was in position before Van. Heraclius attacked and defeated him and stormed the city. The Persians retreated southward and Romans went into winter quarters in Armenia. In 625, Kustru altered his plan of campaign. He determined to play against Heraclius, his own strategic game. Sharbaraz was placed in chief command and ordered to invade Asia Minor. He therefore marched westward into Comagini, but as soon as he moved, the Roman emperor began to advance from Armenia. Following in the track of the Persians, he entered Roman Mesopotamia and recaptured Amida, Dara, and Martiropolis. Sharbaraz was prepared to defend the passage of the Euphrates at Samoseta, but Heraclius, by one of his masterly flanking movements, maneuvered him out of his position and crossed lower down. Pressing forward into Cilicia, he recovered the entire province and ended his successful campaign by defeating Sharbaraz on the Sarus. The year 626 was the decisive one of the war. Kustru evolved a grandiose but incoherent plan of operations by which the Roman emperor was to be held at bay in Armenia and a great invasion of Asia Minor carried out. He had been in communication with the Kahan of the Avars and the treacherous barbarian was only too willing to advance again on Constantinople. The best troops were selected from the various armies of Persia and collected 50,000 strong under Shahen, who was to hold Heraclius in check. The other forces were assembled into one army and placed under Sharbaraz for the invasion of the empire. He marched early in the year and was well on his way before Heraclius was aware of the movement. But Kustru and the Kahan forgot that the empire held the command of the sea. Heraclius sent a picked detachment to the Uxin coast whence it was conveyed to Constantinople. He then placed a strong core under his brother Theodore to observe Shahen and himself remained in Lazica ready to support Theodore or return to the aid of Constantinople as necessary. Theodore by himself was too strong for Shahen's 50,000 golden spearmen. He entirely defeated them and the hapless general committed suicide. Kustru took a petty vengeance by flogging the lifeless corpse. Clearly, he was verging on insanity. Meanwhile, Heraclius had not been idle. He entered into communication with the Turkey nation of the Khazars, which has now become domiciled in the Volga basin. And the chief Khan, Zebu, prepared to come to his assistance with 40,000 riders. Meanwhile, Shah Baraz had proceeded through Asia Minor and reached Calcedon without opposition in the field, while the Avars made their way to Constantinople, 80,000 strong, dragging with them all kinds of engines for a siege. On June 29, they located the capital on the landside, while the Persians crowded the heights of Chrysopolis. But guarded by the Roman navy, the Bosphorus was as effective a barrier to their junction as the British channel was to the power of Napoleon. Moreover, the city was impregnable to the Avars. The suburb of Blakernay had been included in the circuit of the fortifications, and the barbarians looked in dismay at the vast moat and line after line of rampart garrisoned by 12,000 cavalry, exclusive of infantry. On July 31, a fierce assault was made all along the landward line of Wall, but beaten off with great slaughter. It was evident that without the assistance of the trained Persian troops, the Avars were helpless, and on August 3, a great attempt was made to effect a junction of the allies by means of boats and rafts. It was entirely defeated by the Roman fleet, which rammed and sunk the clumsy craft right and left with a loss of thousands of men who manned them. The Avars forthwith abandoned the siege and retreated northward, and though the Persians still held Calcedon, they were powerless to harm the capital. The first great siege of Constantinople had failed. In Armenia, Heraclius had been joined by his new ally, Zebul Khan, to whom he promised the land of his daughter, Epiphania Eudosia. It was a political necessity, but the Khazars were not savages. Thereafter, more than one matrimonial alliance was contracted between the Roman and Khazar royal houses. Epiphania's fate did not have been a pitiable one. At all events, she was spared it by the death of her prospective husband. Before he died, however, Zebul had led his wild horsemen all over media, and had dealt another blow at the tottering power of Kusru, Apareves no more. Heraclius remained in the north, not necessarily inactive, for nearly a year after receiving the news of the Avaric repulse before Constantinople. His Khazar allies had returned home with their plunder, but in 627 Zebul's successor dispatched a fresh force to his assistance. Meanwhile, he called in his detachments and concentrated his strength for the decisive blow. Kusru, on his side, rallied the broken army of Shahen and gathered together every available fighting man for a last effort, under a new general called by Byzantine historians, Razatis, whose name, therefore, was probably Riza. His station was at Gansaka. Heraclius must have been somewhere to the northward, perhaps about the modern Julfa on the Araxes. Orders were sent by the Persian king to Shahar Baraz to abandon Calcedon and to retreat on Mesopotamia. The message was intercepted, and Shahar Baraz remained in the west. On October 9, 627, Heraclius began to move, but for some weeks nothing of importance happened. The writer's suggestion is that Riza was too strongly posted to be vulnerable to a direct attack. Thereupon, about the middle of November, Heraclius marched westward, past his enemy's front. He could now confidently take risks, crossed the mountains into Adiabani, passed the greater Zab on December the 1st, and pointed forward down the Tigris for Dastajard and Ktesiphon. Riza, abandoning his position at Gansaka, hastened to throw himself in the way. His terrible half-insane master had given him order to conquer or die. Near the site of Nineveh, he came up with Heraclius. There can be no reasonable doubt that the Persians were far superior in number, but the majority must have been raw levies. Almost on the ground on which Alexander had trampled the pride of the Achaemenids in the dust, a tremendous struggle raged all through Saturday, December the 12th, between the heirs of the greatest of European conquerors, and the hosts of the Sasanid Great Kings. Riza and his soldiers did their duty manfully and well, and for long no decisive advantage was gained by either side. Towards evening, Heraclius rallied the strength of his cavalry for a final effort, and Riza, catching sight of him on his white charger Dorcon, leading the oncoming squadrons and remembering his master's grim words, dashed forward and engaged him in mortal combat. Heraclius wrote him down and slew him, and his fall was the turning point of the day. With a last tremendous charge, the Roman horsemen spread disorder through the faltering ranks, and the great battle which had lasted from dawn to nightfall without intermission ended in defeat and practical destruction of the Persian army. So fine was the spirit of the Persians that once blended division stood to its arms all night on the field within bow shot of the victors, but at dawn it sullenly withdrew. Kusru had no cause to blush for the ill-treated warriors who defended his cause so well. Heraclius, moving forward from Nineveh, celebrated Christmas at Yezdim, a palace of Kusru, and on New Year's Day entered Dastajerd, while his vanquished enemy, accompanied only by his beloved wife, Shirin, and a few attendants, escaped through a gap in the wall and fled to the south. The plunder was enormous, for the greater part of Kusru's treasures were there. Three hundred Roman standards were recovered. The emperor permitted no bloodshed, but the splendid palaces were ruthlessly sucked and given to the flames. If this seemed an act of pure barbarism, there is the fact that the provocation was great. From Dastajerd, the Roman army advanced on Ctesiphon, but was met with news that revolution had broken out. Kusru, raging at the failure of Charbaraz to appear and refusing to believe that his order had never been received, sent to execute him. The message was seized by Roman troops and communicated to Charbaraz, who at once concluded an armistice and marched homeward to support the revolution. The end of the story of Kusru Apareves, who for 10 years had been greater than any king of Persia, was that his son, Sherrow, dethroned and imprisoned him. His death, of course, speedily followed. The new king at once opened negotiations for peace and Heraclius retired across Zagros in deep snow and went into cantonments at Gansaka. On April 3rd, envoys from Sherrow arrived with full powers and the treaty was concluded. The ancient frontiers of the two empires were restored. The Persians were to surrender all prisoners, booty and sacred relics captured by them, and pay a war indemnity. On April 8th, Heraclius set out from Gansaka on his homeward march and the Persian war came to an end. It seems necessary to say a word on the Persian strategy, if only in reply to the allegations of those who, to the writer's knowledge, in conversation and in print, have maintained that if Kusru's plan had been properly executed, Persia must have succeeded. Clearly the same may be said of many military plans. Kusru never made any attempt to utilize the naval resource of Syria to destroy the Roman Navy. Constantinople was immensely strong, but it might have fallen had the Persians been able to cross the Bosphorus. As it was, Heraclius was able to start for the east and reconquer the whole empire from the capital. The capital was nearly all that remained of the state, but it was impregnable because the empire held the sea. Heraclius turned Calcedon by sea and by that single movement recovered Asia Minor. He never lost the initiative. When in 623 he invaded media, he threw the Persian armies entirely upon the defensive and Kusru's attempt to assume the offensive in 625 was futile because he left no force to contain the emperor, who promptly marched after Char Baraz, driving back and reconquered Cilicia and Mesopotamia. The great plan of 626 failed to take into account the Roman command of the sea, the Persian containing force in Armenia was too weak to withstand even half the emperor's army and Char Baraz at Calcedon was absolutely in the air. Constantinople could not be taken by the Avars and if every fighting man in Persia had been at Calcedon the host would have been impotent so long as the Roman navy guarded the strait. Again, I must emphasize the point that the command of the sea was the fundamental principle of Heraclius' strategy and since Kusru failed to recognize this he is damned as either willfully blind or hopelessly incompetent. On May 15 the imperial dispatches announcing the conclusion of peace were read out from the pulpit of Sancta Sophia and a few weeks later the emperor and his victorious host reached the capital. The population poured out to meet them, claiming the conqueror as Scipio and wrought up to fanatic enthusiasm by the sight of the Holy Cross, which was carried in the triumphal procession and afterwards raised on the altar of Sancta Sophia. The comparison of the emperor with Scipio was just. Heraclius had saved New Rome as Scipio had Rome on the Tiber, yet already the weapon was in the forging that was to rob him of his recovered provinces and almost to do the deed that Hannibal had failed to achieve. In the last year of the war the emperor had received a curious letter from an Arab named Mohammed claiming to be the prophet of God and bidding him embrace the new religion which he had founded. Heraclius sent presents and some kind of reply thinking probably of the possibility of winning a new ally, but next year 629 the fanatics of the new faith raided the Palestinian frontier and gained a very bloody and trifling success over a Roman detachment at Muta near the Dead Sea. For the present nothing more was heard, certainly nothing to forbade the dire tempest that was approaching. The public spirited action of the church had enabled the emperor to make the effort by which the empire had been saved, but it had unfortunate consequences. In the first place the emperor considered it imperative to liquidate at the earliest possible moment the great loan and to accomplish this the provinces were heavily taxed. Syria had under the Persians doubtless endured much military violence, but its direct fiscal burdens do not appear to have been heavy. Egypt had been practically independent. The new taxation therefore excited great disaffection which was increased by religious feeling. Syria was mainly Nestorian and Jacobite, Egypt solidly monophysite. Heraclius had some hopes apparently of unifying the various sects. He had the advantage that his influence with the whole body of orthodox clergy was great. His doctrinal speculations were finally expressed in the exceses of 638. Men were forbidden to discuss the existence of one wheel or two wheels in the being of our savior, but it was nonetheless set forth that there was in him one wheel. The effect of the emperor's monotheletic ideas was to still further divide the already destructed church. Another result of the co-partnership of church and state was that the Jews were persecuted and the unhappy race became more and more alienated and was ready to give its core deal support to any invader. In other quarters the outlook was more promising. Spain had been finally lost and Italy was falling away, but the Avar's empire was breaking up and there was no further danger to be apprehended from them. Probably the failure of the Great Expedition against Constantinople in 626 was the final blow to the tottering barbaric power. Its various vassals, Bulgarians and others broke into open revolt. The Avar's continued to be a torment to the West, but were never again formidable. The whole Balkan inland was now occupied by Slavonic tribes. Heraclius made every effort to draw them into direct dependence on the empire. It is not true that he established them as vassal settlers of the state, but probably Theophany's statements have some reference to his friendly relations with them, though the precise nature of these relations is obscure. Heraclius' main attention appears after 628 to have been devoted to the East, where Persia was in a sense politically subordinate. In 639 he succeeded in elevating the Phil Roman general Char Baraz to the throne. He proved an oriental despot of the worst kind and was murdered, but after some trouble his son, Jesdegerd III, succeeded him, still by extensions of Heraclius. On the whole, the outlook was not unpromising. The emperor's personal renown and influence were immense. It seemed that a return might be made to the ancient peace of Rome, when an irresistible power suddenly appeared and extinguished all such fair hopes forever. In 622 Mohammed had established a new religious and political era by the famous flight from Mecca. In 632 he died having conquered all Arabia and made it not merely subservient, but in great measure fanatically devoted to the religion which he had founded. It is not proposed here to enter into any discussion of the character of the founder of the Mohammedan religion. All that concerns us is that the moral and intellectual power which he indubitably wielded made the disunited Arabs the most terrible enemy that the Romans had seen. How terrible and overwhelming the mere unaided impulse of Mohammedan fanaticism may be has been shown in recent days. It was mad charges like those of Tamay and Abu Klaia that the soldiers of Heraclius had now to face, and they had no advantage except in their superior drill. They were not conspicuously better armed. Mohammed at his death was preparing to launch armies against Rome and Persia. In 633 the Mohammedans began to attack Persia, but it was not until 634 that the second horde under Abu Ubaida appeared on the Syrian frontier and besieged Bostra which was captured by treachery. Heraclius himself was at this time resident in northern Syria, and he sent orders to concentrate the troops in the south against the intruders. This was done, but on July 30 the army was beaten at Aijnadin and the Saracenic Horde moved north to blockade Damascus. Heraclius, filling the importance of the crisis, concentrated a large army for its relief. The Caliph sent large reinforcements to the army in Syria, part drawn from the troops in Persia and led by the famous warrior Khaled, the sword of God. The two forces met at Yermuk. The Roman army is stated at the most absurd figures. One being the impossible total of 140,000 fighting men, 80,000 regulars and 60,000 light horse of the friendly Arab kingdom of Ghassan. Seeing that only a month had elapsed since Aijnadin, the collection of 80,000 regulars in Syria was an impossibility. There may have been from 40,000 to 60,000 regulars, and perhaps 20,000 Ghassanids at the most. The Saracens are said to have numbered 45,000, but may very well have been as strong as the Romans. Heraclius, 60 years old and in failing health, was not in the field. The commander and chief was a Ersarmenian named Vardan. Khaled really commanded the Arabs. At first the day went against the Mohammedans, but after furious fighting the Roman army was at last driven back and broken. The loss was enormous, but the Saracens also had suffered heavily. It is said that one of their divisions broke and fled Palmel and was only shamed into a fresh stand by the jeers and reproaches of the women in the camp. The Romans had fought well. The army that with sword and spear only could face and for long beat back a dervish charge must have been a splendid one. The results of the defeat were terrible. Damascus was besieged and after desperate resistance fell early in 635. Heraclius, old and weary, ill and disheartened, filled with the foreboding that all was in vain, took the field but could do nothing. He dared not risk his demoralized army in the field and the Arabs took and sucked Emessa and Heliopolis. He could only station his troops to cover the north and himself hastened to Jerusalem, took the True Cross from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where he had replaced it five years before after his triumph over Persia and sailed for Constantinople. His life work was undone. As his ship drew away into the Mediterranean he stood on her deck, surveying the retreating coast in bitter despair and stretching out his arms, cried in his anguish, farewell Syria, farewell forever, AD 636. On the retreat of Heraclius the army broke out into mutiny and proclaimed the general Vardan Emperor. Some of the troops, however, remained faithful. Heraclius sent assistance and the mutiny was put down. Meanwhile the Arabs had obtained large reinforcements and one army operated in the north while the other invaded Palestine. The mutiny distracted the operations of the Romans who could make no stand. Aleppo, Antioch, and Calces were taken and with them all but a fragment of Syria was conquered. In 637 Jerusalem after a siege of over 12 months was forced to submit the Caliph Omar coming from Mecca to receive the capitulation. When the patriarch Sophronius saw the aged Arab in his rough Camels hair cloak, kneeling at the altar of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher he said to have groaned that the abomination of desolation had indeed come into the holy place. To the writer's mind Omar with all his rudeness was not a worse representative of the Church faith than thousands of bedisoned bishops before and since whose conception of morality and charity has been no wit above that of the Caliph. The clouds gathered fast. Heraclius was already in 638 suffering from dropsy which was looked up on his punishment for his marriage of Martina but there was no thought of yielding to the evil fortune that had befallen the empire. An army was assembled at Amida and Heraclius Constantine the emperor's eldest son by Eudosia came to take command. Several Syrian towns were recovered and Constantine laid siege to Emessa. Khaled collecting every available man hastened to the rescue and a battle was fought which decided the fate of Syria for three centuries. The Arabs were completely victorious. The Roman army was broken and destroyed. Its shattered remains fell back behind the chain of Taurus and the end of Roman domination in the Orient had come. Edessa, Dara and Martiropolis were taken. All Syria except the island city of Arados was lost. In 639 the Emir Amru crossed the Isthmus of Suez into Egypt. The patriarch Cyrus as far back as 635 had offered to pay tribute. The population was friendly enough to the invaders. The only opposition to be expected was from the trifling garrison and the Greek residents. Amru overcame these in two stubborn fights in which he lost so heavily that he was forced to hold until he received a reinforcement of 12,000 warriors from Caliph Omar. Thus strengthened he advanced upon Alexandria, the troops and Greeks opposing him at every step turning to bay again and again and fighting doggedly. At last in October 640 Amru drove them into Alexandria and laid siege to it and in December 641 after a siege of 14 months the great city fell. Heraclius did not live to hear of its loss. For three years he had been slowly dying. His disease gained more and more upon him. All around him was ruined and disaster. And in his place the wife for whom he had sacrificed the good opinion of men and as many believed his eternal peace was intriguing to secure the succession of her own son Heraclius. Old worn out broken hearted oppressed by misfortune Heraclius was Heraclius to the end. Unable to leave his bed he was urging on preparations for a great expedition to Sakaour Egypt when kindly death came to relieve him. On February 10 641 he passed away at the age of 65 after an agitated reign of 30 years. His misfortunes must not allow us to blind ourselves to his merits. He had reconquered the eastern provinces only to lose them again. But his administration had left its mark on the empire and to the good effects of his work of reorganization much of the credit due for the steady stand made against the oncoming Saracen must be attributed. Syria and Egypt had gone, Africa was doomed, but Asia Minor had been solidly welded together into the main strength of the empire. Often wasted as it was to be it was never a willing victim. Its gallant provincials filled the ranks of the army and held their own for more than four centuries. There was none of the spiritless lethargy of the late Roman days and to Heraclius must the chief glory be given. Under him the people showed the first sign of anything like true patriotism that the empire had yet seen. He was a great organizer, a great general, both as strategist and tactician. His political measures were commonly characterized by wisdom in conception and skill in execution. In religious matters his errors were such as few monarchs would in his place have avoided. His internal administration laid the foundations of the great reconstruction under the Isorians. Few monarchs have ever accomplished so much under such calamitous circumstances and none has a better title to the respect and admiration of mankind than the emperor Heraclius. End of section 6, recording by Mike Botez