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Atlas
Heraclius (October 5, 610 - February
641 A.D.)
R. Scott Moore
Indiana University of
Pennsylvania
Accession
The last years of
Phocas'
reign were troubled
ones with many foreign threats, such as the Slavic
incursions, and internal threats, such as violent
religious conflicts and even unsuccessful rebellions. In
608, the exarch of Carthage revolted and dispatched a
fleet under the command of his son, Heraclius, to
Constantinople. Along the way, in Egypt, Heraclius
joined forces with his cousin Nicetas who was able to
capture Cyrenaica and Egypt from
Phocas'
general Bonosos. Heraclius' fleet continued on to
Constantinople where he entered into secret negotiations
with one of Phocas' top military leaders, Priscus.
Phocas
had appointed him 
and he was married to
Phocas'
daughter Domentzia. With the support of Priscus, the
patriarch Sergius I, and the faction of the Greens,
Heraclius was able to seize the city, have
Phocas
beheaded and became emperor on October 5, 610 AD.
Private Life
Heraclius, the son of the
exarch of Carthage, Heraclius, and Epiphania was born
around the year 575. When he was crowned as emperor in
610 AD, he married
Fabia,
who then took the name Eudocia. From this marriage,
Heraclius had a daughter, Eudocia, and a son
Heraclius Constantine,
who was proclaimed as co-emperor in 613. Suffering from
epilepsy,
Fabia
died in 612 and Heraclius married his niece
Martina
in 613. With
Martina,
Heraclius had nine children of which four died in
infancy. Heraclius' marriage to
Martina
was never received favorably by either the people of
Constantinople or the Church.
Foreign
Affairs
When Heraclius first came to
the throne in 610, the Byzantine Empire was being
attacked from numerous sides. In the west, the Avars and
Slavs were expanding into the northern Balkans. The
Slavs controlled the Danube regions, Thrace, Macedonia,
and were soon invading Central Greece and the
Peloponnesus. In the east, meanwhile, the Persians under
the rule of Chosroes had begun a series of successful
attacks on the empire resulting in the loss of Damascus
in 613,
Jerusalem in 614
(destroying the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and
capturing the Holy Cross) and Egypt in 619. Recognizing
the difficulty in fighting on two opposing fronts at the
same time, Heraclius signed a peace treaty with the
Avars in 619, and focused on the eastern half of the
empire. In the spring of 622, Heraclius left
Constantinople for Asia Minor and began training his
troops over the summer, focusing on a more involved role
for the Byantine cavalry.
In the autumn, Heraclius' army
invaded Armenia and soon won several victories over the
Persians. The Avars, in the meantime, became restless
and Heraclius was forced to renegotiate the peace treaty
with them at a much higher tribute level. Heraclius then
returned to the army and for the next several years
unsuccessfully attempted to break through the Persian
army and into Persia. In August of 626 while Heraclius
and his army were in Lazica away from Constantinople, a
Persian army attacked the city from the east while an
army of Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars attacked from the west
and from the sea. On August 10, the Byzantine navy was
able to defeat the opposing fleet and then rout the
combined Slav and Avar land force. With the defeat of
their allies, the Persians retreated to Syria.
In the autumn of 627, Heraclius
began to work his way into Persian territory winning an
important battle in December at
Nineveh
during which most of the Persian army was destroyed. As
Heraclius continued to move further into Persian
territory, Chosroes was deposed and succeeded by his son
Kavadh-Siroe whose first act was to secure a treaty with
Heraclius. The treaty was very favorable to the
Byzantines and returned all the former Byzantine
territories to the empire. Within a few short months,
Kavadh-Siroe fell ill and died after naming Heraclius as
guardian of his son, Chosroes II. For all practical
purposes, the Persian Empire no longer existed. In 630
Heraclius traveled to Jerusalem where he returned the
Holy Cross to the city among much acclaim.
The defeat of the Persians
created a larger problem for the Byzantine empire. The
struggle between the Byzantines and the Persians had
worn down both sides and the defeat of the Persians
allowed the Arabs to quickly absorb what remained of the
Persian empire. It also removed the buffer between the
Arabs and the Byzantines allowing the two empires to
come into contact and conflict. In 634 the Arab armies
invaded Syria and defeated Theodore, the emperor's
brother, in a string of battles. Heraclius raised a
large army that attacked the Arabs near the
Yarmuk,
a tributary of the Jordan, in the fall of 636. After a
successful beginning, the larger Byzantine army was
defeated allowing the conquest of Syria. The Byzantine
defeat also led to the Arabs quickly taking Mesopotamia,
Armenia and eventually Egypt.
Internal
Affairs
While Heraclius enjoyed
military success, major changes occurred internally
under his rule. Greek replaced Latin as the official
language of the empire and Heraclius adopted the Greek
title of 
in place of the Latin Caesar, Augustus, or
Imperator. The recovery of the eastern areas of
the Byzantine Empire from the Persians once again raised
the problem of religious unity, centering around the
understanding of the true nature of Christ. The eastern
areas, particularly Armenia, Syria, and Egypt believed
in monophysitism, Christ having one nature composed of
both divine and human elements. The other areas of the
empire followed the orthodox view expressed at the
Council of Chalcedon in 451 that decreed Christ had two
natures united in one person. In an effort to bridge the
gap between the two views and bring them back together,
the Patriarch of Constantinople, Sergius, promoted the
concept of monoenergism which proposed that the two
natures of Christ had one energy. While this was
received favorably at first, monoenergism soon had vocal
opponents, among them the monk Sophronius who became
patriarch of Jerusalem in 634 AD. The opposition to
monoenergism led Sergius to propose a new doctrine that
of monotheletism, the belief in a single will in Christ.
Heraclius supported the new doctrine of Sergius and put
it forth in an edict known as the Ekthesis, and
posted it in the narthex of Hagia Sophia in 638. This
failed to settle the controversy as it was rejected by
the Orthodox, the Monophysites, and even the Church of
Rome.
Succession
During the last years of
Heraclius' life, it became evident that a struggle was
taking place between Heraclius' son from his first
marriage,
Heraclius Constantine,
and his second wife
Martina who was
trying to position her son
Heraclonas
in line for the throne. On the 11th of February 641,
Heraclius died and in his will left the empire to both
Heraclius Constantine
and
Heraclonas
to rule jointly with
Martina
as Empress and mother of both.
Bibliography
Haldon, J.F. Byzantium in
the Seventh Century: the transformation of a culture.
Cambridge, 1990.
Herrin, Judith. The
Formation of Christendom. Princeton, 1987.
Kaegi, Jr. Walter Emil.
Byzantine Military Unrest, 471-843: an interpretation.
Amsterdam, 1981.
________. "Heraclius and the
Arabs." The Greek Orthodox Theological Review. 27
(1982): 109-133.
Kazhdan, Alexander P.
Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. New York, 1991. S.v.
"Herakleios" by Walter Emil Kaegi, Jr., Alexander
Kazhdan, and Anthony Cutler.
Ostrogorsky, George.
Geschichte des byzantischen Staates. Munich, 1963.
Stratos, A.N. Byzantium in
the Seventh Century. Amsterdam, 1968.
Vasiliev, A.A. History of
the Byzantine Empire. Madison, Wisconsin, 1952.
Copyright
(C) 1997, R. Scott Moore. This file may be copied on the
condition that the entire contents, including the header
and this copyright notice, remain intact.
Comments to:
R. Scott Moore
Updated: 20 August 1997
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