• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Heraclian - 610-711

The unpopular rule of the incompetent Phocas was terminated in 610 by the intervention of the governor of Africa, whose son Heraclius sailed to Constantinople and, welcomed by an influential party, met with little resistance. Phocas, murderer of Maurice, was murdered by the people, and the victor was crowned emperor to find himself in presence of a desperate situation. Antioch, Damascus and many other great cities were captured by the Persians.

In 614 Jerusalem was destroyed and the Holy Cross, along with the patriarch, carried off to Ctesiphon. This event produced a profound sensation in Christendom. In 616 Egypt was conquered. The army had fallen into utter disorder under Phocas, and Heraclius so deeply despaired of saving Constantinople that he thought of transferring the imperial capital to Carthage. But the extreme gravity of the situation seems to have wrought a moral change among his subjects; the patriarch Sergius was the mouthpiece of a widespread patriotic feeling, and it was not least through his influence that Heraclius performed the task of creating a capable army.

His efforts were rewarded in a series of brilliant campaigns (622-28), which, in the emphasis laid on the contrast between Christianity and fire-worship and on the object of recovering the Cross, had the character of crusades. Heraclius recovered his provinces and held Persia at his mercy (decisive battle at Nineveh, end of 627). This war is remarkable for the attempt of the Persians to take Constantinople (626) in conjunction with the Avars and Slavs. Soon afterwards the Avar power began to decay, and the Slavs and Bulgarians shook off their yoke.

It seemed as if the Roman government would now be able to regain the control in the Illyrian lands which it had almost entirely lost. It seems probable that Heraclius came to terms with the Slavs-Croatians and Servians-in the north-west; their position was regularized, as vassab of the Empire, But fate allowed no breathing-time to do more; the darkest hour had hardly passed when a new storm-cloud, from an unexpected quarter, overspread the heavens.

At this point we have to note that the Hellenic element in the state had definitely gained the upper hand before the end of the 6th century, so that henceforward the Empire might be described as Greek. Justinian's mother-tongue was Latin, and he was devoted to the Latin traditions of Rome, but even he found it necessary to publish his later laws in Greek, and from his reign Greek was the official language. Many of the Latin official terms were already represented by Greek equivalents, but they were preserved in great numbers, transliterated and of ten corrupted. In military drill many Latin words of command continued to be used. It is to be noted that the year 630 marks the beginning of a period of literary (and artistic) sterility in the Greek world.

With the rise of Islam two universal religions, for the first time, stood face to face, each aspiring to win the universe. The struggle therefore which then began was not only a new phase of the "Eternal Question," the strife between Europe and Asia, but was one in which the religious element was fundamental. Fire-worship was only a national religion and did not present the danger of Islam. The creation of the political power of the Mahommedans was so sudden that it took the world by surprise. Rostra, the fortress of Roman Arabia, fell into their hands in 634, and before the death of Heraclius in 641 they had conquered Syria and all Egypt, except Alexandria, which opened its gates to them in 643. The religious alienation of the Syrian and Egyptian peoples from Constantinople, expressing as it did a national sentiment antagonistic to the Greeks, was an important political factor in the Mahommedan (as in the previous Persian) conquest.

Thus the Mahommedans definitely cut the Empire short in the East, as the Germans had cut it short in the West; Egypt was never recovered, Syria only for short periods and partially, while the integrity of Asia Minor was constantly menaced and Cilicia occupied for many generations. By their conquest of Persia the Caliphs succeeded to the position of the Sassanids; this led to the conquest of Armenia (c. 654); while, in the West, Africa was occupied in 647 (though the conquest was not completed till the capture of Carthage and other strong places in 698). Thus within twenty years from the first attack the Empire was girt about by the new aggressive power from the precincts of the Caucasus to the western Mediterranean.

Fortunately Constans II, grandson of Heraclius, was a man of eminent ability and firmness. The state owed to him the preservation of Asia Minor, and the creation of a powerful fleet which protected the Aegean coasts and islands against the naval power which the Mahommedans created. He was responsible for completing a new, efficient military organization, which determined the lines of the administrative reforms of Leo III. In his last years he turned his eyes to Italy and Africa. He dreamed of restoring Old Rome as the centre of the Empire. But he did not succeed in recovering south Italy from the Lombards (Duchy of Beneventum), and having visited Rome he took up his residence in Syracuse, where he was assassinated, having lost two fleets which he sent against the Arabs of Africa. The strain lasted for another fifty years.

Constantinople sustained two great sieges, which stand out as crises, for, if in either case the enemy had been successful, the Empire was doomed. The first siege was in 673-77, under the caliph Moawiya; his fleet blockaded the capital for five years, but ail its efforts were frustrated by the able precautions of Constantine IV; "Greek fire" played an important part in the defence; and the armada was annihilated on the voyage back to Syria by storms and the Roman fleet. The second crisis was at the accession of Leo III [r 717-740], when the city was besieged by land and sea by Suleiman for a year (717-18), and Leo's brilliant defence, again aided by Greek fire, saved Europe. This crisis marks the highest point of Mahommcdan aggression, which never again caused the Empire to tremble for its existence.