The Early Centuries - Byzantium 01 (40 page)

The second year of the campaign was even more successful than the first. After settling the Avar problem and spending Easter with his family in Nicomedia, the Emperor took ship back to Trebizond, accompanied this time by his beloved Martina. There he found the army awaiting him, eager to march. South-eastward they went, through Armenia and over the Persian frontier into the region we now know as Azerbaijan, the 'land of fire' that was the centre of Zoroastrian fire-worship. Presently the news reached him that Chosroes himself was nearby, in his magnificent palace at Ganzak; and having previously received reports suggesting that the True Cross and the other holy relics from Jerusalem might be there also, Heraclius now advanced directly on the city.

With a garrison estimated at
40,000,
the Great King might have been expected to make a stand; instead, he immediately took flight towards Nineveh, leaving the great palace and the fire-temple adjoining it to the mercy of the invaders. Heraclius, however, was not in merciful mood. One glance at the temple, with its central statue of Chosroes surrounded by winged figures representing the sun, moon and stars, was enough to throw him into a fury. The building was razed to the ground, and the palace too; after which the army passed on to the neighbouring town of

1
Exp. Ptrs.,
iii, i; Bury, op. cit., V, iii.

Thebarmes, birthplace of Zoroaster himself, and reduced it to ashes in its turn. To their sorrow, there was no sign of the holy relics; but at least the Persian sack of Jerusalem had been properly avenged.

On they marched, almost due south now, towards the Persian capital at Ctesiphon, leaving a trail of ravaged fields and burning cities behind them. Had Heraclius driven his men just a little harder, they might have reached their goal before Shahr-Baraz arrived from the west with his newly recruited army - and the war might have ended four years earlier than it did. But the winter was approaching - and he had moreover other, more personal, reasons for wishing to call a halt. He told his men that he had resolved upon a
sors evangelica:
they would all fast for four days, after which he would open the gospels at random and be guided by whatever verse first met his eye. Which passage this proved to be we are not told; but it comes as no great surprise to hear that it confirmed the Emperor's own inclinations. Even the most bellicose of his lieutenants could hardly object to an order that could boast the Almighty's own seal of approval; but there must have been more than a few knowing glances when, a month or two later, the Empress Martina was safely delivered of a child.

The region to which Heraclius and his army withdrew - rather confusingly known as Albania - lay just beyond the confines of the Persian Empire, on the western shore of the Caspian. It was at that time inhabited by various barbarian tribes, mostly of Hunnish origin, who hated the Persians and were correspondingly well-disposed towards their enemies; many of them, indeed, eagerly enlisted under the imperial standards. Thus it was with a considerably larger army than before that Heraclius was able to launch the campaign of
624
- a campaign which centred almost exclusively on that territory, part Albania, part Armenia, lying between the Cyrus and the Araxes Rivers.
1
There the Romans gained a victory even more decisive than that of two years before, this time over the combined armies of Shahr-Baraz and his colleague Sarablagas, who was killed in the course of the fighting. No sooner was the battle over than a third Persian general, Shahin,
2
arrived at the head of yet another force in the hopes of turning the tide. But he was too late - and by the time he realized the fact, he found that he was also too late to retreat. His army in its turn, tired after a long march and appalled by the unexpected scenes of carnage, was quickly smashed to pieces.

The Emperor wintered on Lake Van; with the coming of spring, however, he decided to leave the high Armenian plateau. The local tribes

were beginning to distrust his increasing strength, and could no longer be relied upon; while the Persians, after their defeats of the previous year, would certainly not wish to give battle there again. It was far likelier that Shahr-Baraz would return to Asia Minor and, perhaps, press on to Chalcedon as he had before - particularly since the Avars were known to be preparing a major offensive from the west. And so, on
1
March
625,
Heraclius led his army away on what was to be the longest and hardest journey that they had yet undertaken. Heading north past the eastern shore of the lake, they met the Arsanias River - now the Murat - among the foothills of Ararat, then followed it some
200
miles to the west before dropping down southward again to the neighbouring cities of Martyropolis and Amida (Diyarbakir), both of which he captured. From Amida it was only another seventy or eighty miles to the Euphrates, which they reached without, as yet, having had sight or sound of the enemy.

But he had been right about Shahr-Baraz, who had been following his every movement and who reached the great river just in time to cross it by a rope bridge - the only one existing for many miles on either side -and to cut it behind him. Heraclius had no alternative but to turn south, where he was fortunate enough to find a ford near Samosata (Samsat); it was then a relatively easy march on to the swiftly flowing Sarus - now the Seyhan - which he met just north of Adana. Here at last he found the Persian army, awaiting him across the river and drawn up ready for battle. There was, as it happened, a modest bridge nearby and the Romans, despite the fatigues of their long march, immediately flung themselves into the attack; but Shahr-Baraz, feigning retreat, cunningly led them into a carefully prepared ambush. Within a matter of minutes, the vanguard of the Emperor's hitherto invincible army was utterly destroyed.

The Persians meanwhile, overjoyed by the success of their plan and now busily engaged in pursuing and finishing off the survivors, had allowed their attention to become momentarily distracted from the bridge; and Heraclius saw his chance. Spurring his horse forward, he charged across, his rearguard close behind him. A Persian giant blocked his path, but the Emperor cut him down with a stroke of his sword and sent him plunging into the river. Shahr-Baraz, suddenly aware of what was happening, ordered his archers to defend the bank; but Heraclius pressed on, oblivious of the hail of arrows around him - several of which had found their mark on his own body. The Persians watched him in amazement. Not even their general could conceal his admiration:

'Look at your Emperor!' he is said to have exclaimed to a renegade Greek nearby. 'He fears these arrows and spears no more than would an anvil!'
1

By his courage alone, Heraclius had saved the day. Early the next morning the Persians struck camp and began the long, weary journey back to their homeland, all the spirit gone out of them. Still, it had been a hard-fought battle; and the Emperor may well have reflected, as he led his sadly diminished army back through Cappadocia to its winter quarters outside Trebizond, on the dangers of over-confidence. Despite the heavy casualties, morale remained high; and thanks to the heroism that he had shown, his own personal prestige was higher still. But this year, for the first time, he had looked defeat in the face - and he had not liked what he saw. The war was not yet over. All the signs suggested that the enemy - both enemies - would renew the offensive in the spring; and that Constantinople itself would be their objective.

The city of Trebizond was ideally placed to receive intelligence from both east and west; and from neither quarter were the reports favourable. The Great King, determined to bring the war to a quick conclusion, had ordered a mass conscription of all able-bodied men, including foreigners, within his dominions and had entrusted Shahin with
50,000
hardened troops, ordering him to pursue Heraclius and cut his army to pieces. Should he fail, his own life would be forfeit. Shahr-Baraz, on the other hand, was to march an army of new recruits, untried and untrained, across Asia Minor to Chalcedon, there to give all possible assistance to the Avars in their projected attack. This too was now almost ready for launching. Meanwhile the Avar Khagan had managed to assemble virtually all the barbarian tribes from the Vistula to the Urals, and was already dragging his huge siege engines towards the walls of Constantinople. To what extent he had been able to coordinate his plans with those of the Persians is hard to assess; but some degree of collusion is beyond a doubt - the result, in all likelihood, of Shahr-Baraz's long sojourn at Chalcedon before his recent campaigns.

Heraclius was now faced with a difficult decision. If he and his army remained in Anatolia, his capital might fall through lack of manpower to protect it; if on the other hand he were to rush to its defence, he would be obliged to abandon positions on which the whole containment of the Persian menace depended, to say nothing of all hope of recovering the True Cross. At a stroke, he would be throwing away everything that he

1
Theophancs,
Chronographia
in M.P.G., Vol.
108,
p.
654.

had worked so hard, through four exhausting campaigns, to achieve. He decided therefore to stay where he was, but to divide his available forces into three. The first left at once by sea for Constantinople; the second, which he placed under the command of his brother Theodore, he sent off to deal with Shahin, whom he knew to be in Mesopotamia; the third — and by far the smallest - would remain under his command, hold Armenia and the Caucasus and, he hoped, ultimately invade a relatively defenceless Persia.

This decision did not, however, mean that the Emperor intended to leave Constantinople and its defenders to look after themselves. On the contrary, Patriarch Sergius and the Patrician Bonus, to whom he had jointly entrusted the city's defence, found themselves deluged with orders, instructions, advice and messages of encouragement. These last were posted publicly in the streets and had an immediate effect, firing the whole population with determination and enthusiasm for the struggle ahead. Heraclius himself meanwhile turned his attention to one of the principal Hunnish tribes of the Caucasus, the Khazars, intercepting them as they returned from a raiding expedition in Azerbaijan and dazzling their Khagan, Ziebil, by the splendour of his court, which he maintained even when on campaign, and by the richness of his presents. In the course of one of their several conversations, he showed the Khagan a picture of his daughter Epiphania and promised him her hand in marriage. Ziebil, enchanted by the picture and flattered beyond measure both by the treatment he was receiving and by the prospect of himself joining the imperial family, offered Heraclius
40,000
of his best men in return. (Fortunately for Epiphania, he was dead by the end of the year; the poor girl was thus spared the grim fate to which her father had unhesitatingly consigned her.)

While Heraclius and his new Khazar army were ravaging Azerbaijan, his brother Theodore scored a crushing victory over Shahin in Mesopotamia. We know little about the battle, save that it was fought in a driving hailstorm, which unleashed its entire fury on the Persian army -the Romans being in some mysterious way sheltered or protected from it. In consequence of his defeat, the Persian commander fell into a deep depression and shortly afterwards died - whether by his own hand, to forestall the promised vengeance of his master, or of sheer despair is not recorded. When Chosroes heard of his death, he ordered the body to be packed in salt and brought to him at once; on its arrival, he watched grimly while it was stripped and scourged until it was no longer recognizable.

For some time now, there had been those at the Persian court who were beginning to doubt the Great King's sanity. After this exhibition they doubted no longer.

It was
29
June
626.
The night sky glowed red with the light of blazing churches as Persians and Avars signall
ed to each other across the Bos
phorus, confirming that they had arrived in their prearranged positions and that they were ready to mount their concerted attack. The inhabitants of the suburbs outside the walls hastily loaded their possessions on to barrows and carts and sought refuge within the gates, which were closed and bolted behind them; and the long-threatened siege began. As the barbarian hordes dug themselves in along the walls, the Avar Khagan made one last offer to spare the city, in return for a huge ransom; but morale in Constantinople had never been higher, and his proposals were rejected with contempt.

The barbarian host - Avars and Huns, Gepids and Bulgars, Scythians and Slavs - numbering about
80,000,
were now spread out along the whole seven-mile length of the Theodosian Walls from the Marmara to the Golden Horn - in the upper reaches of which, a mile or two to the north of the city, a fleet of small dug-outs, manned by Slavs of both sexes, stood ready to give sea-borne assistance as necessary to the besiegers. The walls were defended by rather more than
12,000
Byzantine cavalry; but these in their turn were supported by every citizen of Constantinople, the entire population having been worked up by Patriarch Sergius to a positive frenzy of religious enthusiasm. Day and night, the pressure was maintained; one after another, the great catapults and mangonels were trundled into position, hurling huge rocks against, and occasionally over, the ramparts. But the walls held, and the defenders stood firm. Surprisingly, perhaps, the Persians had still made no attempt to cross the Bosphorus. It was true that they had no siege engines, and they may well have reasoned that for the moment they could make no useful contribution to the proceedings; but to the people of Constantinople it seemed that they were playing an unusually passive role.

All through a sweltering July the siege continued, Patriarch Sergius making a daily procession with his clergy along the whole length of the walls, carrying above his head a miraculous icon of the Virgin which, it was claimed, struck terror into the hearts of the barbarians below. Then, on the evening of Saturday
2
August, the Khagan invited the Patrician Bonus to send a deputation to his camp, giving it to be understood that he might be ready to call off the attack on more favourable terms than those previously offered. The delegates duly arrived at his tent, where they were furious to find three silk-robed envoys from Shahr-Baraz also present; and they felt still more insulted when the Persians were offered seats, while they themselves were obliged to remain standing. A violent argument ensued, after which the Byzantines repeated once again that they had no intention of surrender, then turned angrily on their heel and returned to Constantinople. That night they took their revenge. The boat carrying the three Persians was intercepted as it returned to Chal-cedon. One of the three, who had attempted to hide under a pile of blankets, was beheaded on the spot; the second had his hands cut off and was returned to the Khagan; the third was carried to a point off Chalcedon and there executed in full view of the Persian camp. His severed head was then hurled ashore with a message attached. It read: 'We and the Khagan are now reconciled. He has taken charge of the first two of your ambassadors. As for the third, here he is!'

It may be that the luckless Persians, in a final attempt to save their own lives, had revealed to the Byzantines details of their army's future plans; for, on the following Thursday,
7
August, a fleet of rafts and dugouts which was moving quietly across the Bosphorus to the Asiatic shore, there to pick up Persian troops and ferry them back over the straits, suddenly found itself surrounded by Greek ships. Their crews, hopelessly outnumbered, were either killed outright or thrown into the sea to drown, while their crude vessels were towed triumphantly back to Constantinople. Almost immediately afterwards, a collection of similar craft which the Slavs had gathered in the upper reaches of the Golden Horn was also pressed into action: their orders were to wait for a prearranged signal - a beacon fire at the foot of the walls, where they ran down to the water at Blachernae - and then to row
en masse
down the Horn and force their way through to the open sea. Once again, Bonus received advance warning of what was planned. Quickly he brought all his available biremes and triremes up to Blachernae; then, the moment they were in position, he himself lit a signal fire. The Slavs, who had not been expecting it for some hours, were taken by surprise; nevertheless, they obediently started on their way - only to run straight into the Byzantine ambush. Within an hour, their whole fleet was destroyed.

After this second disaster the besiegers seem to have been overcome by a sort of panic. The siege engines in which they had put so much trust had been proved useless, their most subtle stratagems had been effortlessly thwarted. At this moment, too, the news reached them of Theodore's victory over Shahin and Heraclius's new alliance with the
Khazars. There could be but one explanation: the Empire was under divine protection. Had not a richly dressed woman - whom many believed to be the Blessed Virgin herself - been seen pacing to and fro along the ramparts? The next morning, the barbarians began to strike their camps; the day after, they were gone. Face, as far as possible, was saved: one or two more churches were burnt as they retreated, and there were the usual threats of vengeance and an early return to renew the siege. But to the Byzantines these words must have had a hollow ring. As the last of the horde disappeared from sight, with one accord they all hurried to Blachernae where, just outside the walls, stood the great church dedicated to the Virgin. To their joy, they found it untouched -yet another proof of her miraculous powers, to which they unhesitatingly ascribed their salvation.

The year
626,
so memorable for the people of Constantinople, was for the Emperor Heraclius boring in the extreme. His Khazar alliance, by which he had set such store, proved a disappointment - after the death of Ziebil, the tribesmen quietly drifted away to the steppes of Turkestan whence they had come - and after Theodore's victory over Shahin there had been no major engagement with the Persians. Early in
627,
therefore, the Emperor decided to make the long journey south to the palace of the Great King himself - at Dastagird, some twenty miles north of Ctesiphon. The journey took him most of the year; he was in no particular hurry, and it was in his interest to devastate as much of the countryside as he could
en route.
He knew, too, that he must move with caution. An immense Persian army was not far away; it might strike at any time, and he could not risk being caught off his guard.

But the Persian army was also biding its time. Its new commander was a general named Razates; he too had been ordered by Chosroes to conquer or die, and he was determined not to meet Heraclius until he was ready to do so, and then on his own terms. The moment came only at the very end of the year, when he finally caught up with the Roman army by the ruins of Nineveh. Even then, there was no surprise attack. Both commanders had ample time to choose their positions and dispose of their forces as they thought best; both placed themselves in the front line; and early in the morning of
12
December battle was joined. It continued for eleven hours without a break, every man involved knowing full well that he was almost certainly fighting the decisive encounter of the war. At its height, Razates suddenly challenged Heraclius to single combat. The Emperor accepted, spurred on his dun charger
Dorkon, and - if George of Pisidia is to be believed - struck off the general's head with a single thrust. Two more Persian commanders are said to have suffered similar fates. Heraclius himself was wounded more than once, but refused to sheathe his sword. He and his men were still fighting when the sun set. Only then did they realize that there was virtually no enemy left to oppose them. The Persian army had been annihilated; all its commanders lay dead on the field.

It was morning before they could collect the spoils. The Emperor himself claimed the shield of Razates, set with
120
plates of gold, together with his gauntlets and his superb saddle. The general's head, impaled on a lance, was exhibited at the centre of the Roman camp, surrounded by twenty-eight captured Persian standards. Meanwhile the victorious soldiers were similarly helping themselves to helmets and swords, bucklers and breastplates. Few were to return to the west without some proud trophy of that memorable day.

But the time had not yet come to turn back. Chosroes had still to be sought out and toppled from his throne. After a few days' rest the army continued its march to the south, now heading towards Dastagird along the left bank of the Tigris. The river's two mighty tributaries, the Great Zab and the Little Zab, were crossed without incident, and Heraclius was able to celebrate Christmas in the oasis of Yezdem, while the priests of Zoroaster looked helplessly on. It was at about this time that he had the supreme good fortune to intercept a messenger from Chosroes bearing a letter to Shahr-Baraz in Chalcedon, ordering him to return at once. Here was an opportunity not to be missed. The Emperor quickly dictated another message, which was translated and substituted for the first. It announced a major Persian victory over the Romans, and instructed Shahr-Baraz to remain where he was. At least one potential danger had been deftly averted.

The Great King, meanwhile, had fled. He, his wife and his children had slipped out of the palace at Dastagird through a hole in the wall, unbeknownst to his ministers or even to his guards. He went first to Ctesiphon, the ancient capital in which he had not set foot for twenty-four years, only on his arrival remembering the prophecy of the Magi that any return to the city would portend his inevitable downfall; there was nothing for it but to continue his flight eastward into Suziana, the modern Khuzistan. Heraclius arrived at Dastagird to find the vast palace deserted. It was, by all accounts, of a beauty and sumptuousness incomparable; indeed, as the chief residence for a quarter of a century of the most magnificent of all the Sassanian monarchs, it could hardly have
been otherwise. But the Emperor and his soldiers showed it no mercy or respect. They could not take it with them; and so in January
628
they committed it, and everything within it, to the flames - just as Alexander and his followers had fired Persepolis a thousand years before.

From the safety of Suziana, King Chosroes rejected a Roman offer of peace, calling instead on women and children, old men and eunuchs, to rally to the defence of Ctesiphon. But no one listened. The Persians had lost patience with their King; they were no longer prepared to tolerate his irrational behaviour, his folly or his by now legendary cruelty. Anyone could see that flash-point was not far off. For Heraclius, there was no purpose in besieging the old capital, or even in finally overthrowing a ruler whose own subjects were obviously about to do the job very effectively themselves. He may, too, have remembered his distant predecessor, the Emperor Julian who, returning nearly three centuries before from another expedition to the East, had been cut down in the desert by a Persian army within a few miles of Ctesiphon. He had no wish to suffer a similar fate. While still at Dastagird, therefore, he ordered his men to make themselves ready to march; and a week or two later he headed for home.

The subsequent downfall of Chosroes is not really part of our story; suffice it to say that the revolt, when it came early in
628,
was led by the King's own son, Kavadh-Siroes; by Gundarnasp, the general commanding at Ctesiphon; and by Shahr-Baraz, who had by now returned from his long spell of inactivity at Chalcedon after discovering that Chosroes, furious that he had not come back earlier as instructed, had ordered his execution.
1
The Great King was seized and flung into what was known as the Tower of Darkness, being allowed only as much bread and water as would keep him alive and so prolong his agony. All his children by his beautiful young second wife, Shirin - one of whom he had tried to make his successor - were then executed by their half-brother in his presence. Finally, on the fifth day of his incarceration, he was shot slowly to death with arrows.

The news reached Heraclius at Tauris (now Tabriz). The Persian ambassadors who brought it had encountered on their way, frozen in the mountain snows, the corpses of
3
,000
of their compatriots, victims of

1
The discovery
was made as a result of the interception by the Byzantines of another Persian messenger. This time they naturally passed his message on to Shahr-Baraz, having first added a list of four hundred other senior Persian officers also purportedly condemned - thereby ensuring plenty of support for the revolt when it took place.

the Emperor's last campaign. Only after Gundarnasp agreed to accompany them did they find the courage to complete their mission, and it was
3
April when they at last reached the Roman camp. Siroes's letter, announcing that he had succeeded to the throne 'without difficulty, by the grace of God', would have turned the stomach of a lesser man; but Heraclius gave as good as he got, addressing his reply to his 'dear son' and protesting that he had never dreamt of overthrowing Chosroes and that, had he captured him, he would immediately have restored him to power. The result was a treaty of peace, by the terms of which the Persians surrendered all the territories they had conquered and all the captives they had taken, together with the True Cross and the other relics of the Passion.