sion of the famous ruler, Leo III, who initiated a new epoch in the history of the Byzantine Empire.

The Persian wars. The Avars and Slavs under Constantinople. The Significance of the Persian campaigns of Heraclius.-Heraclius was a very gifted and active emperor and seemed to be almost a model ruler after the tyrannical Phocas. According to the poet George, of Pisidia, a contemporary of Heraclius, who described in good verse his Persian campaigns and the invasion of the Avars, the new Emperor proclaimed that "power must shine more in love than in terror."

At the time of Heraclius' accession the position of the Empire was extremely dangerous. The Persians were menacing it from the East, and the Avars and the Slavs from the North, while internal affairs were in a state of complete anarchy after the unfortunate reign of Phocas. The new Emperor had neither money nor sufficient military force. This accounts for many of the profound disturbances which shook the Empire during the early part of the reign of Heraclius.

In the year 611 the Persians undertook the conquest of Syria and occupied Antioch, the main city of the eastern Byzantine provinces. Damascus also was soon seized by the Persians. Upon completing the conquest of Syria, the Persians moved on to Palestine, and in the year 614 they began the siege of Jerusalem, which lasted for twenty days. Then the Persian towers and battering-rams broke through the city wall, and, as one source puts it, "the evil enemies entered the city with a rage which resembled that of infuriated beasts and irritated dragons." The city was pillaged and Christian sanctuaries were destroyed. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, erected by Constantine the Great and Helen, was set on fire and robbed of its treasures. The Christians were exposed to merciless violence and slaughter. The Jews of Jerusalem sided with the Persians and took active part in the massacres, during which, according to some sources, 60,000 Christians perished. Many treasures were

Georgii Pisidae, De expeditione persica, vss. 90-91 (ed. Bonn., p. 17).

Antiochus Strategus, The Capture of Jerusalem by the Persians in the Year 614 (translated from the Georgian by N. Marr; St. Petersburg, 1909), p. 15 (in Russian); the English translation by F. C. Conybeare, "Antiochus Strategos' Account of the Sack of Jerusalem in 614," English Historical Review, XXV (1910), 506.

transported to Persia from the sacred city. One of the dearest relics of Christendom, the Holy Cross, was also taken away to Ctesiphon. Among the numerous prisoners sent to Persia was also the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Zacharias."

This devastating Persian conquest of Palestine and the pillage of Jerusalem represent a turning-point in the history of this province. According to N. P. Kondakov:

This was a disaster unheard of since the occupation of Jerusalem in the reign of Titus, but this time the calamity could not be remedied. Never again did this city have an era similar to the brilliant epoch under Constantine, and the magnificent buildings within its walls, such as the Mosque of Omar, never again created an epoch in history. From now on the city and its buildings constantly declined, step by step, and even the Crusades, so abounding in results and various spoils for Europe, caused only trouble, confusion, and degeneration in the life of Jerusalem. The Persian invasion immediately removed the effects of the imported artificial Graeco-Roman civilization in Palestine. It ruined agriculture, depopulated the cities, destroyed temporarily or permanently many monasteries and lauras, and stopped all trade development. This invasion freed the marauding Arabian tribes from the ties of association and the fear which had controlled them, and they began to form the unity which made possible their general attacks of a later period. From now on the cultural development of the country is ended. Palestine enters upon that troubled period which might very naturally be called the period of the Middle Ages, were it not for the fact that it lasted until our own times."

The ease with which the Persians conquered Syria and Palestine may be explained partly by the religious conditions in these provinces. The majority of their population, particularly in Syria, did not adhere to the official orthodox faith supported by the central government. The Nestorians, and later the Monophysites, of these provinces were greatly oppressed, as we know, by the Byzantine government; hence they quite naturally preferred the domination of the Persian fire-worshipers, in whose land the Nestorians, for instance, enjoyed comparative religious freedom.

The Persian invasion was not limited to Syria and Palestine. Part of the Persian army, after crossing all of Asia Minor and conquering Chalcedon on the Sea of Marmora near the Bosphorus, en

Ta See H. Vincent et F.-M. Abel, Jérusalem. Recherches de topographie, d'archéologie et d'histoire (Paris, 1926), II, fasc. IV, 926-28.

8 N. P. Kondakov, An Archeological Journey through Syria and Palestine (St. Petersburg, 1904), pp. 173-74 (in Russian).

camped near Chrysopolis (present-day Scutari), opposite Constantinople, while another Persian army set out to conquer Egypt. Alexandria fell, probably in the year 618 or 619. In Egypt, just as in Syria and Palestine, the Monophysitic population did not give the necessary support to the Byzantine government and gladly accepted the domination of the Persians.

For the Byzantine Empire the loss of Egypt was extremely detrimental, because Egypt was, as we know, the granary of Constantinople, and the stoppage of the supply of Egyptian grain must have reacted severely upon economic conditions in the capital.

Contemporary with the heavy losses in the south and east caused by the Persian wars, there appeared another great menace to the Byzantine Empire from the north. The Avaro-Slavonic hordes of the Balkan peninsula, headed by the Khagan of the Avars, moved southward, pillaging and destroying the northern provinces and reaching as far as Constantinople, where they broke through the city walls. This time the expedition was limited to raids which placed in the hands of the Khagan of the Avars numerous captives and rich spoils to be carried off to the north.

These stirring events left some traces in the writings of the western contemporary of Heraclius, Isidore, bishop of Seville, who remarked in his chronicle that "Heraclius entered upon the sixteenth (fifth) year of his reign, at the beginning of which the Slavs took Greece from the Romans, and the Persians took Syria, Egypt, and many provinces.""

After some hesitation the Emperor decided to begin war with Persia. In view of the exhaustion of the treasury, the Emperor availed himself of the church treasures of the capital and the provinces, and ordered that a large amount of gold and silver coins be made out of these riches. As Heraclius had anticipated, the menace on the part of the Khagan of the Avars in the north was removed by the payment of a large sum of money and by sending distinguished hostages to the Avars. After this, in the spring of 622, the Emperor crossed to Asia Minor, where he recruited a large number of sol

• Isidore's chronology is not accurate. Isidori Hispalensis, Chronica Majora. Migne, Patr. lat., 83, col. 1056 (the fifth year of the reign). Ed. Mommsen, Mon. Germ. Hist. Auctorum Antiquiss. t. XI. Chronica Minora, II (Berolini, 1894), p. 479 (16th year of the reign).

diers and taught them the art of warfare during a period of several months. The Persian campaign, which incidentally aimed at reclaiming the Holy Cross and the sacred city of Jerusalem, assumed the form of a crusade.

Modern historians think it likely that Heraclius conducted three Persian campaigns between the years 622 and 628. All these campaigns were crowned by brilliant success for the Byzantine army, and Th. I. Uspensky compares them even with the glorious campaigns of Alexander the Great.10 Heraclius secured the aid of the Caucasian tribes and formed an alliance with the Khazars. On the whole, the northern Persian provinces bordering the Caucasus formed one of the main arenas of military actions.

During the absence of the Emperor, engaged in leading the army in the distant campaigns, the capital became exposed to very serious danger. The Khagan of the Avars, having broken the agreement made with the Emperor, advanced toward Constantinople in the year 626 with huge hordes of Avars and Slavs. He also formed an agreement with the Persians, who immediately sent a part of their army to Chalcedon. The Avaro-Slavonic hordes besieged Constantinople, causing many moments of great anxiety to the population of the capital. The garrison of Constantinople succeeded, however, in repelling this attack and in making the enemy flee from under its walls. As soon as the Persians heard that the Khagan of the Avars had failed in his attempt to take Constantinople they withdrew their army from Chalcedon and directed it to Syria. The Byzantine victory over the Avars under Constantinople in the year 626 was one of the main causes of the weakening of the wild Avar kingdom. At the same time the year 626 marks the critical moment in the struggle of Heraclius with his external enemies.

Meanwhile, at the end of 627 Heraclius completely routed the Persians in a battle which took place near the ruins of ancient Nineveh (in the neighborhood of modern Mosul, on the Tigris), and advanced into the central Persian provinces. Rich spoils fell into the hands of the Emperor. About this time the Persian king, Chosroes, was dethroned and killed, and the new ruler, Kawad Sheroe, began peace negotiations with Heraclius. According to the 10 Th. I. Uspensky, I, 684 (in Russian).

new agreement the Persians returned to the Byzantine Empire the conquered provinces of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, and the Holy Cross previously carried off by the Persians. Heraclius returned to the capital with great triumph, and a short while later he left for Jerusalem, where the Holy Cross, reclaimed from the Persians, was restored to its former place, to the great joy of the entire Christian world.

The Persian war of Heraclius marks a very significant epoch in the history of the Byzantine Empire. Of the two main world-powers of the early Middle Ages, i.e., the Byzantine Empire and Persia, the latter definitely lost its former significance and became a weak state, which soon ceased its political existence because of the attacks of the Arabs. The victorious Byzantine Empire, which dealt the death blow to its constant enemy, reclaimed all the lost eastern provinces for the Empire and the Holy Cross for the Christian world, freeing at the same time its capital of the formidable menace of the AvaroSlavonic hordes. The Byzantine Empire seemed to be at the height of its glory and power.

After the successful outcome of the Persian war Heraclius officially called himself Basileus for the first time in the year 629. This name had been in use for centuries in the East, particularly in Egypt, and from the fourth century it became current in the Greekspeaking parts of the Empire, but was not yet accepted as an official title. Until the seventh century the Greek equivalent of the Latin "emperor" (imperator) was the term "autocrator" (auтокpáтwр), i.e., "an autocrat," which does not correspond etymologically to the meaning of imperator. The only foreign ruler to whom the Byzantine emperor consented to give the title of Basileus was the King of Persia (that is, if we do not take into consideration the distant Abyssinian king). Bury writes: "So long as there was a great independent Basileus outside the Roman Empire, the emperors refrained from adopting a title which would be shared by another monarch. But as soon as that monarch was reduced to the condition of a dependent vassal and there was no longer a concurrence, the Emperor signified the events by assuming officially the title which had for several centuries been applied to him unofficially.'

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11 Bury, The Constitution of the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, 1910), p. 20.