Heraclius

For the present the signs of this catastrophe were not to be seen.

The Roman emperor was compelled to sign an ignominious peace and to pay a yearly tribute to the sovereign of Persia, but Heraclius woke suddenly from the sluggishness which marked the earlier years of his reign.

The Persians were defeated among the defiles of Mount Taurus AD 622-625, and the destruction of the birthplace of Zoroaster offered some compensation for the mischief done to the churches of Helena and Constantine.

Two years later in 627 the Roman emperor carried his arms into the heart of the enemy's land, and during the battle of Nineveh, in which he won a splendid victory, he slew with his own hands the Persian general Razates.

Khosru fled across the Tigris, but he could not escape from the plots of his son, and his death in a dungeon ended the glories of the Sassanid dynasty under whom the Persian power had in the third century of our era revived from the death-sleep into which it had sunk after the conquests of Alexander.

With Sirois, the son and murderer of Khosru, the Roman emperor in 628 concluded a peace which not merely delivered all his subjects from captivity, but repaired the loss which the Church of the Holy Sepulchre had sustained by the theft of the True Cross.

The great object of pilgrimage was thus restored to Jerusalem, and thither Heraclius during the following year betook himself to pay his vows of thanksgiving.

With the pageant which marked this ceremony, the splendor of his reign was closed.

According to the Arab traditions, it was he who negotiated the treaty cited above, which secured to the Egyptians freedom of religion and security of life.

And when the Byzantine emperor Heraclius repudiated the treaty, the Mukakis stuck to his word and threw in his lot with the Arabs, whose valor and simple earnestness deeply impressed him.

When his envoys returned from an embassy to the Saracens' camp, he asked them what manner of men the Muslims were, and they answered, quote, We found a people who love death better than life, and set humility above pride, who have no desire or enjoyment in this world, who sit in the dust and eat upon their knees, but frequently and thoroughly wash and humble themselves in prayer.

A people in whom the stronger can scarcely be distinguished from the weaker, or the master from the slave, end quote.

With the fire she wished as Juanville tells us to burn paradise with the water to drown hell.

so that none might do good for the reward of the one nor avoid evil from fear of the other since every good ought to be done from the perfect and sincere love which man owes to his creator who is the supreme good such a tone of thought was in ludicrous discord with the temper which brought jerome himself to bethlehem and which soon began to fill the land with those who had nothing of jerome's culture and the sobriety which in whatever degree must spring from it end of section one section two of the crusades by george william cox this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by pamela nagami chapter one causes leading to the crusades part two the contagion spread from almost every country of europe wanderers took their way to palestine under the conviction that the shirt which they wore when they entered the holy city would if laid by to be used as their winding-sheet convey them like the carpet of solomon in the arabian tale at once to heaven an enterprise so laudable roused the sympathy and quickened the charity of the faithful the pilgrim seldom lacked food and shelter and houses of repose or entertainment were raised for his comfort on the stages of his journey as well as in the city which was the goal of his pilgrimage here he was welcomed in the costly house which had been raised for his reception by the munificence of pope gregory the great if he died during his absence his kinsfolk envied rather than bewailed his lot if he returned he had their reverence as one who had washed away his sins and still more perhaps as one who had brought away in his wallet relics of value so vast and of virtue so great that the touch of them made the journey to palestine almost a superfluous ceremony wherever these pilgrims went these fragments of the true cross might be found and the happy faith of those who gave in exchange for them more than their weight in gold never stopped to think that the barren log which was supposed to have produced them must in truth have spread abroad its branches wider than the most magnificent cedar in lebanus nor probably even in the earliest ages was the traffic consequent on these pilgrimages confined to holy things the east was not only the cradle of christianity but a land rich in spices and silks in gold and jewels and the keen-sighted merchant looking to solid profits on earth followed closely on the steps of the devotee who sought his reward in heaven the first interruption to the peaceful and prosperous fortunes of pilgrims and merchants was caused by one of the periodical ebbs and flows which for nearly seven hundred years had marked the struggle between the powers of persia and of rome the kings of the restored persian kingdom had striven to avenge on the west the wrongs committed by alexander the great if not those even of earlier invaders and the enterprise which khosru nushervan had taken in hand was carried on forty years later by his grandson khosru the second almost at the outset of his irresistible course jerusalem fell in a. d. six eleven nor was it the fault of the persians that the great churches of helena and constantine were not destroyed utterly by fire ninety thousand christians it is said were put to death but according to the feeling of the age a greater loss was sustained in the carrying off of the true cross into persia from palestine the wave of persian conquest spread southward into egypt and the greatness of khosru seemed to be unbounded when from an unknown citizen of mecca he received the bidding to acknowledge the unity of the godhead and to own mohammed as the prophet of god the persian king tore the letter to pieces and the man of mecca whose successors were to carry the crescent to jerusalem and damascus to the banks of the nile and the mountains of spain warned him that his kingdom should be treated as he had treated his letter for the present the signs of this catastrophe were not to be seen the roman emperor was compelled to sign an ignominious peace and to pay a yearly tribute to the sovereign of persia but heraclius woke suddenly from the sluggishness which marked the earlier years of his reign the persians were defeated among the defiles of mount taurus a. d. six twenty two to six twenty five and the destruction of the birthplace of zoroaster offered some compensation for the mischief done to the churches of helena and constantine two years later in six twenty seven the roman emperor carried his arms into the heart of the enemy's land and during the battle of nineveh in which he won a splendid victory he slew with his own hands the persian general razates khosru fled across the tigris but he could not escape from the plots of his son and his death in a dungeon ended the glories of the sassanid dynasty under whom the persian power had in the third century of our era revived from the death-sleep into which it had sunk after the conquests of alexander with sirois the son and murderer of khosru the roman emperor in six twenty eight concluded a peace which not merely delivered all his subjects from captivity but repaired the loss which the church of the holy sepulchre had sustained by the theft of the true cross The great object of pilgrimage was thus restored to Jerusalem, and thither Heraclius during the following year betook himself to pay his vows of thanksgiving.

With the pageant which marked this ceremony, the splendor of his reign was closed.

Before his death, the followers of Mohammed had deprived him of the provinces which he had wrested from the Persians.

Eight years only had passed after the visit of Heraclius to Jerusalem when, in 637, the armies which had already seized Damascus advanced to the siege of the holy city.

A blockade of four months convinced the patriarch Sophronius that there was no hope of withstanding the force of Islam.

But he demanded the presence of the caliph himself at the ratification of the treaty which was to secure a second sacred capital to the disciples of the prophet.

The Scottish king swore to hold his kingdom as a fief of the English crown, and Henry, unable any longer to resist the arguments or entreaties of the French king Louis VII in 1177, promised to combine his forces as Duke of Normandy with those of his liege lord for the succor of the Christians in the Holy Land.

And the fourth part, which is very easy to collect because there are just so few types of each emperor, is the late Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, which we know as the Byzantine Empire.

So these coins, and I'm showing you here one of the Byzantine emperor called Heraclius, which ruled in the middle of the 77th century.

They have only very few types, and so it's much, much easier to collect them as many other things.

There is a wonderful book about that called The Seer.

But their restless and predatory habits long gave trouble to the Empire.

Its policy varied between keeping them quiet by annual subsidies, setting them as colonists to hold one another in check as Heraclius, 630-638, brought down the Servians and Croats against the Avars, taking them into pay as soldiers, or inflicting chastisement by military expeditions.

The Slavs, however, were many of them agricultural communities and they colonized.

But behind the Slavs were the more destructive Turks in their various forms.

Barbarian kingdoms, like that of the Avars and then of the Bulgarians, rose and fell.

In spite of all the insecurity and ruin, new nations, agricultural as well as pastoral, grew up in a rude fashion, yet with definite traditions and with peculiar institutions in the rich plains and the highlands between the Adriatic and the Euxine.

Such were the western agricultural Slavs whom Heraclius planted between the Danube and the Adriatic, and who became the Croats, Serbians, and Bosnians of later history.

In time, the Slav races and those which, like the Bulgarians, adopted their language and became fused with them, received Christianity.

And together, we're diving deep into the history of Rome from its founding to its death, uncovering Rome's greatest heroes along the way, and ranking them.

Welcome to episode number 105, Heraclius part 5, The Ghost Army.

My son.

Last episode, I don't know if you recall, maybe you've forgotten.

Tell me.

We left Heraclius in the mountains of Caucasian Albania.

I remember.

The Ghost Army, the last army, is resting.

We'll see.

Then we'll follow that up with Trajan, Aurelius, Belisarius, and Heraclius.

I am happy to announce a couple of guests here, so we'll have some post-episode guests.

We will have...

But we're going to have them join us and talk to us a little bit about the Roman world during that time, because that was a very interesting transitional time.

And they just did a five or six episode run on Belisarius that I think gives them a ton of insight that they can share with us.

And as I said, we do have Professor Anthony Caldellis locked in for a post-Heraclius episode, which should be a lot of fun as well.

And then I think we kind of know what's coming on the Roman side after that.

But the empire confronted by new dangers in the East, first from the aggressions of the Persian kings and then from the rise of Mohammedanism, could not keep what it had won.

Thirteen years before Heraclius rose to save the empire, the Lombards had inherited the lands that the Goths had abandoned.

The Lombards contented to rule and extend their territories without any effort to assimilate the native population, remained an aristocracy of nobles settled among a subject people.

If the Lombard kings could have conquered Rome as they conquered Ravenna, they might have been able to build up an Italian kingdom through the fusion of Roman and Teutonic institutions and ideas.

Maurice fled with his children but was pursued and beheaded by order of the usurper, dying, it is said, with the words on his lips, Just art thou, O Lord God, and just are thy judgments.

For seven years, from 603 to 610, Constantinople suffered the brutalities and incompetence of Phocas and the empire seemed on the verge of destruction, when deliverance came from an unexpected quarter.

The exarch Heraclius, who ruled North Africa for the emperor, rose in rebellion and fitted out a fleet, which he sent under the command of his son Heraclius in the spring of 610 to Constantinople.

Heraclius met with no opposition, and the tyrant Phocas was handed over to him in chains and sent to share the doom of his predecessor.

Khosrows, the pagan king of the Persians, had carried away the cross after sacking Jerusalem and displayed it as a war trophy.

He demanded that the Roman emperor Heraclius apostatize in return for the cross.

The pious emperor rejected this proposal and boldly marched on Persia.

Khosrows was soon overthrown and Heraclius brought the relics back to Jerusalem.

He attempted to carry the cross himself in procession to the church on Mount Calvary, but was miraculously stopped at the city gate.

At the suggestion of the patriarch St. Zacharias, the emperor humbly exchanged his splendid robes for rags, and barefoot, he carried the true cross the rest of the way to Calvary.

Many miraculous healings occurred during the subsequent veneration of the cross.

Both feasts of the Holy Cross are known as Rudmus or Crouchmus, older English terms for Cross Mass.