Chapter VI: Heraclius and His Successors (1)

[610-717 A.D.]

“Everyone who reads the history of Heraclius,” says Bury,[b] “is met by the problems: how did the great hero of the last Persian War spend the first ten years of his reign; and why did he relapse into lethargy after his final triumph?”

Many explanations have been attempted to account for the actions of this man, who first built up an empire, and then allowed it to crumble under his feet. Bury’s explanation is the assumption that his will was naturally weak and his sensibilities strong, and that for a time he was raised above himself, as it were, by an inspired enthusiasm. When in later years this cloak of enthusiasm was withdrawn, the weakness of his true character was laid bare.[a]

[Sidenote: [610-641 A.D.]]

The reign of Heraclius is one of the most remarkable epochs, both in the history of the empire and in the annals of mankind. It warded off the almost inevitable destruction of the Roman government for another century; it laid the foundation of that policy which prolonged the existence of the imperial power at Constantinople under a new modification, as the Byzantine monarchy; and it was contemporary with the commencement of the great moral change in the condition of the people which transformed the language and manners of the ancient world into those of modern nations. The Eastern Empire was indebted to the talents of Heraclius for its escape from those ages of barbarism which, for many centuries, prevailed in all western Europe. No period of society could offer a field for instructive study more likely to present practical results to the highly civilised political communities of modern Europe; yet there is no time of which the existing memorials of the constitution and frame of society are so imperfect and unsatisfactory.

It was perhaps a misfortune for mankind that Heraclius was by birth a Roman rather than a Greek, as his views were from that accident directed to the maintenance of the imperial dominion, without any reference to the national organisation of his people. His civilisation, like that of a large portion of the ruling class in the Eastern Empire, was too far removed from the state of ignorance into which the mass of the population had fallen, for the one to be influenced by the feelings of the other, or for both to act together with the energy conferred by unity of purpose in a variety of ranks. Heraclius, being by birth and family connections an African noble, must have regarded himself as of pure Roman blood, superior to all national prejudices, and bound by duty and policy to repress the domineering spirit of the Greek aristocracy in the state, and of the Greek hierarchy in the church.

Language and manners began to give to national feelings almost as much power in forming men into distinct societies as political arrangements. The influence of the clergy followed the divisions established by language, rather than the political organisation adopted by the government: and as the clergy now formed the most popular and the ablest portion of society, the church exerted more influence over the minds of the people than the civil administration and the imperial power, even though the emperor was the acknowledged sovereign and master of the patriarchs and the pope.

It is necessary to observe here, that the established church of the empire had ceased to be the universal Christian church. The Greeks had rendered themselves the depositaries of its power and influence; they had already corrupted Christianity into the Greek church; and other nations were rapidly forming separate ecclesiastical societies to supply their own spiritual wants. The Armenians, Syrians, and Egyptians were induced by national aversion to the ecclesiastical tyranny of the Greeks, as well as by spiritual preference of the doctrines of Nestorius and Eutyches, to oppose the established church. At the time Heraclius ascended the throne, these national and religious feelings already exercised their power of modifying the operations of the Roman government, and of enabling mankind to advance one step towards the establishment of individual liberty and intellectual independence.

In order fully to comprehend the lamentable state of weakness to which the empire was reduced, it will be necessary to take a cursory view of the condition of the different provinces. The continual ravages of the barbarians who occupied the country beyond the Danube had extended as far as the southern shores of the Peloponnesus. The agricultural population was almost exterminated, except where it was protected by the immediate vicinity of fortified towns, or secured by the fastnesses of the mountains. The inhabitants of all the countries between the Archipelago and the Adriatic had been greatly diminished, and fertile provinces remained everywhere desolate, ready to receive new occupants. As great part of these countries yielded very little revenue to the government, they were considered by the court of Constantinople as of hardly any value, except in so far as they covered the capital from hostile attacks, or commanded the commercial routes to the west of Europe. At this time the Indian and Chinese trade had in part been forced round the north of the Caspian Sea, in consequence of the Persian conquests in Syria and Egypt, and the disturbed state of the country immediately to the east of Persia. The rich produce transported by the caravans, which reached the northern shores of the Black Sea, was then transported to Constantinople, and from thence distributed through western Europe.

Under these circumstances, Thessalonica and Dyrrhachium became points of great consequence to the empire, and were successfully defended by the emperor amidst all his calamities. These two cities commanded the extremities of the usual road between Constantinople and Ravenna, and connected the towns on the Archipelago with the Adriatic and with Rome. The open country was abandoned to the Avars and Slavonians, who were allowed to effect permanent settlements even to the south of the Via Egnatia; but none of these settlements were suffered to interfere with the lines of communication, without which the imperial influence in Italy would have been soon annihilated, and the trade of the West lost to the Greeks. The ambition of the barbarians was inclined to dare any attempt to encroach on the wealth of the Eastern Empire, and they tried to establish a system of maritime depredations in the Archipelago; but Heraclius was able to frustrate their schemes, though it is probable that he owed his success more to the exertions of the mercantile population of the Greek cities than to the exploits of his own troops.

National distinctions and religious interests tended to divide the population, and to balance political power, much more in Italy than in the other countries of Europe. The influence of the church in protecting the people, the weakness of the Lombard sovereigns, from the small numerical strength of the Lombard population, and the oppressive fiscal government of the Roman exarchs, gave the Italians the means of creating a national existence, amidst the conflicts of their masters. Yet so imperfect was the unity of interests, or so great were the difficulties of communication between the people of various parts of Italy, that the imperial authority not only defended its own dominions with success against foreign enemies, but also repressed with ease the ambitious or patriotic attempts of the popes to acquire political power, and punished equally the seditions of the people and the rebellions of the chiefs, who, like Joannes Compsa of Neapolis and the exarch Eleutherinus, aspired at independence.

Africa alone, of all the provinces of the empire, continued to use the Latin language in ordinary life; and its inhabitants regarded themselves, with some reason, as the purest descendants of the Romans. After the victories of Johannes the Patrician, it had enjoyed a long period of tranquillity, and its prosperity was undisturbed by any spirit of nationality adverse to the supremacy of the empire, or by schismatic opinions hostile to the church. The barbarous tribes to the south were feeble enemies, and no foreign state possessed a naval force capable of troubling its repose or interrupting its commerce. Under the able and fortunate administration of Heraclius and Gregoras, the father and uncle of the emperor, Africa formed the most flourishing portion of the empire. Its prosperous condition, and the wars raging in other countries, threw great part of the commerce of the Mediterranean into the hands of the Africans. Wealth and population increased to such a degree that the naval expedition of the emperor Heraclius, and the army of his cousin Nicetas, were fitted out from the resources of Africa alone. Another strong proof of the prosperity of the province, of its importance to the empire, and of its attachment to the interests of the Heraclian family is afforded by the resolution which the emperor adopted, in the ninth year of his reign, of transferring the imperial residence from Constantinople to Carthage.

In Constantinople an immense body of idle inhabitants had been collected, a mass that had long formed a burden on the state, and acquired a right to a portion of its resources. A numerous nobility, and a permanent imperial household, conceived that they formed a portion of the Roman government from the prominent part which they acted in the ceremonial that connected the emperor with the people. Thus, the great natural advantages of the geographical position of the capital were neutralised by moral and political causes; while the desolate state of the European provinces, and the vicinity of the northern frontier, began to expose it to frequent sieges. As a fortress and place of arms, it might still have formed the bulwark of the empire in Europe; but while it remained the capital, its immense unproductive population required that too large a part of the resources of the state should be devoted to supplying it with provisions, to guarding against the factions and the seditions of its populace, and to maintaining in it a powerful garrison. The luxury of the Roman court had, during ages of unbounded wealth and unlimited power, assembled round the emperor an infinity of courtly offices, and caused an enormous expenditure, which it was extremely dangerous to suppress and impossible to continue.

No national feelings or particular line of policy connected Heraclius with Constantinople, and his frequent absence during the active years of his life indicates that, as long as his personal energy and health allowed him to direct the public administration, he considered the constant residence of the emperor in that city injurious to the general interests of the state. On the other hand, Carthage was, at this time, peculiarly a Roman city; and in actual wealth, in the numbers of its independent citizens, and in the activity of its whole population, was probably inferior to no city in the empire. It is not surprising, therefore, that Heraclius, when compelled to suppress the public distributions of bread in the capital, to retrench the expenditure of his court and make many reforms in his civil government, should have wished to place the imperial treasury and his own resources in a place of greater security, before he engaged in his desperate struggle with Persia. The wish, therefore, to make Carthage the capital of the Roman Empire may, with far greater probability, be connected with the gallant project of his eastern campaigns, than with the cowardly or selfish motives attributed to him by the Byzantine writers. Carthage offered military resources for recovering possession of Egypt and Syria, of which we can only now estimate the extent by taking into consideration the expedition that placed Heraclius himself on the throne. Many reasons connected with the constitution of the civil government of the empire might likewise be adduced as tending to influence the preference.

THE PROVINCES UNDER HERACLIUS

Egypt, from its wonderful natural resources and its numerous and industrious population, had long been the most valuable province of the empire. It poured a very great portion of its gross produce into the imperial treasury; for its agricultural population, being destitute of all political power and influence, were compelled to pay, not only taxes, but a tribute, which was viewed as a rent for the soil, to the Roman government. At this time, however, the wealth of Egypt was on the decline. The circumstances which had driven the trade of India to the north, had caused a great decrease in the demand for the grain of Egypt on the shores of the Red Sea, and for its manufactures in Arabia and Ethiopia. The canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, whose existence is intimately connected with the prosperity of these countries, had been neglected during the government of Phocas.

A large portion of the Greek population of Alexandria had been ruined, because an end had been put to the public distributions of grain, and poverty had invaded the fertile land of Egypt. Joannes the Almsgiver, who was patriarch and imperial prefect in the reign of Heraclius, did everything in his power to alleviate this misery. He established hospitals, and devoted the revenues of his see to charity; but he was an enemy to heresy, and consequently he was hardly looked on as a friend by the native population. National feelings, religious opinions, and local interests, had always nourished, in the minds of the native Egyptians, a deep-rooted hatred of the Roman administration and of the Greek church; and this feeling of hostility only became more concentrated after the union of the offices of prefect and patriarch by Justinian. A complete line of separation existed between the Greek colony of Alexandria and the native population, who, during the decline of the Greeks and Jews of Alexandria, intruded themselves into political business, and gained some degree of official importance. The cause of the emperor was now connected with the commercial interests of the Greek and Melchite parties, but these ruling classes were regarded by the agricultural population of the rest of the province as interlopers on their sacred Jacobite soil. Joannes the Almsgiver, though a Greek patriarch and an imperial prefect, was not perfectly free from the charge of heresy, nor, perhaps, of employing the revenues under his control with more attention to charity than to public utility.

The exigencies of Heraclius were so great that he sent his cousin the patrician Nicetas to Egypt, in order to seize the immense wealth which the patriarch Joannes was said to possess. In the following year the Persians invaded the province; and the patrician and patriarch, unable to defend even the city of Alexandria, fled to Cyprus, while the enemy was allowed to subdue the valley of the Nile to the borders of Libya and Ethiopia, without meeting any opposition from the imperial forces, and apparently with the good wishes of the Egyptians. The plunder obtained from public property and slaves was immense; and as the power of the Greeks was annihilated, the native Egyptians availed themselves of the opportunity to acquire a dominant influence in the administration of their country.

For ten years the province owned allegiance to Persia, though it enjoyed a certain degree of doubtful independence under the immediate government of a native intendant-general of the land revenues named Mokaukas, who subsequently, at the time of the Saracen conquest, acted a conspicuous part in the history of his country. During the Persian supremacy, he became so influential in the administration that he is styled by several writers the prince of Egypt. Mokaukas, under the Roman government, had conformed to the established church, in order to hold an official situation, but he was, like most of his countrymen, at heart a monophysite, and consequently inclined to oppose the imperial administration, both from religious and political motives. Yet it appears that a portion of the monophysite clergy steadily refused to submit to the Persian government; and Benjamin their patriarch retired from his residence at Alexandria when that city fell into the hands of the Persians, and did not return until Heraclius had recovered possession of Egypt.

Mokaukas established himself in the city of Babylon, or Misr, which had grown up, on the decline of Memphis, to be the native capital of the province and the chief city in the interior. The moment appears to have been extremely favourable for the establishment of an independent state by the monophysite Egyptians, since, amidst the conflicts of the Persian and Roman empires, the immense revenues and supplies of grain formerly paid to the emperor might have been devoted to the defence of the country. But the native population appears, from the conduct of the patriarch Benjamin, not to have been united in its views; and probably the agricultural classes, though numerous, living in abundance, and firm in their monophysite tenets, had not the knowledge necessary to aspire at national independence, the strength of character required to achieve it, or the command of the precious metals necessary to purchase the service of mercenary troops and provide the materials of war. They had been so long deprived of arms and of all political rights, that they had probably adopted the opinion prevalent among the subjects of all despotic governments, that public functionaries are invariably knaves, and that the oppression of the native is more grievous than the yoke of a stranger. The moral defects of the people could certainly, at this favourable conjuncture, alone have prevented the establishment of an independent Egyptian and Jacobite state.

It is said that about this time a prophecy was current, which declared that the Roman Empire would be overthrown by a circumcised people. This report may have been spread by the Jews, in order to excite their own ardour and assist their projects of rebellion; but the prophecy was saved from oblivion by the subsequent conquests of the Saracens, which could never have been foreseen by its authors. The conduct of the Jews excited the bigotry, as it may have awakened the fears, of the imperial government, and both Phocas and Heraclius attempted to exterminate the Jewish religion and if possible to put an end to the national existence. Heraclius not only practised every species of cruelty himself to effect this object within the bounds of his own dominions, but he even made the forced conversion or banishment of the Jews a prominent feature in his diplomacy. He consoled himself for the loss of most of the Roman possessions in Spain, by inducing Sisibut to insert an article in the treaty of peace concluded in 614, engaging the Gothic monarch to force baptism on the Jews; and he considered that, even though he failed in persuading the Franks to co-operate with him against the Avars, in the year 620, he had rendered the empire and Christianity some service by inducing Dagobert to join in the project of exterminating the unfortunate Jews.

Asia Minor had become the chief seat of the Roman power in the time of Heraclius, and the only portion in which the majority of the population was attached to the imperial government and to the Greek church. Before the reign of Phocas, it had escaped any extensive devastation, so that it still retained much of its ancient wealth and splendour; and the social life of the people was still modelled on the institutions and usages of preceding ages. A considerable internal trade was carried on; and the great roads, being kept in a tolerable state of repair, served as arteries for the circulation of commerce and civilisation. That it had, nevertheless, suffered very severely in the general decline caused by over-taxation, and by reduced commerce, neglected agriculture, and diminished population, is attested by the magnificent ruins of cities which had already fallen to decay, and which never again recovered their ancient prosperity.

The power of the central administration over its immediate officers was almost as completely destroyed in Asia Minor as in the more distant provinces of the empire. A remarkable proof of this general disorganisation of the government is found in the history of the early years of the reign of Heraclius; and one deserving particular attention from its illustrating both his personal character and the state of the empire. Crispus, the son-in-law of Phocas, had materially assisted Heraclius in obtaining the throne; and as a recompense, he was charged with the administration of Cappadocia, one of the richest provinces of the empire, along with the chief command of the troops in his government. Crispus, a man of influence, and of a daring, heedless character, soon ventured to act, not only with independence, but even with insolence, towards the emperor. He neglected the defence of his province; and when Heraclius visited Cæsarea to examine into its state and prepare the means of carrying on the war against Persia in person, he displayed a spirit of insubordination and an assumption of importance which amounted to treason. Heraclius, who possessed the means of restraining his fiery temperament, visited the too-powerful officer in his bed, which he kept under a slight or affected illness, and persuaded him to visit Constantinople. On his appearance in the senate, he was arrested, and compelled to become a monk. His authority and position rendered it absolutely necessary for Heraclius to punish his presumption, before he could advance with safety against the Persians.

Many less important personages, in various parts of the empire, acted with equal independence, without the emperor’s considering that it was either necessary to observe, or prudent to punish, their ambition. The decline of the power of the central government, the increasing ignorance of the people, the augmented difficulties in the way of communication, and the general insecurity of property and life, effected extensive changes in the state of society, and threw political influence into the hands of the local governors, the municipal and provincial chiefs, and the whole body of the clergy.

BARRIERS AGAINST THE NORTHERN BARBARIANS

Heraclius appears to have formed the plan of establishing a permanent barrier in Europe against the encroachments of the Avars and Slavonians. For the furtherance of this project, it was evident that he could derive no assistance from the inhabitants of the provinces to the south of the Danube. The imperial armies, too, which in the time of Maurice had waged an active war in Illyricum and Thrace and frequently invaded the territories of the Avars, had melted away during the disorders of the reign of Phocas. The loss was irreparable; for in Europe no agricultural population remained to supply the recruits required to form a new army.

The only feasible plan for circumscribing the ravages of the northern enemies of the empire which presented itself, was the establishment of powerful colonies of tribes hostile to the Avars and their eastern Slavonian allies, in the deserted provinces of Dalmatia and Illyricum. To accomplish this object Heraclius induced the Serbs, or western Slavonians, who occupied the country about the Carpathian Mountains and who had successfully opposed the extension of the Avar empire in that direction, to abandon their ancient seats, and move down to the south into the provinces between the Adriatic and the Danube. The Roman and Greek population of these provinces had been driven towards the sea coast by the continual incursions of the northern tribes, and the desolate plains of the interior had been occupied by a few Slavonian subjects and vassals of the Avars. The most important of the western Slavonian tribes who moved southward at the invitation of Heraclius were the Servians and Croatians, who settled in the countries still peopled by their descendants. Their original settlements were formed in consequence of friendly arrangements, and, doubtless, under the sanction of an express treaty; for the Slavonian people of Illyricum and Dalmatia long regarded themselves as bound to pay a certain degree of territorial allegiance to the Eastern Empire.

The measures of Heraclius were carried into execution with skill and vigour. From the borders of Istria to the territory of Dyrrhachium, the whole country was occupied by a variety of tribes of Servian or western Slavonic origin, hostile to the Avars. These colonies, unlike the earlier invaders of the empire, were composed of agricultural communities; and to the facility which this circumstance afforded them of adopting into their political system any remnant of the old Slavonic population of their conquests, it seems just to attribute the permanency and prosperity of their settlements. Unlike the military races of Goths, Huns, and Avars, who had preceded them, the Servian nations increased and flourished in the lands which they had colonised; and by the absorption of every relic of the ancient population, they formed political communities and independent states, which offered a firm barrier to the Avars and other hostile nations.

The fame of Heraclius would have rivalled that of Alexander, Hannibal, or Cæsar, had he expired at Jerusalem, after the successful termination of the Persian War. He had established peace throughout the empire, restored the strength of the Roman government, revived the power of Christianity in the East, and replanted the holy cross on Mount Calvary. His glory admitted of no addition. Unfortunately, the succeeding years of his reign have, in the general opinion, tarnished his fame. Yet these years were devoted to many arduous labours; and it is to the wisdom with which he restored the strength of his government during this time of peace that we must attribute the energy of the Asiatic Greeks who arrested the great tide of Mohammedan conquest at the foot of Mount Taurus. Though the military glory of Heraclius was obscured by the brilliant victories of the Saracens, still his civil administration ought to receive its meed of praise, when we compare the resistance made by the empire which he reorganised with the facility which the followers of Mohammed found in extending their conquests over every other land from India to Spain.

RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES OF HERACLIUS

The policy of Heraclius was directed to the establishment of a bond of union, which should connect all the provinces of his empire into one body, and he hoped to replace the want of national unity by identity of religious belief. The church was far more closely connected with the people than any other institution, and the emperor, as political head of the church, hoped to direct a well-organised body of churchmen. But Heraclius engaged in the impracticable task of imposing a rule of faith on his subjects, without assuming the office, or claiming the authority of a prophet or a saint. His measures, consequently, like all ecclesiastical and religious reforms which are adopted solely from political motives, only produced additional discussions and difficulties. In the year 630, he propounded the doctrine that in Christ, after the union of the two natures, there was but one will and one operation. Without gaining over any great body of the schismatics whom he wished to restore to the communion of the established church by his new rule of faith, he was himself generally stigmatised as a heretic. The epithet Monothelite was applied to him and to his doctrine, to show that neither was orthodox.

In the hope of putting an end to the disputes which he had rashly awakened, he again, in 639, attempted to legislate for the church, and published his celebrated _Ecthesis_, which, though it attempts to remedy the effects of his prior proceedings, by forbidding all controversy on the question of the single or double operation of the will in Christ, nevertheless includes a declaration in favour of unity. The bishop of Rome, already aspiring after an increase of his spiritual authority, though perhaps not yet contemplating the possibility of perfect independence, entered actively into the opposition excited by the publication of the _Ecthesis_, and was supported by a considerable party in the Eastern church, while he directed the proceedings of the whole of the Western clergy.

On a careful consideration of the religious position of the empire, it cannot appear surprising that Heraclius should have endeavoured to reunite the Nestorians, Eutychians, and Jacobites to the established church, particularly when we remember how closely the influence of the church was connected with the administration of the state, and how completely religious passions replaced national feelings in these secondary ages of Christianity. The union was an indispensable step to the re-establishment of the imperial power in the provinces of Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Armenia; and it must not be overlooked that the theological speculations and ecclesiastical reforms of Heraclius were approved of by the wisest councillors whom he had been able to select to aid him in the government of the empire. The state of society required some strong remedy, and Heraclius only erred in adopting the plan which had always been pursued by absolute monarchs, namely, that of making the sovereign’s opinion the rule of conduct for his subjects. We can hardly suppose that Heraclius would have succeeded better, had he assumed the character or deserved the veneration due to a saint.

The marked difference which existed between the higher and educated classes in the East, and the ignorant and superstitious populace, rendered it next to impossible that any line of conduct could secure the judgment of the learned, and awaken the fanaticism of the people. As a further apology for Heraclius it may be noticed that his acknowledged power over the orthodox clergy was much greater than that which was possessed by the Byzantine emperors at a later period, or that which was admitted by the Latin church after its separation. In spite of all the advantages which he possessed, his attempt ended in a most signal failure; yet no experience could ever induce his successors to avoid his error. His effort to strengthen his power by establishing a principle of unity, aggravated all the evils which he intended to cure; for while the monophysites and the Greeks were as little disposed to unite as ever, the authority of the Eastern church, as a body, was weakened by the creation of a new schism, and the incipient divisions between the Greeks and the Latins, assuming a national character, began to prepare the way for the separation of the two churches.

While Heraclius was endeavouring to restore the strength of the empire in the East, and enforce unity of religious views,--the pursuit of which has ever been one of the greatest errors of the human mind,--Mohammed, by a juster application of the aspiration of mankind after unity, had succeeded in uniting Arabia into one state and in persuading it to adopt one religion. The force of this new empire of the Saracens was directed against those provinces of the Roman Empire which Heraclius had been anxiously endeavouring to reunite in spirit to his government. The difficulties of their administration had compelled the emperor to fix his residence for some years in Syria, and he was well aware of the uncertainty of their allegiance, before the Saracens commenced their invasion. The successes of the Mohammedan arms, and the retreat of the emperor, carrying off with him the holy cross from Jerusalem, have induced historians to suppose that his latter years were spent in sloth, and marked by weakness. His health, however, was in so precarious a state that he could no longer direct the operations of his army in person; at times, indeed, he was incapable of all bodily exertion. Yet the resistance which the Saracens encountered in Syria was very different from the ease with which it had yielded to the Persians at the commencement of the emperor’s reign, and attests that his administration had not been without fruit.

Many of his reforms could only have been effected after the conclusion of the Persian War, when he recovered possession of Syria and Egypt. He seems indeed never to have omitted an opportunity of strengthening his position; and when a chief of the Huns or Bulgarians threw off his allegiance to the Avars, Heraclius is recorded to have immediately availed himself of the opportunity to form an alliance, in order to circumscribe the power of his dangerous northern enemy. Unfortunately, few traces can be gleaned from the Byzantine writers of the precise acts by which he effected his reforms; and the most remarkable facts, illustrating the political history of the time, must be collected from incidental notices, preserved in the treatise of the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, concerning the administration of the empire, written for the instruction of his son Romanus.

WARS WITH THE MOHAMMEDANS

[Sidenote: [633-640 A.D.]]

In the year 633 the Mohammedans invaded Syria, where their progress was rapid, although Heraclius himself was in the neighbourhood. The imperial troops made considerable effort to support the military renown of the Roman armies, but were almost universally unsuccessful. The emperor intrusted the command of the army to his brother Theodore, who had distinguished himself in the Persian wars. Vartan, who commanded after Theodore, had also distinguished himself in the last glorious campaign in Persia. [As we have already said] the health of Heraclius prevented his taking the field in person, and the absence of all moral checks in the Roman administration, and the total want of patriotism in the officers and troops at this period, rendered the personal influence of the emperor necessary at the head of his armies in order to preserve due subordination, and enforce union among the leading men of the empire.

Towards the end of the year 633, the troops of Abu Bekr laid siege to Bostra, a strong frontier town of Syria, which was surrendered early in the following year by the treachery of its governor. During the campaign of 634 the Roman armies were defeated at Adjnadin, in the south of Palestine, and at a bloody and decisive battle on the banks of the river Yermouk, in which it is said that the imperial troops were commanded by the emperor’s brother Theodore. Theodore was replaced by Vartan, but the rebellion of Vartan’s army and another defeat terminated this general’s career. In the third year of the war the Saracens gained possession of Damascus by capitulation, and they guaranteed to the inhabitants the full exercise of their municipal privileges, allowed them to use their local mint, and left the orthodox in possession of the great church of St. John. About the same time, Heraclius quitted Edessa and returned to Constantinople, carrying with him the holy cross which he had recovered from the Persians, and deposited at Jerusalem with great solemnity only six years before, but which he now considered it necessary to remove into Europe for greater safety. His son, Heraclius Constantine, who had received the imperial title when an infant, remained in Syria to supply his place and direct the military operations for the defence of the province. Wherever the imperial garrison was not sufficient to overawe the inhabitants, the native Syrians sought to make any arrangement with the Arabs which would insure their towns from plunder, feeling satisfied that the Arab authorities could not use their power with greater rapacity and cruelty than the imperial officers. The Romans still retained some hope of reconquering Syria, until the loss of another decisive battle in the year 636 compelled them to abandon the province. In the following year, 637 A.D., the Arabs advanced to Jerusalem, and the surrender of the Holy City was marked by arrangements between the patriarch Sophronius and the caliph Omar. The facility with which the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, at this time, and the patriarch of Constantinople, Gennaddius, at the time of the conquest of the Byzantine Empire by Muhammed II (1453 A.D.), became the ministers of their Mohammedan conquerors, shows the slight hold which national feelings retained over the minds of the orthodox Greek clergy. Heraclius concentrated an army at Amida (Diarbekr) in the year 638, which made a bold attempt to regain possession of the north of Syria. Emesa was besieged; but the Saracens soon assembled an overwhelming force; the Romans were defeated, the conquest of Syria was completed.

The Arab conquest not only put an end to the political power of the Romans, which had lasted seven hundred years, but it also soon rooted out every trace of the Greek civilisation introduced by the conquests of Alexander the Great, and which had flourished in the country for upwards of nine centuries. The year after Syria was subdued, Mesopotamia was invaded, and proved an easy conquest.

As soon as the Arabs had completed the conquest of Syria, they invaded Egypt. The emperor Heraclius sent an Armenian governor, Manuel, with a body of troops, to defend the province. The fortune of the Arabs again prevailed, and the Roman army was defeated. If the accounts of historians can be relied on, it would seem that the population of Egypt had suffered less from the vicious administration of the Roman Empire, and from the Persian invasion, than any other part of their dominions; for about the time of its conquest by the Romans it contained seven millions and a half, exclusive of Alexandria, and its population was now estimated at six millions.

A year after Amru had completed the conquest of Egypt, he had established the water communication between the Nile and the Red Sea: and, by sending large supplies of grain by the canal to Suez, he was able to relieve the inhabitants of Mecca, who were suffering from famine. After more than one interruption from neglect, the policy of the caliphs of Baghdad allowed it to fall into decay, and it was filled up by Almansor, 762-767 A.D.

[Sidenote: [640-646 A.D.]]

As soon as the Arabs had settled the affairs of the native population, they laid siege to Alexandria. This city made a vigorous defence, and Heraclius exerted himself to succour it; but, though it held out for several months, it was at last taken by the Arabs, for the troubles which occurred at Constantinople after the death of Heraclius prevented the Roman government from sending reinforcements to the garrison. The confidence of the Saracens induced them to leave a feeble corps for its defence after they had taken it; and the Roman troops, watching an opportunity for renewing the war, recovered the city, and massacred the Mohammedans, but were soon compelled to retire to their ships, and make their escape. In less than five years (646 A.D.), a Roman army, sent by the emperor Constans under the command of Manuel, again recovered possession of Alexandria, by the assistance of the Greek inhabitants who had remained in the place; but the Mohammedans soon appeared before the city, and, with the assistance of the Egyptians, compelled the imperial troops to abandon their conquest.[39] The walls of Alexandria were thrown down, the Greek population driven out, and the commercial importance of the city destroyed. Thus perished one of the most remarkable colonies of the Greek nation, and one of the most renowned seats of that Greek civilisation of which Alexander the Great had laid the foundations in the East, after having flourished in the highest degree of prosperity for nearly a thousand years.

The conquest of Cyrenaīca followed the subjugation of Egypt as an immediate consequence. The Greeks are said to have planted their first colonies in this country 631 years before the Christian era, and twelve centuries of uninterrupted possession appeared to have constituted them the perpetual tenants of the soil; but the Arabs were very different masters from the Romans, and under their domination the Greek race soon became extinct in Africa. It is not necessary here to follow the Saracens in their farther conquests westward. In a short time both Latin and Greek civilisation was exterminated on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.

Though Heraclius failed in gaining over the Syrians and Egyptians, yet he succeeded completely in reuniting the Greeks of Asia Minor to his government, and in attaching them to the empire. His success may be estimated from the failure of the Saracens in their attacks on the population of this province. The moment the Mohammedan armies were compelled to rely on their military skill and religious enthusiasm, and were unable to derive any profit from the hostile feeling of the inhabitants to the imperial government, their career of conquest was checked; and almost a century before Charles Martel stopped their progress in the west of Europe, the Greeks had arrested their conquests in the East, by the steady resistance which they offered in Asia Minor.

The difficulties of Heraclius were very great. The Roman armies were still composed of a rebellious soldiery collected from many discordant nations; and the only leaders whom the emperor could venture to trust with important military commands, were his immediate relations, like his brother Theodore and his son Heraclius Constantine, or soldiers of fortune who could not aspire at the imperial dignity. The apostasy and treachery of a considerable number of the Roman officers in Syria warranted Heraclius in regarding the defence of that province as utterly hopeless; but the meagre historians of his reign can hardly be received as conclusive authorities, to prove that on his retreat he displayed an unseemly despair, or a criminal indifference. The fact that he carried the holy cross, which he had restored to Jerusalem, along with him to Constantinople, attests that he had lost all expectation of defending the Holy City; but his exclamation of “Farewell, Syria!” was doubtless uttered in the bitterness of his heart, on seeing a great part of the labours of his life for the restoration of the Roman Empire utterly vain.

The disease which had long undermined his constitution finally put an end to his life about five years after his return to Constantinople. He died in March, 641, after one of the most remarkable reigns recorded in history, chequered by the greatest successes and reverses, during which the social condition of mankind underwent a considerable change, and the germs of modern society began to sprout; yet there is, unfortunately, no period of man’s annals covered with greater obscurity.

THE REIGN OF CONSTANS II (641-668 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [641-668 A.D.]]

After the death of Heraclius, the short reigns of his sons, Constantine III, or Heraclius Constantine, and Heracleonas, were disturbed by court intrigues and the disorders which naturally result from the want of a settled law of succession. In such conjunctures the people and the courtiers learn alike to traffic in sedition. Before the termination of the year in which Heraclius died, his grandson Constans II mounted the imperial throne at the age of eleven, in consequence of the death of his father Constantine, and the dethronement of his uncle Heracleonas.[40] An oration made by the young prince to the senate after his accession, in which he invoked the aid of that body, and spoke of their power in terms of reverence, warrants the conclusion that the aristocracy had again recovered its influence over the imperial administration; and that, though the emperor’s authority was still held to be absolute by the constitution of the empire, it was really controlled by the influence of the persons holding ministerial offices.[41]

Constans grew up to be a man of considerable abilities and of an energetic character, but possessed of violent passions, and destitute of all the amiable feelings of humanity. The early part of his reign, during which the imperial ministers were controlled by the selfish aristocracy, was marked by the loss of several portions of the empire. The Lombards extended their conquests in Italy from the maritime Alps to the frontiers of Tuscany; and the exarch of Ravenna was defeated with considerable loss near Mutina; but still they were unable to make any serious impression on the exarchate. Armenia was compelled to pay tribute to the Saracens. Cyprus was rendered tributary to the caliph, though the amount of the tribute imposed was only seventy-two hundred pieces of gold--half of what it had previously paid to the emperor. This trifling sum can have hardly amounted to the moiety of the surplus usually paid into the imperial treasury after all the expenses of the local government were defrayed, and cannot have borne any relation to the amount of taxation levied by the Roman emperors.

RELIGIOUS FEUDS

[Sidenote: [641-653 A.D.]]

As soon as Constans was old enough to assume the direction of public business, the two great objects of his policy were the establishment of the absolute power of the emperor over the orthodox church, and the recovery of the lost provinces of the empire. With the view of obtaining and securing a perfect control over the ecclesiastical affairs of his dominions, he published an edict, called the _Type_, in the year 648, when he was only eighteen years old. It was prepared by Paul the patriarch of Constantinople and was intended to terminate the disputes produced by the _Ecthesis_ of Heraclius. All parties were commanded by the _Type_ to observe a profound silence on the previous quarrels concerning the operation of the will in Christ. Liberty of conscience was an idea almost unknown to any but the Mohammedans, so that Constans never thought of appealing to any such right; and no party in the Christian church was inclined to waive its orthodox authority of enforcing its own opinions upon others.

The Latin church, led by the bishop of Rome, was always ready to oppose the Greek clergy, who enjoyed the favour of the imperial court, and this jealousy engaged the pope in violent opposition to the _Type_. But the bishop of Rome was not then so powerful as the popes became at a subsequent period, so that he durst not attempt directly to question the authority of the emperor in regulating such matters. Perhaps it appeared to him hardly prudent to rouse the passions of a young prince of eighteen, who might prove not very bigoted in his attachment to any party, as, indeed, the provisions of the _Type_ seemed to indicate.

The pope Theodore therefore directed the whole of his ecclesiastical fury against the patriarch of Constantinople, whom he excommunicated with circumstances of singular and impressive violence. He descended with his clergy into the dark tomb of St. Peter in the Vatican, now under the centre of the dome in the vault of the great cathedral of Christendom, consecrated the sacred cup, and, having dipped his pen in the blood of Christ, signed an act of excommunication, condemning a brother bishop to the pains of hell. To this indecent proceeding Paul the patriarch replied by persuading the emperor to persecute the clergy who adhered to the pope’s opinion, in a more regular and legal manner, by depriving them of their temporalities, and condemning them to banishment.

The pope was supported by nearly the whole body of the Latin clergy, and even by a considerable party in the East; yet, when Martin, the successor of Theodore, ventured to anathematise the _Ecthesis_ and the _Type_, he was seized by order of Constans, conveyed to Constantinople, tried, and condemned on a charge of having supported the rebellion of the exarch Olympius, and of having remitted money to the Saracens. The emperor, at the intercession of the patriarch Paul, commuted his punishment to exile, and the pope died in banishment at Cherson in Tauris. Though Constans did not succeed in inculcating his doctrines on the clergy, he completely succeeded in enforcing public obedience to his decrees in the church, and the fullest acknowledgment of his supreme power over the persons of the clergy. These disputes between the heads of the ecclesiastical administration of the Greek and Latin churches afforded an excellent pretext for extending the breach, which had its real origin in national feelings and clerical interests, and was only widened by the difficult and not very intelligible distinctions of monothelitism. Constans himself, by his vigour and personal activity in this struggle, incurred the bitter hatred of a large portion of the clergy, and his conduct has been unquestionably the object of much misrepresentation and calumny.

THE GROWING DANGER FROM THE SARACENS

[Sidenote: [650-658 A.D.]]

The attention of Constans to ecclesiastical affairs induced him to visit Armenia, where his attempts to unite the people to his government by regulating the affairs of their church, were as unsuccessful as his religious interference elsewhere. Dissensions were increased; one of the imperial officers of high rank rebelled; and the Saracens availed themselves of this state of things to invade both Armenia and Cappadocia, and succeeded in rendering several districts tributary. The increasing power of Moawyah, the Arab general, induced him to form a project for the conquest of Constantinople, and he began to fit out a great naval expedition at Tripolis in Syria. A daring enterprise of two brothers, Christian inhabitants of the place, rendered the expedition abortive. These two Tripolitans and their partisans broke open the prisons in which the Roman captives were confined, and placing themselves at the head of an armed band which they had hastily formed, seized the city, slew the governor, and burned the fleet.

A second armament was at length prepared by the energy of Moawyah, and as it was reported to be directed against Constantinople, the emperor Constans took upon himself the command of his own fleet. He met the Saracen expedition off Mount Phœnix in Lycia and attacked it with great vigour. Twenty thousand Romans are said to have perished in the battle; and the emperor himself owed his safety to the valour of one of the Tripolitan brothers, whose gallant defence of the imperial galley enabled the emperor to escape before its valiant defender was slain and the vessel fell into the hands of the Saracens. The emperor retired to Constantinople, but the hostile fleet had suffered too much to attempt any further operations, and the expedition was abandoned for that year. The death of Othman, and the pretensions of Moawyah (or Muaviah) to the caliphate, withdrew the attention of the Arabs from the empire for a short time, and Constans turned his forces against the Slavonians, in order to deliver the European provinces from their ravages. They were totally defeated, numbers were carried off as slaves, and many were compelled to submit to the imperial authority. No certain grounds exist for determining whether this expedition was directed against the Slavonians who had established themselves between the Danube and Mount Hæmus, or against those who had settled in Macedonia. The name of no town is mentioned in the accounts of the campaign.

[Sidenote: [658-665 A.D.]]

When the affairs of the European provinces, in the vicinity of the capital, were tranquillised, Constans again prepared to engage the Arabs; and Moawyah, having need of all the forces he could command for his contest with Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, consented to make peace, on terms which contrast curiously with the perpetual defeats which Constans is always represented by the orthodox historians of the empire to have suffered. The Saracens engaged to confine their forces within Syria and Mesopotamia, and Moawyah consented to pay Constans, for the cessation of hostilities, the sum of a thousand pieces of silver, and to furnish him with a slave and a horse for every day during which the peace should continue (659 A.D.).

During the subsequent year, Constans condemned to death his brother Theodosius, whom he had compelled to enter the priesthood. The cause of this crime, or the pretext for it, is not mentioned. From this brother’s hand, the emperor had often received the sacrament; and the fratricide is supposed to have rendered a residence at Constantinople insupportable to the conscience of the criminal, who was reported nightly to behold the spectre of his brother offering him the consecrated cup, filled with human blood, and exclaiming, “Drink, brother!” Certain it is that, two years after his brother’s death, Constans quitted his capital, with the intention of never returning; and he was only prevented, by an insurrection of the people, from carrying off the empress and his children. He meditated the reconquest of Italy from the Lombards, and proposed rendering Rome again the seat of empire. On his way to Italy the emperor stopped at Athens, where he assembled a considerable body of troops. This casual mention of Athens by Latin writers affords strong evidence of the tranquil, flourishing, and populous condition of the city and country around. The Slavonian colonies in Greece must, at this time, have owned perfect allegiance to the imperial power, or Constans would certainly have employed his army in reducing them to subjection. From Athens, the emperor sailed to Italy; he landed with his forces at Tarentum, and attempted to take Beneventum, the chief seat of the Lombard power in the south of Italy. His troops were twice defeated, and he then abandoned all his projects of conquest.

The emperor himself repaired to Rome. His visit lasted only a fortnight. According to the writers who describe the event, he consecrated twelve days to religious ceremonies and processions, and the remaining two he devoted to plundering the wealth of the church. His personal acquaintance with the affairs of Italy and the state of Rome, soon convinced him that the Eternal City was ill adapted for the capital of the empire, and he quitted it for Sicily, where he fixed on Syracuse for his future residence. Grimwald, the able monarch of the Lombards, and his son Romwald, the duke of Beneventum, continued the war in Italy with vigour. Brundusium and Tarentum were captured, and the Romans expelled from Calabria, so that Otranto and Gallipoli were the only towns on the eastern coast of which Constans retained possession.

[Sidenote: [665-668 A.D.]]