Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

150 4 The diplomatic solutions
Kavādh II entrusted the memorandum to his Persian commander Phaiak
and sent him to Heraclius’ camp at Gandzak. 154 Unfortunately, Heraclius’
response has not survived. 155 We owe a short summary to Nikephoros I, who
was patriarch of Constantinople between 806 and 815 and whose earliest
work, an account of the period between 602 and 769, incorporates many
lost sources of the seventh and eighth centuries. According to Nikephoros
Heraclius called Kavādh II his son and assured him that he would never
deprive a king of his legitimate throne. The emperor proclaimed that Xusrō
II had received divine punishment, which he deserved, and that divine guidance
was fostering reconciliation between himself and Kavādh. 156 Heraclius
thus also expressed his desire for peace and offered terms that even from a
Sasanian perspective were moderate and acceptable. 157
The emperor entrusted the tabularius Eustanthios to work out the details
of a peace treaty. After the Sasanian ambassador Phaiak had spent just under
a week in the Roman camp Heraclius sent both to the court of Kavādh II. 158
Our sources do not reveal the exact terms of the foedus of 628. Only isolated
notes and later events allow us to reconstruct the content of the treaty. 159
One important hint comes from Theophanes Confessor, who between
810/11 and 814 continued the incomplete chronicle of his friend Georgios
Synkellos and covers the period between 284 and 813. 160 His narrative is
generally reliable and was a source for many later chroniclers.
Theophanes, Chronographia i, p. 327 (ed. C. de Boor)
After peace had been concluded between Persians and Romans in this year, the
emperor sent his own brother Theodore together with letters and men dispatched
by ˇ Sērōē, the Persian king, in order that they send back peacefully to Persia those
Persians in Edessa and Palestine, Jerusalem and the remaining Roman cities and
that these could pass through Roman territory without harm. The emperor, who
had defeated Persia in six years, made peace in the seventh year and returned to
Constantinople with great joy.
We learn that Heraclius gave permission for all Persians who were still on
Roman territory to make their way into Sasanian territory. He entrusted his
brother Theodore with the supervision of this task. Apparently it had been
154 Chr. pasch. a. 628.
155 Cf. the attempts for a restoration of the text in Oikonomidès 1971: 269–81.
156 Nikephoros 22b–23b (p. 19–20 ed. de Boor); Mango 1990: 15.
157 Stratos 1968: 237 emphasises the moderate attitude of the Byzantine emperor, ‘Heraclios did not
make the same mistake as Justinian. He neither wished to humiliate nor to weaken Persia. He was
aiming at restoration of the 591 frontiers, as if to show that the Greeks had no thought of conquest.
This was why he immediately accepted the peace terms offered by Kavad, the new King of Persia.’
158 Chr. pasch. a. 628. 159 Rawlinson 1875: 535–6 and 693–4. 160 Mango and Scott 1997.