Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

110 4. the successors of justinian
authority completely, and this hiatus permitted the Persians to extend their
conquests across the Euphrates and on to the Anatolian plateau. A Roman
counter-offensive failed, and major disasters ensued: in 614 Jerusalem was
captured and the True Cross taken into captivity; Egypt, the granary of
Constantinople, was invaded in 616 and Alexandria fell in 619. To face this
onslaught Heraclius transferred troops from the Balkans, where peace with
the Avars had to be purchased at a rapidly increasing price; the less organized
Slavs ravaged extensively throughout the peninsula and the Aegean
islands. Heraclius himself was almost taken prisoner while attempting to
negotiate an agreement with the Avar Chagan at Heracleia in 623, and it is
clear that the emperor’s authority scarcely stretched beyond the Long Walls
of Constantinople. In this crisis Heraclius took personal charge of the
armies, and energetic campaigning in the 620s gradually turned the military
balance in Anatolia, even though the Persians remained in control of the
whole of the near east and occupied Chalcedon on the Bosphorus. The
year 626 was critical for Roman survival. Constantinople withstood a short
but fierce attack co-ordinated by the Avars; this failure was a serious blow
to the Chagan’s prestige, and contributed to the fragmentation of his federation.
By 627 Heraclius was ravaging Azerbaijan, the spiritual heart of
Persia; victory at Nineveh and an advance on Ctesiphon led to a coup
against Khusro II, and Heraclius was able to arrange a favourable peace
with his successor Shiroe. Thereafter the Sasanid dynasty lapsed into
dynastic chaos.
This triumph, like that of Maurice in 591, could have been the cue for a
determined recovery of Roman affairs in other parts of the empire.
Heraclius made a start. The restoration of the relic of the True Cross to
Jerusalem was a major ceremonial triumph, and he attempted to translate
his divinely achieved military success into a resolution of the long-standing
divide between Monophysites and Chalcedonians. Here, however, his
compromise formulae, the Monergist and Monothelete doctrines, achieved
no more success than similar initiatives by Zeno in the fifth century and by
Justinian and Justin II in the sixth: any move towards the Monophysite
position was regarded as heresy by Chalcedonian traditionalists, especially
in the west. In the Balkans Heraclius may have taken advantage of the collapse
of Avar power to make agreements with some of the emerging
smaller tribal groups, such as the Croats and Serbs, but our evidence for
events here is extremely sketchy. Constantinople itself had suffered a considerable
loss of population: a major aqueduct destroyed during the Avar
siege in 626 was not repaired for 150 years. Further west, if Africa appears
to have remained relatively peaceful, much of Italy was firmly under
Lombard control. The potential for recovery was shattered by the Arab
attacks on Palestine which began in 633. Three years later at the Yarmuk a
large imperial army was defeated, and Heraclius then withdrew Roman
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