So, speaking of which, let's talk about Heraclius. He didn't make your list either, which is a shocker for a lot of people. Perhaps you can describe the nuance of that, but he took over the Roman Empire on the verge of extinction. Persians at the gates, treasury empty. So, maybe first tell the full saga of the Roman-Persian war that threatened the empire's existence.
Sure. Well, he wasn't entirely, you know, free of blame for the situation that he inherited. He was in part responsible for it. So, he doesn't get a pass on that.
So, Heraclius is basically a rebel and a usurper. So for various reasons, Rome and Persia are at war starting around 602. And the Persian Shah at this time, Khusro II, has basically decided on a policy of conquest, not just raiding. Like, I'm going to go in and take your people, some cattle, and some statues and take them to, you know, Mesopotamia. He starts what I mean I think there's some evolution in his thinking and his planning about this but pretty soon during the 600s and as he realizes that there's potential for actual permanent territorial gain here and his armies start moving in and the Roman emperor is this guy called Phocas who is himself a usurper with a military background and he now faces a rebellion by Heraclius whose base is in North Africa at this time like around Carthage. And they have a civil war for three years, 608 to 610.
That civil war that Heraclius initiates causes a diversion of Roman armies to the civil war away from the Persian front. So, it's a massive gift to the Persians. Plus, a lot of the fighting takes place in Egypt. And Egypt was a province that had up until that point not really been harmed by war. Now, it is. So, Heraclius's forces, he's not in Egypt, but his backers are fighting a civil war in Egypt. So, that province is now, you know, ravaged in part. The Persians make tremendous gains in the east. Heraclius heads straight for Constantinople during all of this. And to make a long story short, he manages to take Constantinople, execute Phocas, and become emperor. Right? But now he's facing a problem that's much worse than it was before he started the rebellion. The reason why Heraclius is sort of lionized and so well actually there's a very long tradition of doing this which goes back to the Middle Ages in Western Middle Ages. Heraclius was sometimes considered like the first crusader.
Yeah. So there's all this medieval literature about Heraclius as being a proto-crusader type and all that for reconquering like Jerusalem from the Persians and restoring the True Cross and all that. So he had this kind of aura and I think his modern admirers are basically just continuing I mean they might not know it but they're kind of continuing this very very long tradition of treating Heraclius as this heroic holy warrior. Anyway, from my standpoint, it's a complete wash. In other words, yes, he does beat the Persians. And he gets like in my view full credit for that, though he did it with I think the help of some Turkish allies from Central Asia. These were I think the major component of his success at the very end. But no, no. So he held the Persians off and ultimately defeated them. Yes. And then he loses everything to the Arabs.
So the Arab conquests are 630s and 640s, but the Persian war is 602 to 628.
So what can be said about this what seems to be a pretty costly war I guess Persians.
So the war was costly initially only for the Romans. The eastern provinces were conquered by Persia. That means Syria, Palestine, Egypt. So that's a loss.
You lose all that revenue. And then they start raiding into Asia Minor.
By the way, this is exactly what the Arabs would do, you know, just a couple decades later. They would conquer Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and they would start raiding into Asia Minor. So almost like this phase of East Roman history begins already during the Persian invasion. It's just a kind of a prelude. It was in fact the Arabs that would do that for the next few centuries. So, Heraclius, it takes him a very long time to get organized. In fact, something like 15 years. And it's not entirely clear like what he's doing all this time. But he ultimately manages to defeat the Persians by waging these really spectacular weird campaigns in the east. He decides to strike into the Persian heartland as it were. Well, first in the Caucasus region and then he goes into Mesopotamia. So, not to try to defeat their armies that are rampaging around Asia Minor or even besieging his capital in 626. The Persians and the Avars, people from this nomadic warrior group that settled in roughly modern Hungary. They're besieging Constantinople. Heraclius doesn't even go. And he's just kind of preparing his armies in the east. And he strikes the Persians right where it hurts. And this now begins to degrade the Persian heartland and their infrastructure because remember both of these empires are going to be in shambles by the time the Arabs come along. And this is what enables the Arabs to conquer them so quickly. They destroyed each other in these wars. And eventually Heraclius calls in his Turkish allies and they go on a field trip through Mesopotamia. And this causes a coup in Persia and Khusro is killed.
Is there something to be said a little bit of texture to the motivations of the different empires and the different groups involved? So the East Roman Empire, the Persian Empire and the Islamic Caliphates, were they after conquering? Were they after expansion? Were they after more like raiding for financial benefits? What was the motivation?
So in the past the Persian Shahs basically were interested in raiding and they also had an interest in manpower. So all of those Mesopotamian agricultural estates won't till themselves. So they just they were kind of insatiable for agricultural workforces and specialized craftsmen and people like that. So they would go into the empire and get them. But in this phase it seems that Khusro II is taking really to heart the idea that the Persian Empire should really extend to the Mediterranean as it did in like Achaemenid times right in ancient history the empire that Alexander conquered. So it seems that the Sasanians, this is this dynasty, this Iranian dynasty that's ruling the Persian Empire, of course they were aware of the Achaemenids, but sometimes they would have these claims to reviving the former greatness of the Iranian Empire.
So, you know, bathing in the Mediterranean Sea is something that many Near Eastern monarchs, you know, they did this as a sign of success. Anyway, for the Romans, it was sheer survival, just desperate survival because they knew that this was a war that could end the Roman state.
And here they're defensive wars of survival.
So, it's pretty clear that initially the goal of Arab Muslim warfare is to unify Arabia, that is that all Arabs should be Muslim and should be unified into this religious kind of state whatever that the prophet and his successors had created. Now then they start striking out into Rome and into Iran. And it's not entirely clear like why. Now there are obvious reasons like I mean we don't it's not like a huge historical mystery why a you know recently formed successful army will decide to take on two very weak opponents who are on their doorstep like this is not you know complicated.
conquest. Yeah but they're striking both empires from a direction that those empires had never prepared to defend from. Arabia was just not, oh, you might get some occasional raiders. You're never going to get an army that's coming out that can potentially conquer you. So, the defensive orientations are all wrong.
And these two empires have gone through this massive war that has destabilized them. They're low on manpower, low on resources. The outcome is almost kind of inevitable. I don't think there's a great mystery. And the effect of that is they stripped away the richest provinces of the Roman Empire.
Yes. Egypt in particular. So that means now you can't feed Constantinople. Like we talked about the grain from Egypt, right? That came to Constantinople. You don't have that now.
And so that means that the population of Constantinople will decline dramatically over the next few decades. So how does the empire rebuild itself, you know, restabilize? Because it's not it doesn't collapse there, right?
It stays it survives. There's interesting low points for the empire where it still survives.
This is one of them.
And that is just interesting as the survival at the top and the flourishing survival at the bottom is also super interesting. So how do what what what happens? How does it kind of stabilize?
Very slowly. This is a painful process and it takes them centuries you could say.
First you got to stop the bleeding just try to hold the line. It takes them decades to just to hold a line. Like they get pummeled by the Arabs for decades in the 7th century until finally by yeah 660s 670 they finally begin to beat them on land and hold the line on the sea. And so we now have an investment in fleets. Eventually you get the Greek fire which is the flamethrowers. And when the Arabs try to take Constantinople these attempts are defeated like twice and that ensures the survival of this of the Roman state in some form.
