The Historians' History of the World 08

After Maurice had been overthrown by a mutiny and slain, and the vile Phocas elevated to the imperial throne (November, 602), Chosroes looked upon himself as in a state of war against the Romans, in the capacity of avenger of his “father” Maurice, and protector of his putative son Theodosius, who had taken refuge with him. Furthermore Narses, who was in command at Edessa, appealed to him against Phocas. Chosroes, therefore, made a beginning by imprisoning the ambassadors by whose hand Phocas informed him of his accession. The actual war probably commenced at the beginning of 604. For twenty years the Roman Empire was overrun by Persian armies as it never had been before, so disordered was it by Phocas, so harassed by Avars and other barbarous tribes. Chosroes was present in person at the taking of Dara, after which he took no active part in the war. In a few years the Persian armies had pressed forward far on the road to Asia Minor, even reaching Chalcedon, opposite Constantinople.

The fact that the power of the Persian Empire was not very firmly based for all that, is shown by an event, in itself insignificant, which falls within this period (between 604 and 610), the battle of Dhu Kar. Chosroes had abolished the kingdom of Hira, and caused Nohman, the last king, to be put to death. By this means the empire was quit of a vassal state which had often proved troublesome; but, on the other hand, it was henceforward far more difficult to gain an ascendency over the savage tribes of the desert, and prevent them from making raids upon the cultivated regions. After the fall of Nohman, the Bedouin tribes of Bekr ben Wail succeeded in inflicting a total defeat on an imperial army consisting of Arabs and Persian regular troops at Dhu Kar, not far from the Euphrates and a few days’ march from Ctesiphon, and holding the territory out of which the Persians wished to drive them. This victory of Arabs over Persians, magnified by national vanity, greatly encouraged the former in their self-esteem, and strengthened the confidence of the Moslems when they attacked the empire.

CONFLICT WITH HERACLIUS; FALL OF CHOSROES II

[610-628 A.D.]

The war with the Romans continued to make successful progress, after Phocas had been overthrown, by his able successor Heraclius (October, 610). The latter, seeing himself hard pressed on all sides, sued in vain for peace. Damascus was taken in 613. The surrounding country, which had never been trodden by Persian feet since the founding of the empire, was laid so utterly waste that to this day countless ruins bear witness to these ravages. In the June of 614 Jerusalem was taken. The whole of Christendom was horrified by the tidings that, together with the patriarch, the Persians had carried off the “Holy life-giving Cross” of Christ. Egypt was next conquered, and Asia Minor again overrun as far as to Chalcedon. Not till 622 was Heraclius able to take the field against the Persians. He took ship for the Bay of Issus, thence pressed forward to Armenia and the regions about the Pontus, and for the first time in the campaign inspired the enemy with respect for the Roman arms. The loss of church treasures must be reckoned as a heavy item in the cost of the war. On the 15th of March, 623, Heraclius at length started upon the great military expedition which led him again and again into the heart of Persian territory. The almost extravagant daring of his cross-marches and transverse marches, in which he was generally deprived of all communication with his base and must have had great difficulty in feeding his troops, prove him a great commander and a great statesman.

In the first year of the campaign he destroyed one of the most sacred sanctuaries of the Persians, the Fire temple of Ganjak, not far from the Lake of Urumiyeh; it was his reply to the destruction of Jerusalem. We find him now in the vicinity of the Caucasus, now in the east of Asia Minor, now, again, in Mesopotamia, never vanquished, often victorious, more often still, it may be, weakening or deluding superior forces by skilful movements. Chosroes, who felt the emperor disquietingly near at Ganjak, sent Shahrbaraz, the most famous of his generals, with a great army direct to Chalcedon to draw him off (626).

It was an anxious time for Constantinople, with the Persians on this side and the Avars on that (in the summer of 626), and the emperor almost beyond knowledge in the remote parts of Asia. But the Avars soon withdrew, seeing that the Persians, having no fleet, could not undertake concerted operations with them on the far side of the Bosporus. In retaliation Heraclius brought the savage Khazars, from the north of the Caucasus, into Persian territory. At length, in 627, he ventured into the chief province of the monarchy. He kept the “feast of lights” (January 6th, 628) at Dastagerd, only about three days’ journey from Ctesiphon, where Chosroes had held his court regularly for the last twenty years.