eugyppius

Just to clarify, I'm splitting the political history across two threads, rather than one as initially planned, and this is canonical official history, as boring as possible; and will not include any alternative or conspiracy theories. Those come later.

Also, we will leave religious matters out of it as much as possible. That will be its own thread. Also the Avars, will be a minimal focus here. Persia and Arabia are the big story of the years from 602 to 668.

In Part I we mainly talked about Justinian. From him we must skip forward a few emperors, to Maurice. He is acclaimed in AD 582, and attempts to hold Justinian's restored empire in the West together, while also maintaining secure borders in the East.

This is a hard thing to do. Ultimately, Maurice fails. Financing for these massive military projects is insufficient. It seems that while Justinian was able to restore some basic jurisdiction over the western empire, the old taxation system was never brought fully back online.

So Maurice is faced with the problem of defending just as much territory, but with vastly less funds. He has to cut pay to the armies. The armies mutiny. He manages to save the situation. Then he tries to do the same thing again in 602 and is overthrown.

Chosroes takes Phocas's usurpation as grounds to invade the eastern empire. The pretence is that he is defending or avenging Maurice, his old benefactor. This opens a 25-year war, from AD 602-627, in which the Persians very nearly overrun all of Byzantium.

This is the beginning of the Disaster of the 7th Century I mentioned last time – a disaster directly equivalent to the barbarian invasions that toppled the western Empire, but far for sudden and drastic.

Throughout this period, Phocas mostly fails to mount any effective resistance. By 608, there are plans in the works to get rid of him, masterminded by the exarch at Carthage. Heraclius, the exarch's son, sails to Constantinople, executes Phocas, and is acclaimed in his place.

Heraclius of course the most famous Byzantine emperor, the one all school children know. He reigned from AD 610-641. But at first he was not very successful. The Persians have gained tremendous momentum, by the time he comes to power.

They take Jerusalem in AD 613, and they carry off the relics of the True Cross. They occupy Chalcedon briefly in 617, which puts Persian armies within spitting distance of Constantinople.

They invade Egypt in 618. They capture Ancyra 620-622. Rhodes & other Aegean islands fall to the Persians in 622/3. Things are so bad, Heraclius even contemplates moving the seat of government westwards, to Carthage.

(I don't care if nobody reads this I will tweet the bitter end.)

Now the Avars take advantage of the absence of Roman armies (which are away campaigning against the Persians), to make their own incursions into Roman territory across the Danube.

Heraclius can only begin to reverse this situation and beat back the Persians after 622. The last major moment of crisis comes in 626, when the Slavs/Avars in the Balkans & the Persians make coordinated assaults on Constantinople.

The city is besieged, but Heraclius ultimately wins. The Persians retreat. Chosroes is so politically discredited at home that he is deposed and killed as Roman armies enter Persia itself. The Persians conclude a peace.

The relics of the True Cross are restored to Jerusalem, a historical moment that the Latin crusaders of the High Middle Ages will remember centuries later.

But the victory is short-lived. Arab tribes united by the divine revelations of the Prophet Muhammad begin their offensive, against all the very same territories that had previously fallen to the Persians, in 630.

For centuries Rome had feared the Avars & the Persians. To a lesser extent they had also feared the barbarian tribes of southern Europe, and the Berbers in North Africa. The thing is, that nobody had ever conceived a military threat would flow forth from the deserts of Arabia.

(Yes, there are alternative views of what happened. In many ways they are more compelling and we will explore them later, probably in Part IV).https://twitter.com/Sunshine2014x/status/1392868623455293450?s=20 …

Heraclius's armies suffer a major defeat against the Arabs at the Battle of Yarmuk in 636. Thereafter Syria is gone. And the other territories fall, in almost the same order as they fell to the Persians two decades previously.

In 638/9, Palestine is lost. Armenia and Mesopotamia fall in 639/40. The Arabs are in the process of seizing Egypt when Heraclius dies in 641.

An important aspect of all these defeats, is they seem to happen fairly easily. The sources aren't always totally clear, but it seems obvious the Arabs don't meet much resistance in their invasion. On the one hand, it is probably true that the long war with the Persians ...

... had thoroughly exhausted the eastern empire. But it is also standard to suppose that the easternmost provinces, which were Monophysite, felt religiously alienated from the (more overtly Chalcedonian) Roman empire and weren't much interested in being a part of it any longer.

The gods don't want you to see it, for some reason. It's of course totally wrong as Chosroes as killed before Heraclius ever got to him, but whatever. The point is these stories live on in western imagination.

Now back to our history. After some succession squabbling, including very possibly the poisoning of Heraclius's eldest son Constantine, it's the grandson Constans II who finally gets to be sole emperor. He is only 11 years old. He will rule until 668.

At first, the Arabs continue their advance through North Africa. The Romans retake Alexandria briefly, but lose it again, this time for good, in 646. Armenia is now under threat. Arabs are raiding into Cappadocia. They lay seige to Caesarea .

From AD 650, the Arabs begin to challenge the Byzantines at sea as well, an ominous new development. Their fleet lays waste to Rhodes in 654, pillages Crete, etc.