ABSTRACT
The East Roman empire seemed doomed to destruction in the winter of 621/2. The new emperor Heraclius flung all his campaigns into final, desperate bid to halt the Persian advance. He expelled them from Anatolia in 612 but was then decisively defeated outside Antioch in 613. Thereafter the Persians encountered only limited local resistance as they set about occupying the rich Roman provinces of the Near East which were now cut off from the organizing centre of the empire except by sea. Syria and Palestine were rapidly overrun in the course of the four years, which saw two devastating Persian invasions of Asia Minor. Then it was the turn of Egypt to face the massed armies of Sasanian Shah Khusro. The provincial capital, Alexandria, fell in 619 and subsequent mopping-up operations consolidated the Persian hold on the province by the end of 621.
