ABSTRACT
In 610 a new emperor, Heraclius, came reluctantly to the throne at the age of 36. His unwillingness to take on the job reflected the challenges the Empire faced on several fronts. Things might have been grim at the beginning of his reign but by the end, thirty years later, they were much grimmer and he died a broken man. On all of the Empire’s frontiers, he faced daunting challenges but the east was to deliver the worst catalogue of disasters. A year after his succession, the Persians had already sliced right through the eastern provinces and taken Antioch: the disaster scenario which Byzantium’s hugely expensive shield of forts and limes stretching 600 kilometres to the Khabur River in Syria’s north-east was supposed to have prevented. This time it was no summer raid but a determined occupation and the rest of Syria quickly fell into Persian hands. The Sasanian King of Kings, Chosroes II, even took Alexandria in 619, finally realising the Persian obsession with rolling back the conquests of Alexander.1
