Herakleios

   Emperor (610-641); son of the exarch of Carthage (qq.v.), also named Herakleios. This younger Herakleios sailed from Carthage with a fleet that overthrew the tyrant Phokas (q.v.). During the first decade of his reign the Persians (q.v.) handed him a series of military reverses, including the capture of Jerusalem (q.v.) in 614, and in 618 the first stages of the Persian annexation of Egypt (which lasted unitl 629). Indicative of the general despair was Herakleios's proposal to return to Carthage, something the patriarch Sergios I (qq.v.) dissuaded him from doing. Finally, in 622 the emperor launched a series of heroic campaigns against Chosroes II (q.v.) that kept the emperor away from Constantinople for almost a decade. When the Persians and Avars (q.v.) attacked the city in 626, patriarch Sergios had to lead its defense. The following year Herakleios inflicted a crushing blow on Persian armies at Ninevah. The collapse of the Persian state in 630 and restoration of the Holy Cross (q.v.) ended four centuries of intermittent warfare between Byzantium and Persia (qq.v.). However, the fruits of Herakleios's great victory evaporated with the victory of the Arabs (q.v.) in 636 at the battle of Yarmuk (q.v.). When Herakleios died the Arabs controlled Syria, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt (qq.v.). Herakleios's final years were a dismal story of relentless Arab expansion and of court intrigues by his second wife (and niece) Martina (q.v.), who aimed at gaining succession for her son Heraklonas (q.v.). There were also vain attempts to pacify the adherents to Monophysitism, and to resolve controversies over Monoenergism, Monotheletism (qq.v.), and, finally, Herakleios's own Ekthesis (q.v.).