Justinian and Constantine are some of the best-known Roman Emperors of the later periods. In comparison with the emperors after the reign of Justinian, these two are well-known for their exploits and their achievements. However, this is doing a disservice to all the emperors that came afterward and especially obscures the importance that those emperors had in shaping the history of the Byzantine Empire. One of those emperors was the emperor Heraclius.
Heraclius is one of the best-known emperors after Justinian and Constantine. He was a Christian emperor and figures quite prominently in the Bible and the Quran. However, his importance in the secular history of the Byzantine Empire is quite vital for the survival of the Byzantine Empire for centuries to come.
Justinian, whose reign ended with the triumph of the empire in Italy over the Ostrogoths, is considered by many historians to be more consequential emperor in some ways but I would disagree with them.
Heraclius is the most consequential Byzantine Emperor of all time. He is the reason why the empire would continue thriving for centuries to come.
Without Heraclius, the empire would have fallen to the Sassanid Empire and we would probably be speaking Persian right about now. Christianity would be subordinate to Zoroastrians running Europe.
Heraclius saved the empire from the treachery of the emperor Phocas. Had Phocas remained in power, it probably likely that he would have done very poorly against the Persians. The exploitation of the civil unrest between the Byzantines by the Sassanids is probably what was responsible for the great exhausting of the Roman Army, leading to the great Muslim conquests of the 630s. The emperor Maurice was a legendary Byzantine general and emperor who was also friends with the ruling Sassanid Emperor. His downfall would be an excuse for the ruling Sassanid emperor to invade the Roman Empire and seizing many important territories like the Near East and Egypt.
It all looked like the Sassanids were going to take over the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean. However, this was the time for a hero to step in and save the situation. Heraclius and his father were the right choice to save the Byzantines from being defeated by the Sassanids.
Heraclius had to endure through some difficult situations, with the Persians causing great damage to the empire and army. Heraclius was even forced to consider moving the capital to Carthage, where he and his father had begun their uprising against the usurper, Phocas.
However, eventually, Heraclius managed to restore the power of the Byzantine Empire by delivering victory after victory and sacking the capital of the Sassanid Empire, Ctesiphon.
With this victory, Heraclius seemed to be overseeing the restoration of the Byzantine Empire’s fortunes and a new golden age was beginning for the realm. If history would have taken another turn, then the Byzantine Empire would have probably become a rump state in North Africa. The Sassanids would have been able to restore the boundaries of the old Achaemenid empire. Western culture as we know it would probably be totally different. It’s possible that the Persians, in their own histories, would have written this victory as a glorious redemption of their peoples after their conquest by Alexander the Great.
Unfortunately for Heraclius, the Muslims would ride in from the desert and ruin those plans. Heraclius and his army would be defeated at the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 AD, a crucial battle that would change the course of history.
Throughout the next couple of years, the Muslims would overrun tons of territory across both empires, but only the Sassanids would fall, and Islam would take over.
Heraclius may have failed to stem the tide of Islam in the near east, but the Byzantine Empire had some important advantages that allowed for it to not be overrun. The Imperial core was sheltered by a ring of mountains in Anatolia. Furthermore, the Byzantine Empire was more spread out over the Mediterranean than the Sassanids, giving the empire ample time to be able to build defensive fortifications and reinforce its fleets.
Heraclius’ sons and successors to start the construction of the thematic system of provinces that would be the framework under which the Byzantine Empire would operate for centuries to come. However, Heraclius would lay the foundation for the survival of the Byzantine Empire.
Even with the advantages that the Byzantine Empire had, the situation would have been worse had not been for the efforts of Heraclius and his generals. Heraclius’ victory over the Sassanids gave the empire the breathing room that it required in order to weather the Islamic invasions. Had the result gone the other way, It is quite possible that the Sassanids would have suffered losses, but it is unlikely that the Muslims would have been able to take over the entirety of the sprawling empire. The rump Byzantine state would have probably been overwhelmed by the Muslims.
The Sassanid state was in a state of civil war after its defeat by the Byzantines, and it is quite clear that Heraclius’ victory probably weakened the morale of the Sassanid system as a whole, giving the Muslims an opening to take over the entirety of Iran.
Heraclius is the true dividing line between the Latin-speaking Roman Empire and the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire. It is during his reign that the Empire adopted Greek as the official language of the empire. This would be the marking point where the empire transitioned into something different, one that was defined by the Greek language and where old ideals of the Roman Republic would fade and the ”Imperial” nature of the empire would the dominant feature of the empire.
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