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Acknowledgments
This book began to take form in the middle of the 1990s, after I became convinced of the need for a study that takes account of recent scholarship and editions of sources. I thank the Social Science Research Council for a 1996-1997 grant that permitted me to visit Tunisia in order to understand a region where Heraclius once lived. The National Humanities Center and its Director, W.R. Connor, and Deputy Director, Kent Mullikin, gave me a warm and stimulating environment and resources to begin this book. during the course of a Fellowship in academic year 1996-1997. A Fulbright Fellowship to Iraq in the summer of 1988 helped me immeasurably. The University of Chicago Division of Social Sciences and its Dean and my col- league, Richard P. Saller, graciously allowed me the time off to work on this project, as well as divisional funding for my expenses. I thank the libraries of the University of Chicago, Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies for their indispensable help. The Map Collection of Regenstein Library and its head, Christopher Winters, have me in their eternal debt.. I am grateful for the aid of Jeanne Mrad, Director, and the use of the facilities of the Centre d'Etudes Maghrébines in Tunis and Dr. Abdelmajid Ennabli, Director of the National Museum at Carthage, and his wife Liliane Ennabli, in support of my work in Tunisia during 1996 and 1997. I owe much to Todd Hickey, David Olster and my Oriental Institute colleagues Fred Donner, John Sanders, and Tony Wilkinson. Special gratitude goes to Wolfram Brandes, Robert Hewsen, Tim Greenwood, Holger Klein, Cécile Morrisson, Stephen Rapp, Irfan Shahid, and Constantin Zuckerman, who generously shared valuable research with me in advance of publication.. My wife Louise showed me understanding and patience while I withdrew to write. The Canadian Constantinopolitan Association of Toronto, and the University of Toronto, East Carolina University, Duke University, the students and other participants in the University of Chicago Workshop in Late Antiquity and Byzantium, and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
at the University of Chicago gave me opportunities to speak on and discuss aspects of Heraclius. I owe a deep debt to Dumbarton Oaks and to the Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, for kind permission to consult and to use illustrations from their respective magnificent col- lections of Byzantine coins. I have produced the maps with the indis- pensable expertise and aid of the University of Chicago Digital Media Lab, and its Manager, Roberto Marques, and his colleagues Josh Bartos and Dale Mertes. I am heavily indebted to my editor, William Davies, and my copyeditor, Ann Johnston, whose patience and wisdom have assisted me enormously. I try to acknowledge my debt and gratitude to other individual scholars, without whose assistance and vigilant criticism I could not have completed this book, at appropriate places in the footnotes. Spelling names from so many languages is a challenge. There is no simple solution. I normally use the Greek or Arabic form of names, but I allow very familiar names to retain their most commonly understood form, such as Heraclius, or Caesarea.
Introduction
The life of Flavius Heraclius has never been the subject of a biography in English. The mere existence of a gap does not in itself warrant investigating, writing, or reading about him or any other subject. But there are some reasons for the omission and for the effort to understand him. George Finlay allowed him some pages in his survey of Greek history' but nineteenth- century concepts of nationalism and blood stock distorted his interpretation into an almost unrecognizable Heraclius: It was perhaps a misfortune that Heraclius was by birth a Roman rather than a Greek, as his views were from that accident directed to the maintenance of the imperial dominion, without any reference to the national organization of his people... Heraclius, being by birth and family connections an African noble, regarded himself as of pure Roman blood, superior to all national prejudices, and bound by duty and policy to repress the domineering spirit of the Greek aristocracy in the State, and of the Greek hierarchy in the Church. Thomas Hodgkin disparagingly remarked, The young Heraclius, as liberator of the Empire, has something about him which attracts our sympathy and admiration; but when we are reading his story... it is impossible not to feel how thoroughly barbarised were all, even the best men of
George Finlay, History of Greece (Oxford, 1877) 1: 311-350, esp. p. 113: The reign of Heraclius is one of the most remarkable epochs in the history of the empire and in the annals of mankind. It warded off the almost inevitable destruction of the Roman government; it laid the foundation of that polity which prolonged the existence of the imperial power at Constantinople under a new modification, as the Byzantine monarchy; and it was contemporary with the commence- ment of the great moral change in the condition of the people which transformed the language and the manners of the ancient world into those of the modern nations. The Eastern Empire was indebted to the talents of Heraclius for its escape from those ages of barbarism which, for many centuries, prevailed in all western Europe. Finlay, History of Greece 1: 314-315.
this epoch of the Empire...so great is the fall from the tragic beauty of the deads of the Greek tyrannicides to the coarse brutality of the murderers of Phocas. J. B. Bury's chapters on him in his 1889 History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene, are very out of date. The formerly standard 1905 bio- graphy L'Imperatore Eraclio by Angelo Pernice acknowledged that the histor- ical understanding of Heraclius in his day was very inadequate: "Heraclius still appears to be one of the strangest and most incoherent figures that his- tory has recorded. His reign is still considered as alternations of wondrous actions and inaction." Even more obsolete are those nineteenth-century biographies by L. Drapeyron and Tryphon Evangelides, which, moreover, are difficult to obtain. The latter two authors were educated generalists who wrote many other books on historical subjects; they were not Byzantine spe- cialists. Heraclius received only a short and unexceptional entry, although its author conceded that he was one of the greatest Byzantine emperors, in the eleventh edition of the Encylopardia Britannica." J. Kulakovskii and A. Stratos included extensive but error-studded chapters on Heraclius in their broader histories. Despite the voluminous quantity of his writings, Stratos did not understand the seventh century or Heraclius in particular. His coverage of the first decade of Heraclius' relgn is vague, while his chronology and understanding of the last two decades are deficient. Periodization has many pitfalls. For some historians and for varying reasons the reign of Heraclius marks the beginning of a different period of Byzantine history," one that some would term "Middle Byzantine History"
Periods are less alluring today than formerly, the issue still deserves some sifting Different generations have possessed their own respective Heraclii. Today historians know much more about the historical context in which Heraclius lived, due to advances in archacology and to improved interpretation of lic erary evidence, the asking of questions that earlier historians did not pose, and the edition of many new texts in many languages. Even assumptions about much basic chronology are different. There is still more that we do not know than that we do know about him. The art historical evidence is increasing and interpretations of that material are changing. While far from perfect, a much better understanding, and a different one, has evolved of conditions in many provinces from Africa to Mesopotamia before, during, and after Heraclius' reign than scholars possessed a century ago. New hagio- graphic material and new methods for examining long edited hagiographic texts enrich and illumine perceptions about Heraclius. Much historical criticism has clarified or raised issues differently concerning Heraclius, the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Mediterranean and western Asia in his life- time. New interpretations of the rise of Islam increase the need for another look at his life and reign. A new seventh century is emerging although its interpretation, as well as his place in it, is in flux. Not only the seventh cen- tury, but also the broader Late Roman cultural, religious, economic, and political context has undergone reinterpretation and more accurate adjust- ment of focus. The old Heraclius and the related paradigm of Byzantine history have been deconstructed. No adequate biography exists. This is not a time to be self-satisfied, for many gaps and controversies bedevil the investigator. It is necessary to sift the scattered and fragmentary specialized scholarship, which contains many improvements over the older received picture, to attempt to develop a synthesis.
romances have Emperor Heraclius as their focus." In the Italian Renaissance he was the subject of two famous frescoes by Piero della Francesca (ca. 1452- 1466) at S. Francesco, in Arezzo: his victory over the Persian King Khusrau II and his restoration of the Cross to Jerusalem. Both themes would have been appropriate in an era of heightened concern about rising Ottoman power. His profile embellished an early fifteenth-century Renaissance bronze medal of unknown provenance, which was fashioned with an intriguing, albeit wholly fanciful, bust of him on the obverse and an equestrian portrait on the reverse." In the seventeenth century his triumph over Khusrau II and the restoration of the Cross to Jerusalem ceased to be the center of atten- tion. Pierre Corneille wrote a very fanciful play Héraclius about him and his relationship with his imperial predecessor, Phokas. Corneille concentrated on the instability of the regime of Phokas and a fictitious marital crisis. 16 Heraclius did strike the imagination of posterity. There are other controver- sies about the meaning and nature of the "Age of Heraclius" and his legacy. But Heraclius after Heraclius is not the principal object of this study. This is an attempt to investigate Heraclius as a man and an emperor, who confronted crises in both public and private dimensions of his life. It is not an easy task. The investigator must not only penetrate the carapace of panegyrical verse and rhetorical and historical prose but also try to piece together scraps and traces of diverse provenance. His and his dynasty's poets and historians needed to smooth over the origins of his power to create legitimate foundations for his power, however tenuous they might be. That could never be seamless; there were always some traces of the irregular origin of his power. One had to represent him as both full of guile and stratagems yet legitimate and a representative of and guarantor of order. He used guile to seize power. There would always be an uneasy and delicate case for the origins and solidity of his authority. No perfectly smooth interface could cover all of the different layers of cultural and regional influences on him or the layers of sources, tensions, and contradictions in his representation and the transmission of image and tradition about him.
The historian needs to peel off paradoxical layers of either panegyrical or hostile characterizations in order to achieve at least some appreciation of Heraclius. Favorable representations of him as a new David, new Moses, new Constantine, or new Scipio coexist with others that portray him as self-deceived, arrogant, sinful, and a preeminent example of divine wrath, He and his associates encouraged the dissemination of his reputation as an imitation or equal of earlier great historical and Biblical models, but diverse critical constituencies constructed and transmitted a conflicting memory of him. Historians have to evaluate these overlapping and conflicting images, which bear only limited resemblance to realities. Heraclius was an important and relatively, for his time, long-lived em- peror, who experienced an era of dramatic change, what might be called a turning-point or decisive moment. He was controversial in his own life- time and he is controversial today: institutions, religious policies, minority policy, especially toward Jews, Copts, and Armenians, his economic and fiscal policies, and his defense policies against the Muslims are all disputed. Heraclius remains an enigmatic and untypical emperor. His was a reign of action on many fronts, a reign filled with war, triumph, and tragedy. His personal life is as puzzling and controversial as his public life. One cannot penetrate his psyche to know with confidence how he felt. Psychohistory as presently constituted cannot furnish the methodology to explain those mysteries. He had serious medical problems. He experienced unidentified phobias and illness. He had marital and succession problems. He suffered anxieties and sorrows concerning his children by two marriages. There was a lot of trauma in his life, but many of his contemporaries endured other severe traumas themselves. Although an indubitable Christian, he appar- ently had strong astrological interests and tried various devices for peering into the future. One must investigate, however imperfectly, the limits of what he knew and how his range of knowledge and acquaintance with recent events affected and restricted his perceptions about policy options. other decisions, and plans. The recent past weighed heavily on fam at the beginning of his reign, especially strife in the Balkans as well as civil war. Other focal points of military problems in his early years were parts of the eastern frontier with Persia: Caucasus, Northern Syria and Northern Mesopotamia. One needs to ask how much he changed his attitudes and practices and his group of associates and counselors over the course of his lifetime. It is not easy to understand Heraclius the man, and the degree to which he changed or grew during the course of his lifetime. Even in his own life- time it would have been difficult to understand his family life or even life
at his imperial court, for that was available to the public only in limited and very authorized glimpses. His geographical experiences were much more varied than those of his recent predecessors. While every span of years contains unique and discrete experiences, the range and variance of those events and challenges in his lifetime and reign were truly unprece dented. We cannot even understand his relations to his leading ministers, such as his chamberlains (cubicularii). We do not know how he con- sulted and how he made decisions. Few insights exist into how the pro- cess of government worked during his reign, let alone how the normally unrecorded yet important encoded processes worked, that is, understand- ings, unwritten etiquette and assumptions, facial expressions, gestures, sig- nals in corridors, and the deliberate release, suppression, or distortion of information. Only restricted and often overly tantalizing bits can be re- covered from that, rich past. There can be no doubt that he developed a good relationship with Sergios, Patriarch of Constantinople (610-638). but no extant source provides details of the quality, character, and tex- ture of that relationship. Only the formal dimensions of it appear in the Sources. A common theme in most accounts of Heraclius across literatures, in- cluding histories, is his error in religious judgments. He has left an imprint in Arabic, Latin, and Greek sources, as well as some in other languages. The interpretation of those sources is not simple. No Byzantine author expresses any yearnings for a return to the age of his imperial predeces- sor, Phokas. The historian cannot trust every literary tradition nor use one tradition exclusively. No one tradition provides a complete picture of Heraclius, nor can the historian take something from each tradition, to make a composite compromise interpretation that "splits the difference" in interpretations. His relationship with Zoroastrianism and with the rise and expansion of Islam are among the most important aspects of his reign. Both non-Constantinopolitan perspectives as well as Constantinopoliran ones deserve investigation. Differing religious frames of reference between the seventh century and our own impede understanding Heraclius. One cannot understand him in a non-religious context, for his was a very religious age. Recent scholarship has contributed to appreciating how differently he and his contemporaries perceived matters and reached decisions in the light of their and their public's religious convictions and expectations. Theirs was a world in which one expected sudden divine intervention for salutary purposes and in the form of wrathful retribution for individual and collective transgressions. The observant were always watching for signs that suggested, foretold, or proved and reinforced such expectations. They perceived, decided, and acted accordingly. But he in his turn sought to influence contemporary and posterior public impressions and images of himself. The primary sources have been subject to differing levels analysis for many years. Here are some broader remarks about them, but for fuller remarks, see the specialized literature." Foremost among seventh-century Greek texts is the contemporary Chronicon Paschale, which is useful insofar as its compiler has provided entries for events. The historian Theophylact Simocatta has left correspondence as well as a history with allusions that reflect contemporary political outlooks although they lack much actual subject matter from the reign of Heraclius. The works of George of Pisidia, now being translated and commented upon by Mary Whitby, are difficult but contemporary and essential." Some papyri are valuable contemporary records for one province: Egypt. The speech of Theodore the Synkellos for the siege of Constantinople in 626 is obscure and admittedly an embellished piece of rhetoric, but it does contain valuable material concerning events and their framing and exposition." Two much later histories (early ninth century and late eighth century, respectively) provide essential evidence for the skeletal construction of the reign. Yet they each have problems. The Chronographia of Theophanes is often careless in details and owes much to a late eighth-century Syriac prototype of Theophilos of Edessa, but one
cannot avoid using it." The Short History of Nikephoros draws on some of the same sources as Theophanes but is not identical and lacks chronological specificity," Of more complexity are two very different seventh-c h-century provincial non-Greek sources. The virtually contemporary Chronicle of John of Nikiu, which was written in Coptic but survives only in an Ethiopic translation, and Sebeos, the former with the perspective of an Egyptian, the latter with that of an Armenian. 26 The History attributed to Sebeos is a compilation in Armenian of extracts from various sources, arranged in rough, but not always precise, chronological order. It is disjointed and uneven coverage and value; most of it was put together no later than 655 with a prophetic and apocalyptic motive to correlate Biblical prophecy and contemporary times. Its authorship remains controversial. Although it supplies some valuable unique material, it is not an objective history, and requires scholars to exercise caution in its utilization. It drew, among other sources, on separate biographical works about Armenian princely families, including one on the Bagratuni family. The tenth-century Armenian History of the House of Artirunik' by Thomas (T'ovma) Artsruni probably derives in part from a common source that the compiler of the History attributed to Sebeos also consulted, possibly a Sasanian royal history and a list of Sasanian commanders and officials, 28 Other non-Greek sources offer difficulties and some rewards. There are some near contemporary as well as later Syriac materials.29 All of the Arabic materials, except for the Qur'an, which has its own difficulties for use by an historian, are later, whether Christian or Muslim. The Christian Arab history of Eutychios (Sa'id ibn Barriq) requires use with caution, because it contains many errors. Yet these Arabic traditions, especially the Muslim
ones, preserve some important details." One cannot construct the last ten years of the reign of Heraclius without consulting them, although one must be mindful of problems in their use. It is absurd to attempt to reject all of these and to seek to comprehend the Islamic conqueses only from Graeco- Syriac sources." Some Arabic accounts are admittedly fabulous and can only be used for understanding later literary imagination and the fluctuating image of Heraclius in an alien culture." I have previously explained my position on using such sources. New research has reaffirmed the existence of an essentially historical core of authentic early Islamic tradtions among the larger number of spurious ones. Although a recently identified lead seal of Jabala b. al-Ayham does not corroborate every Muslim tradition, it demonstrates that Muslim traditions can preserve historical details that have disappeared in Christian historiographical traditions." On the other hand, Arabic sources can be of very little help in understanding internal Byzantine developments and conditions. Other kinds of sources exist. Greek hagiography is helpful for under- standing the mentality, flavor, and feel of the era, but was not written with the intent of providing a history of the reign or insight into the thoughts and actions of Heraclius, Saints Theodore of Sykeon and Anastasios
the Persian are the two richest hagiographical subjects for the study of Heraclius. There are questions concerning whether hagiographic, patristic, and apologetical texts actually reflect seventh-century events and percep tions, or whether they may in fact be corrupt and therefore virtually worth- less interpolations from the eighth or ninth centuries."7 Epigraphic sources are of limited help but numismatics is a significant tool for this reign, for improving understanding of a number of topics. The sigillographic record is also helpful and a control on chronology, nu- mismatics, and literary vagueness, as the above-mentionedeal of Jabala 18 indicates. Art objects, especially silver and mosaics, also have their utility but present many problems of interpretation. Archaeological excavations help in some instances. Latin sources preserve some traditions of generally limited value. Even some Latin sources as well as Theophanes draw on Syriac and Arabic traditions from the east and so often cannot be treated as completely independent sources. A history of Heraclius and his times requires coverage of such a disparate group of topics as to be a universal rather than a concentrated history. Among the many issues there is a seemingly simple one: was Heraclius a failure or a success? Was he a great reformer? The older paradigm created by George Ostrogorsky of Heraclius the great reformer has disintegrated. For Ostrogorsky, Heraclius was thelinch-pin for a total interpretation of Middle Byzantine History," Ostrogorsky's Heraclius was a creator of institutions and above all was the fundamental Byzantine institutional reformer. That model is no more. The adherents to his model have,aged and dwindled. with the passing of time and retirements, as has happened with scholarly "schools" in other disciplines." The criticisms of J. Karayannopoulos,"
P. Lemerle," A. Pertusi," and others have accomplished their tasks, even though their critiques did not achieve or indeed seek any consensus on any new interpretation of Heraclius. Their achievements were more destructive than constructive. Today there is much less interest in institutional history and institutional interpretations of the causes, nature, and markers of his torical change and historical significance, irrespective of what role, if any. Heraclius had with any or all institutions. Byzantinists' obsession with in- stitutions may seem anachronistic and puzzling to other historians. There is no new model. In different eras Heraclius has been interped in differ- ent ways. Heraclius did innovate, consciously or unconsciously, in creating and augmenting public culture through ceremonies, yet at the same time those who surrounded him stressed that he and his age hearkened back to a former great age, that of Constantine 1, rather than to a new one. So Heraclius the innovator remains a real but elusive topic that again deserves review. The nature of the most significant Heraclian innovation has shifted away from the institutional one that fixed many historians' attention in the 1950s. Leaving aside Byzantinists' interpretations, there is another element in the current context for those attempting any interpretation of Heraclius. This is an era in which the "great man in history" no longer dominates historical interpretation, so some may question the advisability of writing a biography or a history of any reign. The "longue durée" became subject to an acceleration in change in his lifetime and reign, and during that of his son and grandson. The contingent was especially important in those com- pressed decades. His judgments, made under sharp constraints of time, were important. The picture of Heraclius has changed greatly during the course of the twentieth century, but at this moment it is not in focus. There is no positive scholarly consensus. This study may not solve that problem. The task is a formidable one. It will be impossible to satisfy everyone. However, enough material does exist to begin the process of recovery and recon- struction. The task does involve the study of that now unpopular subject. "histoire événementielle," but it cannot remain limited to it.
The story of Heraclius, as depicted in several literary historical traditions, is almost Herodotean in his experience of fickle fortune's wheel of triumph and then tragedy, of ignorance or excessive pride, error, and disaster. At one level his name is associated with two categories of classical nomenclature: (1) ancient classical offices such as the consulship, as well as (2) many of the most exciting heroes, places, precedents, and objects of classical, ancient Near Eastern, and Biblical antiquity: Carthage, Nineveh, Jerusalem, the vicinity of Alexander the Great's triumph over the Persians at Gaugamela, Noah's Ark, the Golden Gate in Jerusalem, Arbela, the fragments of the True Cross, Damascus, Antioch, perhaps even ancient Armenia's Tigra nocerta, and of course, Constantinople. He and his writers sought to as- sociate his name with famous names from antiquity: Alexander, Scipio, and Constantine I, and with the Biblical Moses and David. Yet he will have to compete with a new name: Muhammad. No preceding or subse- quent Byzantine emperor saw so much: the Araxes, the Khäbür, Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias). No Byzantine emperor except possibly Constantine I personally traversed so much of the Byzantine Empire, and even Constantine did not see as much of western Asia and the Caucasus as Heraclius. But this is not just a parade or evocation of famous names, places, and objects. It is an action-filled life amid strange and terrible. happenings: pestilence, apparitions in the sky, ominous portents on land, reports of astonishing and memorable dreams, and massacres. It was an era of extreme and unprecedented acts. A world began to totter. Uncertain is the extent to which this unique kaleidoscope of experience affected the perception, mentality, and decision-making of Heraclius. Most historians would probably concede that Heraclius was an important Byzantine emperor but the precise ingredients of that importance are in doubt for them. He did not earn the Byzantine epithet "great," unlike Emperors Constantine 1 or Theodosios I, in part because of his controversial ecclesiastical policies, specifically his preferences in Christology. Modern historians might well prefer to avoid bestowing an epithet on sovereign who failed to receive it in antiquity or during the Middle Ages, given that that very category is in disfavor today. Heraclius comes across as a decisive
person in his individual as well as in his public sphere of conduct. No source claims or suggests that he was a weak sovereign or person. He had great organizing abilities, and a powerful personality. He was dynamic. He was able to impress his subjects and contemporary intellectuals. He showed leadership. That is the case in a number of different literary traditions and languages. Heraclius had a longer reign than any of his predecessors since Justinian I, and it would be only a century after his death, and almost
precisely a century, until another emperor, Constantine V (741-775), would reign for so long. In total, few Byzantine emperors would have such a lengthy reign. Heraclius was controversial while living and is controversial today. Con- troversy did not die with him. On the eve of and immediately following his death there were bitter disputes about his intentions concerning his succession among his children. 'Did he make a difference? The answer is emphatically, yes. Things could have gone other ways, with other outcomes. Some might argue that the empire could have completely disintegrated in the early seventh century, say, between 610 and 630, if he had not imposed his will on it to hold at least some of it together. He did make a difference. Yet he could not overcome everything, in such a large number of challenges. How far can one go with counterfactual reasoning about him (what ifs?)? The best counsel is: be cautious. Lacunae exist in our knowledge of Heraclius. First of all there are doubts about basic chronology, sometimes due to conflicting reports in the sources, at other times due to omissions of information about certain of his activities. Heraclius and his advisers left no diaries, memoirs, or personal leters. There are no archives of original documents. It is impossible to know biographical details about him that might be standard for nineteenth- and twentieth- century figures. The chronology is inexact for some important events. But it is not the worst-documented period of the Byzantine Empire, for there is more documentation than for some other reigns of the seventh century. or for many of those of the fifth century. Mysteries abound. The ultimate goals of Heraclius remain obscure. What did Heraclius really want? Heraclius was a fallible mortal, but he did respond to many contemporary challenges and crises. He tried to interpret the future but made some erroneous decisions. The role that Heraclius envisioned himself playing in history is another important topic, yet others may doubt whether this a reasonable question to ask. Was he obsessed with imprinting himself on history? Did he possess any feelings of ethnic or regional identity and if so, what kind? What was his real attitude toward his family? It appears that his family was very important to him. He relied heavily on members of his family to serve in major official positions. What is the reason for so many changes in civic and religious ceremonies during his reign? And why was there so much innovation in the liturgy? Was he the first Byzantine emperor to call himself Basileus? His is a reign that looks forward as well as backward It is part of Late Antiquity but it is also something else. What was happening to culture in his reign and to what extent did those changes owe anything to him?
More than any Byzantine predecessor since the end of the fourth century Heraclius was an emperor on the move. He did not perpetually reside in Constantinople. That mobility in itself probably created a very different style of government and relationship with civilian and ecclesiastical subjects than his predecessors had. It also required a different relationship with Constantinopolitan bureaux than had been the norm. He was much more dependent on efficient communications with Constantinople and with his deputies than were his predecessors. He probably developed a feel for having a traveling court. This surely caused bureaucrats at Constantinople to have to adjust to new ways of governance and communication with the top imperial decision-maker. It also caused military commanders to adapt to the realities of a campaigning soldier-emperor; that change caused adjustments in the functioning and discretion of local commanders. Emperors who undertook ambitious tasks of learning lived in the century that preceded Heraclius. Justinian I wrote tracts on theology, while Emperor Maurice either wrote or caused the composition of a treatise on military tactics, organization, and strategy. It was not unprecedented for an emperor to ruminate, to be a man of thought as well as of action. Heraclius did not break new ground in doing that. Yet his intellectuality requires more inquiry and assessment. This study necessarily investigates events. Archaeology is unlikely to re- solve some issues concerning this aspect of Heraclius' life. It is important to appreciate contingencies in any attempt to understand him and his reign. Some of Heraclius greatest successes derive from his ability to take advan- tage of contingencies and timing. An appreciation of timing and fleeting opportunities is essential in any investigation of Heraclius. There are para doxical elements in his case as a military commander How could one who was so militarily successful against the Persians have been such a disastrous failure against the Muslims br was he a total failure against them? For some the military dimension is uninteresting, because of the present disfavor in which military history is held. The Strategiken of Maurice provides some insight into contemporary military thinking and practice. But Heraclius more than a military commander. A related question concerns Heraclius religious devotion and how one attempts to investigate and assess it. He is a leader of the faithful, one who marshals the strength of Christendom, who catches the imagination of Christians and non-Christians, whether or now they really understood him
The life of Heraclius is intrinsically sufficiently interesting to deserve a biographical investigation written in English. Many of the questions that one asks today are somewhat different from what an historian might have asked about Heraclius a century ago, but others are probably similar. In him the historian has a man and emperor who encountered and overcame many successive crises but not all of them. He eventually succumbed: He was a man of action as well as one possessed by the search for religious truth and religious power. He had to fit and fill many roles while he struggled with his personal and familial difficulties in a world that he knew was not always forgiving or benevolent. Lemerle forty years ago asked a basic question as to whether Heraclius dominated an era or was himself dominated by that era: In summary. Heraclius failed in his national labor for the restoration of the empire and the protection of its integrity,... he even failed in his effort for the succession. It would be naive to complain against him, but one may wonder whether this man really dominated his age, whether he had not rather been dominated by it, and by the magnitude of the above-mentioned events, Scholarly evaluations of Heraclius have varied widely. His nineteenth- century biographer Drapeyron commented with perplexity: the strange man whom we study has prodigious faculties, which, far from being balanced as in Epaminondas, are unevenly developed. He has more sensibility than intelligence, more intelligence than will. He will be dragged to action by his ardent sympathy, and then he will have, but very falsely, the illusion of unparalleled energy. But he will be enchained, whether by this love of God, of men, and in particular of one in his family, he comes to hover on some cloud. Thus he depends completely on the exterior." It was Ernst Stein who began the process of positive reevaluation of Heraclius in the early 1930s even though he never wrote a detailed or rigorous biography of Heraclius. Stein, whose life was greatly disrupted and probably shortened by the European turmoil and violence of the 1930s and 1940s, is seldom read today For Stein, who wrote a contribution on him for a multi-contributor volume entitled Menichen die Geschichte machen ("Men Who Made History"), the final evaluation was very favorable." It was Stein who influenced George Ostrogorsky's vision of Heraclius as a great reformer, which Ostrogorsky developed into a broader paradigm later in the togos, "der grosste Herrscher der byzantinische Geschichte
the greatest ruler of Byzantine history]."" For Stein, at the beginning of the 1930s, the foundations of the Byzantine Empire were created by Heraclius ...die spireren Grundlagen des Byzantinischen Reiches - der während des fol genden halben Jahrtausends noch immer bedeutendsten, ja man kann fast sagen, allein die Merkmale eines wirklichen Staates tragenden christlichen Macht - von ihm geschaffen sind [the later foundations of the Byzantine Empire, which during the following half-millennium were still the most important, one can even say the sole benchmark of a real stare wielding Christian power, were shaped by him). He asserted that Heraclius was "ein kühner Feldherr und vielleicht noch kühnerer Sozialreformer (a bold field commander and perhaps still bolder social reformer]." But some thirty years later for Lemerle the reign of Heraclius had "l'apparente contradiction interne [apparent internal contradiction]." Lemerle's final assessment of Heraclius was a "Bilan tout négatif d'un règne qui eût pu être l'un des plus glorieux de l'histoire de Byzance (totally negative balance of a reign that might have been one of the most glorious of Byzantium]." The majority of contemporary scholars tend to follow the lead of Lemerle by avoiding any identification of the reign of Heraclius as pivotal for Byzantine social and institutional policy, even though conceding that it was pivotal for imperial power and for failed religious policy Heraclius was no fool. Despite his mistakes, he showed some foresight and he did attempt to make some major changes. The exact character of some of his fiscal changes remains controversial and very poorly docu- mented. His ultimate intentions remain obscure. Today his greatest achieve ments in the eyes of historians may be the changes that he made in public culture in his empire, in addition to his military successes on the battlefield and in holding a critical mass of the empire together in an era of epoch- making change that he did not and perhaps could not master of check. Some of the debate about Heraclius has shifted to issues of interpreting culture, art, and mentalities in that era, as well as to reexamining visual and literary representations of Heraclius Some scholaes may wish to ex plore the ideological framework of the era of Heraclius. Others will contest whether ideology is or can be a valid terin for conceptual analysis prior
to the nineteenth century and may join those who stoutly reject seeing or reading in any ideological theme whatever, especially any political one, in such indubitably genuine and famous products of the Heradian esa as the David Plates. Differing religious frames of reference between the seventh century and our own impede understanding Heraclius. His was a very religious age, in which one expected sudden divine intervention for salutary purposes and in the form of wrathful retribution for individual and collective transgressions. The observant were always watching for signs that suggested, foretold, or proved and reinforced such expectations. One perceived, decided, and acted accordingly. Among the most interesting facets of and issues for the historian in interpreting Heraclius' life, reign, and age is evaluating the extent to which, in a time of rapid and major change, one man did or could affect or change history. His is a major case with which to test hypotheses about that problem; indeed most estimates of Heraclius and his historical significance must come to grips with it. This is not primarily an inquiry into institutional history or institutional questions. Instead, it will investigate Heraclius' drift or mastery in the face of historical contingency and varied crises. It, in the end, is an interpretation, not merely a recounting and ordering of chronology and facts. Heraclius was an emperor in whose lifetime the world no longer remained under control and was rapidly fragmenting without total collapse. His world was one in which old answers and policies no longer sufficed, one in which action became necessary and consumed his life. He did devote much time to crafting his image, to developing a new sacrality that included many more public ceremonies, and he aggressively sought to deflect criticism from himself to an array of scapegoats, which requires that the modern historian remain vigilant and use critical judgment. He was no military or institutional genius or great social or economic reformer. The picture of Heralius that emerges in clearer focus is a more limited one of a leader with extraordinary skills at combining political and military policies and tactics, who was able to achieve more through political reversals, political negotiations, intrigue, exploitation of internal divisions within the tanks of his foes, a good sense of timing, and intelligence than through any decisiveness as a commander on the battlefield. He was no Trajan or Gaus Marius or Alexander the Great. Although he was no seperman, he achieved much with the materials and opportunities that were at hand Heraclius was a man with flaws whose life and achievements were flawed, but despite his fallibility and his many crises he never abandoned his struggles. He left
his shadow over an age that was full of attention-grabbing shocks. It is necessary to explore these problems and his many ambiguities. In a world of uncertainties his place is more uncertain today than ever. His was a life mixed with victory, anguish, and repeated struggles. He and his reign represent both an end and a beginning. The very uncertainty of his present station encourages and makes this process of reevaluation imperative.
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