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Salvation from the Arab peril came through the energetic dynasty
of Heraclius, which flourished for five generations. Three of
the rulers were characterized by extraordinary will power and
striking intellectual ability: Heraclius (610-41), Constans
(642-68), and Constantine, called Pogonatus, or the Bearded
(668-85). The year 685 marks the beginning of the dynastic
decline. Justinian II (685-95, and 705-11) had inherited the
excellent qualities of his ancestors but grotesquely distorted;
he had the instincts of a sultan, with a touch of Caesarian
madness. Whence it came about that in 695 he was deposed. His
nose was cut off — whence the name Rhinotmetus — and he
was banished to Cherson. There he formed an alliance with the
Khan of the Khazars, whose son-in-law he became, and fled in a
fishing boat over the Black Sea to the mouths of the Danube. The
Bulgarians had dwelt in this region since about 679. In 705,
aided by an army of Slavs and Bulgarians, Rhinotmetus returned
to Constantinople, and the Bulgarian prince received the name of
Caesar as a reward for the help he had rendered. For the next
six years the emperor's vengeance was wreaked on all who had
been his adversaries. At last, while hastening to Cherson, where
Philippicus Bardanes, an Armenian officer, had been proclaimed
emperor, Rhinotmetus was slain near Damatrys in Asia Minor.
The first dethronement of Justinian, in 695, had been
accomplished by an officer named Leontius who reigned from then
until 698, and it was in this period that the Arabs succeeded in
gaining possession of almost all Roman Africa, including
Carthage. The Byzantine fleet which had been sent to oppose this
invasion revolted, while off the coast of Crete, and raised the
admiral, Apsimarus, to the purple under the title of Tiberius
III (698-705). The reign of Tiberius was not unsuccessful but in
705 Justinian returned, and both Tiberius and Leontius (who had
meantime been living in a monastery) were beheaded. Philippicus
the Armenian, following upon the second reign of Rhinotmetus,
favoured the religious principles of his Armenian countrymen,
and the people of Byzantium raised to the throne in his stead
Anastasius II (713-15), an able civilian official who restored
the orthodox faith. But when he attempted to check the
insubordination of the army, which had made three emperors since
695, the troops of the Opsikion thema (from the territory
of the Troad as far as Nicaea) proclaimed as emperor the
unwilling Theodosius (715-17), an obscure official of one of the
provinces. At the same time the Caliph Suleiman was equipping a
vast armament to ravage the frontier provinces. Thus the empire
which the army, under the great military emperors, Heraclius
Constans, and Constantine, had saved from the threatened
invasion of the Arabs, seemed fated to be brought to destruction
by the selfsame army. But the army was better than the events of
the preceding twenty-two years might seem to indicate. Leo and
Artavasdus, commanders, respectively, of the two most important
themata, the Anatolic and the Armenian, combined forces.
Theodosius voluntarily abdicated and again the throne of
Constantine was occupied by a great Byzantine ruler, fitted by
nature for his position, Leo of Germanicia (now Marash) in
Northern Syria.
This brief review of the various rulers suffices to show that
the diseased mentality of Justinian II brought to an end the
prosperous period of the Heraclean dynasty. The attempt has been
made to prove that this prince inherited an unsound mind, and to
discover corresponding symptoms of insanity in his ancestors.
This much is certain: that a strength of will carried at times
to the point of foolhardiness and incorrigible obstinacy and a
propensity to the despotic exercise of power distinguish the
whole dynasty. Even Heraclius, by a personal inclination to
which he clung in defiance of reason and against the
remonstrances of his well-wishers, placed the peace of the State
and the perpetuation of his dynasty in serious peril. This was
his passion for his niece Martina, whom he married after the
death of his first wife in defiance of all the warnings of the
great Patriarch Sergius. Martina is the only woman of any
political importance during these warlike times. Her character
distinguished by a consuming ambition, and her influence may
have increased when, after the loss of Syria to the Arabs,
Heraclius, becoming afflicted with an internal disease, fell
into a state of lethargy. On the death of her husband (641) she
sought to obtain the supreme power for her own son Heracleonas
to the prejudice of her step-son Constantine. The army
recognized both princes as sovereign, a state of things which
contained the germ of further complications. Fortunately
Constantine who had long been ailing, died a few weeks after his
father, and the army, ignoring Martina and Heracleonas, placed
Constans, the son of Constantine, on the throne. Thus it was
that the almost uninterrupted succession of the three emperors,
Heraclius, Constans, and Constantine IV, Pogonatus came about.
As has been repeatedly observed, the activity of these rulers
was concentrated on the Herculean task of defending the empire
against the foreign foes that were bearing down on it from all
sides. Fortunately the Avars, who from the time of Justinian had
been bought off with an annual tribute, but who as lately as 623
and 626 had besieged Constantinople, were gradually hemmed in by
the onrushing Slavs and Bulgarians upon the Hungarian lowlands,
and thereby removed from immediate contact with the Byzantine
Empire. All the more persistent, however, were the attacks of
the Slavic races. During the time of Heraclius the Croats and
Serbs established themselves in their present homes. The Roman
cities of Dalmatia had difficulty in defending themselves.
Presently the Slavs took to the sea, and by 623 they had pushed
their way as far as Crete. Still their visits were only
occasional they made no permanent settlements on the islands,
and on the mainland the larger cities escaped subjection to
Slavic influence was attacked again and again most seriously in
675, but was saved each time by the heroism of her citizens. The
Slavs, fortunately, were still split into different tribes, so
that they could be held in check by timely expeditions, such as
that which Constans had made near Thessalonica. It was otherwise
with the Bulgarians. In 635 Heraclius concluded an alliance with
their prince, Kuvrat, so as to use them in opposing the Avars
and Slavs. However, there soon arose in the territory between
the Danube and the Balkan Peninsula, under the leadership of the
Bulgarians a state composed of Slavonic and Finnic-Ugrian
elements. Their organization differed widely from that of the
Serbs and Croats, who were held together by no political bond.
In 679 the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus suffered a serious
defeat at the hands of the Bulgarians; by 695 things had come to
such a pass that Justinian II reconquered Constantinople through
Bulgarian assistance. In later centuries the Bulgarian State
became Byzantium's most dangerous European foe.
But at this period its most formidable enemies were its
neighbours, the Persians. It will be recalled how Anastasius and
Justinian I had fought with this nation, and how, in the peace
of 562, Lazistan at least had been held as a guarantee of
Byzantine supremacy over the trade routes to Central Asia. The
twenty years' war (571-91) brought many vicissitudes. At last
the Emperor Mauritius obtained possession of Dara and
Martyropolis, in Syria, as well as the greater part of Armenia.
Nisibis, however, remained Persian. So far, an important
advantage had been gained for Byzantium. But the assassination
of Mauritius effected a marked change. Chosroes II, Parvez,
commenced war against the usurper Phocas which he continued
against his successor, Heraclius. In 606 Dara fell, and in 608
the Persians appeared for the first time before Chalcedon. In
611 they captured Antioch and the eastern part of Asia Minor in
613 Damascus, and in 614 Jerusalem. The True Cross fell into
their hands and was carried off to Persia. In 615 a Persian army
stood before Chalcedon for the second time. In 619 they
conquered Ancyra in Asia Minor, and even Egypt. Heraclius saved
himself splendidly from this terrible situation. In three daring
campaigns (622-28) he freed Armenia from her oppressors By the
peace of 628 Armenia and Syria were recovered. On 14 September,
629, the True Cross, restored by the Persians, was again set up
in Jerusalem, and in 629 Egypt likewise was wrested from the
Persians. Then came the fearful reverses consequent on the Arab
rising; in 635 Damascus fell; in 637 Jerusalem was surrendered
by the Patriarch Sophronius, after a siege of two years. At
first (634) Heraclius himself came to Antioch to organize the
campaign, then followed the lethargy due to his sickness, and he
supinely allowed the Arabs to advance. At his death (641) Egypt
was virtually lost; on 29 September, 643, Amru entered
Alexandria, in 647 the province of Africa, and in 697 its
capital, Carthage, fell into the hands of the Arabs. Meanwhile
the Arabs had built a navy, and soon the war raged on all sides.
They had taken Cyprus in 648; in 655 they first thought of
attacking Constantinople. Fortunately their fleet was vanquished
off the Lycian coast. Later they established themselves in
Cyzicus, and from 673 to 677 menaced the capital. At the same
time they conquered Armenia (654) and ravaged Asia Minor. In 668
they pushed on to Chalcedon. During all these losses, the Greeks
could show only one step gained — or rather one successful to
safeguard their power. Many Christian families emigrated from
Asia Minor and Syria to Sicily Lower Italy, and Rome, thus
strengthening the Byzantine power in the West, and the Emperor
Constans could use Sicily as a base for the reconquest of Africa
(662). He is thought to have intended making Rome once more the
capital of the empire. In 668, however, he was murdered in
Syracuse during a military uprising, and with him these vast
plans came to an end. His son, Constantine IV was very young at
the time of his accession; still he was not only able to assert
his authority in the face of an unruly army, but soon like his
father and great grandfather, proved himself a brave warrior and
displayed consummate generalship against the Arabs, the Slavs,
and the Bulgarians.
The splendid prowess of Byzantium is still brilliantly
apparent, in spite of these losses. This was due, in the first
place, to its excellent military equipment. The period of the
Arab peril, a peril which at a later date in the West, during
the time of Charles Martel, saw the introduction of cavalry
wearing defensive armour in place of the Roman and Germanic
infantry, marked a like innovation in the East, at an earlier
period. The Byzantine cuirassiers, or cataphracti probably
originated at this time. Moreover, the State was now thoroughly
organized on military lines. The system of themata, after
the model of the exarchate of Ravenna and Africa, found
acceptance in Asia Minor, and gradually spread through the whole
empire. The thema of the Cibyrrhaeots, in southern Asia
Minor, belonged to the districts which during the Roman Republic
had produced the most notorious pirates. In the Saracen wars the
fleet played a very important part; the Byzantine victory,
therefore, showed that the Byzantine fleet was not only equal to
that of the Arabs in point of men and solidity of construction
but had an important technical advantage. During the great
leaguer of Constantinople, from April to September, 673,
Callinicus a Syrian, is said to have taught the Greeks the use
of gunpowder, or "Greek fire".
It remains to discuss the ecclesiastical disputes of the
seventh century. At first everything seemed to point towards a
compromise. The Persian invasions, which had swept over the
Christian peoples of the Orient since 606, probably strengthened
a feeling of kinship among Christian nations. Even during his
Armenian campaign, Heraclius began to prepare the way for the
union with the Oriental Churches. He was supported in his
efforts by Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Pope
Honorius I. As a basis of dogmatic unity, Heraclius proclaimed
as a formula of faith the "union of the two Natures of the
God-Man through the Divine-human energy". Everything seemed
propitious, the only opponent of the movement being Sophronius,
Patriarch of Jerusalem, who was afterwards forced to surrender
the city to the Arabs. His antagonism lent the opposition
movement stability and permanence in his effort to conciliate
the Monophysites, in his "Ecthesis" of 638 emphasized still more
emphatically the union of the two natures by one will (Monothelitism).
Immediately the West — and particularly Africa, the scene of St.
Maximus's labours — set up the standard of opposition. It was of
no avail that Emperor Constans II in his "Typus" (648) forbade
all contention over the number of wills and energies, and that
he caused Pope Martin I, as well as St. Maximus, to be
apprehended and banished to Cherson. The West was temporarily
defeated, though destined finally to conquer. After Syria,
Egypt, and Africa had been lost to the Arabs, there was no
further object in trying to establish Monothelitism. At the
Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-81) orthodoxy was reestablished by
the Emperor Constantine IV. That this move was in harmony with
the desire of the Greek people, was evident during the reign of
Philippicus, the Armenian. His attempt to restore Monothelitism
in the Rome of the East resulted in his dethronement. Once more
the Greeks had cut themselves loose from the Armenians, whether
to the advantage of the empire is a question which receives
various answers. |
