Beautiful Egypt 84 – «Heraclius» November 30, 2014

   In previous articles, we tackled Emperor Maurice’s tenure, his wars against the Persians, the Slavs and Caucasus, and the Egyptian rebellion that broke out at the beginning of his tenure. Maurice also started organizing the western provinces of the Empire, appointing military proconsuls on each. Historians maintain that he organized the empire in like manner it was during the medieval era. Crusades, however, wasted the empire’s wealth, which entailed the imposing of taxes. Both factors provoked sentries and people against the emperor. In effect, they rebelled, led by Phocas, and overthrew Maurice. Phocas was welcomed for he reduced taxes. Yet, his era also witnessed the beginning of the Empire’s collapse. That the army moved from Danube in 605 A.D. paved the road to new attacks that led to annihilating the Byzantine presence in the Balkans.

Heraclius (610-641 A.D.)

   Heraclius was the eldest son of Heraclius the Elder who was a general in the Roman army. He helped Emperor Maurice in his wars. He was appointed Exarch of Africa, and was contemporary to Phocas. When the Persian king got to know that his friend Maurice was killed, he decided to take revenge from Phocas.

   In 608, Heraclius the Elder rebelled against Phocas. So, he sent his cousin Nicetas to Egypt to take it over in 609, and his son Heraclius to Constantinople to overthrow Phocas who was killed. Subsequently, Heraclius became emperor in 610 A.D.

Relation with the Persians

   The war against Persians was still going on, for their troops raided the Levant. They started burning Antioch and Damascus which was broken into in 613 A.D., having killed a great deal of its population. After that, they conquered Jerusalem in 614 A.D., ruined the Resurrection Church and stole the Holy Cross. They also killed a lot of people. Then, troops were dispatched to Alexandria in 617 A.D. in order that they dominate Egypt. Yet, the Persian king made a treaty with Egypt against her paying taxes to him, instead of the Roman Empire. Historians assert that the Persian king did his best to convert Christians to Zoroastrians, lest he annihilate them.

   After that, the Persian king attacked Anatolia (Asia Minor), made a convention with the Tartars concerning raiding the Roman Empire. They continued their attacks until they reached the Walls of Constantinople. Heraclius had already reconciled with the Persian king and made peace. Yet, the latter violated the agreement and sent his troops to Syria and Jerusalem. Heraclius’ army was defeated in that battle. Due to the defeats and the enemies’ reaching Constantinople, Heraclius despaired. He tried to move the capital to Carthage. Yet, the patriarch of Constantinople disapproved of this, preventing him from giving up the kingdom. He encouraged him to combat the enemies of the Empire, financing him by all means. So, Heraclius decided to make a reconciliation in which the empire would pay taxes to the Persians. At that time, he was re-establishing his army to combat his enemies. Likewise, he started restoring agriculture. The church helped him all through.

   In 622 A.D., Heraclius started fighting the Persians, having left the Empire under the patriarch’s custody and his son’s ward. Heraclius prevailed in that war. One historian writes, “He defeated the Persians at the place where Alexander the Great defeated Darius. Then, he sent his troops to the Tartars who were the Persians’ allies, and exterminated them near Constantinople. After all this had taken place, the Persian king was killed by his son who conspired against him. He also killed his brothers, and became king afterwards. Persians and Romans reconciled, and the formers abided by the conditions set by Heraclius, namely, that the two states return to their initial borders prior the first war, setting the prisoners free, and restoring the Holy Cross to Jerusalem where it was beforehand. The Cross was taken to its place in Jerusalem in a cortege in 630 A.D.

   Historians recount that during the Persian wars, the Jews of Tyre rebelled against the Christians and threatened to kill them. So, a terrible war broke out, and churches outside Tyre were demolished. Yet, Christians prevailed. At that time, Heraclius had been roaming Egypt and the Levant to restore whatever was ruined by the Persians. He found Jerusalem and the churches altogether ruined, which made him feel quite bad. Likewise, he got to know of what the Jews did to the Christians during his war with the Persians. So, he started restoring those churches.

   After the prevalence of quietude in the Roman Empire, Heraclius gave a lot of attention to fixing what the Persians had ruined. Likewise, he was keen on resolving the intra-creed disputes which caused clashes. So, he assembled the churches’ sages and made them meet. Heraclius died in 641 A.D. Thus, he was the last Byzantine Emperor to rule Egypt prior the Muslim conquest.

 Egypt’s Conditions during the Persian Conquest

   Pope Andronicus, the thirty-seventh patriarch, was contemporary to the Persians’ conquest of the Eastern provinces and Euphrates, as well as their overtaking Aleppo, Antioch, Jerusalem and others. At that time, many Christians were killed and imprisoned. About six hundred monasteries full of monks were ruined, and the monks were killed. Moreover, the Persians killed about 80,000 men upon entering Alexandria. When the Persian troops headed to Upper Egypt, they passed by Nikiu. Their commander ordered that they kill all the monks who were living in their cells thereabouts. They were about 700 monks. Thus, the Persian troops kept killing people and ruining places in Egypt until Heraclius prevailed and kicked them out.

Egypt under the Romans

   Egypt was never quiet during the Romans’ tenure. Rarely did the Romans care about developing Egypt. Moreover, Egypt could not retrieve her glory, for disasters continued to alight upon her, apart from conflicts and instability.

   Despite her political dependency, Egypt preserved her language and identity. Yet, she ignored orthography, and, hence, the Greek language became official. One writer asserts, “Throughout all that time, Egypt preserved her ancient language in so far as speech was concerned. Yet, she forsook hieroglyphics, and replaced them with the Greek used in the Alexandrian orthographic presentation. So, her language was ancient Coptic, and writing Greek.”

   Seditions overwhelmed Egypt due to the incidents taking place in the Roman Empire. A lot of blood was shed, especially in Alexandria. Also, seditions increased between Jews and Christians, which made the country susceptible to wars and conflicts. During the last century of the Roman tenure, Egypt witnessed lots of disasters, despite some rulers’ efforts to overcome riots and conflicts which hid under the cloak of religion. One writer asserts that, “Historians agreed that such corruption never took place in Egypt except after the Roman conquest. At that time, riots and clashes spread. The rich as well as the sentries gave in to profanity. Thus, religious commandments became the fire that ignited seditions!”

What a story! Stories never end in Beautiful Egypt.

General Bishop

Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center