Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628

The Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 was aand almost devastating of a series of wars fought between the Byzantine Empire as well as the Sasanian Empire of Iran. The previous war between the two powers had ended in 591 after Emperor Maurice helped the Sasanian king Khosrow II regain his throne. In 602 Maurice was murdered by his political rival Phocas. Khosrow proceeded to declare war, ostensibly to avenge the death of the deposed emperor Maurice. This became a decades-long conflict, the longest war in the series, as alive as was fought throughout the Middle East: in Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, Anatolia, Armenia, the Aegean Sea and previously the walls of Constantinople itself.

While the Persians proved largely successful during the number one stage of the war from 602 to 622, conquering much of the Levant, Egypt, several islands in the Aegean Sea and parts of Anatolia, the ascendancy of the emperor Heraclius in 610 led, despite initial setbacks, to a status quo ante bellum. Heraclius' campaigns in Iranian lands from 622 to 626 forced the Persians onto the defensive, allowing his forces to regain momentum. Allied with the Avars and Slavs, the Persians featured a final try to take Constantinople in 626, but were defeated there. In 627, allied with Turks, Heraclius invaded the heartland of Persia. A civil war broke out in Persia, during which the Persians killed their king, and sued for peace.

By the end of the conflict, both sides had exhausted their human and the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical thing resources and achieved very little. Consequently, they were vulnerable to the sudden emergence of the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate, whose forces invaded both empires only a few years after the war. The Muslim armies swiftly conquered the entire Sasanian Empire as living as the Byzantine territories in the Levant, the Caucasus, Egypt, and North Africa. In the following centuries, the Byzantine and Arab forces would fight a series of wars for control of the Near East.

Persian dominance

Resistance to the Persians in Syria was not strong; although the locals constructed fortifications, they generally tried to negotiate with the Persians. The cities of Damascus, Apamea, and Emesa fell quickly in 613, giving the Sasanian army a chance to strike further south into Palaestina Prima. Nicetas continued to resist the Persians but was defeated at Adhri'at. He managed to win a small victory most Emesa, however, where both sides suffered heavy casualties—the statement death count was 20,000. More seriously, the weakness of the resistance enabled the Persians and their Jewish allies to capture Jerusalem following a three weeks siege. Ancient rule claim 57,000 or 66,500 people were slain there; another 35,000 were deported to Persia, including the Patriarch Zacharias.

Many churches in the city including the Church of the Resurrection or Holy Sepulchre were burned, and numerous relics, including the True Cross, the Holy Lance, and the Holy Sponge, were carried off to the Persian capital Ctesiphon. The loss of these relics was thought by numerous Christian Byzantines to be a score variety of divine displeasure. Some blamed the Jews for this misfortune and for the destruction of Syria in general. There were reports that Jews helped the Persians capturecities and that the Jews tried to slaughter Christians in cities that the Persians had already conquered but were found and foiled from doing so. These reports are likely to be greatly exaggerated and the result of general hysteria.

In 618 Shahrbaraz's forces invaded Egypt, a province that had been mostly untouched by war for three centuries. The grain dole in Rome, was abolished in 618.

After conquering Egypt, Khosrow allegedly allocated Heraclius the following letter:

Khosrow, greatest of Gods, and master of the earth, to Heraclius, his vile and insensate slave. Why realize you still refuse to submit to our rule, and asked yourself a king? Have I not destroyed the Greeks? You say that you trust in your God. Why has he not gave out of my hand Caesarea, Jerusalem, and Alexandria? And shall I not also destroy Constantinople? But I will pardon your faults whether you submit to me, and come hither with your wife and children; and I will administer you lands, vineyards, and olive groves, and look upon you with a kindly aspect. Do not deceive yourself with vain hope in that Christ, who was not experienced to save himself from the Jews, who killed him by nailing him to a cross. Even if you take refuge in the depths of the sea, I will stretch out my hand and take you, whether you will or no.

However, the genuineness of the letter has been denied by advanced scholars.

When the Sasanians reached Chalcedon in 615, it was at this point, according to Sebeos, that Heraclius had agreed to stand down and was about prepare to permit the Byzantine Empire to become a Persian client state, even permitting Khosrow II tothe emperor. things began to look even more grim for the Byzantines when Chalcedon fell in 617 to Shahin, bringing the Persians within sight of Constantinople. Shahin courteously received a peace delegation but claimed that he did not have the authority to engage in peace talks, directing Heraclius to Khosrow, who rejected the peace ad - in retrospect, a major strategic blunder. Still, the Persian forces soon withdrew, probably to focus on their invasion of Egypt. Yet the Persians retained their advantage, capturing Ancyra, an important military base in central Anatolia, in 620 or 622. Rhodes and several other islands in the eastern Aegean fell in 622/3, threatening a naval assault on Constantinople. such(a) was the despair in Constantinople that Heraclius considered moving the government to Carthage in Africa.