The Heraclian Revolution

Abstract

The initial impetus behind the revolutionary movement which brought Phocas down in October 610 is located in North Africa. In the name of the Senate, Heraclius and his father, the governor, built up support among the Berbers and wooed disaffected elements in Egypt and its western approaches (608), preparing the way for the stage-managed takeover of Alexandria (spring 609). Demonstrations of opposition to Phocas elsewhere in the Levant were brutally suppressed by Bonosus, who, with a small, swift-moving force, then tried and failed to drive the rebels from Egypt (609). Meanwhile, Heraclius was promoting disaffection from his base on Cyprus, before, in 610, leading the rebel fleet against Constantinople, gaining the formal support of the Senate, and capturing the city. The Phocas regime’s vulnerability is partly explicable by its commitment to the Persian war. There were no significant troop withdrawals from either of the fronts.