Persian Breakthrough

The Persian breakthrough into northern Syria (610) and Asia Minor (611) is attributed in part to disruption occasioned by the final stage of the Heraclian revolution. The foreboding induced by the Persian advances can be gauged from the Lives of two contemporary holy men. Two Roman failures—the escape of the raiding army of Shahen, which had been trapped in Caesarea in Cappadocia (611–12), and the defeat of Heraclius by Shahrbaraz outside Antioch (613)—marked the end of a first Roman fightback. Then came the sack of Jerusalem (May 614) which shook the Christian world. The circumstances (a riot-cum-pogrom which killed members of the Persian control commission) and consequences (execution of the pogrom leaders, deportations, and a Roman propaganda campaign) are re-examined. The extension of Persian direct rule over Palestine is dated two years later.