The Difficult Road to Peace

The news of Khusro’s fall finally reached Heraclius on 3 April 628, marking the end of the war. There followed two years of negotiations with three successive Persian regimes. The threat from the Turks strengthened the Roman position until their sudden disappearance in 629. Under the terms finally agreed with Khusro’s daughter Boran, the Persians disgorged all his conquests and accepted the pre-war frontier. Victory was celebrated in Constantinople, when Heraclius’ final dispatch was read out in St Sophia (15 May 628). Two triumphal ceremonies were staged, the first at Constantinople on the occasion of Heraclius’ return in June 628, the second at Jerusalem on 21 March 630, when Heraclius brought back the fragments of the True Cross taken by the Persians in 614 from Calvary in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Close attention is paid to the texts and works of art which commemorated the victory.