Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Heraclian epoch (610-717)

External Problems

The Persian wars and the campaigns of Avars and Slavs 

Page 6

The significance of the Persian campaigns of Heraclius. This Persian war marks a very significant epoch in the history of the Byzantine Empire. Of the two main world powers of the early Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire, and Persia, the second definitely lost its former significance and became a weak state soon to cease its political existence because of the attacks of the Arabs. The victorious Byzantine Empire dealt the death blow to its constant enemy, reclaimed all the lost eastern provinces of the Empire, restored the Holy Cross to the Christian world, and at the same time freed its capital of the formidable menace of the Avaro-Slavonic hordes. The Byzantine Empire seemed to be at the height of its glory and power. The sovereign of India sent his congratulations to Heraclius on his victory over the Persians, together with a great quantity of precious stones. The king of the Franks, Dagobert, sent special ambassadors to make a perpetual peace with the Empire. Finally in 630 the queen of the Persians, Borane, apparently also sent a special envoy to Heraclius and made formal peace.

Heraclius officially assumed the name basileus for the first time after the successful outcome of the Persian war, in the year 629. This name had been in use for centuries in the East, particularly in Egypt, and with the fourth century it became current in the Greek-speaking parts of the empire, but it had not previously been accepted as an official title. Up to the seventh century the Greek equivalent of the Latin emperor (imperator) was the term autocrator (αὐτοκράτωρ), that is, an autocrat, which does not correspond etymologically to imperator. The only foreign ruler to whom the Byzantine emperor consented to give the title of basileus (with the exception of the distant king of Abyssinia) was the king of Persia. Bury wrote: So long as there was a great independent Basileus outside the Roman Empire, the emperors refrained from adopting a title which would be shared by another monarch. But as soon as that monarch was reduced to the condition of a dependent vassal and there was no longer a concurrence, the Emperor signified the events by assuming officially the title which had for several centuries been applied to him unofficially.

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