sss 



HERACLIUS. 



HERACLIUS. 



338 



had, and the distinguished position that he held in political life attests 

 the wealth and lustre of his descent. The gloomy haughtiness and 

 melancholy of his temperament led him to despise all human pursuits, 

 and he expressed unqualified contempt as well for the political sagacity 

 of his fellow-citizens as for the speculations of all other philosophers, 

 as having mere learning and not wisdom for their object I 'f his work 

 'On Nature' (1 *!}<), the difficulty of which obtained for him 

 the Fiirname of 'the obscure,' many fragments are still extant, and 

 exhibit a broken and concise style, hinting rather than explaining his 

 opinions, which are often conveyed in mythical and half-oracular 

 images On this account he well compares himself to the Sibyl, wno, 

 he says, "speaking with inspired mouth, smileless, inornate, and 

 unperfumed, pierces through centuries by the power of the god. 



According to Heraclitus, the end of wUdom is to discover the 

 ground and principle of all things. This principle, which is an eternal 

 Iverliving unity, and pervades and is in all phenomena, he called /;,-<. 

 By this term Heraclitus understood, not the elemental fire or ft 

 which he held to be the excess of fire, but a warm and dry vapour; 

 which therefore, as air, is not distinct from the soul or vital energy, 

 and which, as guiding and directing the mundane development^ is 

 endued with wisdom and intelligence. This supreme and perfect 

 force of life is obviously without limit to its activity; consequently 

 nothing that it forms can remain fixed ; all is constantly in a process 

 of formation. This he has thus figuratively expressed : No one has 

 ever been twice on the same stream." Nay, the passenger himself is 

 without identity : " On the same stream we do and we do not embark ; 

 for we are and we are not.' 



The vitality of the rational fire has hi it a tendency to contraries 

 whereby it is made to pass from gratification to want, and from want 

 to gratification, and in fixed periods it alternates between a swifter and 

 a slower flux. Now these opposite tendencies meet together in deter- 

 minate order, and by the inequality or equality of the forces occasion 

 the phenomena of life and death. The quietude of death, however, is 

 a mere semblance which exists only for the senses of man. r or n 

 in hi. folly forms a truth of his own, whereas it is only the umye 

 reason that is really cognisant of the truth Lastly the rational 

 principle which governs the whole moral and physical word uaUo 

 the law of the individual ; whatever therefore is, is the wisest and the 

 best- and "it ia not for man's welfare that his wishes should b 

 fulfilled ; sickness makes health pleasant, as hunger does gratification, 



and labour rest." . , . . 



The physical doctrines of Heraclitus formed no inconsiderable 

 portion of the eclcctical system of the later Stoics, and in times stiU 

 more recent there i* much in the theorie. of Schelling and Hegel that 

 presents a striking though general resemblance thereto. , 



The fragments of Heraclitiis have been collected from Plutarch, 

 Stobams, Clemens of Alexandria, and Sextus Empiricus, and explained 

 by Schleierraacher in Wolf and Buttman'. ' Museum der AUherthum- 

 swissenschaft,' vol. L See also BrandU's ' Handbuch der Geschichte 

 der Griechisch-Rom. Philos.,' Berlin, 1335; and Kitter-a History of 

 Antient Philosophy,' Oxford, 1837. 



II KKA'CLIUS, the un of the patncian Herachui, who was governor 

 of Africa under the Emperor Phocas, awisted in dethroning the latter 

 in A.D. 610, and wa. proclaimed emperor in hi. place. The destitu 

 condition of the empire at the acceaion of Heraclius compelled him 

 to be an almost inactive spectator of the ruinous invasions of the 

 Avar, in Europe and the Persians in Asia. By submitting t 

 annual tribute of one thousand talents (pounds?) of gold as many 

 talent, of silver, one thousand silk robes, and one thousand slave girls, 

 he induced the Persian king Chosroes or Khosrew to discontinue his 

 invasions of A.ia Minor, and to be *iti.fied with the conquests he had 

 made from the Greek empire, which comprehended Egypt and < 

 whole of the Asiatic provinces east and south of a line drawn from tho 

 northern frontiers of Syria to the eastern extremity of the province , 

 Pontu.. Heraclius made a less humiliating peace with the Avars. 

 Having got rid of hu enemies, he applied himself to reform the < 

 cipline of the army, and he employed vigorous means to fill h treasury 

 not sparing the property of the churches ; he was thus enabled to raise 

 an arW .trong enough to stop all further designs of the Persian king 

 The plan of attacking that powerful foe was bold and well designed 

 and it wa. executed with so much boldness and prudence, and such a 

 startling combination of offence and defence, a. to equal the strategical 



Cilician and Syrian gates and other passes that lead through the sur- 

 rounding ranges. A Persian army approaching m full conndenc 

 making the Romans prisoners of war, or of forcing them to re-embark, 

 was turned, routed, and driven into the mountains of Armenia. Having 

 thus cleared his way and secured his rear, Heraclius marched through 

 the Cilician gates northward in the direction of Mount Argseus ( Arjish) 

 and the Upper Halys (Kizil Irmdk), where, as it seems, a portion of 

 his troops remained during the winter as a body of observation. The 

 emperor with the main body advanced upon Trebizond, and quartered 

 his troops in the province of Pontus. Trebizond now became the 

 centre of his operations. He left it however soon after his arrival, 

 sailed to Constantinople, and in the following spring of 623 returned 

 with a fleet and a chosen body of 5000 men. 



From Trebizond Heraclius carried the war, in the spring ot O5| 

 into the heart of Persia. The nations in the Caucasus were his allies, 

 and he had entered into negociations with the khazars beyond the 

 Caucasus. These were the causes of his first advancing north-east 

 into the Caucasian provinces, and only after having shown himself 

 there and increased his army through the contingents of his allies, lie 

 marched south upon Charsa (Kara) and thence in a direction parallel 

 with the Araxes as far as the great bend of that river, where, after a 

 south-eastern and eastern course, it turns north-east. Thence he 

 marched right upon Gazaca or Gandzaca, which is the still common 

 Armenian name of Tabriz, and this city fell into. his hands with all 

 its wealth, Chosroes, who was in the neighbourhood with 40,000 men, 

 not daring to offer battle for the relief of his northern capital From 

 Gandzaca Heraclius marched south, turned the Persian army and f. 

 upon their rear, took and destroyed Theabarma, now Urumiyeh near 

 the western shore of the large lake of Urumiyeh, which is said to be 

 the birthplace of Zoroaster, and many other cities which have not 

 vet been identified, and at last wheeled round and took up his winter- 

 quarters in the flat country between the Lower Araxes and 1 

 Caspian, which is now known as the plain of Mogan We may 

 uppose that he chose that tract, which is renowned for its vast 

 pasturages, for the support of his numerous cavalry, and for t 

 purpose of having an easy communication with the khazara, who used 

 o pass through DAghestitu and the Iron Gate, near Derbent, whenever 

 ;hcy invaded Persia. , . - 



In the following year, 624, Heraclius penetrated into _ the wart ol 

 Media, took Casbin, and probably also Aspahan (Isfahan) defeatec 

 Chosroes in a pitched battle, and, after having carried the Roman 

 arms farther into Persia than any of his predecessors, returned to his 

 former winter-quarters at the foot of the Caucasus. 



During this time Chosroes had withdrawn his troops from Egypt 

 and Syria and thought himself strong enough to act on the offensive. 

 In the spring of 625 he ordered his lieutenant Sarbar, or Sarbaraza, 

 to menace Asia Minor, while he endeavoured to keep the Roman 

 emperor at check iu the Caucasus. Sarbar, who was m Northern 



i _ ___it- _ __J r,,ll iinsin *-Vitt mmmtMrn nni'Ifi or 



pue in the valley of the Upper 



Euphrates ready to descend through the passes of the Anti-Taurus 

 into th. high plain, of Cappadocia, and to push on towards Constan- 

 Unople, a. they had done ia 616. The army of Herachus consisting 

 chiefly of raw levies, wa quartered in the environs of Constantinople 

 and afterward, in thow of Chalcedon on the Asiatic shore of the 

 Bosporus, and a whole year was required to prepare his men f 

 camS. But Heracliu. wa, master of the sea and h,s numerous 

 fleet Enabled him to choose hi. base of operation. Early in the spring 

 of 622 he embarked hi. troops, and from the Bopon>B sailed to the 

 extern corner of Cilicia, which lies round the bay of ^dndertn 

 (Alexandria), and is protected on the north and cast by the Taurus, 

 and on^thTiouth by Mount Amanus. There on the plain of Issus he 

 continued accustoming hi. troops to actual warfare .by makinp , them 

 manoeuvre in the same way as modern troops do, and he occu pl ed the 



BIOO. D1V. VOI.. HI. 



emperor at cuecs iu iuu vyaut<mu=. "< 



Mesopotamia, marched south-west and fell upon the eastern angle of 

 Cilicia His intention was apparently to take the easiest way for 

 penetrating into Asia Minor, to cut off the communication between 

 the Romans in the fortresses of the Anti-Taurus and the Taurus with 

 the Mediterranean, and to destroy the magazines of the Romans m 

 Cilicia Informed of this diversion, Heraclius moved on ; but while 

 he appeared to threaten the main body of the Persians under Chosroes, 

 e suddenly passed by, left the defence of Armenia to his Caucasian 

 allies and followed Sarbar through Mesopotamia, either by his tr; 

 or on a parallel road. They met in Cilicia on the banks of he Sarus, 

 now Sihdn, at a moment when Sarbar was m a very critical position. 

 Theophanes says, that Heraclius approached from Germdmcia 

 (ManU,h), passed by Adana, and arrived in Cilicia before Sarbar ; and 

 aTwhen the battle began, the Romans were on the right and I the 

 Persians on the left bank of the Sarus, we may suppose that Sarbar 

 came through the Syrian passes and found himself in presence of t 

 main army of the Romans, just when he was going to attack the 

 CUician p<4es. In the ensuing battle Herachus astonished bo h his 

 own and P his enemy's troops by his heroic deed* At the head of a 

 few veterans he stormed the stone bridge over the Sarus (below 

 Adanatwhich the Persians had occupied and fortified and slew with 

 his own hand a gigantic Persian whom nobody dared to fight. 

 After Tbloody conflict the Persians were routed ; and Sarbar escaped, 

 the Syrian passes, with the scattered remnants of his army 

 toe Heraclius did not pursue him, but marched through the 



Cilician passes upon Sebaste (Siwis), and took up his winter-quarters 



m The 'next campaign of 626 equals the most splendid military opera- 

 tions in ancient oTmodern time. Early in 626 Chosroes opened I the 

 with two armies against Heraclius, and a third under Sa bar, 



allies of Chosroes, invaded Thrace, laid siege to 



StoaJSSgK 



the Caucasus, despatching however, by 





