HERA 



HE1UURT, JOHANN FRIEDKK II. 



SS9 



ATir had no ship* to effect a uoiou, and that the inhabitant* of the 

 capital would fight to the lait before they surrendered to an enemy 

 whom it was more dangerous to encounter in the open field than in 

 their aasaulU upon wall* and towers, A Slavonian fleet having 

 entered the Bosporus, destined to convey the Persians over to the 

 European shore, the Greek galleyi left the Golden Horn, and, in sight 

 of the bniegen, deatroyed the ahipa of the barbariana or took them 

 and carried them off into the harbour of Constantinople. Shortly 

 after this erent the A ran withdrew and Constantinople was free, 

 although Sarbar continued to amuse himself with the siege of 

 Chalcedon. 



While this took place in the west, Theodore, the brother of Herac 

 liua, defeated the Persian general Said in Armenia, and the emperor 

 defended with succeaa the Caucasian provinces against the desperate 

 attack of Choaroea, who took the field against him with a select army 

 of 50,000 men called the Golden Spears. A still greater advantage 

 the emperor derived from effecting an alliance with Ziebrl, the khan 

 of the Khacara, who came through the Iron Gate with a numerous 

 host, and joined the Romans at Tifilis (Tiflis). Another army of 

 Khaxara invaded Persia on the side of Turkistdn. The united Romans 

 and Khuars were 70,000 men, or perhaps more, since the Khazars 

 alone were 50,000 strong, and Heraclius led them forthwith into the 

 province of Atropatene, where he took up his winter-quarters. He 

 crowned the success of his arms by a most successful stratagem. 

 After the junction of the Romans and the Khazars, Chosroes sent a 

 despatch to Sarbar, with an order to give up all further designs 

 against Constantinople, and to join him without delay in Persia. The 

 messenger having fallen into the hands of the Romans, Heraclius 

 altered the despatch, enjoining him to hold out as long as possible, 

 and the letter was forwarded through another courier. Sarbar con- 

 tinued the tiege, but bis protracted absence irritated the king so much 

 that he despatched a second messenger to the first lieutenant of Sarbar 

 with an order to kill his general as a traitor. The despatch having 

 been delivered to Sarbar instead of his lieutenant, he added the names 

 of 400 of the principal officers as being all destined to be sacrificed to 

 the anger of their master, whereupon he showed them the order, and 

 declared the only way to save themselves was to break their allegiance 

 to Chosroes and to make peace with the emperor on their own account. 

 The officers gave their consent, they persuaded the army to follow 

 their example, and Heraclius having granted them favourable condi- 

 tions, they laid down their arms, and abandoned Chosroes at a moment 

 when he stood most in need of them. There ia something strange in 

 this story, and it would seem as if Heraclius had not so much a hand in 

 it as Siroes, the son of Chosroes, who rebelled against his father, and 

 put him to death in 620. 



In spite of this loss Chosroes had still a numerous army to oppose 

 Heraclius in the campaign of 627. But his efforts were in vain. With 

 irresistible power the Roman emperor moved on upon Assyria, and 

 although his progress was slow, be was successful in every siege and 

 engagement He came from the province of Atropatene, passed the 

 Zabas (Great Zab) in its upper part, and marched towards Niniveh 

 (opposite Mosul), where he encountered a Persian army commanded 

 by Rhazater, who bad followed the emperor for some time, but gained 

 some marches over him, and had taken a position near the ruins of 

 Niniveh with the intention of preventing the Romans from occupying 

 the valley of the Tigris and marching upon Ctesiphon. After an 

 obstinate resistance from daybreak till night Rhazater was routed and 

 killed, and Heraclius, who had again signalised himself as a general 

 and a warrior, pursued the fugitive enemy, and occupied the bridges 

 over the Great and the Little Zab, which the Persians had no time to 

 secure. The battle at Niniveh was fought on the 12th of December 

 627. On his way to Dastagerd or Arteiuita, Heracliua took, plundered, 

 and destroyed the royal palaces of Rusa, Beglali, and others, and 

 immense treasures fell into bis hands. Soon afterwards he took Dasta- 

 gerd, tie favourite residence of Chosroes, and its treasures, of which 

 Theopbanes gives a fabulous description; and many thousands of 

 ouptive Romans, chiefly inhabitants of Edessa and Alexandria, as akto 



BO standards and other trophies taken from the Romans in former 

 campaigns, were recovered by the victors. Chosroes fled from Dasta- 

 erd to Ctesiphon (El-Modaio), and thence into the interior of Ptriia. 

 Herachus was already in sight of Ctesiphon, when he suddenly retreated 

 northeast upon Sbzura (Shentur) and Gandzaca, crossing the Assyrian 

 mountains in the midst of winter without loa>. The motives of his 

 retreat were either the fear of being unable to take the well fortified 

 city of Ctwiphon in the whiter, the want of provisions in Assyria, 



rtich had been ravaged, being already very sensibly felt, or perhaps 

 the rebelbon of Biroes agaiut his father Chosroes, whom ho treaohei- 

 ously seized and put to death with eighteen of his sons, the brothers 

 of Siroes. (February 28, 628.) In the month of March following 

 peace was concluded between Siroes and Heraclius. Siroes ceded Syria! 

 r* 3 ?^ "P oUn 'J. ""d Armenia, and gave back the Holy Cross taken 

 by his father at the conquest of Jerusalem ; and Heiaclius gave up 

 many thousand Persian captives, and allowed the Persian troops who 

 still occupied the principal towns of E ? ypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia 

 to nturn to their native country: they were treated with great 

 humanity on their march through the Roman provinces. In the Sam* 

 year Heraclius bad his triumphal entrance into Conatantinople. Theo- 

 phanea, so vague and obscure in his accounto of the unit campaign* 



of Heraeliur, gives a detailed and accurate description of the cam- 

 paign of 627. The latter years of the reign of this emperor were 

 passed amidst theological controversies. Heraclius sup|orted the 

 doctrine of the Monothelites, who taught that the human nature in 

 Jesus Christ was entirely passive under the will of his divine nature. 

 Pope John IV. assembled a council at Rome in 640, which condemned 

 the Monothelites. Meantime the Arabians, after the death of Mo- 

 hammed, and under the kalifato of Abu-Bekr, invaded Syria, Palestine, 

 and Mesopotamia, and under the following kalifate of Omar they con- 

 quered Egypt and Cyrenaica. Heraclius was unable to oppose the 

 torrent of Arabian courage and fanaticism ; he sunk into inactivity 

 and sloth, and died of the dropsy in February 641, after a reign of 

 thirty years. From that epoch the decided though gradual decline 

 of the Eastern empire may be dated. Heraclius was succeed 

 HERACLIUS COKSTANTINK, his son by his first wife Eudocia, who in 

 the fourth month of his reign was poisoned by his stepmother Martina, 

 who had her own son Heracleonas proclaimed in his stead. An iu-ur- 

 rection however soon after broke out at Constantinople against the 

 new emperor, who was mutilated and banished together with hU 

 mother, and Constans II., son of Heraclius Constantine, was raised to 

 the imperial throne. 



(Theophanea and other Byzantine historians; Gibbon; Le Beau) 

 D'Anville, 4c.) 



Coin of Hcraclius. 

 British Museum. Actual size. Gold. Weight C9 grains. 



HERBART, JOHANN FRIEDRICH, a distinguished German 

 philosopher, was born in 1776, at Oldenburg, whero bis father at the 

 time held an office connected with the administration of justice. 

 Receiving his religious instruction from a man well acquainted with 

 the philosophical systems of Leibnitz and Kant, Herbart, at the age 

 of about twelve, was led to speculate upon such subjects as Qod, 

 freedom, and immortality. In hia eighteenth year he went to the 

 University of Jena, where he studied under Fichte, and formed an 

 intimate acquaintance with him, and be entertained the highest opiuion 

 of his master until Schilling's work, ' Vom Ich,' fell into his hands, 

 which was admired by Fichte, while Herbart opposed its tendency 

 with the greatest zeal. This caused a breach between Fichte and 

 Herbart, who gladly accepted a place of private tutor which was 

 offered to him at Bern in Switzerland. He had already conceived the 

 idea of a system of psychology based upon mathematics, and the more 

 clearly Fichte explained his views upon psychology in his ' Sitten- 

 lehre (Leipzig and Jena, 1798), the more Herbart became convinced 

 that the speculations of Fichte must be abandoned if any permanent 

 basis was to be gained for his science. About the same time he 

 devoted himself with great zeal to the study of the history of ancient 

 philosophy, which led him to form an intimate acquaintance with the 

 systems of Plato and the Eleatios. However he continued his own 

 researches which he had commenced under Fichte, and from 1802 to 

 1805 ho delivered philosophical lectures in the University of Giittin- 

 gen, where he developed his peculiar method of thinking, which was 

 subsequently much extended, but remained essentially the same as it 

 had been from the beginning. HU tendency was pre-eminently prac- 

 tical, audit was partly owinj; to this circumstance, and partly to hia 

 personal acquaintance with Pestalozzi, that his first works treated on 

 education. In 1809 he was appointed professor of philosophy at 

 Kbnigsberg, and was at the same time entrusted with the superin- 

 tendence of the higher educational establishments in the eastern 

 parts of Prussia, in tha organisation of which he did great service. 

 In 1833 he was invited to the chair of philosophy in the University of 

 Gottingen, where his lectures attracted great attention on account of 

 the clearness and precision with which he explained his views. He 

 remained at Guttiugen until his death, on the 14th of August 1841. 



Herbart is the founder of a particular system of philosophy, which 

 is interesting on accout of his peculiar method rather than his origi- 

 nality of thought, for iu reality his system is of a syncretic kind, and 

 Fichte's influence upon it cannot bo mistaken. Although Herbart 

 occasionally professes to be a follower of Kant, still be is of opinion 

 that Kant's ' Criticism of Pure Reason' is almost without any objec- 

 tive value, and that its method must be entirely abandoned if meta- 

 physics are to be founded on a secure and permanent basis. Herbart 'a 

 realistic tendency further reminds us of the monades of Leibnitz. 

 Philosophy, according to Herbart, has not, like ordinary sciences, any 

 particular set of subjects which are its province, but it consists in the 

 manner and method in which any subject whatsoever is treated. The 

 subjects themselves are supposed to be known, and are called by him 

 'notions' (Begriffe), so that philosophy is the methodical treatment 

 and working out of those ' notions.' The different methods of treat- 

 meat constitute the main departments of philosophy. The first of 



