The Eastern Empire. K 0 
confidence in their own valour, and the wisdom of their 
commander. 
The Persian troops who had advanced towards Cilicia, 
by the 'artful evolutions of Heraclius, were drawn into a general 
engagement; and the event of the day proved that they were 
no longer invincible. Animated by fame and victory, the 
emperor of the East directed his march through the plains of 
Cappadocia, and established the winter quarters of his army 
on the banks of the Halys, but returned himself to Constan¬ 
tinople. 
Next spring he sailed with a select band of five thousand 
soldiers, and landed at Trebisond. The Armenians readily 
embraced the cause of the Christian champion ; a bridge 
was thrown over the Araxes, and Heraclius advanced towards, 
the city of Tauris. Chosroes in person retired at the ap¬ 
proach of the Roman emperor, and declined the generous 
alternative of peace or a battle. 
After wintering in Albania, Heraclius appears to have 
followed the chain of the Hyrcanian mountains, and to have 
carried his victorious arms as far as the cities of Casbin and 
Ispahan. 
Chosroes, however, collecting his scattered forces from the 
most distant provinces of his dominions, surrounded the 
camp of the Romans, and three hostile and formidable 
armies appalled the bravest officers in the army of Heraclius. 
But the emperor himself remained undaunted, and by repeated 
successful attacks drove the Persians from the field into the 
fortified cities of Media and Assyria. A number of satraps 
with their wives, and the flower of then.’ martial youth, were 
either slain or made prisoners. 
Constantinople had already felt the success of Heraclius by 
the retreat of the besiegers; and the senate was now informed 
that the Roman army, laden with spoils, halted under the 
walls of Arnida. The emperor passed the Euphrates, while 
his enemies retired behind the Saras. The impetuous course 
of that river, though the banks were lined with barbarians, 
could not check the progress of Heraclius, who, after a 
triumphant expedition of three years, returned to the coast of 
the Euxine. 
The resourcesof Chosroes, however, were not yet exhausted, 
nor his ambition extinguished. He raised three powerful 
armies, one of which was directed to besiege Constantinople 
in concert with the kagan of the Avars. After a month 
spent in fruitless negociations, the whole city was invested, 
and it was in vain that the inhabitants endeavoured to pur¬ 
chase the retreat of the kagan; but a seasonable reinforce¬ 
ment of twelve thousand men being sent by Heraclius, and 
the provisions of the enemy beginning to fail, they were 
reluctantly compelled to give the signal of retreat. 
In short, after experiencing numerous other defeats, 
Chosroes was taken off by a conspiracy, at the head of which 
was his own son, who, however, enjoyed the fruits of his 
crimes only eight months; and Heraclius, after the exploits 
of six glorious campaigns, returned in triumph to his capital. 
But while he enjoyed the acclamations of his subjects, an 
obscure town on the frontiers of Syria was pillaged by the 
Saracens: some troops sent to its relief were cut in pieces; 
and this occurrence, though apparently so trifling in itself, 
was the prelude of a mighty revolution. These banditti were 
the disciples of Mahomet, whose apostles were all warriors, 
and who, emerging from the desert, in less than eight years 
acquired by the sword those provinces which had been 
recovered from the Persians by the valour of Heraclius. See 
Persia. 
After the death of his first wife Eudocia, Heraclius had 
contracted an incestuous marriage with his niece Martina. 
The superstition of the Greeks beheld the judgment of 
Heaven in the diseases of the father, and the deformity of his 
offspring. Constantine, his eldest son, enjoyed the title of 
Augustus, but the weakness of his constitution requiring a 
colleague, Heracleonas, the son of Martina, was associated to 
the purple. Heraclius survived this arrangement only two 
years, and by his last will declared his two sons the equal 
heirs of the empire of the East. A. D. 641. 
Vol. XXII. No. 1504. 
M E. The Eastern Empire. 321 
The dying emperor, who at one period of his life was equal 
to the greatest generals of antiquity, having enjoined his sons, 
by his last public act, to honour Martina as their mother and 
sovereign, that ambitious woman immediately assumed the 
ensigns of royalty; but was speedily compelled to descend 
from the throne, by the unanimous decision of the people, 
who considered a woman as unfit to be trusted with the reins 
of government; and accordingly she found it expedient to 
retire to the female apartments of the palace. The death of 
Constantine, however, which happened in the thirtieth year 
of his age, and the first of his reign, not without the suspi¬ 
cion of poison, revived the aspiring hopes of Martina. She 
again resumed the management of the helm of state; but the 
incestuous relict of Heraclius was universally abhorred, and 
the exertions of her son, then only fifteen years of age, in 
her favour, were disregarded. Heraclius, it seems, sus¬ 
pecting some intrigues, on his death-bed had dispatched a 
trusty servant, named Valentine, to arm the troops and pro¬ 
vinces of the East, in defence of his two helpless children. 
This person performed the delegated trust with success; and 
from the camp of Chalcedon, he demanded the punishment 
of those who had poisoned Constantine, and insisted on the 
restoration of the lawful heir to the empire. On this the 
citizens of Constantinople compelled Heracleonas to appear 
in the pulpit of St. Sophia, with the eldest of the royal or¬ 
phans. Constans alone being saluted as emperor, he was 
immmediately crowned with the solemn benediction of the 
patriarch. His rival did not attempt to resist the voice of 
the people; but the senate, in concert with all ranks and 
degrees in the state, were determined to put an end to the 
intrigues of Martina and her son: they condemned the for¬ 
mer to lose her tongue, and the latter his nose; and after 
these amputations they were permitted to linger out their 
days in exile and oblivion. 
At this period Constans was only twelve years old; and 
the early respect which he had shewn to the senate, was 
quickly erased by the prejudices of the age, and the habits of 
despotism. He viewed his brother Theodosius, whose vir¬ 
tues made him entirely beloved by the people, with jealous 
eyes; and causing him to be ordained a deacon, received the 
sacred chalice from his hands: yet even this disqualification 
for the purple could not allay the apprehensions of Constans, 
and he soon after procured the unhappy youth to be put to 
death. But the imprecations of the people pursued the 
royal assassin; while his crime being succeeded by the most 
dreadful remorse, he perpetually imagined that he beheld 
his murdered brother extending towards him a cup of blood, to 
quench that thirst with which he was continually tormented. 
To fly from so terrifying an object, as well as to retire from 
the detestation of his people, he left Constantinople, and, 
after passing a winter at Athens, he sailed to Tarentum, 
visited Rome, and then fixed his principal residence at 
Syracuse. But his steps were attended by conscious guilt, 
and the visionary shade of Theodosius incessantly obtruded 
itself on his distempered view, Like another Cain, he wan¬ 
dered from place to place, without finding peace or quiet in 
any ; nor could his increasing wars against the Saracens and 
Lombards dispel the illusions of his fancy. But notwith¬ 
standing his sufferings from this cause, which it might have 
been supposed would have softened his heart, he governed 
the empire in the most tyrannical manner. He perished in 
the capital of Sicily in the twenty-seventh year of his reign. 
A servant who attended him in the bath, after pouring warm 
water on his head, struck him violently with the vase: he 
fell stunned by the blow, and was suffocated in the water. 
The troops in Sicily hastily invested with the purple an ob¬ 
scure youth, the elegance of whose form seems to have been 
his only recommendation. 
Constans, however, having left three sons in the Byzan¬ 
tine court, the cause of Constantine the eldest was readily 
embraced by his subjects, who contributed with zeal and 
alacrity to chastise the presumption of a province which had 
usurped the legitimate rights of the senate and people. The 
emperor sailed from the Hellespont with a powerful fleet, and 
4 'N quickly 
