CHAP no longer flowed in the usual channels, the credit of an arbitrary prince is annihilated by his power; and the courage of Heraclius was first displayed in daring to borrow the consecrated wealth of churches under the solemn vow of restoring, with usury, whatever he had been compelled to employ in the service of religion and of the empire. The clergy themselves appear to have sympathised with the public distress, and the discreet patriarch of Alexandria, without admitting the precedent of sacrilege, assisted his sovereign by the miraculous or seasonable revelation of a secret treasure *. Of the soldiers who had conspired with Phocas, only two were found to have survived the stroke of time and of the Barbarians; the loss, even of these seditious veterans, was imperfectly supplied by the new levies of Heraclius, and the gold of the sanctuary united in the same camp, the names, and arms, and languages, of the East and West. He would have been content with the neutrality of the Avars; and his fiendly entreaty that the chagan would act not as the enemy but as the guardian of the empire, was accompanied with a more persuasive donative of two hundred thousand pieces of gold. Two * Baronius gravely relates this discovery, or rather transmutation, of barrels, not of honey, but of gold (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 620, No. 3, &c.). Yet the loan was arbitrary, since it was collected by soldiers, who were ordered to leave the patriarch of Alexandria no more than one hundred pounds of gold. Nicephorus (p. 11.), two hundred years afterwards, speaks with ill-humour of this contribution, which the church. of Constantinople might still feel. Theophylact Simocatta, 1. viii. c. 12. This circumstance need not excite our surprise. The muster-roll of a regiment, even in time of peace, is renewed is less than twenty or twenty-five years. XLVI. Two days after the festival of Easter, the emperor, c H A P. exchanging his purple for the simple garb of a peuitent and warrior *, gave the signal of his departure. To the faith of the people Heraclius recommended his children; the civil and military powers were vested in the most deserving hands, and the discretion of the patriarch and senate was authorised to save or surrender the city, if they should be oppressed in his absence by the superior forces of the enemy. dition of Persians, The neighbouring heights of Chalcedon were First expecovered with tents and arms: but it the new levies Heraclius of Heraclius had been rashly led to the attack, the against the victory of the Persians in the sight of Constanti- A. D. 622. nople might have been the last day of the Roman empire. As imprudent would it have been to advance into the provinces of Asia, leaving their innumerable cavalry to intercept his convoys, and continually to hang on the lassitude and disorder of his rear. But the Greeks were still masters of the sea; a fleet of gallies, transports, and storeships, was assembled in the harbour; the Barbarians con-, sented to embark; a steady wind carried them through the Helespont; the western and southern coast of Asia Minor lay on their left hand; the spirit of their chief was first displayed in a storm; and even the eunuchs of his train were excited to suffer and to work by the example of their master. He landed his troops on the confines of Syria and Cincia, in the gulf of Scandaroon, where the coast *He changed his purple for black buskins, and dyed them red in the blood of the Persians (Georg. Pisid. Acroas. iii. 118. 121, 122. See the notes of Foggini, p. 35.). CHAP. coast suddenly turns to the south; and his dis XLVI. cernment was expressed in the choice of this important post *. From all sides, the scattered gar, risons of the maritime cities and the mountains might repair with speed and safety to his Imperial standard. The.natural fortifications of Cilicia pro tected, and even concealed the camp of Heraclius, which was pitched near Issus, on the same ground where Alexander had vanquished the host of Da, rius. The angle which the emperor occupied, was deeply indented into a vast semicircle of the Asiatic, Armenian, and Syrian provinces; and to whatsoever point of the circumference he should direct his attack, it was easy for him to dissemble his own motions, and to prevent those of the enemy. In the camp of Issus the Roman general reformed the sloth and disorder of the veterans, and educated the new recruits in the knowledge and practicę George of Pisidia (Acroas. ii. 1o. p. 8.) has fixed this important point of the Syrian and Cilician gates. They are ele gantly described by Xenophon, who marched through them a thousand years before. A narrow pass of three stadia between steep high rocks (ITα bαTα) and the Mediterranean, was closed at each end by strong gates, impregnable to the land (wageddur en ne ß), accessible by sea (Anabasis, L. i. p. 35, 36. with Hutchison's Geographical Dissertation, p. vi.). gates were thirty five parasangs, or leagues, from Tarsus (Anabasis, 1. i. p. 33, 34.), and eight or ten from Antioch. (Compare Itinerar. Wesseling. p. 580, 581. Schultens, Index Geograph. ad calcem Vit. Saladin. p. 9. Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, par M. Otter, tom. i. p. 78, 79.). 66 The Heraclius might write to a friend in the modest words of Cicero: "Castra habuimus ea ipsa quæ contra Darium habue"rat apud Issum Alexander, imperator haud paulo melior quam aut tu aut ego." Ad Atticum, v. 20. Issus, a rich and flourishing city in the time of Xenophon, was ruined by the prosperity of Alexandria or Scandaroon, on the other side of the bay. tice of military virtue. Unfolding the miraculous c H a p, image of Christ, he urged them to revenge the XLVI. holy alters which had been profaned by the worshippers of fire; addressing them by the endearing appellations of sons and brethren, he deplored the public and private wrongs of the republic. The subjects of a monarch were persuaded that they fought in the cause of freedom; and a similar enthusiasm was communicated to the foreign mercenaries, who must have viewed with equal indifference the interest of Rome and of Persia. Heraclius himself, with the skill and patience of a centurion, inculcated the lessons of the school of tactics, and the soldiers were assiduously trained in the use of their weapons, and the exercises and evolutions of the field. The cavalry and infantry in light or heavy armour were divided into two parties; the trumpets were fixed in the centre, and their signals directed the march, the charge, the retreat, or pursuit; the direct or oblique order, the deep or extended phalanx; to represent in fictitious combat the operations of genuine war. Whatever hardship the emperor imposed on the troops, he inflicted with equal severity on himself; their labour, their diet, their sleep were measured by the inflexible rules of discipline; and, without despising the enemy, they were taught to repose an implicit confidence in their own valour and the wisdom of their leader. Cilicia was soon encompassed with the Persian arms; but their cavalry hesitated to enter the defiles of mount Taurus, till they were circumvented by the evolutions of Heraclius, who insensibly gained their rear CHAP. rear, whilst he His second expedition appeared to present his front in By a false motion, which seemed to threaten Armenia, he drew them against their wishes, to a general action. They were tempted by the artful disorder of his camp; but when they advanced to combat, the ground, the sun, and the expectation of both armies, were unpropitious to the Barbarians; the Romans successfully repeated their tactics in a field of battle *, and the event of the day, declared to the world, that the Persians were not invincible, and that an hero was invested with the purple. Strong in victory and fame, Heraclius boldly ascended the heights of mount Taurus, directed his march through the plains of Cappadocia, and established his troops for the winter season in safe and plentiful quarters on the banks of the river Halyst. His soul was superior to the vanity of entertaining Constantinople with an imperfect triumph: but the presence of the emperor was indispensably required to sooth the restless and rapacious spirit of the Avars. Since the days of Scipio and Hannibal, no bolder A. D. 623, enterprise has been attempted than that which 624, 625. Heraclius achieved for the deliverance of the empire * Foggini (Annotat. p. 31.) suspects that the persons were deceived by the Pada wenyμson of Alian (Tactic. c. 48.), an intricate spiral motion of tue, army. He observed (p. 28.) that the military descriptions of George of Pisidia are transcribed in the Tactics of the emperor Leo. + George of Pisidia, an eye-witness (Acroas. ii. 122, &c.), described in three acroaseis or cantos, the first expedition of Heraclius. The poem has been lately (1777) published at Rome; but such vague and declamatory praise is far from corresponding with the sanguine hopes of Pagi, D'Anville, &c. |