Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

Everything seemed to be collapsing at once for the Persians. Just a few years before, they had been on the brink of capturing Constantinople, and now their armies were broken and retreating on all fronts. Outside the ancient city of Nineveh, a last, desperate attempt was made to restrain the triumphant Heraclius, but in a bloody, eleven-hour battle, the emperor shattered the Persian army, killing its commander in single combat.

The brutal sacking of Ctesiphon that followed the battle put the finishing touches on the war. So much treasure was captured that Heraclius’s army couldn’t carry it all, and much of it had to be consigned to the flames. Chosroes II called for women and children to defend him, but by now he was widely blamed for the calamity that had overtaken Persia, and no one was willing to fight for him.^* Furiously turning on their monarch, the army and people alike rose up in revolt, and their justice was terrible. Chosroes II was flung into the ominously named Tower of Darkness, where he was given only enough food and water to prolong his agony. When he had suffered enough, he was dragged out and forced to watch as his children were executed in front of him. After the last of his offspring had expired, his torment was finally brought to an end when he was shot slowly to death with arrows.

The war had broken Persian strength, and the new king, Shahr-Baraz, immediately sued for peace, surrendering all the conquered land, releasing all prisoners, and returning the True Cross. As a final gesture of submission, he even made the Byzantine emperor the guardian of his son. Heraclius had recovered at a stroke all that had been lost during the long years of decline. The long struggle with Persia was over; never again would they trouble the Byzantine Empire.

The Senate rapturously granted their glorious emperor the title of “Scipio,” and when he arrived in sight of the capital, it was to find the entire population streaming out to meet him, waving olive branches and cheering.† Singing hymns, they carried the emperor into the city, following the True Cross through the Golden Gate in a procession complete with the first elephants ever seen in the city. After marching to the Hagia Sophia, they watched as their victorious emperor raised the cross above the high altar. It had been six long years since Heraclius had left the city, but now he sat enthroned in all his glory. He had snatched the empire from the jaws of extinction and overthrown the power of Persia. The True Cross was enshrined, and the Lord’s enemies were scattered before it. Surely, this was the dawn of a new age.

Heraclius had restored the empire to its former glory, and, in appearance at least, it still resembled the classical world of antiquity. A Greek or Italian traveler could walk from the Strait of Gibraltar through North Africa and Egypt to Mesopotamia and feel comfortably at home. There were regional differences, but the cities were all reassuringly Roman, the language was Greek, and the culture was Hellenized. Most towns had the same familiar plan, complete with sumptuous baths waiting to wash the dust from tired feet and aqueducts and amphitheaters dotting the landscapes. Life may have been a bit more turbulent and uncertain, but it continued much as it had since the Romans first arrived with their powerful legions and ordered architecture.

But there were important differences, too. Even in educated circles, few men were now bilingual. Latin had always been widely considered an unsatisfactory language for sophisticated discussions, especially theological ones, and over the centuries it had slowly died out. Western officials posted to the East had been able to obtain phrase books with local Greek expressions to assist them, but no one bothered to return the favor. The cultural flow swept relentlessly in one direction only, and though Greek thought still moved west, in the East the Latin classics of Virgil, Horace, and Cicero remained untranslated and widely unknown. By the time of Heraclius, few men could understand the archaic language that the empire’s laws were written in, and the emperor, who prized military efficiency above all else, swept away the old trappings of the Latin empire. Greek was made the official language, and even the imperial titles were modified accordingly. Every emperor from Augustus to Heraclius had been hailed as Imperator Caesar and Augustus, but after him they were known only as Basileus—the Greek word for king.^* The break with the past was startling but long overdue. The empire was now thoroughly Greek, and within a generation the old imperial language was extinct.