Podcast

The Arabs march on into Mesopotamia and Egypt. Meanwhile the bad news keeps piling up for Heraclius as he nears his final days.

Heraclius by Rossen Toshev (from ‘Rulers of the Byzantine Empire’ published by KIBEA)

Heraclius, Constantine (r), Heraclonas (l) coin (from beastcoins.com)

Period: 638-641

Download: Episode 49 – The Man Who Lived Too Long

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The Muslim Arabs invade Syria and begin to sweep away Roman resistance. Heraclius gathers the Army of the East for what he hopes will be a decisive battle.

The Canyon of the River Yarmouk today (biblicalgeographic.com)

The Eastern provinces (commons.wikimedia.orgwikiUserCplakidas)

Period: 633-638

Download: Episode 48 – The Battle of Hieromyax

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Heraclius surveys his shattered realm and plans how to remake things. We deal with three issues specifically – the Imperial title, the Empire’s Jews and the Monophysites.

Heraclius coins from this period. The Emperor looking older, his son now a man (from ma-shops.com)

Period: 628-633

Download: Episode 47 – A Brief Respite

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The environs of Constantinople

Heraclius takes the winter off to plan what to do next. He needs to buy off the Avars as he removes all the remaining troops from the Balkans. After training the last Roman army left in the Empire, Heraclius prepares to march East and either restore the old borders or never return.

Period: 620-628

Download: Episode 46 – The Final War

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Heraclius flees the Avars (worldhistoryplus.com)

The campaigns of 624-28 by Mohammad Adil

Byzantine-Persian border

Heraclius at the Battle of Ninevah (concord-publications.com)

David and Goliath plate created for Heraclius’ victory (image from metmuseum.org)

Heraclius entering Jerusalem with the True Cross (the Frescoes in the church of San Francesco in Arezzo)

Hey everyone,

I recorded a brief podcast to let you all know about unfortunate delays in the podcast schedule. I also talk about my other work, the servers and where you can find other great history podcasts.

I also talk about this month’s sponsor Leatherman Data Services.

Download: Byzantine Project Update

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The Byzantine Empire in 620 AD. That should give you an idea of the size of the task ahead of Heraclius

The Persians conquer Egypt as Nicetas fails to defend Alexandria. Heraclius tries to find a way to avoid blame for this disaster and acquire the resources to fight back.

Period: 617-620

Map: The blue parts of the map show the land held by the Byzantine Empire in 620 AD.

(The Map comes from this handy site showing the Roman Empire’s 18 centuries in 19 maps. http://4umi.com/image/map/rome/19maps.php)

Download: Episode 45 – The Empty Fleet

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Hexagram of Heraclius (from http://www.beastcoins.com)

Heraclius fails to push the Persians back and has to watch in horror as they capture Jerusalem.

Period: 612-617

Download: Episode 44 – Unceasing Lamentations

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Phocas is overthrown by Heraclius but the Empire’s problems are only deepening.

Phocas is delivered to Heraclius (from worldhistoryplus.com)

Period: 608-612

Download: Episode 43 – Heraclius to the Rescue

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Copper-alloy steelyard weight. Thought to be a portrait bust of the Emperor Phocas (from the British Museum)

The narrative resumes with the new Emperor Phocas having to deal with yet another Persian invasion.

Period: 602-608

Download: Episode 42 – In Fairness to Phocas

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We explore who the Byzantines thought they were and whether they were right.

Linguistic map of the Byzantine Empire c565

Period: 500-602

Map: The map shows the theoretical linguistic distribution of people in the Byzantine Empire around 560 AD.

(The map comes from Wikipedia but the author admits he used a map from Cyril Mango’s book “Byzantium: the Empire of the New Rome” as his source. Source Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linguistic_Map_of_Justinian_I%27s_Empire_c._560.png I added the word Syriac after Aramaic. Syriac is derived from Aramaic and as it was the language of much writing in the area I wanted to make sure it was mentioned as part of the mix)

Download: Episode 41 – Who is a Byzantine?

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