The succeeding year was illustrated by a triumph of a very different kind, the restitution of the true cross to the Holy Sepulchre. Heraclius performed in person the pilgrimage of Jerusalem, the identity of the relic was verified by the discreet patriarch, and this august ceremony has been commemorated by the annual festival of the exaltation of the cross. Before the emperor presumed to tread the consecrated ground, he was instructed to strip himself of the diadem and purple, the pomp and vanity of the world: but in the judgment of his clergy, the persecution of the Jews was more easily reconciled with the precepts of the Gospel. He again ascended his throne to receive the congratulations of the ambassadors of France and India: and the fame of Moses, Alexander, and Hercules was eclipsed, in the popular estimation, by the superior merit and glory of the great Heraclius. Yet the deliverer of the East was indigent and feeble. Of the Persian spoils, the most valuable portion had been expended in the war, distributed to the soldiers, or buried, by an unlucky tempest, in the waves of the Euxine.
The conscience of the emperor was oppressed by the obligation of restoring the wealth of the clergy, which he had borrowed for their own defence; a perpetual fund was required to satisfy these inexorable creditors; the provinces, already wasted by the arms and avarice of the Persians, were compelled to a second payment of the same taxes; and the arrears of a simple citizen, the treasurer of Damascus, were commuted to a fine of one hundred thousand pieces of gold. The loss of two hundred thousand soldiers who had fallen by the sword, was of less fatal importance than the decay of arts, agriculture, and population, in this long and destructive war: and although a victorious army had been formed under the standard of Heraclius, the unnatural effort appears to have exhausted rather than exercised their strength. While the emperor triumphed at Constantinople or Jerusalem, an obscure town on the confines of Syria was pillaged by the Saracens, and they cut in pieces some troops who advanced to its relief: an ordinary and trifling occurrence, had it not been the prelude of a mighty revolution. These robbers were the apostles of Mohammed; their fanatic valour had emerged from the desert; and in the last eight years of his reign Heraclius lost to the Arabs the same provinces which he had rescued from the Persians.[b]
FOOTNOTES
[29] [The account of this embassy is found in the poems of the African Corippus,[c] who described in Latin hexameters the circumstances of Justin’s accession.]
[30] [This speech which John of Ephesus[d] says was taken down in shorthand is quoted with an apologetic claim of accuracy by Theophylactus Simocatta.[e]]
[31] [This is the story of Theophanes,[f] but John of Ephesus[d] tells an anecdote in direct contradiction, according to which Sophia knew of the wife’s existence, but refused to permit her to reside at the palace, being resolved that no other queen should reign while she lived. When, however, Tiberius was crowned he brought Anastasia to the palace and compelled her recognition.]
[32] [Bury,[g] however, declares that “there is considerable reason to remove Tiberius from his pedestal,” as he “did not make a good emperor.”]
[33] [Finlay[i] suggests that these men may have been deserters, but gives very meagre reasons for his charitable supposition.]
[34] Baronius[j] gravely relates this discovery, or rather transmutation of barrels, not of honey but of gold. Yet the loan was arbitrary, since it was collected by soldiers, who were ordered to leave the patriarch not more than one hundred pounds of gold.
[35] [A lunar eclipse two days earlier, fixes the date of the battle in January, 623.]