Dan Snow's History Hit - Emperor Heraclius: Rome vs Persia

Episode Date: July 7, 2024

Emperor Heraclius took the Byzantine Empire from its lowest ebb to its greatest heights. After years of turmoil at the hands of invading Persian armies, Heraclius led lightning counter-offensives that swept into Mesopotamia and devastated the Sassanid Empire. His battlefield exploits became the stuff of legend, but his success was not to last - in the Arabian Peninsula, a new religion was on the rise that would mark the end of one era and the beginning of another.Jonathan Harris, Professor of the History of Byzantium at Royal Holloway, explains how Heraclius reinstated the empire as a regional superpower, and why the rise of the Arab Muslims brought it all tumbling down.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and James Hickmann and edited by Max Carrey.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off for 3 months using code ‘DANSNOW’.We'd love to hear from you - what do you want to hear an episode on? You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History. He's been described as the last great warlord of antiquity, Heraclius, Roman emperor, or as we might describe him, ruler of the Byzantine Empire at the beginning of the 7th century AD. He is without a doubt one of the most fascinating characters in all of history. You're not going to believe your ears at the twists and tails that this turn takes. He tasted victory so pure it ranks him alongside Caesar and Alexander and then he collapsed to the most humiliating and consequential defeat. He's seen it all. Although probably of European extraction, he came from North Africa. His father was a soldier, a successful soldier who rose to become governor of a North African province, North African city, for the Byzantine rulers. In a kind of stunning coup d'etat, he managed to seize

the Byzantine throne in a period of civil unrest. Then he went on to rule over that empire at its lowest ebb to that point in history, at a point when it looked like it was about to be wiped off the map altogether, only to launch one of the most brilliant counterattacks in history that saw him briefly reinstate that empire as a regional superpower. In the years that followed, though, he would suffer appalling reverses and a new era would dawn, the era of Islam. Heraclius is a character that has always fascinated me. I hope we managed to pass on some of that enthusiasm to you in this podcast.

I've got the man who knows all about Heraclius on the podcast now, Jonathan Harris, is a professor of the history of Byzantium at the Royal Holloway University of London. He's author of a general history of Byzantium called The Lost World of Byzantium, as well as a novel called Theosis, so check those both out. But in the meantime, let's get into it. Heraclius, buckle up.

T-minus 10. Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. Jonathan, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Very happy to be here, Dan.

Right, let's just get ourselves sorted out here. The Byzantine Empire, we're calling it the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire. Just talk me through, what is the entity that we're discussing here? Well, it's quite complicated, really, because if you'd asked people at the time who lived there, they would have said, oh, it's the Roman Empire. They wouldn't have known this Byzantine Empire or Byzantium, the two ways that we refer to it. And they're right, because that's exactly what it is. At the time of Heraclius, effectively, the Byzantine Empire is the continuation of the Roman Empire. It's just changed as time has gone by. For a start, the religion has changed. It's now a Christian empire. The old Olympian gods, sort of Jupiter and Venus and all those types, they're long gone. The capital is no longer Rome.

It's Constantinople, what is now Istanbul. And the language is no longer Latin. It's increasingly becoming Greek. And of course, the main difference as well is it's a lot smaller than the old Roman Empire, because a lot of the western provinces of the empire from the days when it stretched from Hadrian's Wall to Syria, they've been lost. So Britain has been lost. Gaul, which is now France, that's been lost. Spain's been lost. So we're talking about a state that really is now Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, which is now Turkey, the Balkans, bits of Italy, Tunisia and Libya, as they now are, and that's about it. So 610, when Heraclius becomes emperor, Rome in it or not? Well, it is in it, but it's, you know, right at the far extreme end of the empire by this time,

no longer at the centre. It's a frontier town. It just about is, and it looks like one too. It's a city of ruins because it had been fought over and changed hands so many times that it's really in a fairly deplorable state. So we've got this empire. It's a pretty tricky geographical position that empire's in, and it faces all sorts of rivals. Its greatest peer rival when Heraclius comes to the throne is Persia. Well, indeed, there is on its eastern border another empire that runs it pretty close in military power, and this is Persia under the Sassanid regime. And for quite a few decades prior to Heraclius' accession, the Persians have really held the upper hand.

Famously, in 540, they'd actually crossed the frontier and sacked the city of Antioch, which was the third largest city in the Byzantine Empire. And they've got ambitions because they see themselves as the heirs of Darius and Cyrus, the old Achaemenid Empire, which of course it included Syria and Egypt. So they're very eager to get hold of it. Yeah, so after a very unpleasant thousand years of Mediterranean dominance, they see themselves reasserting their traditional role in the region. The Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, has had a pretty rubbish time, as you've suggested, at the end of the 6th century, the late 500s, Persians all over the place, threats from all directions. So this is the world in which Heraclius grew up. Where is he from? Is he of royal or aristocratic

origin? Not at all. No, he's the son of a humble soldier who rises through the ranks. His father is also called Heraclius, but he does become somebody quite important. He becomes the governor of the town of Carthage in North Africa, or the Exarch as it was known at the time, and that's quite an important position. And it's quite a nice place to be, Carthage, as it was known at the time. And that's quite an important position. And it's quite a nice place to be, Carthage, because it's just about the only part of the Byzantine Empire around that time, early 7th century, that no one's invading. Because the Byzantines don't just have the Persians to deal with. Their holdings in Italy are under attack by a Germanic tribe called the Lombards.

In the Balkans, they're trying to fight off the Slavs and the Avars, not with much success. So actually coming from Carthage is a good place to grow up, I would have thought, in this particular time. Right. So his dad is governor of Carthage. So he's growing up in a provincial, rarely a kind of a safe and stable provincial environment. How is he thrust towards the centre of Roman affairs? Well, he wouldn't have been in the normal run of things, but there'd been a kind of constitutional crisis. Because at the very beginning of the 7th century, the emperor is a man called Morris. And he's trying to deal with these three threats, these Lombards, these Avars and Slavs, and the Persians in the east. And to be honest with you, to give the guy

credit, he doesn't do badly. He deals with the Lombards by basically saying to the governor of the city of Ravenna, you're on your own. Don't expect any money from me. You gather the taxes, you pay the army, you fight the Lombards, okay, and don't bother me. So he can ignore that one. Then a civil war breaks out in Persia. So Morris intervenes on one side, the side of a guy called Cosro, and helps him to the throne. Cosro is very grateful and says, right, from now on, I promise never to invade the Byzantine Empire again. Okay, two down. And then Morris makes his mistake. He decides he's going to concentrate his forces on the Avars and Slavs, and he's going to be really clever and take them by surprise by attacking them during the winter

over the other side of the Danube in their own territory. Wonderful plan. Slight flaw in the plan, he didn't bother to get the troops assent before he made this decision. So they're all hoping to go back to winter quarters and the orders come, no guys, actually, you're going to go over the other side of the Danube in this really, really cold environment and you're going to fight the Avars and Slavs. Well, it didn't go down very well and they mutinied and poor old Morris is killed. And they put another guy in charge, an officer called Phocas. The trouble is with Phocas is he's paranoid. And no sooner is he emperor, he's quite convinced that somebody else is going to topple him. So he starts murdering

everybody left, right and centre. And news of this reaches Carthage. And Heraclius' father says to him, look, we can't let this go on. I'm a bit old for this. So why don't you go over to Constantinople and overthrow Phocas and bring some semblance of order back to our political life? And that's exactly what Heraclius does. He gets there. Phocas is very unpopular. His own people basically deliver him to Heraclius, who then has him executed, and he becomes emperor. And that's in the year 610. So quite a rapid ascent to the purple. Yes. Meteoric.

Meteoric. Now, what kind of man is he? What's he like when he gets there? Well, when he gets there, you would have thought he's the new broom. He's going to come in, he's going to deal with all the difficulties, because it had got a lot worse during Phocas's reign because the Persian king, Hosro, now his friend Morris is dead, feels that his promise not to invade is now null and void. So he invades as well. So we've got the Slavs and the Avars and the Persians. What does Heraclius do about it? Well, he doesn't actually do anything. Extraordinarily, he spends the first 12 years of his reign without attempting to make a major counterattack. He just kind of waits. And is he doing things, doing useful things

in that time? Well, I mean, a bit of papering over the cracks. What he really would like to do is make peace with the Avars. Because he thinks, well, look, I mean, I've got a choice here. I can fight one of these enemies or the other one. So I think I'll concentrate on the Persians and I'll try and make peace with the Avars, which he does every now and then, manage to give them some money and they stop for a bit. But then they keep attacking again. And meanwhile, things get worse because the frontiers completely break down. And the Persians come rampaging into Syria. They take Damascus, they take Jerusalem, and they take Egypt and fulfill this ambition that for years they've

been cherishing. All the eastern provinces are lost, while old Heraclius is sitting there in Constantinople, unable to do anything about it. So I would have thought if you'd taken a sort of Murray poll, you know, shall we say in about the year 620, I don't think he'd have done very well. I think there would be considerable dissatisfaction. And yet, no one knocks him off, no rivals emerge. That in itself is suggestive, isn't it? Well, I think it's suggestive that people realise by this time that, you know, we've just got to stick with what we've got. We're in such crisis, it would only make it worse if we get rid of this guy. But I am doing him a disservice because he had been doing things behind the scenes.

We know that now. What's he been doing? He'd been drilling his troops. He'd been training his troops. I don't think we give medieval societies enough credit for actual military science. We think that they're just so keyed up to war that it just comes naturally to them and they just go off and do it without thinking about it. Not so. Heraclius actually takes his troops out into Asia Minor, which is the only big body of territory apart from Carthage

that they still have, and drills them and drills them and drills them. They have mock battles. They also are kind of indoctrinated. He makes speeches to inspire them because he knows full well that the key to a successful war is the belief that you are right. Partly that you're going to win, but also that you are right. Once you think that your cause is not just, you've lost. So what I've always liked about the Heraclius story is this feels like something recognisably British about it. We have a bit of strategic depth.

So British wars tend to go very badly for the first few years. And Britain can, protected by the Channel, it can sort of fall back on its haunches, get itself organised, rely, and then launch a series of kind of successful counter-offensives. And to a certain extent, his capital was safe because of its position on the Bosporus and its powerful walls.

So he's just sort of going into a defensive crouch, is he? Rebuilding, and you know he's going to spring out of it when the time suits? Well, I think with hindsight, yes, I think that's a good analysis. It must have been difficult for people at the time, whether they're aware of this. Yeah, because, you know, literally the news comes in, oh, Alexandria fallen, Damascus fallen, Jerusalem fallen. Jerusalem is the holy city of Christianity. The Persians not only take it, they sack the place. And they also help themselves to the holiest relic in Christendom, which is the so-called true cross,

which is supposedly the one on which Jesus was crucified. They carry that back to Persia in triumph, and they get away with it. But here he comes. The rope-a-dope is over. He's coming bouncing back into the middle of the ring and he's going to issue some knockout blows. Well absolutely, he does suddenly come back with a vengeance. Sometime between about 622 and 624 he counterattacks. But this is where the real genius of the man comes into play. The Persians know that sooner or later, Heraclius is going to want to have Syria and Egypt back.

So they're waiting on the Syrian frontier with all their cohorts ready to fight the big battle to defend their newly conquered territories. And he doesn't come. There's absolutely no sign of him. They wait and the months go by. They know from their spies that he's marched, but he hasn't marched towards Syria. And then breathless messengers start to arrive with the news that Heraclius has been located and he's in Persia. This is the extraordinary thing. He had not marched straight to Syria. He marched north instead into Armenia and then does a kind of right turn and drops down on Persia's undefended northern frontier. And in all the centuries of Roman-Persian confrontation,

has this ever been tried before? Generally, no, largely because in many ways, Syria is actually a very good place to fight. It's nice and level. You don't have to deal with mountains and all the rest of it. I think both sides had a kind of gentleman's agreement. There was, I mean, Armenia was a bone of contention. Sometimes they would agree to divide it between them. But using it as a theatre of war in this way, so it shows creative thinking, but it still could have gone wrong in the way that Morris's campaign went wrong. I mean, he also was being rather innovative, but it backfired on him. But this works perfectly because there's no Turkish, there's no Persian troops on the frontier. And he just goes from

city to city to city, trashing them as he goes along. And he makes sure that he builds on that indoctrination. He's been telling everybody we're fighting a just war because they're pagans who've gone and destroyed Jerusalem. They weren't pagans. They were Zoroastrians, of course. And they've taken the true cross. So God's on our side. And when we take their city, the city of Shiz, which they do, they find the temple with the holy flame in it. And one of the first things they do is put it out. They find the holy well in Shiz and they put things down it. I won't say what they put down it, but I'll leave it to your imagination, to pollute it. So they basically, it's tit for tat. You smash up our holy city, we'll smash up yours.

Astonishing. If it wasn't for what come next, I think we'd remember as one of the great military geniuses of ancient or perhaps early medieval history. But his story is not yet done, is it? What happens next? Well, it could have been done. I mean, you mentioned Constantinople. One of the things the Persians do when he's smashing their cities is they think, right, okay, we'll go and smash his then. We'll march on Constantinople. That'll bring him running back. Now, it takes nerves of steel to not respond to that. When he knew the Persians in 626 are marching on Constantinople, and they've made a pact with the Avars, both of them, to attack the city simultaneously, anyone with half the nerve would have gone rushing back. But he doesn't. He just stays there. And as you say, Constantinople

proves impregnable, and they're left with egg on their face. So he carries on. He wins this stupendous victory at the Battle of Nineveh. Shortly after that, the Persian king Hosroes is deposed and murdered. And his successor says, right, okay, we surrender. Just evacuate our territory. We'll evacuate yours. Here's Egypt back, here's Syria back, here's Palestine back, and while we're at it, here's the true cross. So it is a stupendous achievement, you're right. I mean, there are few people who've enjoyed triumph that absolute. Listen to Dan Snow's history here. We're hearing all about the Emperor Heraclius. More coming up. You better believe it.

I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes,

who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. it's a victory for the ages that roman empire is once again back towards where it was in even in the time of trajan and hadrian it's it's it's a triumph and his persian competitors are in civil

war and total shambles fighting each other well did, did Heraclius have much time to celebrate that victory? Well, you have to feel sorry for the guy because no sooner does he go back from his victory to these newly recovered territories, and of course he has to deal with the problem that there's a theological dispute going on between the people of Egypt and Syria and the church in Constantinople about exactly who Jesus Christ was. So he ends up having to sort of chair theological discussions and things. You think it shouldn't really happen to a military hero to, you know, sit there watching clergymen handbagging each other. So he's involved in that. He does get to have a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, though, and put the true cross back where it belonged. He does get to have a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, though, and put the true cross

back where it belonged. He does get that, to be fair. But meanwhile, in the deserts of Arabia, something is afoot. Yes. I mean, it's not that the Arabs are anything new. They've been around for centuries. Usually, they made their living by allying themselves either to the Romans or the Byzantines or the Persians in their endless wars. And when they're not doing that, they're fighting each other. In fact, sometimes these Arab tribes effectively just carry on their feuds under Persian or Byzantine banners. And that's how it had been for centuries. So they were actually, the Arabs are involved in the big war between Heraclius and the Persians. What changes is the preaching of Muhammad.

Because he makes the point, well, look, guys, why on earth are you all divided into tribes and fighting each other? Why don't we unite? Why don't we all adopt submission to the one God? And why don't you all follow my teaching? And generally, your life will be much, much better. And that's one of Muhammad's enormous achievements, is that basically he brings unity to the Arabian Peninsula.

Quite apart from his spiritual significance, that's what he's done. So he's created a third sort of force here that nobody knew was coming. Has the more urban, settled world of Persia and the Roman Empire been weakened by the astonishing plague outbreak as well? Well, I think it must have been weakened generally by 20 years of war for a start. And there had been frequent outbreaks of plague. for a start, and there'd been frequent outbreaks of plague. So I think generally, see Arabs now, here they are a united force. As they look over the Persian and Byzantine frontiers, they must realise that they're quite vulnerable over there, and a concerted attack might bring the whole lot crashing down. They don't think about this as long as Muhammad is alive. It's

only after his death that they put this into action. And where do they go first? Well, it's about 634. A small force crosses into Syria, and there's a skirmish with a Byzantine army, just a local army, which is sent packing, and then they go back again. I think that was a kind of exploration. But I think that experience must have made the Arabs think, actually, there

isn't a right lot of opposition, is there? So they come back with a larger army. And only then do the Byzantines start to take it seriously. To begin with, they just assumed that the Arabs were up to their usual tricks. They were great ones for mounting a raid and grabbing a few sheep or something and heading back home again. And that's what people thought probably was happening. sheep or something and heading back home again. And that's what people thought probably was happening. Now they discover, actually, no, this is a major invasion. So a Byzantine army is gathered and sent to the region for a major confrontation. Does Heraclius lead the army himself? Well, this is where we're starting to get to the strange bit. No, he doesn't. He delegates it to some of his commanders and to his brother. So when the confrontation comes, which is at the Yarmouk River in Syria, and we're talking

August 636, Heracles isn't actually there. But he has sent a very large army. We're talking anything between 15,000 and 20,000 people. By medieval standards, that is a gigantic army. That really is. The Arabs were probably a little bit fewer than that, but even so, probably in that kind of ballpark figure. So it's a very important battle, the Battle of the Yarmouk, one of the most important in human history. Unfortunately, it's also one of the worst documented.

So we don't know that much about it. One of the most important battles in history, one of the most greatest commanders in history, we think Khalid ibn Walid, the drawn sword of Allah. Romans are unlucky in their opposition here. Well, they're unlucky in the opposition. They're also apparently unlucky in the weather because a sandstorm blows up. The battle goes on for several days, but the wind is always in the Byzantines' faces, apparently. This is something you get in Islamic sources, which obviously see it as a miracle. But you do get it in the Byzantine accounts as well. So they're fighting in very adverse conditions. And of course, if there is a sandstorm, the Arabs are going to be more likely

to know how to deal with it and be able to fight in those conditions, and perhaps the Byzantines less so. So that, I think, makes a difference. The terrain might also have played a part. The Byzantines managed to get themselves penned into the valley of the River Yarmouk, where they don't have much room for manoeuvre. And a lot of people get pushed into the river. That would explain the high casualty rates. Certainly quite a few thousands died. Those, I think, are about as close as we can get to what actually happened. All the accounts come from several hundred years later. But what it is clear is that the Byzantines lost. And having lost, that's it. There's no army to fall back on. The army is scattered and destroyed. There's now no Byzantine defence in Syria at all. This is the Arab conquest that people will know about. This is how the Middle East and North Africa becomes Islamic. I mean, this battle is the key turning point in that story.

Absolutely, because really thereafter, it's a kind of cakewalk for the Arabs. They go to Damascus and the people of Damascus think, well, you know, the Byzantine army is defeated. There's no point in us resisting. So they open the gates and the Arabs go. And then they get to Jerusalem in 638. And it's the patriarch, the senior clergyman who's in charge.

Now, of course, he's very reluctant to yield the city to an army that he believes is composed of what he would call infidels. On the other hand, he knows there's no chance of the Byzantine army coming. So he opens the gates as well. In rides the Caliph Omar, riding on a white camel. And unlike with the Persians, the city is not sacked, largely because it had surrendered. If you surrendered your city in the Middle Ages, then you were guaranteed immunity from being pillaged. And of course, Jerusalem is a holy city for Muslims as well. So 638 is when Jerusalem is taken.

And then the next thing you know, the Arabs are on the borders of Egypt and they're starting to invade that country as well. And indeed, they invade Persia and enslave the royal family there. And so both these two great warring antagonists, both conquered from out of the desert in the 630s. Extraordinary story. Yeah, I mean, Persia too falls victim to them, and simultaneously just about the speed of it, in a world where things generally didn't move fast, because medieval armies didn't move fast, but the Arabs certainly moved extraordinarily fast by the standards of the day.

The old expression, they conquered as quickly as Alexander, but far more enduringly. Quite. That sums it up. Absolutely. And poor old Heraclius, does he make any attempt to stop this or reverse it? Well, there he is. He's in the north of Syria, bases himself in Antioch, gets the news of Yarmouk, and he thinks, I'm going to go home. So he just gathers his people and heads back towards Constantinople. Now, to be fair, the man was quite clearly ill by this time. We're talking 637. He's got some kind of internal complaint. We don't know the details, but we do know that he was finding it very difficult to urinate. So he must have been in considerable pain. But there's a small palace on the Asian side of the

Bosphorus called Hyria. And he takes up residence there. And everyone expects that he will then go across the Bosphorus to his capital, Constantinople, to show himself to the people. And he doesn't. He just sits in this palace. And delegations come from Constantinople saying, look, Your Majesty, when can we expect to see you in the city? And he says, no, no, I can't possibly come. And it turns out that he has developed a morbid fear of water. He does not want to cross the strait. So this goes on for months. And eventually, some bright spark comes up with an idea. OK, find all the ships and boats you can bring them into the bosphorus lash them together okay um to create a kind of bridge side by side and then lay planks

across them right then get hold of lots of pots with plants in them and put those along either side of the bridge and then the emperor will be able to cross without seeing the water. And that's what they did. And literally, he rides across on a horse. Sure, it must have been quite difficult not to see the water, but he rides across on a horse and finally gets to Constantinople that way. And then presumably dismantled the boats. But that's an indication of really, by now, his judgment is seriously impaired. There's another indication, as he does something incredibly daft somewhere around now. He married twice, and he had two sons, a grown-up one called Constantine, and a younger one by the second wife called Heraclonus. Heraclonus is a teenager.

younger one by the second wife called Heraclonus. Heraclonus is a teenager. But Heraclius now leaves a completely stupid will, which says, I want both of my sons to succeed me. And I want my second wife, Martina, who also happens to be my niece, to be kind of in the government as well. I mean, it's totally unworkable. I mean, you know, and anybody could have seen that this is a can of worms is going to cause trouble later on, but no, Heraclius does it. So this is a man under intense strain, that's quite clear. It is such an important reminder that whether it's Napoleon, whether it is Emperor Tiberius, Heraclius. We're not the same person all through our lives. We can be 180 degrees divergent to when we're old to when we're young.

And so poor Heraclius ends his career as a broken, ill, failed leader, having achieved the most astonishing success. It's tragic, absolutely tragic. He does end his days in the early 641, obviously in great pain, and having left a situation which was, you know, bound not to work. And meanwhile, the Arabs are rampaging through Egypt, and he's not able to do anything about it. And the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, struggles on remarkably for another six or seven hundred years till the early 15th and mid

15th century but never again will it become a a major territorial player in the eastern mediterranean is that the case well it does experience a comeback later on amazingly it survives i mean the arabs should have polished it off but they weren't successful in doing so and it does revive in the 9th 10th and and 11th centuries. So by about 1050, it is a regional superpower. And by that time, of course, the Arab world has fragmented. So it's facing a divided Arab world with the Fatimids of Egypt at loggerheads with the Abbasids of Baghdad. So yet never write the Byzantine Empire off. It has this extraordinary habit of bouncing back when you least expect it. Although, of course, obviously it does go in the end. One of history's most remarkable survival stories. Thank you for coming on and telling

us all about Heraclius. It's just a wonderful tale. Tell us how we can learn more. Well, there's lots of very good books specifically on Heraclius out there. The standard work on him is written by Walter Kage, K-A-E-G-E, which is quite an academic one. That's if you've got to be really interested in Heraclius for that. But I would recommend James Howard Johnson, The Last Great War of Antiquityity published by oxford university press which is a detailed study of this this war with the persians and of course tell everyone about your own books as well my own books yes i've written a book called the lost world of byzantium which is a kind of potted history of byzantium which um takes you uh right away from constantantine, the first Christian empire, through to 1453, when the

Ottoman Turks finally take Constantinople. And it traces this roller coaster ride of an empire, which actually is not very militaristic, to be honest with you. Heraclius is rather unusual in being a sort of great conquering general. Most of the history of the Byzantine Empire is about survival, as you said, and about holding on to what it's got. It's usually the victim of aggression, not the perpetrator of it. And that's quite refreshing in a way. I mean, I don't really like this term Byzantine Empire, because people think it's like the European 19th and 20th century empires going out and colonizing people. And the Byzantines really never much colonized anybody. They really just wanted to hang on with what they got. And that's why I rather like them.

I think sometimes one wants a change from the Alexander the Great and the Julius Caesars and the Heracliuses, to be honest with you. It's an empire that defined itself in terms of an idea of legitimacy of this continuity with Rome. And it's the idea that's important, not actually the military force behind it. Well, Jonathan Harris, thank you very much for coming on the podcast and telling us all about it. Thank you, Dan, for inviting me. you