The Nemesis of Chosroës’ insane vanity had now arrived. Ten years after he had written his vaunting letter to Heraclius he found himself in far worse plight than his adversary had ever been. After Dastagerd had fallen he retired to Ctesiphon, the capital of his empire, but even from thence he had to flee on the approach of the enemy. Then the end came: his own son Siroes and his chief nobles seized him and threw him in chains, and a few days after he died—of rage and despair according to one story, of starvation if the darker tale is true. The new king sent the humblest messages to the victorious Roman, hailing him as his “father,” and apologizing for all the woes that the ambition of Chosroës had brought upon the world. Heraclius received his ambassadors with kindness, and granted peace, on the condition that every inch of Roman territory should be evacuated, all Roman captives freed, a war indemnity paid, and the spoils of Jerusalem, including the “True Cross,” faithfully restored. Siroes consented with alacrity, and in March, 628, a glorious peace ended the twenty-six years of the Persian war. Heraclius returned to Constantinople in the summer of the same year with his spoils, his victorious army, and his great trophy, the “Holy Wood.” His entry was celebrated in the style of an old Roman triumph, and the Senate conferred on him the title of the “New Scipio.” The whole of the citizens, bearing myrtle boughs, came out to meet the army, and the ceremony concluded with the exhibition of the “True Cross” before the high altar of St. Sophia. Heraclius afterwards took it back in great pomp to Jerusalem. This was, perhaps, the greatest triumph that any emperor ever won. Heraclius had surpassed the eastern achievements of Trajan and Severus, and led his troops further east than any Roman general had ever penetrated. His task, too, had been the hardest ever imposed on an emperor; none of his predecessors had ever started to war with his very capital beleaguered and with three-fourths of his provinces in the hands of the enemy. Since Julius Caesar no one had fought so incessantly—for six years the emperor had not been out of the saddle—nor met with such uniform success. Heraclius returned to Constantinople to spend, as he hoped, the rest of his years in peace. He had now reached the age of fifty-four, and was much worn by his incessant campaigning. But the quiet for which he yearned was to be denied him, and the end of his reign was to be almost as disastrous as the commencement.