HERACLIUS AND MOHAMMED 610-641 Distress of the Empire in the early years of Heraclius—The letter of Chosroes—Treachery of the Avars—Heraclius preaches a Crusade—His six victorious Campaigns—Great Siege of Constantinople—Persia vanquished—Triumph of Heraclius—Rise and Character of Mohammed—The Creed of Islam—Conquests of the Caliphs in Syria and Persia—Troubled old age of Heraclius. When the tyrant Phocas had been handed over to the executioner to pay the penalty for his innumerable misdeeds, the Senate and army joined in offering the crown to the young Heraclius, the saviour whose advent had delivered them from such a depth of misery. He was duly crowned by the patriarch, and acclaimed by the people in the Hippodrome. But when the first rejoicings were over, and he turned to contemplate the state of the empire which he had just won, the prospect was not a very reassuring one. The Slavs were spreading all over the Balkan peninsula, as far as the gates of Thessalonica and the pass of Thermopylae. The Persian, securely established in northern Syria and Mesopotamia, was advancing to permanently reduce the lands of Asia Minor, which he had ravaged so fiercely in the two preceding years. The treasury was empty, and the army scattered and disorganised; for some years it had not dared to meet the Persian in the open field, and the officers whom Phocas had kept in command had never won its confidence. The first ten years of the reign of Heraclius seemed little better than a continuation of the miseries of the time of Phocas. The empire had gained, indeed, a good man instead of a bad as its ruler, but a change of fortune had not come with the change of sovereigns. It seemed that Heraclius would not be able to cope with the legacy of accumulated ills that had been left him. His predecessor’s dying taunt, ‘Will you rule the empire any better than I have done?’ must often have rung in his ears, when the never-ending tidings of battles lost, towns stormed, revenues decreasing, and starving provinces kept coming in to him. The imperial etiquette which had prevailed for the last two hundred years prescribed that the Augustus should never take the field in person, and this rule seems to have prevented Heraclius from heading his own armies.[34] The generals to whom he delegated his power were uniformly unfortunate, and occasionally disloyal. He was obliged to depose Priscus, the officer who had betrayed Phocas, for arrogant disobedience to his orders. The absence of the emperor from the field was a grave misfortune; for he was much less of an administrator than of a fighting man. His form and face betrayed the warrior. ‘He was of middle stature, strongly built, and broad-chested, with a fair complexion, grey eyes, and yellow hair. He wore a bushy beard till he ascended the throne, when he shaved it, and did not let it grow again till he went to the wars ten years later.’