In the six campaigns which followed, Heraclius displayed an energy and an ability which no one, judging from his quiescence during the last ten years, would have expected him to possess. Historians only doubt whether to praise the more his strategical talents or his personal bravery. From the very first he showed his ascendency over the enemy, taking the offensive, and turning the course of the war wherever he chose to direct it. At his first departure from Constantinople he did not attack the Persian in the front, but boldly sailed round the southern capes of Asia Minor, and landed his army in Cilicia, on the gulf of Issus, a position from which he threatened both Asia Minor and northern Syria. Marching up into Cappadocia, he cut the communications between the Persian army in Asia Minor and the Euphrates valley. This movement had the result that he expected. Hastily evacuating Bithynia and Galatia, the Persian general Shahrbarz drew back eastward, in order to regain touch with his country. Ere a blow was struck Heraclius had cleared western Asia Minor of the enemy; but he finished the campaign by inflicting a crushing defeat on Shahrbarz in Cappadocia, and thus recovered eastern Asia Minor also (622). After in vain offering terms of peace to Chosroes, Heraclius took effective means in the next year to bring the Persian to reason. Syria, Egypt, and Mesopotamia were still in the hands of the enemy: he resolved to deliver them in the same manner that he had saved Asia Minor, by striking so hard at the enemy’s base of operations that he should be compelled to call in all his outlying troops in order to defend Persia proper. [Sidenote: Victorious campaigns of Heraclius, 622-27.] In 623 Heraclius, abandoning his communication with the sea, plunged boldly inland, and fell on Media. For two whole years he is lost to sight in the regions of the extreme East, subduing lands where no Roman army had ever been seen before, where, indeed, no European conqueror had ever penetrated since Alexander the Great. We hear of his winning three pitched battles, and of his storming two great Median towns, Gandzaca and Thebarmes, the latter the reputed birthplace of Zoroaster, the prophet of the Persians. It was some satisfaction to the army to destroy their magnificent temples in revenge for the sack of Jerusalem. To defend Media, Chosroes had to draw back his outlying armies from the West, and so far the purpose of Heraclius was served; but the emperor was still too weak to attack Persia proper, or besiege Chosroes’ capital of Ctesiphon.