It is necessary to observe here, that the established church of the empire had ceased to be the universal Christian church. The Greeks had rendered themselves the depositaries of its power and influence; they had already corrupted Christianity into the Greek church; and other nations were rapidly forming separate ecclesiastical societies to supply their own spiritual wants. The Armenians, Syrians, and Egyptians were induced by national aversion to the ecclesiastical tyranny of the Greeks, as well as by spiritual preference of the doctrines of Nestorius and Eutyches, to oppose the established church. At the time Heraclius ascended the throne, these national and religious feelings already exercised their power of modifying the operations of the Roman government, and of enabling mankind to advance one step towards the establishment of individual liberty and intellectual independence. In order fully to comprehend the lamentable state of weakness to which the empire was reduced, it will be necessary to take a cursory view of the condition of the different provinces. The continual ravages of the barbarians who occupied the country beyond the Danube had extended as far as the southern shores of the Peloponnesus. The agricultural population was almost exterminated, except where it was protected by the immediate vicinity of fortified towns, or secured by the fastnesses of the mountains. The inhabitants of all the countries between the Archipelago and the Adriatic had been greatly diminished, and fertile provinces remained everywhere desolate, ready to receive new occupants. As great part of these countries yielded very little revenue to the government, they were considered by the court of Constantinople as of hardly any value, except in so far as they covered the capital from hostile attacks, or commanded the commercial routes to the west of Europe. At this time the Indian and Chinese trade had in part been forced round the north of the Caspian Sea, in consequence of the Persian conquests in Syria and Egypt, and the disturbed state of the country immediately to the east of Persia. The rich produce transported by the caravans, which reached the northern shores of the Black Sea, was then transported to Constantinople, and from thence distributed through western Europe.