Heraclius arrives at Constantinople in October 610…
October 610 CE
Heraclius arrives at Constantinople in October 610 to be hailed as a savior.
With the warm support of the Green faction, he quickly bests his enemy, decapitating Phocas and, with him, those whom Phocas had advanced to high civil and military office.
There are, in consequence, few experienced counselors to aid Heraclius, for few among the men of prominence under Phocas—and earlier under Maurice—survive to greet the new emperor of the crumbling state, occupied by invaders and wracked with internal dissension.
Slavs are swarming over the Balkan Peninsula; the Persians have occupied extensive parts of Anatolia; the Avars, who rule over the Slavic and other tribes that occupy the region between the Don and the Alps, exact tribute.
With its economy disrupted, its administration disorganized, its army depleted and demoralized, its factions engaging in civil strife, its peasants enfeebled by excessive exactions, its religious dissenters alienated by persecution, and its authority challenged by a powerful aristocracy, the empire lacks the strength necessary to expel the invaders, and possibly even to survive.
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