First Crusader: Byzantium's Holy Wars

After 700 years of intermittent hostilities between Rome and Persia, the Cold War of the ancient world again turned hot. The murder of the Emperor Maurice by the usurper Phocas gave the Persians the excuse to strike. In an age where the idea of religion has retreated on the whole in the Western world, if not evaporated entirely one of the first difficulties any historian is to portray a mind-set where it was central not only to the protagonists, but the society they lived in and informed everything they did Regan manages to tie together the political background and the religious framework to tell the cataclysmic story of the 7th century Middle East as Heraclius wrested control of the Byzantine Empire back as it as disintegrating under Persian and Slavic attack, reorganising it and holding it together long enough to strike back destroying the Sassanid Empire. Then, losing it to the armies of Islam as they erupted from the desert, taking advantage of a war-weary, devastated world and a generation who had grown up not knowing Byzantine overlordship and who bitterly resented its attempts to reassert fiscal and religious control. He explores the struggle Heraclius faced with the development of the idea of the struggle between good and evil in the temporal sphere as an armed struggle between the forces of light nd dark against the Zoroastrian Persians and the initial confusion over Islam, regarded as a heresy, which may be why they took so long to get to grips with it mentally. Like so much else in Dark Age Europe, the idea of crusade had its roots in the East, 450 years before Urban II's preaching. Interestingly enough as well, an idea that Islam capitalised on when it suited them in their expansion as it wasn't love and reason that took them from the Atlantic to Central Asia in less than a hundred years. A useful potted history of Byzantium up to the 11th century that shows its struggles in an ideological as well as a military light.

Regan's book writes in a style that is easy to understand and even fun to read. This was the first book I read dealing with the Byzantine Empire, it was good enough to warrant a topic switch in my major from Medieval studies, to Byzantine studies. Regan's book makes a clear cut and convincing case for emperor Heraclius of Byzantium, as the First Crusader. Though the book does not contain enough detail for my taste, it was still a captivating and informative read. This should be considered an informative introductory to the study of the Byzantine Empire.

This book reminds us that Christian crusades to liberate Jerusalem's holy places long predate the so-called First Crusade of the eleventh century. More than four hundred years earlier, the Byzantine Empire used Christian themes in its struggles against threats from the East. Regan is particularly effective in describing the campaigns of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, who regained Jerusalem from the Persians. Regan follows the story through the era of Islamic expansion, the Turkish conquests, and the first Western Crusade. Among other things, readers will discover the original Church of the Holy Sepulcher built by Constantine, much more impressive than the current version. Like the Jewish Temple, it was destroyed by invaders. The book, written in an accessible style, includes black and white photographs and some basic maps.

REVIEWED BY SMITH HEMPSTONE ... When it comes to warrior-kings, the Byzantine emperor Heraclitus, who ruled Constantinople from 610 to 641 A.D., was in a league by himself. Few have risen so fast, and achieved so much in such a short time, only to lose all at the end. Indeed, in "First Crusader: Byzantium's Holy Wars," the British historian Geoffrey Regan makes a convincing case that the wars of Heraclitus against the Sasanian Persians (622-628 A.D.) should rank as the first crusade rather than that from the West called by Pope Urban in 1095. Heraclitus smashed the Persian empire, recovering the flags and standards lost by 100 Byzantine armies over the centuries, regained the lost colonies of Syria, Palestine and Egypt, sacked a dozen great cities, brought back the True Cross from Persia and rebuilt the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre. Whether you call the wars of the Christian Byzantines against the fire-worshipping Zoroastrian Persians crusades, or something else, the heroics of Heraclitus, who personally led his troops in battle and fought in single combat the champions of many enemy armies, had the effect of prolonging the life of the Eastern Roman empire for several centuries, delaying the Moslem advance into the Balkans by hundreds of years. Both his personal life and his military successes combined to weaken Heraclitus toward the end of his reign. His popular first wife, Fabia-Eudokia, died in 612 A.D., leaving the emperor with only one male heir, not nearly enough to guarantee the succession. So Heraclitus married his beautiful and able niece, Martina, daughter of his sister, Maria. Although incestuous unions were not that unusual in those days, they were forbidden. But a significant group of the Byzantine establishment regarded the deaths of four of her disabled children as God's judgement on Martina, blaming her for defeats at the hands of the Moslem Arabs. When Heraclitus died horribly of "dropsy" (cancer) this was taken as yet another sign of divine displeasure. The fates of Martina and her surviving sons: Martina's tongue was split and she was exiled to Rhodes with her eldest son, who had his nose cut off. Of her three other sons, two had their noses cut off and the youngest was castrated. Like many another political leader, Heraclitus wanted to have both chariots and wine, and his wars proved ruinously expensive. Syria and Palestine had been regained but were denuded of their populations, their fields lay fallow and returned little revenue. Egypt was about to fall to Mohammed's desert Bedouin breaking out from Arabia. The Orthodox Church, through the influence of Heraclitus' great friend and supporter, the Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople, had floated huge loans to pay for the wars. But now, except in distant Egypt, the wars were over and the church wanted its money back. Heraclitus paid up, but only at the cost of his planned reform of the army and the civil service. Alexandria soon fell to