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Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 47, a brief respite.

We closed the last episode with the Emperor Heraclius exultant after an astonishing series of campaigns

that outmaneuvered King Kusro II and saw the negotiated return of all the Eastern provinces.

The site of the Augustus entering Jerusalem with the true cross was as emotional a triumph

as any Roman Emperor had ever experienced.

And I thought it was only fair to let Heraclius have his day in the sun before we let reality give us a

cold, hard slap across the face. Because as impressive as the Emperor's victory was, his empire was a mess.

There were no Roman troops left in the Balkans. Slavic tribes were settling down,

turning Romans off their land. The avar's had carried off the portable wealth of the north of the

peninsula, and there was nothing standing between a hostile force and the gates of Constantinople.

The Eastern provinces had spent between 10 and 18 years outside of the imperial system.

In some cities therefore a whole generation had grown up outside of Romania.

They would have continued to farm and trade and pay tax to their new masters,

but doubtless found alternative ways of doing things, or profitable loopholes, while imperial agents

were absent. And similarly many in the east were now used to enjoying them in offer-site worship,

free of persecution or interference by the government. And as I've been reading I've wondered

about women who had Persian boyfriends or shopkeepers who brought in special foods who suddenly had to

say goodbye to men they had lived alongside for a decade. In other words the world had not stood

still and waited for the war to finish, and it would be no easy thing to reintegrate those provinces

into the empire. And of course a war that lasted nearly 30 years left devastation and dislocation

...