Heraclius sought to stall any battle by exploring diplomatic options while he waited for more forces to arrive from his Sassanid ally. His father, probably of It was a crushing victory which gave Syria to the Muslims. The whole of Palestine was thus left open to Muslim raids, especially in the interior parts away from the coastal towns. [11] In the spring of 636 , the Romans sent an Imperial army against the Arabs, no longer relying on local forces to deal with the problem. Fresco by Piero della Francesca, ca. He enlarged the Empire, and his reorganization of the government and military were great successes. Looking back at the reign of Heraclius, scholars have credited him with many accomplishments. In the face of the Muslim expansion, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius gathered a large army which met the Muslim army at the Battle of the Yarmuk in Syria on 20 August 636. Battle between Heraclius' army and Persians under Khosrau II. Finally, the Arab conquests, and the battle of Yarmouk in particular, destroyed the military reputation of Heraclius. Heraclius, who was in Emesa at the time, fled to Antioch upon hearing news of the battle's outcome. Their main commander, Shahrbaraz, took control of Antioch in 612 and Damascus in 613, proceeding to Jerusalem in the next year. Heraclius was born in eastern Anatolia. The Heraclius' campaign of 622, erroneously also known as the Battle of Issus, was a major campaign in the Byzantine–Sassanid War of 602–628 by emperor Heraclius that culminated in a crushing Byzantine victory in Anatolia.. Heraclius, Eastern Roman emperor (610–641) who reorganized and strengthened the imperial administration and the imperial armies but who, nevertheless, lost Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Byzantine Mesopotamia to the Arab Muslims. Battle between Heraclius and Chosroes (detail) - WGA17567.jpg 1,400 × 809; 205 KB Battle between Heraclius and Chosroes (detail) - WGA17566.jpg 1,000 × 1,169; 210 KB Piero della Francesca - 8. Having failed to prevent the loss of half the empire, Heraclius retreated into isolation, by all accounts a broken man, a mere shadow of the former dynamic personality who had been victorious against the Persians merely a decade before. The Battle of Ajnadayn (Arabic: معركة ... Heraclius himself withdrew from Emesa to the greater safety of Antioch after Ajnadayn, while the surviving Byzantine units fled to the safety of walled towns, and left the countryside undefended before the Muslim raids.

1452. Heraclius inherited a war against the Sasanian Persians, who had threatened the borders for almost four centuries. In the last city, thousands of monks, priests, and nuns were murdered in three days, while the patriarch Zacharias was imprisoned.