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Updated: June 5, 2025
During the whole of his reign Constantinople was kept in a state of alarm and almost of siege by the Persians; and the crimes and misfortunes of Phocas alike prepared his subjects for a revolt. In the seventh year Alexandria rebelled in favour of the young Heraclius, son of the late prefect of Cyrene; and the patriarch of Egypt was slain in the struggle.
Beside these were the Triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus, still standing; the Columns of Phocas and Trajan, the latter of which is the finest monument of its kind in the world, one hundred and twenty-seven feet high, with a spiral band of admirable reliefs containing two thousand five hundred human figures.
They took Aleppo, then in the possession of the Hamdanites, and, encountering Saif ed-Dowlah, overthrew him also. The governor of Damascus, Dalim el-Ukazly, and ten thousand men came to the rescue of the Hamdanites, but Phocas beat a retreat on hearing of his approach. Abu'l-Hasan Ali died in the year 355 of the Hegira. The regent Kafur then ascended the throne, assuming the surname el-Ikshid.
He had more trouble with the two archbishops of Constantinople, John the Faster and Cyriacus; and his former friend the emperor Mauritius turned against him, so that he welcomed the accession of Phocas, as a deliverance of the Church from unjust domination. The unquestioning loyalty with which, as a civil subject, he welcomed this accession has been unfairly used against him.
The peace of 599, the usurpation of Phocas in 602, and the death of Gregory the Great in 604, close a great period and stamp the seventh century in its very beginning with a new character. That character is in a sense almost wholly disastrous. Those vague and gloomy years, of which we know so little, are almost unrelieved in their hopeless confusion.
"The person of this Phocas was diminutive and deformed; the closeness of his shaggy eyebrows, his red hair, his beardless chin, were in keeping with his cheek, disfigured and discolored by a formidable scar. Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged in an ample privilege of lust and drunkenness."
His supposed Leaning towards Christianity. His Wives, Shirin and Kurdiyeh. His early Wars. His Relations with the Emperor Maurice. His Attitude towards Phocas. Great War of Chosroes with Phocas, A.D. 603-610. War continued with Heraclius. Immense Successes of Chosroes, A.D. 611-620. Aggressive taken by Heraclius A.D. 622. His Campaigns in Persian Territory A.D. 622-628. Murder of Chosroes.
The rapid tide of success discloses the decay of the empire, the incapacity of Phocas, and the disaffection of his subjects; and Chosroes provided a decent apology for their submission or revolt, by an impostor, who attended his camp as the son of Maurice and the lawful heir of the monarchy.
The mines of Hartz were discovered in the time of Otho I. and diffused so much wealth over Saxony, and afterwards over all Germany, as gave the reign of that emperor the appellation of "the age of gold." Before this time, Nicephorus Phocas had called Saxony, from the dress, or rather the coverings of its inhabitants, "the land of skins."
The essential elements of old Rome are there: columns, single, or in groups of two or three, still erect, but battered and bruised at some forgotten time with infinite pains and labor; fragments of other columns lying prostrate, together with rich capitals and friezes; the bust of a colossal female statue, showing the bosom and upper part of the arms, but headless; a long, winding space of pavement, forming part of the ancient ascent to the Capitol, still as firm and solid as ever; the foundation of the Capitol itself, wonderfully massive, built of immense square blocks of stone, doubtless three thousand years old, and durable for whatever may be the lifetime of the world; the Arch of Septimius, Severus, with bas-reliefs of Eastern wars; the Column of Phocas, with the rude series of steps ascending on four sides to its pedestal; the floor of beautiful and precious marbles in the Basilica of Julia, the slabs cracked across, the greater part of them torn up and removed, the grass and weeds growing up through the chinks of what remain; heaps of bricks, shapeless bits of granite, and other ancient rubbish, among which old men are lazily rummaging for specimens that a stranger may be induced to buy, this being an employment that suits the indolence of a modern Roman.
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