FinermanWorks

This is a real advertisement:

“DAGOBERT” TOILET THRONE—for Your Majesty

“A throwback to the medieval era of knights, castles and fairy tale romance, this throne toilet with French Merovingian style (8th century) is highlighted by hand painted earthenware accessories (Musset poem, ashtray…). Its high-profile seat back with a gothic-arch top and full armrests give the toilet a majestic appearance. Inscribed on the seat back is a poem by the French poet, Alfred de Musset. The musical chime “Le Bon Roi Dagobert”, with a voice reciting the Musset poem, starts when you raise the lid and a bell is coupled with the flush, making a visit to the bathroom an unforgettable experience.” Made from an Ash tree, it’s protected by three layers of polyurethane. Comes with candle holder and ashtray. Priced at or above $9000

Medieval plumbing is an oxymoron and why would a “fashionable” toilet be named for a seventh century Frankish king? You’d think that the Byzantine Emperors or the Caliphs might have had more impressive thrones, but King Dagobert I apparently set the standard for royal assizes.

Although Dagobert (603-639) would seem like the name of a bad pizzeria, the king was actually one of the more formidable French rulers of the Dark Ages. When he died–this day in 639–he had managed to hold the throne and actually rule for five years. Few of his ancestors could make that claim, and none of his descendants could. Dagobert was almost an only child, so he only had one sibling and a nephew to eliminate to gain complete control of France.

Being king of all the Franks was an achievement in itself; he certainly would never have imagined himself the namesake of a toilet. Indeed, he probably never imagine the idea of a toilet. True, the Romans had them although not with ashtrays; but the running water had been shut off some two centuries earlier. In Dagobert’s lifetime, the ultimate accolade for a Frankish warlord would be getting a bolt of silk from Constantinople. From the Frankish perspective, it was pure status; from the Byzantine perspective, it was the equivalent of a Christmas card for the help.

Perhaps the toilet was a more sincere tribute.

January 18th

On this day in 1779, Peter Roget was born/spawned/ejected. In the course of his life/existence/happening, Roget distinguished himself as a scholar and inventor/polymath man/Victorian know-it-all. A doctor by profession, he wrote a scientific study on tuberculosis/consumption/how to kill a Bronte. As a mathematician, he invented the logarithmic slide rule/mechanical analog computer/nerd sword. Today, however, we best know him for his hobby/avocation/obsessive compulsive disorder. He/Dr. Roget/Pedantic Pete liked to make lists.

One of his favorite diversions was categorizing words by their synonyms. The English language certainly could keep him busy, being a linguistic hodgepodge of barbaric German, Norwegian-accented French, second-hand Greek, and whatever the Empire chose to plagiarize from the natives. (The Hindi word veranda does sounds more charming than the Middle English porch or its pompous Latin forebear portico). In fact, the English language had become an empire in itself–with an unrivalled vocabulary. It had twice as many words as German; of course, each German word was three longer than its English equivalent. (And the disparity continues today; there now are some 500,000 words in English, while only 180,000 in German.)

Upon his retirement in 1840, Dr. Roget dedicated himself to compilating his lexicon/trivia/idiosyncracies. He called his work a thesaurus which in Greek means either treasury or god lizard. (His lists evidently did not include embarrassing Greek homophones.) His masterpiece was finally published in 1852 under the title “Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition.” For some reason–such as a shorter lifespan in the 19th century–readers preferred to call the book “Roget’s Thesaurus”.

And where would we modern writers be without Roget’s guide/terminology/onomasticon/cheat notes?

Let’s wish a perfunctory birthday to Millard Fillmore, born this day in 1800. His name sounds ridiculous and he certainly lived up to it. He had six months of formal schooling but somehow that qualified him to be a lawyer in upstate New York. (Be fair; George Bush had less than six months of education in his four years at Yale.) Nonetheless, no one wanted to trust Attorney Fillmore with a will or a land deed, so he had to go into politics.

He won election to the state assembly in 1828 running as an Anti-Mason. Apparently, the Freemasons were considered a danger in his district, lurking under beds and quoting Isaac Newton and Thomas Jefferson while one slept. Perhaps the voters there had just seen an awful performance of “The Magic Flute”; otherwise there is no reason to dislike the Freemasons. Fillmore’s next phobia was Andrew Jackson, who also happened to be a Freemason; running in 1833 on a platform of being Anti-Jackson, Fillmore was elected to the U.S. Congress. Being his own party, with a one plank platform, was somewhat limiting; so in 1837, Congressman Fillmore joined the Whigs. The Whig leadership of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster was illustrious but tottering toward ancient; the 37 year-old Fillmore was new blood, and the party elders may have mistaken his ambition for intelligence. Fillmore soon became a leader of the congressional Whigs.

In 1848, the Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor as their presidential candidate and Fillmore as his running mate. Taylor was a Southerner, an aristocrat and a war hero; Fillmore balanced the ticket. The contrast also included lifespans. Taylor was 63 when elected and died after 16 months in office. At the time of his death, Congress was roiling over the issue of extending slavery into the territories that Mexico had just “donated” to the United States. Of course, the South wanted every acre to be open to slavery; Colorado and Nevada apparently were perfect for cotton plantations. Ironically, Zachary Taylor of Louisiana opposed the full extension of slavery in the new territories, and the old warhorse was not one to be bullied by John Calhoun and the other Southern fire-eaters. Just as ironically, Millard Fillmore of New York was quite prepared to let the South have its way; slavery evidently was not as bad as Freemasonry.

With President Fillmore undermining northern opposition, the Compromise of 1850 was reached. California would be a free state, Texas a slave state, and everything in between could be decided later. The Compromise also included the Fugitive Slave Act, which guaranteed federal assistance in capturing and returning escaped slaves. The Compromise was more of a capitulation, and no one was impressed with Fillmore. The North despised him, and even the South dismissed him. In 1852, the Whigs refused to nominate him for another term.

But Millard Fillmore was not through with politics yet. There was a new phobia for him to exploit: Anti-Catholicism. The Irish Potato Famine had led to the migration of one million Irish to our shores, and now some Protestant paranoids feared a Papal conspiracy to seize America. These “nativists” organized their own political party, now remembered as the Know-Nothings, and guess whom they chose to be their presidential candidate in 1856? Fillmore came in third but still won 23 percent of the popular votes.

But Anti-Catholicism did not prove a lasting issue. The Irish were needed to build railroads and fight our Civil War. Furthermore, the Irish did not like immigrants either–at least the ones who came next. So Millard Fillmore spent the remaining two decades of his life in comfortable oblivion, fancying himself the great statesman of Buffalo, New York.

January 5th Obituaries

On this day in 1589, ten thousand French foodtasters were thrown out of work. Catherine de Medici died and the people no longer felt terrified of eating. Ironically, Catherine was credited with introducing haute cuisine to France. Of course, the ulterior purpose of delicious food is to disguise the taste of any surprise ingredients.

In his novels, Alexander Dumas has the Queen Mother finding the most remarkable ways to poison people. Jeanne de Navarre, the mother of the future Henri IV, shouldn’t have worn those gift gloves from Catherine. Henri of Navarre receives a book from his loving mother-in-law. Unfortunately, so the novel relates, King Charles IX sees the book and is the first (and last) to read it. Guess what the sticky substance on the pages was? At least, Charles wasn’t Catherine’s favorite son.

You’d have thought that Catherine would have applied her culinary skills to the St. Bartholomew’s Massacre. She probably couldn’t trust French waiters to get the orders right. “Was Admiral Coligny supposed to get the poisson or the poison?”

From my video archives, here is a visit with the 16th century’s inspiration for Martha Stewart:

Catherine: Why hello. Today I am planning the wedding of my daughter Margaret to Henry of Navarre. And nothing and no one will be spared. I may cut throats but never corners. Helping with the invitation list is my friend–and great gossip–Nostradamus.

Nostradamus: The Pope can’t come, so there is no point in sending him an invitation.

Catherine: With Nostradamus you don’t have to bother with RSVPs. Now designing the wedding dress is my son Henri.

Henri: It is so beautiful I wish I were wearing it. Perhaps when I am king….Knowing Margaret, though, no one will believe that she should be in white.

Nostradamus: When the groom says “I do”, most of the guys at court will think “So have I.”

Catherine: Changing the subject, we are having the wedding at Notre Dame Cathedral. Having a thousand people stand during a four hour ceremony might be a certain problem, but my friend–and paisano–Ben Cellini is here with the solution.

Cellini: Here is it: a solid gold chamber pot. Of course you will need at least five hundred for both necessity and mementos. It won’t be cheap.

Catherine: We can economize on the catering. You see, we are planning to massacre the Protestant guests. Believe me, it will be difficult enough getting Margaret to write any thank-you notes for the gifts; so this will eliminate half of that chore. And a massacre is certainly a more original entertainment than the usual band; even the Protestants might find it preferable to doing “The Hokey-Pokey.”

Guess what was in Martin Luther’s junk mail on this day in 1521? It was a big envelope with the exclamation “You May Already Be a Heretic! Learn How You Can Get a Free Trip to HELL!” Yes, Martin Luther had just received his very own Excommunication.

Pope Leo X had finally noticed the loss of Northern Germany and Scandinavia, a mere three years after Luther ignited the Reformation. The Pope had been preoccupied with redecorating the Vatican. Aside from having the aesthetic standards of a De Medici, Leo had an unrequited crush on Raphael and was always finding projects to keep that attractive, personable young man around. Unfortunately, in 1520 Raphael died of syphilis (the consequences of being so attractive and personable) and the Pope lost his major distraction.

Finally, the Pope would deal with that dangerous young man who threatened the supremacy of the Church. Of course, Leo picked the wrong man. The Pope could not be bothered with Luther; Leo was not interested in theology and was not prepared to debate some ill-tempered professor over the standard of living in Purgatory. However, Leo was concerned with young Charlie Hapsburg. By the age of nineteen, Charlie had inherited most of Christendom: he was the King of Spain,Sicily and Southern Italy. And that was just on his mother’s side. Being a Hapsburg, Charles also ruled Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and–for what it was worth in prestige–the nominal Holy Roman Empire.

The Pope tried to prevent Charles’ election as Holy Roman Emperor, a position that had long been regarded as a Hapsburg prerogative. Then, Leo refused to coronate Charles. The Pope evidently thought that a 19 year-old was unworthy of such power and responsibility. (Leo had been appointed a cardinal when he was 13, and the deMedici family had been bought their kid the papacy; but the young deMedici begrudged the even younger Hapsburg.)

By his futile and meaningless efforts, Leo had managed to offend his most powerful parishioner, the one man in Germany who was in a position to crush the nascent heresy. Not feeling terribly loyal to the Papacy, Charles proved initially quite tolerant of Luther. After all, the Church definitely needed reform; and wasn’t that Luther’s sole aim? Yes, Charles was wrong; but by 1521, the heresy had proved so popular in Northern Germany that only a civil war could crush it. Charles needed the support of the German princes of the North; he intended to conquer Italy if only to make his point to the Pope.

(Leo died without having the pleasure of meeting Charles. However, Pope Clement VII– Leo’s cousin–was persuaded by the German sack of Rome in 1527 to coronate Charles.)

So, after three years of ignoring the loss of northern Europe while alienating any support elsewhere, the Pope finally excommunicated Martin Luther. The most impact that Papal Bull might have had on Luther was a paper cut.

December 19th

Let’s offer a belated congratulations to Hussein Kamil on becoming Sultan of Egypt on this day in 1914. The promotion must have been a surprise to the 61 year old prince, an innocuous fellow who made no enemies or impressions. Of course, that is exactly what the British wanted in a regal stooge. Egypt was an unique political entity that demanded a well-mannered if contorted form of imperialism.

In theory and diplomatic protocol, Egypt was a province of the Ottoman Empire; however, for a century Egypt actually had been an independent monarchy. A Turkish-appointed governor named Mohammed Ali (1769-1849) decided that he really liked ruling Egypt and had no intention of leaving. Ruthless and efficient (he knew exactly the right people to assassinate), a fine soldier and excellent administrator, he proved invincible and forced Constantinople to grant him hereditary rule of Egypt. Yes, he and his descendants would acknowledge the nominal sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire; they assumed the title of Khedive–viceroy–as if they were only assistants to the Sultan. But their ties to the Empire were tenuous and whimsical; they would be loyal Turkish subjects if and when they felt like it. (South Carolina wanted a similar status with the United States.)

Unfortunately, the Khedives were not so adept at protecting the country from the British. Whatever Machiavellian brilliance the dynasty’s founder possessed, it did not extend to the third generation. The reigning grandson Ismail (1830-1895) had excellent intentions and some good ideas–such as the Suez Canal–but his efforts created more debts than progress. In 1875, to alleviate his financial straits, the Khedive sold the Suez Canal to the British government. Of course, as it turned out, he received much more than several million Pounds sterling; he also got the unsolicited but adamant British assistance in governing Egypt. The British felt that safeguarding the Canal required a protective buffer: the entire surrounding nation. In fact, the British called their imposition a “protectorate.” Neither the Turks nor the Egyptians seemed especially appreciative, but did they have any say in the matter?

Actually, there was a native uprising and the Khedive found himself in the middle of it. The Egyptian nationalists condemned Ismail as a traitor, while the British despised him as a weakling. He was no help to them in suppressing the rebellion. (Was it too much to expect Ismail to be an eager toady?) Looking for a more cooperative figurehead, the British ousted Ismail in 1879, sending him off to a comfortable retirement and appointing his son Tewfik as their Khedive. Tewfik (1852-1892) proved suitably pliant and even earned a certain esteem from the British; they thought of him as more European than Egyptian. He was a very Victorian Moslem, making do with just one wife.

But Victorian parents tended to produce Edwardian children, and the next Khedive was an affront to British propriety and the security of the Empire. Khedive Abbas (1874-1944) was all of 18 when he succeeded his father, and he wanted to rule rather than reign. There was a young Kaiser in Germany with both the same intention and a similar resentment of the British Empire. Wilhelm had an admirer–and a potential ally–in Cairo. Abbas was not exactly subtle; he was described as “the wicked little Khedive” and there were thoughts of ousting him. But unless he he declared open rebellion and invited the German army to Alexandria, but the British chose to ignore him…until 1914.

Abbas declared his support for the Central Powers. Of course, he was prudent enough to relocate to Constantinople before he denounced Britain. The British responded by anointing a new sovereign of Egypt: Hussain Kamil, the uncle of the now unemployed Abbas. (No doubt, he expected the Germans and Turks to win, and then restore him to the Egyptian throne. He would live his last 30 years in exile.) Furthermore, Hussain (1853-1917) would be no mere Khedive. The British promoted him to a Sultan. In effect, Britain had just fired the Ottoman ruler, too. The war between Britain and the Ottoman Empire simplified the status of Egypt. With a British fleet in Alexandria and a British army along the Suez, there was no further need to pretend that Egypt was a Turkish province. As a Sultan, Hussein was the equal in rank to the imperial figurehead in Constantinople. (In real power, Hussain had less authority than a British sergeant.)

And like God or Allah, what the British Empire gives, it can also take away. Once the Great War had ended, the idea of an Egyptian Sultanate became awkward. Now that the British fleet was anchored off Constantinople, the British wanted to preserve the Turkish Sultan as their figurehead in the Balkans and Asia Minor. To maintain the luster of the Turkish title, you couldn’t have a competing Egyptian Sultan. So, in 1922 the British demoted their regal stooge Fuad (1868-1936) to being the mere King of Egypt.

The Egyptian Sultanate had lasted six years. Ironically, the Ottoman Sultanate collapsed in 1923, but the Egyptian royal family did not attempt to regain the more prestigious title. Being King was good enough, and the dynasty lasted until 1952 when–finally without British protection–the entire family was sent off to a comfortable exile. They have been losing millions at Monte Carlo for years.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand would have been 146 today; but he stopped counting in 1914. His assassination was, at the very least, a disaster for Sarajevo’s tourism. If only the heir to Austria-Hungary had the consideration to have been gunned elsewhere, World War I could have been averted.

The Emperor Franz Josef couldn’t stand his nephew. The archduke was crass, humorless and irritable; there was no Viennese charm about him. In fact, Franz Ferdinand hated Vienna: too intellectual, too artistic and–or is this redundant–too Jewish. The elderly Emperor may have kept living just to keep his repulsive nephew from the throne.

And if Franz Ferdinand had been killed anywhere but Bosnia-Herzegovina, the old Emperor might have chuckled and shrugged. The Hapsburgs were inured to violent deaths. His brother Maximilian had been executed in Mexico. His wife Elizabeth had been assassinated in Switzerland. Yet Austria had not declared on Mexico or Switzerland, and Franz Josef actually liked his wife.

Unfortunately, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand could not be rationalized or ignored. Bosnia-Herzegovina was Austrian territory (whether or not Bosnians liked it) and it really was a breach of etiquette for the Serbian secret service to be encouraging the murder of Hapsburgs there.

So Austria-Hungary had to declare war on Serbia, so Russia had to declare war on Austria, so Germany had to declare war on Russia, and France was only too eager to declare war on Germany, so Germany had to declare war on Belgium (poor Belgium was in the way), so Britain had to declare war on Germany. Turkey hated Russia and didn’t want to feel left out.

On the positive side, the next-in-line to the Hapsburg throne was the Archduke Karl, and the Emperor liked him.

Happy Birthday to Prince Rupert!

Every family has an idiot; but among the Stuarts it was a challenge to be conspicuously stupid. Yet Prince Rupert (1619-1682) achieved it. Oliver Cromwell should have written him thank-you notes. Rupert was the nephew of Charles I and, as a commander of his uncle’s army, the prince repeatedly would grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.

Rupert was unquestionably brave. He would have made a splendid corporal. Unfortunately, as the King’s nephew, he was a general by birth–not ability. He did have a sense of theatrics, if not tactics, riding into battle accompanied by his poodle. (We can only guess how embarrassed the dog must have been.) Commanding the royal cavalry, the dashing Rupert would lead irrelevant charges while the rest of the royal army was left to face Cromwell. Yes, Rupert won skirmishes but the Royalists lost the battles. After a series of such grandstanding calamities, the surviving members of the King’s court wanted Rupert to be courtmartialed. He certainly was no longer Uncle Charlie’s favorite nephew. Rupert was banished; at least he found France a pleasant alternative to Cromwell’s England. Uncle Charlie wasn’t that lucky.

During his years in exile, Rupert took up new careers and hobbies, including piracy and painting. Although only a mediocre buccaneer, it still was an improvement over his soldiering. And he actually turned out to be a good artist. (If only Charles I had entrusted his nephew with a palette instead of the cavalry….) At least Charles II held no grudges against his incompetent cousin. Upon the restoration of the monarchy, Prince Rupert received properties, an annuity and the rank of admiral. (Commanding the British navy, he did lose one war to the Dutch–but only one.) Rupert also served on corporate boards, lending his royal patronage to such enterprises as the Hudson Bay Company. A number of Canadian cities and locales are named for the dashing dolt if only as an English alternative to French or Inuit.

Today in Britain the name Rupert has become a synonym for a reckless show-off. Here in America his legacy endures. While no American graduate schools are named for him, Rupert obviously is the role model for every MBA.

December 16th

Today is the birthday of George Santayana…whom you always meant to look up. Well, I am saving you the trouble. George Santayana (1863-1952)–philosopher. He should be remembered for saying “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote me.” And you certainly have heard all of the variations….

Those who do not learn history…
Those who do not remember history…
Those who think I captured the Alamo and sang “Black Magic Woman”…

Santayana actually said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” His appreciation of the past may be derived from the fact that he was born in Europe, where history is usually interesting. Had Santayana been born in New Madrid, Missouri rather than the old one in Spain, he would never have warned us to remember the details of Benjamin Harrison.

Indeed, he seemed to regard Americans as a nation of enthusiastic, affable dolts; we put the super in superficial. Writing in 1920 of America’s emergence on the world stage, he explained our character to the European reader, “American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse in the native good will, complacency, thoughtlessness and optimism.” Of course, he waited until he was back in Europe before he published that!

His impression of Americans as affable oafs is mystifying because he was not exactly mingling with the masses. Santayana spent 26 years teaching philosophy at Harvard–where his students included T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein and Walter Lippmann. Maybe Gertrude could have been a linebacker for Radcliffe, but Tom and Wally would not have won any barroom brawls; and none of them was the least affable.

While we know Santayana for only that one quote, Bartlett’s dedicates an entire page to him. Here is a sampling of the professor’s wit and wisdom:

“Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.”

“The world is a perpetual caricature of itself; at every moment it is the mockery and the contradiction of what it is pretending to be.”

And finally this–perfect for a birthday: “There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.”

In 627 a biblical prophecy came true-for a while. Five centuries earlier a Jew-for-Jesus, now remembered as St. John, had predicted a decisive battle between the Empires of the East and the West. The Book of Revelation has been cited as a prediction of the Cold War, September 11th and Rupert Murdoch; however, St. John thought that he was writing about Rome and Parthia.

Parthia was Rome’s annoying neighbor to the East. Alexander the Great may have destroyed one Persian empire but with sufficient time and spite the Iranians had created another. Parthia bordered Rome’s Asian provinces and was never shy about raiding them. Of course, Rome retaliated but lost a few armies learning the tactics of desert warfare. The two Empires had already been sparring for a century when John pioneered stream-of-consciousness.

The conflict had lasted nearly two centuries when the Emperor Trajan (53-117) resolved to end it by conquering Mesopotamia. Marching east from Asia Minor, through Armenia (Of course, no one asked the Armenians for permission; no one ever does.) Rome’s army then attacked south along the Euphrates. In a two year campaign (114-115), led personally by Trajan, the Romans conquered Mesopotamia. Unfortunately, the Parthians did not seem to realize that they had been defeated and humiliated. Their forces east of the Tigris were just as annoying as ever. Mesopotamia itself was in continuous rebellion. Trajan died of natural causes-really. The Roman army, hoping to do the same, left Mesopotamia soon after.

And the war continued. Eighty years later, the Emperor Septimus Severus “conquered” Mesopotamia and withdrew two years later. However, the Parthians could hardly feel victorious. Rome had repeatedly sacked their cities but they were in no position to rampage through Italy. Parthia’s leaders realized the futility of their situation and came to one rational conclusion: they needed even more belligerent rulers to fight Rome.

The new dynasty-the Sassanids for you name-droppers-managed to continue the war for another three centuries. Proclaiming themselves as the heirs and avengers of the first Persian Empire, the Sassanids were not merely aggressive and vain; they were lucky. Rome was growing weaker. When the legions were not slaughtering each other in civil war, they were floundering against the barbarian invasions. Rome–divided, diverted and dissipated–could no longer threatened its Iranian nemesis. Indeed, the new Persia was on the attack, rampaging through Rome’s eastern provinces and defeating the legions that Rome could muster. This emboldened Persia demanded tribute and Rome was reduced to paying it.

Byzantium succeeded Rome and continued the policy of appeasement. But if the Byzantines lacked the military resources to thwart the Sassanid empire, they made an art of undermining it. Where there was an idle tribe of barbarians on Persia’s borders, Byzantium would subsidize an invasion. If there were a surplus of Sassanid princes, the Greeks would generously encourage a civil war. Between paying tribute to the Sassanids while subsidizing attacks on them, the Byzantines probably would have found it cheaper to be looted by the Persians.

The Byzantine machinations did achieve a remarkable coup, however. In 590, a deposed Persian king appealed to the Byzantines for support. Always willing to encourage Persian fratricide, the Byzantine Emperor Maurice lent Chosroes II an army and helped restore him to his throne. Chosroes’ response was unusual if not aberrant for a king: sincere gratitude. He established peace between the two kingdoms and dispensed with Persia’s extortion racket. Chosroes, who had overthrown and murdered his own father, behaved like an exemplary son to his Byzantine patron.

And when Maurice was murdered in 602, Chosroes declared war on the usurper: a red-headed and warted miscreant named Phocas. This war was more than the usual Persian exercise in pillage; it was a determined, uncompromising effort to overthrow the usurper. And Phocas certainly was helping the Persians. He executed capable generals, replacing them with idiot relatives. His order to coerce the conversion of Jews set off riots and civil war in the very provinces where the Persians were encroaching. Rather than resisting the invaders, Byzantines were defecting to Chosroes. Persian armies quickly conquered Syria and Asia Minor. The ease of these campaigns convinced Chosroes that he was the rightful successor of Maurice on the Byzantine throne.

However, Chosroes was not the only alternative to Phocas. There were quite a few plots against the usurper, and in 610 one succeeded. The new emperor was Heraclius, and he would live up to his name. His labors included the reorganization of the army, replacing a slapdash, unreliable collection of mercenaries with an uniform system of recruiting, supplying and training an army of Byzantines. This transition took more than a decade, and during that time the Persians conquered all of Byzantium’s Asian provinces and Egypt. Chosroes now ruled a realm as vast as the first Persian Empire. To his frustration, however, the Mediterranean Sea put up a better defense than Byzantine armies. Since Persia had no navy, Constantinople and her European provinces remained safe.

Chosroes should have realized that he had reached his limits. The Byzantines would have negotiated–after all, they were Byzantines–but Chosroes had become insatiable, mistaking his luck for infallibility. He insisted the war continue, no matter how pointless it had become. He kept an army stationed on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, perhaps waiting for the Mediterranean to dry up.

Chosroes certainly had patience but so did the Byzantines, and they also had a navy. In 622, Heraclius and his new army landed in Asia Minor and began the reconquest. Heraclius had created an army superior to any the Persians could muster. Furthermore, the Emperor gladly entered into unsavory but expedient alliances with Huns and other barbarians. Over the next five years, campaigning in Asia Minor, Armenia (as usual) and Mesopotamia itself, Heraclius’ forces smashed one Persian army after another.

On December 12, 627, near the ruins of Ninevah, Heraclius confronted Persia’s last standing army in Mesopotamia. This would be the decisive battle of the war. Chosroes was not there; his boldness did not extend to personal courage. On the other hand, Heraclius was feeling obnoxiously chipper. When challenged to personal combat by the Persian commander, the 52 year old Emperor accepted. The Persian general must have felt embarrassed to be decapitated by a middle-aged man. And the rest of the Persian army had the same kind of day.

Mesopotamia was at the mercy of the Byzantines. In frustration with Chosroes’ disastrous leadership, rebellion was breaking out in Persia and throughout what was left of the empire. But Chosroes refused to acknowledge the defeat and chaos. The next year his son murdered him. (This was a Sassanid family tradition). Persia then signed an apologetic peace treaty with Byzantium.

Byzantine supremacy would last all of eight years. It had recovered from the Persian invasion but had exhausted its manpower and resources in the effort. The Empire could not withstand a few thousand enthusiastic Arab horsemen who wrested control of Syria, Jordan, Egypt and North Africa. (And they still seem to be the predominant influence there.) Another small but equally zealous Arab force overran what was left of Persia.

So, in the war between Heraclius and Chosroes, Mohammed won.