Basileus
Herakleios Against the King of Kings
In 626 two armies stand on either side of Constantinople, the Avars on land and the Persians across the water. The emperor is not there.
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Basileia, book one. 150 pages, full colour.
About the book
He is far to the east with his Armenian allies, winning the Turks of the steppe to his side for a strike at the heart of Persia.
It has come to this in twenty-four years. In 602 the army murdered the emperor Maurikios, and the Persian king Khosrow II went to war to avenge him. Persia took Syria and Egypt. In 614 Jerusalem fell and the True Cross was carried off to Persia. Herakleios, son of the governor of Africa, took the throne in 610 with an empty treasury and a broken army, and then did what no emperor had done for two hundred years: he led the army himself.
Everything rides on what happens next: the capital, the Cross, and an empire that has already lost its richest provinces. Jerusalem is at the heart of the story, from the siege of 614 through the years of Persian rule over its Christians and Jews. So is a word: basileus, the Greek title Herakleios will take in place of the old Latin ones.
What is in the book
- A prologue, six chapters and a coda, from the fall of Maurikios in 602 to the return of the True Cross to Jerusalem in 630 and beyond
- Armour, buildings and objects drawn from the evidence: the coins of Herakleios, the rock reliefs of Taq-e Bostan, the David Plates, the walls and churches of Constantinople
- A road map of the campaigns
- Illustrated essays on the Strategikon, the army manual of the age, and on the siege of 626
- Essays on money and on who held power in the empire
- A note on the sources and an afterword
Sources
Theophanes, the Chronicon Paschale, Georgios Pisides and the Armenian history attributed to Sebeos, with the modern scholarship listed in the back of the book.
Look inside
Chapter one opens: the fleet sails from Carthage
The end of chapter two
The siege of 626, seen from the Avar camp
Constantinople, 628
From the back of the book: the siege of Constantinople, 626
Read the opening pages free, in any browser, with no Kindle needed.
Questions
Do I need to read the Belisarius books first?
No. Basileus is set eighty years after Belisarius and stands alone.
How closely does it follow the sources?
The story follows the sources of the time, among them Theophanes, the Chronicon Paschale, Georgios Pisides and Sebeos. Names are given in their Greek forms, so Herakleios rather than Heraclius.
Is there an ebook?
Yes. The Kindle edition has all 150 pages in full colour. The opening can be read free in any browser, with no Kindle needed.
How was the book made?
The artwork is made with AI image tools under the author's direction, and the book says so. How these books are made
Hear when the next book is out
One email when a new book is out. Between books, now and then a short letter about one thing from the sources: a coin, a map, a passage, an experiment. Never more than once a month.