Heraclius

Heraclius, who lived from around 575 to 11 February 641, served as Byzantine emperor from 610 to 641. Born in Cappadocia, the son of Heraclius the Elder, exarch of Africa, he led a revolt against the unpopular emperor Phocas beginning in 608 and was crowned emperor on 5 October 610. His reign centered on two major conflicts. In the Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602 to 628 he faced early setbacks but won a decisive victory at the Battle of Nineveh in 627, forcing the Persian shah to withdraw from occupied territory, and he recovered the True Cross from Jerusalem in 629; but his gains proved temporary as he soon lost many of the newly regained lands to the Rashidun Caliphate, whose armies rapidly conquered former Byzantine Syria, Mesopotamia and Egypt by 636. He is credited with shifting the empire's official language from Latin to Greek and adopting the title Basileus. He married twice, first Eudokia and then his niece Martina, and died of illness at sixty six, succeeded by his sons.