On This Day In Roman History, March 21
The Byzantine Emperor Flavius Heraclius Augustus returns the Christian relic known as the True Cross to Jerusalem on March 21, 630 CE. Heraclius was faced with a growing military power in early 629, as the prophet Muhammad succeeded in unifying all nomadic tribes within the Arabian Peninsula. Together, these unified tribes and coalitions of people were now powerful enough to evoke Heraclius on a campaign against them later that same year. Fighting began in September of 629 as power was forcefully switched from an Arab ambassador to a Ghassanid-Roman governor. As Heraclius approached the capital city of Khosrau, Arab forces fled without a fight. A recently freed local Persian leader from within the city offered the True Cross with his personal peace negotiator, hoping to use it as a sign of good will. Emperor Heraclius then paraded the relic through the Empire for the year, eventually returning it to Jerusalem.
Did you know?
Heraclius is the only Roman Emperor to be discussed at any length in Arab histories. He is also mentioned in the Qur'an alongside some descriptions of his wars. In Surah 30 of the Qur'an, we can find a description of the Roman - Sassanid wars: "2 The Romans have been defeated 3 In the nearest land. But they, after their defeat, will overcome. 4 Within several years. To Allah belongs the command before and after. And that day the believers will rejoice 5 In the victory of Allah. He gives victory to whom He wills, and He is the Exalted in Might, the Merciful."
Pictured: One of the largest purported fragments of the True Cross is at Santo Toribio de Liébana in Spain. Photo by F. J. Díez Martín, via Wikimedia Commons.
There are several surviving pieces of the True Cross around today, and together they make up some of the most important Christian relics. However, all of them are considered to be fake by most historians due to the fact the sultan Saladin captured the cross at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. The cross was last historically seen in Damascus. So many churches would eventually claim pieces of the True Cross that the French theologian and pastor John Calvin would state "There is no abbey so poor as not to have a specimen. In some places there are large fragments, as at the Holy Chapel in Paris, at Poitiers, and at Rome, where a good-sized crucifix is said to have been made of it. In brief, if all the pieces that could be found were collected together, they would make a big ship-load. Yet the Gospel testifies that a single man was able to carry it."
Opinion
Welcome to my daily opinion! It's interesting to see history from a different perspective, and for me today that was found in the primarily Arab writings of Heraclius. When I briefly mentioned above that many tribes and cultural groups of the Arabian Peninsula became confederated into a powerful force, it wasn't all that easy for Muhammad in reality. Several other confederated tribes, like that of the Hawazin, were proving stubborn to defeat in outright military conquest. During this time many pagan symbols were destroyed as the cities were forced to convert to Islam. When I use the word "pagan" I am not referring to the Roman-Pagan beliefs, but instead deities worshiped in pre-Islamic Arabia. I will leave some further reading on these deities and the beliefs that unaccompanied them, like that of Al-Lat, a chief goddess found within Mecca.
Sources
Ciggaar, K. (1996). East and West in the crusader States: context, contacts, confrontations. Leuven: Peeters.
Haykal, M. H. (2008). The life of Muḥammad. Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust.
Kaegi, W. E. (2007). Heraclius: emperor of Byzantium. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Further Reading:
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