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The Last Great War of Antiquity
The last and longest war of classical antiquity was fought in the early seventh century. It was ideologically charged and fought along the full length of the Persian-Roman frontier, drawing in all the available resources and great powers of the steppe world. The conflict raged on an unprecedented scale, and its end brought the classical phase of history to a close. Despite all this, it has left a conspicuous gap in the history of warfare. This book aims to finallyfill that gap.The war opened in summer 603 when Persian armies launched co-ordinated attacks across the Roman frontier. Twenty-five years later the fighting stopped after the final, forlorn counteroffensive thrusts of the Emperor Heraclius into the Persians' Mesopotamian heartland. James Howard-Johnston pieces together the scattered and fragmentary evidence of this period to form a coherent story of the dramatic events, as well as an introduction to key players-Turks, Arabs, and Avars, as well as Persiansand Romans- and a tour of the vast lands over which the fighting took place. The decisions and actions of individuals-particularly Heraclius, a general of rare talent-and the various immaterial factors affecting morale take centre stage, yet due attention is also given to the underlying structures inboth belligerent empires and to the Middle East under Persian occupation in the 620s. The result is a solidly founded, critical history of a conflict of immense significance in the final episode of classical history.
478 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 13, 2021
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December 31, 2021
A Great Military Narrative Accessible To A Wide Audience
A lot of academic histories focus on source analysis and criticism as a way of both helping less knowledgeable historians through the reconstruction and emphasizing the areas where conclusions are tendentious or speculative. When source criticism is sidelined it usually means the sources are so well known it is unnecessary to explain them, hardly the case for this complicated era. As a result, books on eras where historiography is complicated tend to be remote and inaccessible except to specialists. Old-fashioned narrative histories are commonly left to the amateurs, whose accuracy cannot always be relied on. Which is another way of saying that it’s a real treat to get a professional historian writing as clear a narrative history as this. Truly, apart from the lack of any real introduction to the period (seriously, the prewar setup for the book is five pages long and mainly concerned with the immediate causes of the war) this book feels like it would work very well as a more popular history. Had I come in only knowing the barest minimum and almost nothing about the Byzantines I could have found this a perfectly understandable book. I think OUP made a mistake marketing this at a strictly academic audience with academic pricing. Maybe the era is just too obscure to succeed with a wide audience, but it could certainly be made accessible for them with only a few tweaks that would not have reduced its scholarly value.
The reason I describe the book this way is that it lays out the war and the decisions made during it in a very organized and rational way. The strength of the book is in its clarity and the depth of its analysis. The book includes some great maps (though it could perhaps include campaign paths rather than leave that to be reconstructed by the reader) and moves fast enough that it is never boring. This is clearly his life’s work. Howard-Johnston is intimately familiar with all the sources, including those which have never been translated, and uses them in a very critical way (or as he says, “innocence is the great enemy”). But while he has clearly given great thought to source analysis it rarely shows up in the text. The reason I describe it as accessible for beginners is that we rarely delve into complicated historiographical questions.* Instead, Howard-Johnston presents us with his conclusions on events and largely leaves the question of how he reached that conclusion aside. Result: the entire book (apart from one chapter on the two empires in the 620s) forms a giant narrative that takes you clearly from point A to point B.
I don’t mean by this that this book isn’t useful to scholars. Any book that provides a consistent framework for this murky period is a godsend. But while this will be an excellent reference book for scholars at all levels, it is important to acknowledge that the confidence it often exudes is very much deceptive. Generally, I think I agree with or see the merit in his interpretations, but having waded through much of this material myself I know how tenuous all the building blocks are. Kaegi’s reconstruction, for example (based on Sebeos), has Edessa fall the year after Amida and Resaina (610) instead of being the cause of their fall (along with Antioch, which Kaegi has fall in 613) as here. Not a big deal you might say, but it has huge implications for Persian strategy in this theater and for explaining Heraclius’ actions (he took over in 610). And there are many other examples. To be clear what I’m saying here: it’s not that Kaegi is right and Howard-Johnston wrong (I suspect it’s the other way round), it’s that the nice, neat reconstruction of this war is just that: a reconstruction. And one based on unavoidably flimsy evidence. So take care and be prepared for the fact that most of the facts here are more ambiguous than they seem.
The division of the war into periods makes sense. The story is basically one of mission creep: first the Persians seek regime change (and the easier kind of restoration no less) but with success they revise their goal to outright conquest of the entire Roman Empire. An attempt is made to explain this from the Persian worldview, but honestly, I never found it all that difficult to explain. Just look at our past behavior. Rationality may be too much to expect. All periods of the war get a focus, including Phocas’ campaigns which are treated with rather more compassion than the man usually gets. It’s hard to reconstruct a career fairly about a man whose enemy and successor wrote the history books. While all periods are covered, the focus does become increasingly strong as it goes on. Early chapters cover 3-5 years, slowing to about 1-2 years by 622. About 2/3 of the focus is dedicated to the 620s, the best documented and most dramatic time of the war. This seems fair.
This book leans very strong into what I would call (if it can be done without prejudice) the Great Man school of historiography. This was, roughly, the idea that historical events are determined by those in power and the important ones shape eras in their own image. Until the late 19th century it didn’t really have any competition apart from religious determinism (God willed it) which is really just a form of Great Man historiography. Historiography since the mid-twentieth century (certainly since Fernand Braudel’s The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II in 1949) has been dominated by the longue durée – the idea that the proper study of history is longterm and seeks overarching explanations for events rather than individual decisions. Individuals don’t matter and history’s path is inevitable and determined by broad forces. Obviously, I am describing the extreme end of both views. Both forces are present and determining the reason behind events will involve a mixture of both. And Howard-Johnston acknowledges the importance of broader forces and trends in Roman/Persian society, but views them as contingent on decisions made by the various players. Had the Persians made a few different decisions, after all, modern accounts might have seen increasing syncretism rather than dogmatism as the overall trend of the era.
Sometimes this does mean that he sees central direction where I suspect none exists. Not all misinformation comes from centralized propaganda organs: as the last few years have shown clearly, people are fully capable of deluding themselves without outside aid. And this is especially true in low-information systems. I don’t deny that Heraclius was a master of misinformation, but it’s far too easy to attribute everything sources disagree on to black propaganda put out by Heraclius. To some degree this idea of attributing patterns to clear decisions is something commonly found in military history. Possibly because the consequences of those decisions are so high it’s natural to want to attribute everything to design.
This is a great book that radically shifts our interpretation of the period. At a minimum it clarifies it and provides a clear framework for understanding. It is equally useful for an academic and an amateur audience, though anyone using it to learn more about the period needs to be careful not to be too confident in its conclusions. I couldn’t put it down and I already knew the outcome.
For those interested in this period finding other accessible overviews will be a challenge. Kaegi’s biography of Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium used to be the go-to work, but he always struggles to bring order to his arguments and tends to repeat himself a lot in often confusing ways. It’s simply not as clear about events as this book, though it is at least more open about its source problems. The War of the Three Gods is a popular military history of the entire seventh century. While superficial in most respects, it does place this conflict in context alongside the ones that followed. While dealing mainly with the period immediately after this (the Arab Conquest), Parvaneh Pourshariati’s Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire is useful as it’s pretty much the polar opposite of Howard-Johnston’s views. I don’t particularly like her book (she focuses waaaaay too much on Arabic historiography and doesn’t even include Movses Daskhurants’i, a reliable and contemporary source, because it undermines her argument) but it does provide a very different viewpoint. I consider it a decided weakness of the current book that it doesn’t engage (sparks would fly!) with Pourshariati or even list her in the bibliography. Howard-Johnston himself has written a number of other books on the period, especially with regards to Persia, although many of them can be difficult to access. His chapter on the two great states of late antiquity in The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East remains the best description of the two powers I’ve read. East Rome, Sasanian Persia and the End of Antiquity provides useful discussion on many areas related to this period. But if you’re going to read any of his other writings, Witnesses to a World Crisis is a perfect companion for this book since it provides the historiography this book lacks.
* The key exception is when he trashes Theophanes. This can be highly amusing, such as the footnotes covering the events of 622 where he goes so far as to number each of Theophanes’ errors.
A lot of academic histories focus on source analysis and criticism as a way of both helping less knowledgeable historians through the reconstruction and emphasizing the areas where conclusions are tendentious or speculative. When source criticism is sidelined it usually means the sources are so well known it is unnecessary to explain them, hardly the case for this complicated era. As a result, books on eras where historiography is complicated tend to be remote and inaccessible except to specialists. Old-fashioned narrative histories are commonly left to the amateurs, whose accuracy cannot always be relied on. Which is another way of saying that it’s a real treat to get a professional historian writing as clear a narrative history as this. Truly, apart from the lack of any real introduction to the period (seriously, the prewar setup for the book is five pages long and mainly concerned with the immediate causes of the war) this book feels like it would work very well as a more popular history. Had I come in only knowing the barest minimum and almost nothing about the Byzantines I could have found this a perfectly understandable book. I think OUP made a mistake marketing this at a strictly academic audience with academic pricing. Maybe the era is just too obscure to succeed with a wide audience, but it could certainly be made accessible for them with only a few tweaks that would not have reduced its scholarly value.
The reason I describe the book this way is that it lays out the war and the decisions made during it in a very organized and rational way. The strength of the book is in its clarity and the depth of its analysis. The book includes some great maps (though it could perhaps include campaign paths rather than leave that to be reconstructed by the reader) and moves fast enough that it is never boring. This is clearly his life’s work. Howard-Johnston is intimately familiar with all the sources, including those which have never been translated, and uses them in a very critical way (or as he says, “innocence is the great enemy”). But while he has clearly given great thought to source analysis it rarely shows up in the text. The reason I describe it as accessible for beginners is that we rarely delve into complicated historiographical questions.* Instead, Howard-Johnston presents us with his conclusions on events and largely leaves the question of how he reached that conclusion aside. Result: the entire book (apart from one chapter on the two empires in the 620s) forms a giant narrative that takes you clearly from point A to point B.
I don’t mean by this that this book isn’t useful to scholars. Any book that provides a consistent framework for this murky period is a godsend. But while this will be an excellent reference book for scholars at all levels, it is important to acknowledge that the confidence it often exudes is very much deceptive. Generally, I think I agree with or see the merit in his interpretations, but having waded through much of this material myself I know how tenuous all the building blocks are. Kaegi’s reconstruction, for example (based on Sebeos), has Edessa fall the year after Amida and Resaina (610) instead of being the cause of their fall (along with Antioch, which Kaegi has fall in 613) as here. Not a big deal you might say, but it has huge implications for Persian strategy in this theater and for explaining Heraclius’ actions (he took over in 610). And there are many other examples. To be clear what I’m saying here: it’s not that Kaegi is right and Howard-Johnston wrong (I suspect it’s the other way round), it’s that the nice, neat reconstruction of this war is just that: a reconstruction. And one based on unavoidably flimsy evidence. So take care and be prepared for the fact that most of the facts here are more ambiguous than they seem.
The division of the war into periods makes sense. The story is basically one of mission creep: first the Persians seek regime change (and the easier kind of restoration no less) but with success they revise their goal to outright conquest of the entire Roman Empire. An attempt is made to explain this from the Persian worldview, but honestly, I never found it all that difficult to explain. Just look at our past behavior. Rationality may be too much to expect. All periods of the war get a focus, including Phocas’ campaigns which are treated with rather more compassion than the man usually gets. It’s hard to reconstruct a career fairly about a man whose enemy and successor wrote the history books. While all periods are covered, the focus does become increasingly strong as it goes on. Early chapters cover 3-5 years, slowing to about 1-2 years by 622. About 2/3 of the focus is dedicated to the 620s, the best documented and most dramatic time of the war. This seems fair.
This book leans very strong into what I would call (if it can be done without prejudice) the Great Man school of historiography. This was, roughly, the idea that historical events are determined by those in power and the important ones shape eras in their own image. Until the late 19th century it didn’t really have any competition apart from religious determinism (God willed it) which is really just a form of Great Man historiography. Historiography since the mid-twentieth century (certainly since Fernand Braudel’s The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II in 1949) has been dominated by the longue durée – the idea that the proper study of history is longterm and seeks overarching explanations for events rather than individual decisions. Individuals don’t matter and history’s path is inevitable and determined by broad forces. Obviously, I am describing the extreme end of both views. Both forces are present and determining the reason behind events will involve a mixture of both. And Howard-Johnston acknowledges the importance of broader forces and trends in Roman/Persian society, but views them as contingent on decisions made by the various players. Had the Persians made a few different decisions, after all, modern accounts might have seen increasing syncretism rather than dogmatism as the overall trend of the era.
Sometimes this does mean that he sees central direction where I suspect none exists. Not all misinformation comes from centralized propaganda organs: as the last few years have shown clearly, people are fully capable of deluding themselves without outside aid. And this is especially true in low-information systems. I don’t deny that Heraclius was a master of misinformation, but it’s far too easy to attribute everything sources disagree on to black propaganda put out by Heraclius. To some degree this idea of attributing patterns to clear decisions is something commonly found in military history. Possibly because the consequences of those decisions are so high it’s natural to want to attribute everything to design.
This is a great book that radically shifts our interpretation of the period. At a minimum it clarifies it and provides a clear framework for understanding. It is equally useful for an academic and an amateur audience, though anyone using it to learn more about the period needs to be careful not to be too confident in its conclusions. I couldn’t put it down and I already knew the outcome.
For those interested in this period finding other accessible overviews will be a challenge. Kaegi’s biography of Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium used to be the go-to work, but he always struggles to bring order to his arguments and tends to repeat himself a lot in often confusing ways. It’s simply not as clear about events as this book, though it is at least more open about its source problems. The War of the Three Gods is a popular military history of the entire seventh century. While superficial in most respects, it does place this conflict in context alongside the ones that followed. While dealing mainly with the period immediately after this (the Arab Conquest), Parvaneh Pourshariati’s Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire is useful as it’s pretty much the polar opposite of Howard-Johnston’s views. I don’t particularly like her book (she focuses waaaaay too much on Arabic historiography and doesn’t even include Movses Daskhurants’i, a reliable and contemporary source, because it undermines her argument) but it does provide a very different viewpoint. I consider it a decided weakness of the current book that it doesn’t engage (sparks would fly!) with Pourshariati or even list her in the bibliography. Howard-Johnston himself has written a number of other books on the period, especially with regards to Persia, although many of them can be difficult to access. His chapter on the two great states of late antiquity in The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East remains the best description of the two powers I’ve read. East Rome, Sasanian Persia and the End of Antiquity provides useful discussion on many areas related to this period. But if you’re going to read any of his other writings, Witnesses to a World Crisis is a perfect companion for this book since it provides the historiography this book lacks.
* The key exception is when he trashes Theophanes. This can be highly amusing, such as the footnotes covering the events of 622 where he goes so far as to number each of Theophanes’ errors.
July 6, 2022
I have to admit i was quite dissapointed in this book.
First of all, the book is a great scholarly achievement. The author took 30 years to write it, and the research is deep and thorough.
However, the author lacks the ability to write a book for a wider audience. In a lot of places the author assumes extensive knowledge of the person reading, and he keeps foreshadowing events all over the book, which i always find annoying. If i knew nothing of the subject it would annoy me even more. Why mention the entire course of the war in the first few pages? Why mention an upcoming siege of Constantinople in a couple of years? It's a minor issue, but i hate it when the authors write like this. I mean i knew about these things and when they would happen, but it kinda takes the magic away from a story if in the middle of the Persian onslaught the reader knows it will all backfire because the author always finds a way to mention it.
That said, the biggest issues are the pacing and the depth. The pacing goes all over the place, finally the story picks up and you have a couple of pages reading about the type of coins minted, or the type of local administration in a city. It seems like the book is basically a bunch of different papers put together sometimes and somehow put in between.
Again the book is really in depth, but again the story gets stopped because the author goes really in depth about the life of a saint who's writings we are left behind, and completely leaves the main narrative to talk about the life of the saint in question for 5 pages before it returns to the topic. A lot of places in the book are like that, where the discussion is more about the sources than what the sources actually let us knows. Things like these are more appropriate for footnotes, not for the actual book part.
That said, the book is a great scholarly work. If you are a professional historian of the late Roman-Persian relationship you are going to love it. If however you wanted an interesting discussion of the last great war before the rise of Islam, you will be dissapointed.
First of all, the book is a great scholarly achievement. The author took 30 years to write it, and the research is deep and thorough.
However, the author lacks the ability to write a book for a wider audience. In a lot of places the author assumes extensive knowledge of the person reading, and he keeps foreshadowing events all over the book, which i always find annoying. If i knew nothing of the subject it would annoy me even more. Why mention the entire course of the war in the first few pages? Why mention an upcoming siege of Constantinople in a couple of years? It's a minor issue, but i hate it when the authors write like this. I mean i knew about these things and when they would happen, but it kinda takes the magic away from a story if in the middle of the Persian onslaught the reader knows it will all backfire because the author always finds a way to mention it.
That said, the biggest issues are the pacing and the depth. The pacing goes all over the place, finally the story picks up and you have a couple of pages reading about the type of coins minted, or the type of local administration in a city. It seems like the book is basically a bunch of different papers put together sometimes and somehow put in between.
Again the book is really in depth, but again the story gets stopped because the author goes really in depth about the life of a saint who's writings we are left behind, and completely leaves the main narrative to talk about the life of the saint in question for 5 pages before it returns to the topic. A lot of places in the book are like that, where the discussion is more about the sources than what the sources actually let us knows. Things like these are more appropriate for footnotes, not for the actual book part.
That said, the book is a great scholarly work. If you are a professional historian of the late Roman-Persian relationship you are going to love it. If however you wanted an interesting discussion of the last great war before the rise of Islam, you will be dissapointed.
July 18, 2025
Borrow.
History for historians.
History for historians.
May 29, 2023
This book is DENSE. Prepare for a ride. And prepare for a brushup on your 7th century eastern geography. Very schololarly but fairly readable. I had first heard about Heraclius in passing in the 'History of Rome' podcast years ago. The broad outline of how yet another usuper emporer went from defeat and the brink of state disintigration and conquest, beseiged within the walls of Constantinople, to victory and complete recovery in a few short years is nothing short of remarkable. I was eager to get the details and finally got round to reading the relatively recent release. Professor Howard-Johnston is plain about where there are gaps in the sources, and makes good use of the Persian and Armenian perspectives and histories. There are, alas, still significant gaps and many frustratingly crucial developments unmoored from specific dates. This being my first serious foray into late classical/early Byzantine history of the period, I end up taking the good professors' best guesses and reasonable deductions at face value.
Being new to this period and weak on the Sassanids in genral, I am accordingly grateful for the wealth of background provided - also applicable to the various Arab client tribes/states playing an increasingly significant role between the two great powers before, during, and after.
Given the high drama and epic scope, it is incredible to me the war was never brought up in ANY of even my college history courses. I can only conclude this is due to Western Roman bias, and that the war no matter how epic, was rapidly eclipsed in just a few short years by the Muslim Conquest. It is a shame as the stories of Heraclius and Khosrow deserve to be more widely known and it whets my appetite to explore the period further.
Being new to this period and weak on the Sassanids in genral, I am accordingly grateful for the wealth of background provided - also applicable to the various Arab client tribes/states playing an increasingly significant role between the two great powers before, during, and after.
Given the high drama and epic scope, it is incredible to me the war was never brought up in ANY of even my college history courses. I can only conclude this is due to Western Roman bias, and that the war no matter how epic, was rapidly eclipsed in just a few short years by the Muslim Conquest. It is a shame as the stories of Heraclius and Khosrow deserve to be more widely known and it whets my appetite to explore the period further.
August 14, 2021
Excellent recreation of a murky, but important conflict. Phocus gets better treatment than in most histories.
December 29, 2025
This book is simply amazing, especially for those looking to shed light on this specific region during the critical transition point just before the futuhat and the rise of Islam. For centuries, two superpowers dictated war and peace in the Middle East: one in the west, centered around the Mediterranean basin, and the other in the east, rooted in the Iranian plateau with its power base in the ancient, urbanized lands of Mesopotamia.
This is the tale of their final conflict—a war that left both empires so vulnerable that a series of subsequent events (not discussed in detail in the book) completely dismantled a half-millennial order in less than fifty years. The book focuses on the war itself, the Heraclian revolution, Heraclius's magnificent generalship, and his mastery of public religious sentiment, illustrating how he successfully turned the Persian war machine against itself. I found the argument that Khosrow II intended to establish a new duality (or escape being surrounded by enemies) by destroying Rome and re-orienting the Sassanids towards the east and the Turkic Khaganate to be amazing; it explains so much about the King of Kings' mindset and what drove him into such a high-stakes gamble in the West. I hope the author decides to expand on this in future editions, especially as new scholarship emerges regarding Central Asia in late antiquity.
While this is a compelling narrative of the violent and volatile decades of the early 7th century, there are areas where the book could be improved to provide a better experience, particularly for readers who are not professional historians. First and foremost, I suggest mapping the specific campaign routes, especially the roads Heraclius took during his first and second campaigns into the heart of the Sassanid Empire. This would significantly improve the reader's spatial understanding. The current maps, which only depict geography, borders, and major cities, feel insufficient.
At times, the author deviates from the main storyline to discuss the biography or credentials of a specific source. While I understand these sections are intended to establish source credibility and explain possible bias, it is overdone in several places, causing the narrative to lose momentum. I found myself skipping them at times, mostly because they feel like hiccups in the middle of a gripping narrative of a military campaign.
Finally, the section on the rise of Islam feels surprisingly thin compared to the rest of the book’s deep analysis, which unfortunately hurts the work's credibility at the finish line. I suggest either committing to a more robust discussion by incorporating up-to-date arguments and analysis to match the rest of the text or simply narrate the transition without attempting a cursory, single-sentence analysis.
This is the tale of their final conflict—a war that left both empires so vulnerable that a series of subsequent events (not discussed in detail in the book) completely dismantled a half-millennial order in less than fifty years. The book focuses on the war itself, the Heraclian revolution, Heraclius's magnificent generalship, and his mastery of public religious sentiment, illustrating how he successfully turned the Persian war machine against itself. I found the argument that Khosrow II intended to establish a new duality (or escape being surrounded by enemies) by destroying Rome and re-orienting the Sassanids towards the east and the Turkic Khaganate to be amazing; it explains so much about the King of Kings' mindset and what drove him into such a high-stakes gamble in the West. I hope the author decides to expand on this in future editions, especially as new scholarship emerges regarding Central Asia in late antiquity.
While this is a compelling narrative of the violent and volatile decades of the early 7th century, there are areas where the book could be improved to provide a better experience, particularly for readers who are not professional historians. First and foremost, I suggest mapping the specific campaign routes, especially the roads Heraclius took during his first and second campaigns into the heart of the Sassanid Empire. This would significantly improve the reader's spatial understanding. The current maps, which only depict geography, borders, and major cities, feel insufficient.
At times, the author deviates from the main storyline to discuss the biography or credentials of a specific source. While I understand these sections are intended to establish source credibility and explain possible bias, it is overdone in several places, causing the narrative to lose momentum. I found myself skipping them at times, mostly because they feel like hiccups in the middle of a gripping narrative of a military campaign.
Finally, the section on the rise of Islam feels surprisingly thin compared to the rest of the book’s deep analysis, which unfortunately hurts the work's credibility at the finish line. I suggest either committing to a more robust discussion by incorporating up-to-date arguments and analysis to match the rest of the text or simply narrate the transition without attempting a cursory, single-sentence analysis.
December 26, 2023
A very detailed analysis of an underrepresented conflict, that does not fail to introduce the wider international political landscape of the era. The author puts great emphasis on the interpretation of the events in different sources.
I think the author is not as much familiar with the Sasanian affairs of the era as with those of the ERE.
There are some grave mistakes there, and a lack of consideration of new interpretations from 2010s of the fall of the empire and the political structure of the Sasanian state, and the chronology and nature of the Arab conquest.
That being said, I found this book fascinating, well written and a valuable contribution to the history of the 7th century. I would definitely recommend it.
I think the author is not as much familiar with the Sasanian affairs of the era as with those of the ERE.
There are some grave mistakes there, and a lack of consideration of new interpretations from 2010s of the fall of the empire and the political structure of the Sasanian state, and the chronology and nature of the Arab conquest.
That being said, I found this book fascinating, well written and a valuable contribution to the history of the 7th century. I would definitely recommend it.
November 6, 2025
Great scholarly work. might be challenging at times (definitely was for me) for an amateur historian with only a general knowledge of the time and place to get through. Worth the effort for me though. Rich in detail, painstakingly researched, author clearly points out when he engages in any speculation or extrapolation, and when he takes issues with the reliability of a source, and also goes to some lengths at times to discuss what influences or pressures a source may have been under when they recorded their information. Maps are very good, and really indispensable in helping to understand what was going on. good bibliography provides important references for continued reading. Sheds a bright light on an important moment in the history of man.
June 1, 2024
Veľmi detailná kniha o takmer 30-ročnom konflikte Byzantskej ríše (nástupca Rímskej ríše vo Východnej polovici impéria) a Sasánovskej Perzie, ktorá v tej dobe existuje už štyri storočia. S občasným zapojením Avarského kaganátu v strednej Európe a Západotureckého chanátu (neskoršia Chazarská ríša) za Kavkazom, bola táto vojna zároveň ďalšou z radu "svetových vojen", keďže boje prebiehali tak na Balkáne, ako aj v Egypte, Sýrii, Palestíne, Arménii a severnej Mezopotámii. Vojna stála život státisíce ľudí a výrazne oslabila obe mocnosti. Aj preto sa zmienené oblasti, už o desaťročie neskôr, stali pomerne ľahkou korisťou vzmáhajúcej sa mocnosti na Arabskom polostrove - Ummajovského kalifátu.
September 7, 2022
One of the greatest -- yet least known -- conflicts on the world stage. All the more fascinating to watch these two ancient empires tussle (again!) with no idea that a) Muslim Arabia is about to irrupt out of the desert, and b) that pulling the Turks into their contest is going to have an impact for centuries to follow as well.
Great attention as well to sources and how far we can trust different authors.
Last thought: the Eastern Roman disinformation campaigns in the later years are case studies of how to do it right (most unfortunately for the Sassanians).
Great attention as well to sources and how far we can trust different authors.
Last thought: the Eastern Roman disinformation campaigns in the later years are case studies of how to do it right (most unfortunately for the Sassanians).
August 3, 2024
The Last Great War of Antiquity
This book was probably above my pay grade. I know a fair bit about this war, but the author goes into that much detail that he swiftly outpaced my knowledge. It's quite an academic book, as he will debate the merits and accuracy of the various sources and then retrace the movements of people.
Unfortunately all of this got quite tedious pretty quickly. When the book moves on to the action, though, then it is excellent.
I can't help but feel that if JHJ were to edit this book to take out the more boring sections, then he'd have a winner on his hands.
This book was probably above my pay grade. I know a fair bit about this war, but the author goes into that much detail that he swiftly outpaced my knowledge. It's quite an academic book, as he will debate the merits and accuracy of the various sources and then retrace the movements of people.
Unfortunately all of this got quite tedious pretty quickly. When the book moves on to the action, though, then it is excellent.
I can't help but feel that if JHJ were to edit this book to take out the more boring sections, then he'd have a winner on his hands.
May 13, 2022
آخر حروب العصر القديم والتي بنهايتها إنتهت الامبراطورية الساسانية وتقلصت البيزنطية. هذا الكتاب يتكلم عن الحرب الرومية الفارسية والتي تزامنت مع دعوة الرسول عليه السلام ونزلت فيها آية "غلبت الروم". المؤلف يرى أن هذه الحرب لم تأخذ حقها بالتحليل غالبا لقلة المصادر التي تحدثت عنها. لكنه أجاد بشرح أحداث الحرب بالتفصيل مع تحليل جيد للمصادر، يعيب الكتاب تركيزه على الجانب العسكري من الحرب لكن هذا لم يقلل متعة القراءة.
August 28, 2024
I loved this book. Highly recommended to anyone interested in this subject.
It covers the Roman-Persian war comprehensively showing us the perspective from both sides, although there is more of a focus on the Roman side due to availability of original sources.
The author goes to great lengths to explain what is known, what is somewhat certain and what are educated guesses.
My knowledge of this event is almost none (wikipedia level) but I found it easy to follow.
It covers the Roman-Persian war comprehensively showing us the perspective from both sides, although there is more of a focus on the Roman side due to availability of original sources.
The author goes to great lengths to explain what is known, what is somewhat certain and what are educated guesses.
My knowledge of this event is almost none (wikipedia level) but I found it easy to follow.
September 25, 2022
I loved this book. It is well researched and, for me, a great read. Where else are you going to read about this conflict that happened so late in antiquity (602-629 AD)? All the key players are squaring off: Romans, Persians, Turks, Arabs, Avars and Chinese.
The author had to make many assumptions and educated guesses because of the lack of sources or conflicts in the sources. Just terrific.
If you like histories where one power is thoroughly beaten and makes a stirring comeback against all odds and eventually wins a stunning and devastating victory, this is it. Move over Alexander, Epaminondas, Caesar, Hannibal, Patton, Sherman and Grant. Make room for Heraclius.
The author had to make many assumptions and educated guesses because of the lack of sources or conflicts in the sources. Just terrific.
If you like histories where one power is thoroughly beaten and makes a stirring comeback against all odds and eventually wins a stunning and devastating victory, this is it. Move over Alexander, Epaminondas, Caesar, Hannibal, Patton, Sherman and Grant. Make room for Heraclius.
January 27, 2022
Very good
This is a very good, eminently readable, book on an important but often forgotten conflict. I particularly like that it devotes substantial time and space to the Persian side, not just the Roman. It is much more balanced than is usually the case.
This is a very good, eminently readable, book on an important but often forgotten conflict. I particularly like that it devotes substantial time and space to the Persian side, not just the Roman. It is much more balanced than is usually the case.
February 9, 2023
It is perhaps not fair to give this meticulously researched and detailed -- truly magisterial, in fact -- book three stars. The reason why I do is personal: this is the "one damn thing after another" school of history. DNF. :(
Want to read
March 20, 2022NYRB. 2/10/2022.
August 20, 2022
Howard-Johnston's life work: definitive.
June 7, 2023
My first exposure to an era I knew little about, an intensive history of the Roman-Persian wars of the early 7th century.
April 12, 2025
Excellent narrative of the war. Explains what we don't know and tries to create a plausible set of events when sources are lacking or contradictory
November 30, 2022
Only read this if you are already very familiar with the history of late antiquity. This is historical scholarship that it took the author decades to compile, and he is in no mood to please the unwary amateur. Though he occasionally throws in a couple of paragraphs that dial up the intensity (and proves he can write), this is a very careful, very measured piece that speaks almost exclusively to his academic colleagues. To shield himself from any possible retort, he won't even look at a limb let alone go out on one. He actually prefaced one perfectly reasonable speculation with "It is, therefore, perhaps not unwarranted to conjecture that..." which may, perhaps - all things considered - give you some idea.
The one bold claim JHJ makes is indeed controversial - so much so that he stopped the story and launched into a dense 12-page digression about source material to justify it. The point in question is the moment (in the Chronicle of Theophanes) when Heraclius divides his army in three: one, a cavalry division that rushes to the aid of besieged Constantinople, two, the main force under his brother Theodore to confront Shahen, and third - a tiny force he would lead into Persian territory. Theophanes was working from the (now lost) "Official History" of the campaign and every historian I've read simply takes his word for it: the scene is thrilling, and there's no other version to contradict him.
Instead JHJ claims that the main army stayed intact and it was not Theodore who defeated Shahen but Heraclius himself. The story that he went to Persia was actually Roman disinformation that hung around long enough for Theophanes to swallow it. JHJ mounts a very compelling case - but there are two crucial problems. First, we would have to believe that Theophanes totally ignored the Official History to concoct his own version, or that he never read it and just guessed. JHJ actually writes that "He [Theophanes] may or may not have read or glanced through the intervening section of the Official History." This is a truly wild claim. The major contemporary historian writing his historical magnum opus has access to the official history commissioned by Heraclius himself and he doesn't bother to read it? And to miss such an crucial point, he must not have even glanced through it - as JHJ implicitly agrees. We can perhaps imagine that a scholar today might skip a few sections of the dozens of relevant books he might consult, but for Theophanes in 660 AD the precious little he had to hand was unmissable - especially if one of those scrolls was the official account! No, I cannot accept that Theophanes was too lazy. Maybe the vital section was missing - yet bizarrely this is not a possibility JRH mentions.
The second problem is that JHJ himself points to several moments where Heraclius takes the most dangerous, risky and unexpected course - and argues that he did so precisely because it was dangerous, risky and unexpected. That was how Heraclius managed to wrongfoot his adversaries again and again. So JHJ can't now argue that it simply wasn't sensible for Heraclius to divide his army and march a tiny force into Persia. That's precisely the sort of thing Heraclius would do.
And so I've had to deduct a star for my review. But the effort to marshal all the material necessary to put this epic tale together really deserves 5. This book is vastly superior to Walter Kaegi's almost incoherent "Heraclius", which reads like he dropped all the pages in heavy winds on the way to the printer. The best book about this utterly captivating watershed of history is surely yet to be written.
The one bold claim JHJ makes is indeed controversial - so much so that he stopped the story and launched into a dense 12-page digression about source material to justify it. The point in question is the moment (in the Chronicle of Theophanes) when Heraclius divides his army in three: one, a cavalry division that rushes to the aid of besieged Constantinople, two, the main force under his brother Theodore to confront Shahen, and third - a tiny force he would lead into Persian territory. Theophanes was working from the (now lost) "Official History" of the campaign and every historian I've read simply takes his word for it: the scene is thrilling, and there's no other version to contradict him.
Instead JHJ claims that the main army stayed intact and it was not Theodore who defeated Shahen but Heraclius himself. The story that he went to Persia was actually Roman disinformation that hung around long enough for Theophanes to swallow it. JHJ mounts a very compelling case - but there are two crucial problems. First, we would have to believe that Theophanes totally ignored the Official History to concoct his own version, or that he never read it and just guessed. JHJ actually writes that "He [Theophanes] may or may not have read or glanced through the intervening section of the Official History." This is a truly wild claim. The major contemporary historian writing his historical magnum opus has access to the official history commissioned by Heraclius himself and he doesn't bother to read it? And to miss such an crucial point, he must not have even glanced through it - as JHJ implicitly agrees. We can perhaps imagine that a scholar today might skip a few sections of the dozens of relevant books he might consult, but for Theophanes in 660 AD the precious little he had to hand was unmissable - especially if one of those scrolls was the official account! No, I cannot accept that Theophanes was too lazy. Maybe the vital section was missing - yet bizarrely this is not a possibility JRH mentions.
The second problem is that JHJ himself points to several moments where Heraclius takes the most dangerous, risky and unexpected course - and argues that he did so precisely because it was dangerous, risky and unexpected. That was how Heraclius managed to wrongfoot his adversaries again and again. So JHJ can't now argue that it simply wasn't sensible for Heraclius to divide his army and march a tiny force into Persia. That's precisely the sort of thing Heraclius would do.
And so I've had to deduct a star for my review. But the effort to marshal all the material necessary to put this epic tale together really deserves 5. This book is vastly superior to Walter Kaegi's almost incoherent "Heraclius", which reads like he dropped all the pages in heavy winds on the way to the printer. The best book about this utterly captivating watershed of history is surely yet to be written.
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