Khosrau II
, "the Victorious" (''Parvez''), king of
Persia, son of
Hormizd IV, grandson of
Khosrau I,
590 -
628.
He was raised to the throne by the magnates who had rebelled against Hormizd IV till 590, and soon after his father was blinded and killed. But at the same time the general
Bahram_Chobin had proclaimed himself king, and Khosrau II was not able to maintain himself.
The war with the
Romans, which had begun in
571, had not yet come to an end. Khosrau fled to
Syria, and persuaded the emperor
Maurice to send help. Many leading men and part of the troops acknowledged Khosrau, and in 591 he was brought back to
Ctesiphon. Bahram Chobin was beaten and fled to the
Turks, among whom he was murdered. Peace with Rome was then concluded.
Maurice made no use of his advantage; he merely restored the former frontier and abolished the subsidies which had formerly been paid to the Persians. Khosrau II was much inferior to his grandfather. He was haughty and cruel, rapacious and given to luxury; he was neither a
general nor an
administrator. At the beginning of his reign he favoured the
Christians; but when in
602 Maurice had been murdered by
Phocas, he began war with Rome to avenge his death. His armies plundered
Syria and
Asia_Minor, and in
608 advanced to
Chalcedon.
In
613 and
614 Damascus and
Jerusalem were taken by the general
Shahrbaraz, and the Holy cross was carried away in triumph. Soon after, even
Egypt was conquered. The Romans could offer but little resistance, as they were torn by internal dissensions, and pressed by the
Avars and
Slavs. At last, in
622, the emperor
Heraclius (who had succeeded
Phocas in
610) was able to take the field. In
624 he advanced into northern
Media, where he destroyed the great fire-temple of
Gandzak (Gazaca); in
626 he fought in Lazistan (
Colchis), while Shahrbaraz advanced to Chalcedon, and tried in vain, united with the Avars, to conquer
Constantinople.
In
627 Heraclius defeated the Persian army at the
Battle of Nineveh and advanced towards
Ctesiphon. Khosrau fled from his favourite residence, Dastagei (near
Bagdad), without offering resistance; and as his despotism and indolence had roused opposition everywhere, his eldest son
Kavadh II, whom Khosrau had imprisoned, was set free by some of the leading men and proclaimed king. Four days afterwards, Khosrau was murdered in his palace (
February 628). Meanwhile, Heraclius returned in triumph to Constantinople, in
629 the Cross was given back to him and Egypt evacuated, while the Persian empire, from the apparent greatness which it had reached ten years ago, sank into hopeless anarchy.
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