(Pt. I:  Slavs & Persians)

Downsizing the Roman Empire in AD 600 and 700:

AD 600                                                           AD 700

Crisis of Empires

The Persian Empire

Khusro II (591-628)

The angry shah

6th-century Sassanian silver-gilt urn
(suggests something of the lively, sophisticated court life under Khusro II)

Constantintinople Beseiged

Heraclius, savior of the Roman Empire

Exaltation of the Cross:  Restoring the "True Cross" to Jerusalem

Heraclius restoring the True Cross in later imagination
(Micele di Matteo Lambertini)