On the north, Asia Minor was subdued, and for ten years the Persian forces encamped on the shores of the Bosporus, in front of Constantinople.
In his extremity Heraclius begged for peace.

"I will never give peace to the Emperor of Rome," replied the proud Persian, "till he has abjured his crucified God, and embraced the worship of the sun." After a long delay terms were, however, secured, and the Roman Empire was ransomed at the price of "a thousand talents of gold, a thousand talents of silver, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses, and a thousand virgins." But Heraclius submitted only for a moment.

He found means not only to restore his affairs but to retaliate on the Persian Empire.

The operations by which he achieved this result were worthy of the most brilliant days of Rome.
INVASION OF CHOSROES Though her military renown was thus recovered, though her territory was regained, there was something that the Roman Empire had irrecoverably lost.

Religious faith could never be restored.
In face of the world Magianism had insulted Christianity, by profaning her most sacred places--Bethlehem, Gethsemane, Calvary--by burning the sepulchre of Christ, by rifling and destroying the churches, by scattering to the winds priceless relics, by carrying off, with shouts of laughter, the cross.
Miracles had once abounded in Syria, in Egypt, in Asia Minor; there was not a church which had not its long catalogue of them.