Aleppo and Antioch were taken.

Nothing could prevent the Saracens from overrunning Asia Minor.

Heraclius himself had to seek safety in flight.

Syria, which had been added by Pompey the Great, the rival of Caesar, to the provinces of Rome, seven hundred years previously--Syria, the birthplace of Christianity, the scene of its most sacred and precious souvenirs, the land from which Heraclius himself had once expelled the Persian intruder--was irretrievably lost.

Apostates and traitors had wrought this calamity.