Heraklonas

Solidus of Heraklonas (assignment uncertain).

Heraklonas (* 626 in Lasika , † 641 in Rhodes ) was emperor of the Byzantine Empire for a few months in 641 .

Life

Konstantinos Heraclius ( medium Greek Κωνσταντίνος Ἡράκλειος , Latin Constantinus Heraclius ), better known as the Koseformen Heraklonas ( Ἡρακλωνᾶς ) or Herakleonas ( Ἡρακλεωνᾶς , Latin Heraclianus occasionally) as Heraclius II. ( Ἡράκλειος Β' called), was a son of Emperor Heraclius and Martina . This did everything to ensure that Heraklonas sole heir to the throne and his older half-brother Constantine III. should be excluded from the line of succession; so she got her husband to appoint Heraklonas Caesar in 632 during his lifetime and on June 4, 638 (the son was just twelve years old) as co-emperor. When Herakleios died on February 11, 641, the widow Martina became the de facto regent, but had to rule with Constantine III. share. He had obviously been ill for a long time, at least he died on May 25th and the people suspected that Martina had helped with this death. Before his death, Constantine III. his eleven-year-old son, Flavios Herakleios, was appointed heir as Caesar , who was crowned co-emperor as Konstans II (actually: Constantine) in the summer . Apparently suspicious of the regent Martina himself, Constantine III had. instructed the army master Valentinos to protect his son. It appears that there was a power struggle between two court parties . Presumably on September 14, 641, the “people” who wanted to end the rule of the imperial widow for good (presumably influential senators were behind the revolt) penetrated the imperial palace, mutilated Martina and Heraklonas (her tongue was cut off, his nose ) and banished both to Rhodes. Heraklonas died shortly afterwards of his serious injuries (cf. the report in Theophanes , AM 6133). Since his younger brothers and co-emperors David Tiberios and Martinos were also eliminated, Konstans II was able to take over the empire unchallenged. The months of internal unrest had weakened the empire further and certainly contributed to the fact that the advance of the Arabs was not stopped in Egypt either.

literature

See also the literature in the Herakleios article.

• Philip Grierson (Ed.): Catalog of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection: Phocas to Theodosius III, 602-717. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington 1968, ISBN 0-88402-024-X , pp. 389-401 ( full text in the Google book search).
• Ralph-Johannes Lilie , Claudia Ludwig, Thomas Pratsch, Ilse Rochow, Beate Zielke: Prosopography of the Middle Byzantine Period . 1st department: (641−867). Volume 2: Georgios (# 2183) - Leon (# 4270). Created after preliminary work by F. Winkelmann . Published by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. De Gruyter, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-11-016672-0 , p. 129 No. 2565.
• John Robert Martindale: Heraclonas. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 3A, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992, ISBN 0-521-20160-8 , pp. 587-588.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 3: Faber Felix - Juwayni, Al- . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2012, ISBN 978-2-503-53243-1 , pp. 231-232.
• Constantin Zuckerman: On the title and the office of the Byzantine basileus. In: Travaux et Mémoires du Center de recherche d'Histoire et Civilization de Byzance. Volume 16 (= Mélanges Cécile Morrisson ), 2010, ISSN  0577-1471 , pp. 865–890 ( online ; PDF; 1.4 MB ).

Web links

Commons : Heraklonas  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• R. Scott Moore: Short biography (English) at De Imperatoribus Romanis (with references).

predecessor	Office	successor
Constantine III	Emperor of Byzantium 641	Constans II