Heraclius (son of Constantine IV)

Heraclius (Greek: Ἡράκλειος)[1] was born between 667 and 685,[lower-alpha 1][lower-alpha 2] and was the son, and second of two children, of Byzantine Emperor Constantine IV and his wife, Empress Anastasia.[4]

This article is about the son of Constantine IV. For the Byzantine Emperor (610–641), see Heraclius.

Unlike his older brother Justinian II, he was never made co-emperor under his father, and was never emperor.[5] In contrast, the brothers of his father, Heraclius and Tiberius, had been crowned Augusti with Constantine IV during the reign of their father Constans II,[6] but in 681 Constantine IV had them mutilated so they would be ineligible to rule.[7]

Heraclius is noted in the Liber Pontificalis under Pope Benedict II who received locks of hair from Justinian and Heraclius ("domni Iustiniani et Heraclii filiorum…principis"), sent by their father, Constantine IV in 684/685.[2] Such a gesture was understood as being a sign of adoption by the Pope of the two children.[8][lower-alpha 3] Heraclius survived his father, but there is no record of him after the death of Constantine IV from dysentery in 685; in contrast, his brother Justinian II's death is known as 711, while his mother Anastasia outlived all her family and died sometime after 711.[1][2]

Notes
  1. At the time of this father's death in 685, his oldest brother was recorded as being 17 years old, meaning that Heraclius was born between 685 and 667.[2]
  2. Oxbridge Byzantine historian Joan M. Hussey lists: "Heraclius the Heraclid was born circa 670. He was the son of basileus Constantine IV the Heraclian and Anastasia". This would have been circa two years after his older brother Justinian II was born.[3]
  3. German Roman historian Ferdinand Gregorovius noted that: ";certain that it is that he allowed his two sons, Justinian and Heraclius, to be adopted by the Pope, sending to Benedict, according to the curious custom of the time, locks of hair of both princes; symbols of adoption which were solemnly deposited in a chapel of the Lateran.[9]

References
  1. Dale de Lee Benjamin (7 January 2008). "Heraclian dynasty (610-711)". Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World. Constantinople: FOUNDATION OF THE HELLENIC WORLD. Retrieved 24 February 2019. His two sons, Justinian and Herakleios, as well as his wife Anastasia, survived him.
  2. Lynda Garland (University of New England, New South Wales) (15 July 2000). "Anastasia (Wife of Constantine IV)". Retrieved 23 February 2019. Heraclius' existence is only known from the fact that a letter was sent by Constantine to Pope Benedict II (684-85) together with locks of his children's hair. (Liber Pontificalis (Book of Pontiffs) 83: 'Like the clergy and army he [Benedict] received locks of the hair of the lord Justinian and of Heraclius, the clement emperor's sons, and also a mandate in which he intimated he had sent the hair'; Stratos 4.5-6.)
  3. Hussey 1966, p. 789.
  4. R. Scott Moore (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) (9 December 1997). "Constantine IV (668 -685 A.D.)". roman-emperors.org. Retrieved 25 February 2019.
  5. Gibbon 1827, p. 99.
  6. Dumbarton Oaks, Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Vol. II, Part 2 (1968), pg. 513
  7. "Constantine IV". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1 January 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2019. In 681 he deposed and mutilated his younger brothers, who were co-emperors with him.
  8. Duchesne 1886–92, Vol. I, p. 364, n. 5.
  9. Gregorovius 2010, p. 174.

Bibliography


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