After he had vanquished Behrâm, and established himself on the throne, he rewarded the Byzantines [Rûmis] with extraordinary sums of money, and sent them back. He also fulfilled all the conditions agreed upon between them when he departed from the Qaisar. He then applied himself to establish a firm government. He treated all his subjects kindly, but, obeying his father’s injunction, slew his maternal uncles Panduiah and Bastâm. When fourteen years had elapsed the Rûmis acted treacherously towards the Qaisar and his son Benâtûs, killing them both. The other son of the Qaisar asked aid from Khosru, who sent him with a brave army into the country of Rûm and Syria. When the Persians entered Filistîn and Jerusalem they made all the Christians and others prisoners; they, more­over, obtained possession of the cross which had been kept in a golden box concealed under ground, and sent it to Khosru. They were in the same manner victorious in the city of Alexandria and in the country of Nubia. They marched to the vicinity of Constantinople, and the devasta­tion made by the Persian army was great. But despite of all these efforts of the Erânians the Rûmis would not pay allegiance to the son of the Qaisar, who was a royal prince of great intellectual powers and much experience:

Distich:

Government is not in skill, It is only in heaven’s will.

It is narrated that the Rûmis had elected an individual named Harqal [Heraclius] to be their governor and sovereign. He was a righteous and God-fearing monarch, and when he perceived what havoc the Persians had committed in Rûm by their slaughter and pillage, he implored the King of kings to deliver the Rûmis from this calamity. The arrow of his prayers struck the target of response, and during several consecutive nights he was favoured with a vision, in which he saw Khosru brought before him with a chain round his neck, and heard a voice saying to him: ‘Make haste to fight Parviz, because victory will be on thy side.’ On the strength of this true vision Harqal collected an army, marched from Constantinople to Nassibîn, and Khosru sent one of his generals with twelve thousand men to attack him. Harqal met the Persians and killed six thousand of them, with all the officers of Parviz. Allah— whose name be extolled—has said: ‘Have not the Greeks [i.e., Byzantines] been conquered [by the Persians] in the nearest part of the earth, but after their conquering they will be conquered in some years, etc.?’* The occasion for the revelation of this verse, and an account of some events concerning Khosru and Harqal, will be recorded in the second volume [second part] if it pleaseth Allah the Most High.