The First of the Crusaders
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became a prey to disease and nervous fears. Do we really need fine-spun psychological theories to explain the reign with its alternations of failure and success? It may at least be doubted.
Yet it is not in these last years of gloom and suspicion that we would part with Heraclius: we would rather recall in him despite all his limitations the successful general, the unremitting worker for the preservation and unity of the Empire which he had sailed from Africa to save, an enthusiast with the power to inspire others, a practical mystic serving the Lord Christ and the Mother of God — one of the greatest of Rome's Caesars.
