AD 628

Kavadh II

Khosrow II is overthrown and Kavadh II opens peace negotiations with Heraclius

Freed Roman prisoners took horses from the royal stables and galloped around Veh Ardashir brandishing their broken chains.

The offer Khosrow refused

From Dastagird in January 628, Heraclius made a final offer to end the war before further destruction. Khosrow II rejected it, intensifying divisions within the Sasanian leadership.

Heraclius’s campaign had exposed Ctesiphon’s vulnerability while Khosrow’s main western army remained far away.

The conspirators — twenty-two senior officers by the final stage — first obtained assurances that Heraclius would negotiate with a replacement regime.

Four days on bread and water

On the night of 23–24 February, an elite and military conspiracy isolated Khosrow in Ctesiphon, released prisoners including Roman prisoners of war, and proclaimed his son Qobad Shiroe.

Qobad Shiroe was crowned as Kavadh II on 25 February. Khosrow was captured after trying to hide in a neighbouring garden, and was kept on bread and water while ministers recited the charges against him.

Kavadh ordered his execution on 28 February, and also killed his brothers or half-brothers, though their exact number and the sequence remain uncertain.

An armistice, not the peace

Khosrow’s death opened negotiations. News of the coup reached Heraclius on 3 April, his victory dispatch was read in Hagia Sophia on 15 May, and he returned to Constantinople for a triumph in June 628.

Recent scholarship distinguishes that 628 armistice and opening settlement from the final peace, which was completed after about two years of negotiations.

The True Cross was not demonstrably back in Heraclius’s hands at the 628 triumph: recent scholarship places its great restoration ceremony in Jerusalem on 21 March 630.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited Date corrected

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date corrected. The research places this at 0628-02-25.

What the sources leave uncertain

The coup and coronation dates are unusually well supported by the Chronicon Paschale tradition, but details such as the number and timing of Kavadh’s murdered brothers vary.
Recent reconstruction treats 628 as the beginning of a difficult two-year settlement. The final restoration of the prewar frontier was completed under later Sasanian rulers in 630.
The True Cross was not demonstrably back in Heraclius’s hands at his 628 Constantinople triumph. Recent scholarship places its great restoration ceremony in Jerusalem on 21 March 630.
A large financial indemnity is repeated in generic summaries but is not part of the securely reconstructed immediate 628 agreement.