For 700 years, Rome and Persia clashed as the superpowers of the Ancient World. The final phase of their great war is one of the most dramatic, surprising, and critical events in world history. The victor would endure for another eight centuries, the vanquished would fall into oblivion – its religion close to extinguished, its people all but forgotten. By 626, Persia had seized most of the Roman Empire and was on the brink of destroying Constantinople, the city that sheltered the knowledge of Greece and Rome, and the vulnerable western world that would one day inherit it. Then came the most astonishing comeback in military history.

Led by the Emperor Heraclius in person, the Romans entrusted their exposed capital to God and marched deep into Persia with almost insane audacity. Hunted by three separate armies, they would somehow have to survive, defeat the great King of Kings, and save Constantinople. The knife-edge contest determined which civilization would survive into the Middle Ages, and thus carved the contours of the modern world. Yet for all its drama and significance, the war and its heroes are little known. Rome, Persia and the War that Shaped the World is an engaging and accessible history that narrates the climactic stages of the war.