General Notes

Khosrau II, called Parvez ("the victorious") (died 628), Persian king (590-628) of the Sassanid dynasty, the grandson of Khosrau I. He was assisted in gaining the throne by the Byzantine emperor Mauricius and, in gratitude, restored to the Byzantine Empire many of the territories conquered by his grandfather. When Mauricius was deposed and murdered in 602, Khosrau turned against Byzantium and for the remainder of his reign waged war against that empire. He reconquered the territories restored in 592 and invaded most of southwest Asia, including Syria and Palestine. The Persian armies successfully attacked Egypt in 616 and a year later advanced to Chalcedon, opposite Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). Intrigues and insurrections against Khosrau began to arise in Persia, and the Byzantine emperor Heraclius took advantage of this domestic weakness to defeat the Persian monarch in a campaign from 623 to 628. After this defeat, Khosrau was deposed and murdered by his son, later Kavadh II (reigned 628).