General Notes

Khosrau II, called Parvez ("the victorious") (died 628), Persian king of the
Sassanid dynasty (590-628), the grandson of Khosrau I. He was assisted in
gaining the throne by the Byzantine emperor Mauricius (circa 539-602) 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 captured Egypt in 616 and a year later advanced to Chalcedon,
opposite Constantinople. 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).