Heraklonas
Heraklonas was Byzantine emperor for a few months in 641 and was deposed with his nose cut off. Born in 626, he was the son of the Emperor Heraclius by his niece Martina — a marriage the church regarded as incestuous and which was widely blamed for the disasters of the reign, including the loss of Syria, Palestine and Egypt to the Arabs. Heraclius made him co-emperor in 638 alongside his much older half-brother Constantine III, the son of his first marriage, and left both as joint rulers on his death in February 641. Constantine III died of tuberculosis after 103 days. The rumour that Martina had poisoned him was believed immediately and probably universally. Heraklonas ruled alone with his mother as regent, in a capital that regarded her as a usurper and a poisoner, and in an empire whose eastern provinces were being lost while they argued. Alexandria surrendered to Amr ibn al-As in November 641 under a truce negotiated by the patriarch Cyrus, whom Martina had restored. The army under Valentinus marched on Constantinople. The senate deposed both of them, and Martina's tongue was cut out and Heraklonas's nose slit — the first recorded use of mutilation to disqualify a Byzantine emperor, on the principle that a maimed man could not hold the office. They were exiled to Rhodes and disappear from the record. Constantine's eleven-year-old son Constans II was made emperor and reigned for twenty-seven years. The practice of rhinokopia became standard Byzantine political usage for centuries. The Egyptian provinces lost during those months were never recovered.
- Lived: 618 CE – 641 CE
- Nationality: Byzantine
- Roles: emperor, head_of_state
