Before the walls of Tiflis, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius met the commander of the Göktürk army of the north. Theophanes the Confessor calls him Ziebel.[1] The commander rushed to meet the emperor, kissed his neck and did him obeisance, while the Persians looked on from the town.[1] In the account of the patriarch Nikephoros, Heraclius called him his son, set his own crown on his head and promised him his daughter.[2] The meeting sealed the alliance of the Caucasus campaign in person. It took place in 626, 627 or 628, depending on the dating followed.

The alliance

The meeting followed an embassy. Theophanes has the emperor invite “the eastern Turks, who are called Chazars” to become his allies during his stay in Lazica.[3] Nikephoros says that Heraclius sent gifts from Lazica to “the chieftain of the Turks” and urged him to an alliance against the Persians. The chieftain accepted.[4] In the Armenian history of the Albanians, the emperor sent a noble named Andre with promises of immense treasure.[5] The man who answered was the viceroy of the king of the north, second to him in kingship, called Jebu Xak’an.[5] He sent back about a thousand chosen horsemen to confirm the treaty with the emperor.[5] That embassy is the renewal of the Göktürk–Byzantine alliance of 568.

The meeting in Theophanes

The Chazars broke through the Caspian Gates and invaded Adraigan, that is Azerbaijan. Their commander was Ziebel, who ranked second after the khan.[1][6] They burnt towns and villages and took Persians captive.[1] The emperor set out from Lazica and joined them.[1] When Ziebel saw the emperor, he rushed to meet him, kissed his neck and did obeisance, while the Persians watched from the town of Tiflis.[1]

The whole army of the Göktürks fell flat on the ground and honoured the emperor face down. Theophanes says this honour was unknown among foreign nations.[1] Their commanders climbed on rocks and fell flat in the same way.[1] Ziebel brought his adolescent son before the emperor, “and he took as much pleasure in the emperor’s conversation as he was astonished by his appearance and wisdom”.[1] Then Ziebel picked forty thousand brave men and gave them to the emperor as allies. He went back to his own land.[1]

The meeting in Nikephoros

Nikephoros tells the meeting without naming Tiflis.[4] He calls the Göktürk leader a chieftain. When the chieftain learned that the emperor was near, he came to meet him with a great multitude. He dismounted and prostrated himself on the ground, and his whole host did the same.[4] Heraclius told him that he might come near even on horseback, if their friendship was steadfast. He called him his own son.[4] He took the crown from his own head and set it on the Göktürk’s.[4] After a banquet Heraclius gave him all the vessels of the table, an imperial robe and earrings set with pearls. With his own hand he put such earrings on the chieftain’s nobles.[2]

Heraclius feared that he might be deceived, as he had been by the Avar khan.[7] To bind the agreement, he showed the chieftain a portrait of his daughter Eudokia.[7] “God has joined us and has made you my son,” he said.[7] “Behold, this is my daughter, the Roman Augusta.[7] If you espouse my cause and help me against my enemies, I shall give her to you in marriage.”[7] The chieftain was so struck by the beauty of the picture that he fell in love with the woman it showed. He at once handed over a multitude of Göktürks under a commander.[7] Nikephoros’s source was poorly informed about the war in the east, and the order of his chapter is confused.[8]

Other accounts

The Armenian history of the Albanians says only that the emperor joined his ally before Tiflis with all his forces. The two kings exchanged royal gifts and rejoiced to see each other.[9] The Armenian historians do not mention the proposed marriage.[10]

One account sets the meeting one evening in the Göktürk camp before the fortress of Narikala.[11] The yabgu rode up to the emperor, dismounted, kissed his shoulder and bowed.[11] Heraclius embraced him, called him his son and crowned him with his own diadem.[12] The two held a banquet, in which the soldiers of both sides took part. The Romans gave the yabgu earrings.[12] Heraclius promised him the hand of his daughter, whom this account calls Eudoxia Epiphania.[12] It names the Göktürk ruler as Tong Yabgu. It has his nephew Börü Shad lead the siege of the city.[13] It counts the meeting as perhaps the first time in the post-Hunnic age that leaders of the Graeco-Roman and the Turkic world met in person.[12]

Identity of Ziebel

Ziebel and Jebu Xak’an are titles, not names.[14] The Armenian form joins the two Göktürk titles yabgu and khagan. The commander came with his son, who is styled šat, that is shad.[14][6] Whether the man was Tong Yabgu, khan of the western Göktürks, is doubtful to some scholars.[14] Others name him as Tong Yabgu outright.[11] A third group rejects the equation for three reasons. The sounds of the names do not fit. Theophanes calls Ziebel a general, second in rank to the khan, and not a ruler. And so proud a ruler as Tong Yabgu, the foe of Ilig, would hardly have prostrated himself before the emperor.[15]

Date

Theophanes enters the meeting in a year that some scholars convert to 626.[16] Others have the commander who welcomed Heraclius’s proposal in 625 lead his army through the pass of Derbent two years later, in 627.[17] The Armenian history puts the great invasion in the thirty-eighth year of Khosrow II, the year of his murder, that is 628.[18]

Consequences

From the meeting the allies besieged Tiflis together. The siege wore both armies down.[9] In Theophanes the Göktürks marched into Persia with the emperor from September. Because of the winter and the Persian attacks, they slipped away little by little until all had gone home.[19] Nikephoros records that Heraclius later sent Eudokia from Constantinople to the Göktürk ruler to whom he had betrothed her. He called her back when news came that the ruler had been killed.[20] The scene before Tiflis is the first meeting in person between a Roman emperor and a Göktürk ruler that the sources describe.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 447
  2. ^ a b Nikephoros; Mango 1990, p. 55–57
  3. ^ Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 446
  4. ^ a b c d e Nikephoros; Mango 1990, p. 55
  5. ^ a b c Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 87
  6. ^ a b Scott 1997, p. 448
  7. ^ a b c d e f Nikephoros; Mango 1990, p. 57
  8. ^ Mango 1990, p. 180
  9. ^ a b Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 85
  10. ^ Dowsett 1961, p. 85
  11. ^ a b c Yavuz 2025, p. 368
  12. ^ a b c d Yavuz 2025, p. 370
  13. ^ Yavuz 2025, p. 368–370
  14. ^ a b c Dowsett 1961, p. 83
  15. ^ Sinor 1990, p. 308,309
  16. ^ Mango 1990, p. 181
  17. ^ Howard-Johnston 1999, p. 187–188
  18. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 83
  19. ^ Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 448
  20. ^ Nikephoros; Mango 1990, p. 67

Sources

Literature

  • Cyril Mango, Roger Scott (trans.), The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813 (1997)
  • Cyril Mango (ed., trans.), Nikephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople: Short History (1990)
  • Charles J. F. Dowsett (trans.), The History of the Caucasian Albanians by Movsēs Dasxuranci (1961)
  • R. W. Thomson (trans.), James Howard-Johnston (commentary), The Armenian History attributed to Sebeos (1999)
  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
  • Denis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990)

Related

What links here4

Conflicts
The Caucasus campaign, 627–629
Battles & Events
Siege of Tiflis (627–629)
Institutions and Titles
Diplomacy of the Steppe Empires
Sources
Nikephoros

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Meeting of Heraclius and Ziebel (627).” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/meeting-of-heraclius-and-ziebel-627/

Last revised: 8 November 2026