26 years of total warfare.It was the end of the world.This is why centralized government is evil, two feudal kings could never have kept such an intense level of fighting up for so long through plague and catastrophe.>Modern historical consensus indicates that between the start of the war (602 AD) and the immediate aftermath of the Arab conquests (c. 650–700 AD), the Middle East suffered an overall population decline of 30% to 50%, with severe localized drops in urban centers exceeding 70%.>Major cities shrank dramatically. Ancient metropolises like Sardis, Ephesus, and Ancyra (Ankara) lost 60% to 80% of their inhabited urban footprint. Cities transformed into small fortified hilltop strongholds (kastron) housing garrisons and fleeing rural populations. >Heraclius drafted nearly every available military-aged male from the remaining core territories of Anatolia, effectively turning entire regional populations into soldier-farmers (a precursor to the later Byzantine Theme system), something that had not been done by the Romans since ancient times.>Following King Khosrow II's murder in 628, the Sasanian Empire suffered five years of bloody dynastic civil war. During this power vacuum, the Plague of Sheroe (627–628 AD) hit Ctesiphon (the Sasanian capital), killing an estimated half of the population in the royal core, including the Great King himself.
