Cyrus from Alexandria

...as opposed to the false saint Cyril, of Alexandria.

Marek Jankowiak is telling the tragic tale of the patriach who met the Arab armies before autumn 638 so, the closing AG 930s. Due to Cyrus' axial rôle in Events, and the vagaries of Sources - it's difficult to pin down what exactly was going on then and there.

Jankowiak brings the papyrus "Lond. I 113.10". Here Cyrus is buying the Arabs off. Cyrus must do this as a remove since he is not actually in Alexandria at the time. Jankowiak sides with Nicephorus on this score.

It seems that there came a coup-attempt back in Constantinople, to replace the incestuous imperator-basileus Heraclius with his legitimate son Athalaric. But Heraclius (and niece-wife Martina) still had life in them, as (perhaps) did Heraclius' other legitimate son Constantine. The coup failed and Cyrus, recalled. Jankowiak dates this papyrus spring-summer 639 which is AG 940; presumably in Constantinople.

All this, whilst the Arabs were mustering armies at Suez and fulk skiffs at the northern Red Sea. I take it that Constantine's price for not supporting the coup was to be named the heir. Martina can't have liked that.

Sometime afterward, Byzantium stopped payments to the Madina. Meanwhile the Nile flooded as usual July–October, which span the commanders of both language-families used to marshal their forces. At the end of 940 / autumn AD 639, Heraclius sent his men to the Delta, under John, presumably arriving at some drier spot to begin the AG 941 fight season.

The papyrus precedes this and Ethiopic text of John of Nikiu skips over this. From other sources, mostly Nicephorus now deemed vindicated, Jankowiak gathers that this move went about as well as the future Damietta Crusades. Theodore did supply a resistance at Sebennytos; but his commander John died July 640/941. Fayyum was lost, along with Heliopolis soon to be graced with the misr Fustat (these two are districts of Cairo today). A host of Miaphysite monks and nuns fled west to Africa. And this is about the same time as Heraclius' death and Martina's move against Constantine III. Alexandria, I hear, will be captured and recaptured and re-re-captured. All too late by then; and, honestly, outside Jankowiak's scope (cue his collaborator Booth: pdf).