If someone is interested in Byzantium fall and why this war was so bad for both empires, read some more about Justinian's Plague which killed ~35-50% of population and also halved economical output. It took about 200 years to get to the same place population wise for most of the empire.

Weirdly it didn't hit Persia as much outside of Mesopotamia, most historians estimate "only" ~20-30% of population died and shifted balance of power to Persian side, from almost renewed Roman Empire at 540 which most likely was getting back to ruling mediterranean world once again.

If you are interested in learning more about Byzantium there is a fantastic podcast The History of Byzantium[1] that follows on from Mike Duncan's The History of Rome Podcast.

[1] https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com

Tom Holland's "Shadow of the Sword" covers this and the broader context. "Justinian's Flea" is set a century earlier, but provides some grimly fascinating background: both these empires were still suffering the economic and demographic consequences of a plague. It's an under appreciated period of history, just as interesting as the Roman civil war imho.

For anyone enjoying this type of content, I just happen to be reading The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan and damn, I never thought I could be so interested in all its cultural and religious context. So much to learn from history... but this time is different hehe ;)

This is an excellent summary of the beginning of the end of two great empires. The Arabs would destroy the Persian Sassanids completely. The Byzantine with the loss of their bread basket of Egypt and Africa would be permanently weakened. The Crusades of later centuries did not help the Byzantines. The Fourth Crusade where the Crusaders sacked Constantinople left the empire even weaker. The Fourth Crusade is why many of the treasures of Constantinople were brought to Venice.

Iran could possibly still be predominantly Zoroastrian today, and perhaps much of central Asian still Nestorian Christian, had this war not taken place or gone differently.

So many interesting events in history. But why a random one of them is at the HN top page?

The rise of islam was only possible due to the fight to exhaustion by the Byzantines and Sassanids. If not for the timing, Muhamad and his religion would have been but an obscure cult in the sands of Arabia. Just goes to show that timing is everything in history.