abstract:Heraclius (, Herakleios) was the brother of the Byzantine emperor Tiberius III (r. 698–705) and the Byzantine Empire's leading general during his reign.
We seem to be a long way from the Exaltation of the Cross, the subject of the last scene in Gaddi's fresco cycle, in which the Emperor Heraclius, having alighted from his horse by order of an angel and walking barefoot like a mendicant friar, bears the relic into the holy city.