up of 10,000 men, and that the numbers offered in the Muslim sources are "highly exaggerated", especially as regards the Byzantines. David Morray in the Oxford Companion to Military History, however, places both armies at approximately 20,000 strong. The Byzantines were led by Heraclius' brother Theodore, as well as by a figure called "Artabun" or "Wardan" in the Muslim sources, evidently a corruption of the Armenian name Vardan. The Muslim sources name him as the patrikios (commander) of Emesa, which was the major Byzantine base of operations in Syria in the early period of the Muslim conquests. According to Kaegi, he possibly commanded fresh reinforcements from the north, including Armenians, or from the army that had accompanied Heraclius to Syria. In addition, the army may have also contained local Arab tribal levies. The Arab army consisted of three separate contingents, with either Khalid or, less likely, Amr, as the overall commander. Battle According to George Nafziger, the details of the battle are not detailed specifically, except a Rashidun commander named Dhiraar ibn al-Azwar performed awesome feats during the Battle of Ajnadayn, where he slew so many Byzantine champions by his own hands, including two provincial governors. The Byzantines suffered a heavy defeat and were forced to retreat to Damascus. The Arabs suffered heavy casualties, and Muslim tradition records several lists of Companions of Muhammad, including several members of the early Muslim aristocracy, who fell in the battle and were regarded as martyrs. In the battle, female warrior Khawlah bint al-Azwar fought against a Byzantine battation with the armor of a knight. The high number of deaths served to reinvigorate the sense of religious martyrdom among the nascent Muslim community, while the high proportion of Meccan deaths served as a useful counterbalance to the influence of the Medinan Ansar. On the Byzantine side, the Muslim sources report that one of the two commanders, probably Vardan, fell in the battle, but that Theodore escaped and withdrew north where Heraclius replaced him with Vahan and Theodore Trithyrius and sent him to imprisonment in Constantinople. Aftermath Heraclius himself withdrew from Emesa to the greater safety of Antioch after Ajnadayn, while the surviving Byzantine units fled to the safety of walled towns, and left the countryside undefended before the Muslim raids. The whole of Palestine was thus left open to Muslim raids, especially in the interior parts away from the coastal towns. As a result,