The Last Empire of Iran by Michael Bonner

The Last Empire of Iran
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The Last Empire of Iran
Michael R. Jackson Bonner
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2020
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... v

Acknowledgements...................................................................................................... vii
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1
I. Eurasia from the Conquests of Alexander to the Fall of Parthia ....................... 7
II. The Establishment of the House of Sasan ......................................................... 25
III. From Shapur I to Shapur II ................................................................................ 49
IV. The World of the Nomad .................................................................................... 93
V. Humiliation and Heresy ....................................................................................... 123
VI. The Iranian Recovery ......................................................................................... 171
VII. Triumph and Tribulation ................................................................................. 237
VIII. The Last War of Antiquity ............................................................................. 267
IX. The Collapse of the House of Sasan ................................................................ 313
X. Observations on the Fall of the Iranian Empire ............................................. 341
Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 349
Index ............................................................................................................................ 389
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am very thankful to Geoffrey Greatex, Robert Hoyland, Katarzyna Maksymiuk,

Nikolaus Schindel, Christelle Jullien, James Howard-Johnston, Philip Wood, Chris
Tudor, Monica Green, Miranda Willians, Henry Hopwood-Phillips, and Tom Hol-
land, who read and commented upon drafts of this book. I am grateful also to Amir
Askari Yahyavi of the Iran History Forum who made the maps in this book. To the
anonymous members of the editorial board of the Gorgias Press who reviewed my
manuscript, I am grateful for their encouragement and helpful suggestions. My wife
Alexandra, and sons Theodore and Maximilian, endured large piles of books and
papers strewn about the house for nearly three years. In the final stages of prepara-
tion, in many a nocturnal editing session, Alexandra patiently declaimed every sen-
tence of each chapter to help detect errors and to purge infelicities of style. I am
certain that she and my sons are relieved that the toil is over, and I am pleased to
dedicate this book to them.
MRJB
vii
INTRODUCTION
In the early third century of our era Iran was the scene of an important political rev-
olution, and a new dynasty arose upon the ruins of an old. Circumstances seemed to
favour such a change. The royal house which had ruled Iran for nearly five centuries
had begun to destroy itself by civil war. Rome, the great power of the Mediterrane-
an, had attained the limit of its greatness, and had begun, as it seemed, to collapse.
Far across the huge expanse of Eurasia the failure of the Han dynasty proceeded
amidst internal feuds and conflict with nomads of the steppe. Amidst these troubles,
Ardashir I reasserted the dignity and power of Iran, and his most important policy
was to carry war into the west and to recover the ancient limits of the first Persian
empire established by Cyrus the Great. Almost a century and a half passed until the
great movement of peoples out of Inner Asia nearly toppled the empires of Iran and
Rome: half the Mediterranean world was lost to the people whom the Romans
called barbarian, and efforts to hold or to recover the ancient Roman capital and its
western empire ended in failure. But the empire of Iran survived, and its govern-
ment came to portray itself as the defender of sedentary order against the threaten-
ing outer world of the nomad.
A grim struggle with the Huns of Central Asia led to the erection or refurbish-
ment of vast frontier defences and walls. Campaigns in the north and east of Iran
filled the fifth century until the king Peroz perished in battle against that nomadic
power. The result of such a humiliation was a subordinate, tributary status to the
Huns. But it was not long before the House of Sasan emerged from that shameful
condition as a stronger, more centralised, and more autocratic state which remained
a formidable rival to eastern Rome in the age of Justinian.
The empires of Iran and eastern Rome were capable alike of cooperation and
conflict along their mutual frontier. Competition for even the smallest advantage
could distract the governments of the two powers. Since the days of the first Ar-
dashir, many an Iranian king had surely meditated the destruction of their Roman
rival, but only one attempted to conquer that empire. The resultant war, which be-
gan in at the opening of the seventh century, united nearly the entire eastern Roman
world with the empire of Iran. Khusro II, whose generals had achieved those con-
quests, might have passed on to his heir the greatest empire in the world. Successive
kings of the Sasanid line might have ruled from North Africa and the waters of the
Mediterranean to the roots of the Hindukush mountains, and from the Euphrates to
the Strymon; and the dream of re-establishing the first Persian empire might have
1
2 THE LAST EMPIRE OF IRAN
been fulfilled. But an alliance between Rome and the Turkish empire of the steppe
overthrew the Iranian monarchy, and for a moment the two powers returned to a
policy of cooperation. But the exhausted rivals had failed to foresee whence their
doom would come, and when the Arabs burst out of the desert and crossed an inse-
cure frontier in the south, the northern defences against the nomads of Asia, were
of no avail. After the fall of the Iranian capital at Ctesiphon, the rule of the seden-
tary world passed to new masters, and the binary order of Rome and Iran gave way
to a unitary Arab power. This book is about those transformations.
THE SOURCES OF SASANIAN HISTORY

Pieces of the story are strewn across a large mass of historical works in many lan-
guages, and some of these yield no more than a useful sentence or two. An indige-
nous Iranian historical tradition appears to have survived within works composed in
Arabic and Persian in the age of Islam. The works of Dinawari and Tabari, and the
Shahnameh of Ferdowsi represent what I have called the royal tradition: a full but
doubtful narrative of Sasanian dynastic history. An imaginative hypothesis of The-
odor Nöldeke would have us believe that those texts repose upon a royal chronicle
composed at the instigation of the Iranian government. 1 Though this idea is wrong, 2
it is obvious that later works of the Islamic age include much that can be corrobo-
rated by external sources amidst much that defies common sense. Historical sources
which originated among the cultures abutting Iran can corroborate, correct, or clari-
fy the strange and fanciful accounts of a later time, and I have given weight to the
works of Roman, Armenian, and Syriac writers. The best sources which describe the
nomadic world of Inner Asia were composed in a language which I cannot read, and
so I have depended upon translations and learned summaries of the dynastic chron-
icles of China.
The surest guides into the heterogeneous mass of sources for Sasanian history
are three modern compendia. Dodgeon and Lieu’s Roman Eastern Frontier and the Per-
sian Wars AD 226–363 covers nearly the first century and a half of Sasanid rule, 3 and
a second volume of the same title prepared by Greatrex and Lieu covers the years
1 Nöldeke, T., Das Iranische Nationalepos, 1896, §12–13; Nöldeke, T., Geschichte der Perser under
Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden, 1879, p. xiii–xxviii.
2 Hoyland, R. G., The ‘History of the Kings of the Persians’ in Three Arabic Chronicles: the Transmis-
sion of the Iranian Past from Late Antiquity to Early Islam, 20018, p. 1–23; Hämeen-Anttila, J.,
Khwadāynāmag: The Middle Persian Book of Kings, 2018; Jackson Bonner, M. R., Al-Dinawari’s
Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal: An Historiographical Study of Sasanian Iran, 2015, p. 47–57; Jackson
Bonner, M. R., Three Neglected Sources of Sasanian History in the Reign of Khusraw Anushirvan,
2011, p. 19–28.
3 Dodgeon, M. H. / Lieu, S. N. C., The Roman Frontier and the Persian Wars AD 226–363,
1991.
INTRODUCTION 3
363–630. 4 Dignas and Winter’s Rome and Persia in Antiquity presents analysis of Irani-
an political history during the Sasanian age, as well as a series of essays on the main
themes of that history. I have used those three texts as, I believe, they were intend-
ed; and I have supplemented the resultant narrative with the evidence of material
culture as much as possible. The series of books called the Sylloge Nummorum Sasa-
nidarum are excellent guides to Sasanid coinage, and the numerous studies of Rika
Gyselen provide invaluable information on royal and aristocratic sealings. My narra-
tive is informed by the best modern scholarship available to me. But I have avoided
academic debates, and historiographical digressions on the worth of my sources are
included within my narrative only when they benefit my argument. The same is true
of geographical descriptions, philological arguments, and theological speculations.
Though many of the sources which I have consulted have the quality of legend
or fantasy, I have tried to determine what historical truth may be at the root of
them. But I exercise great scepticism about two aspects of the Persian and Arabic
sources which I have consulted. I. The Iranian royal tradition includes a prolix mass
of anecdotes recording the splendour of the Sasanid court and the glories of the
reigns of certain kings who were long remembered in Abbasid lore. 5 I have either
condensed or omitted such long digressions, since they cannot be verified, nor do
they add anything to our understanding of political history. II. In my narratives of
the career of Muhammad and the Arab conquests, I have cast aside posthumous
Muslim tradition in favour of contemporary accounts in Armenian and Syriac – ex-
cept where the balance of probability or common sense suggest that a genuine his-
torical fact has been preserved on the pages of Baladhuri, Dinawari, or Tabari. 6
The narrative which I have written is a political history. Foreign and domestic
policy, warfare, and the other operations of government are my main themes. The
neglect of such topics as social or economic history can be blamed on the limita-
tions or defects of my sources, which take almost no notice of the lives of the
common people upon whom social and economic change would obviously have had
the greatest effect. Some would not consider this a serious problem. The life and
activities of a peasant, his food, his religion, must have changed little between the
rule of the Arsacids and that of the House of Sasan; and the coin which he held in
his hand, bearing the image of the monarch, may have been for the common man
the only sign of a new dynasty or a new king. As much as I should wish to know
and to transcribe the thoughts and feelings of the people whose involuntary taxes
4 Greatrex, G. / Lieu, S. N. C., The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, Part II AD
363–630, 2002.
5 Christensen’s account of the reign of Khusro I, for example, emphasises the legendary
splendour of the court at Ctesiphon to the detriment of political and military affairs (Chris-
tensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides, 1936, p. 419–435).
6 Cf. the learned argument in Hoyland, R., In God’s Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of
an Islamic Empire, 2015, p. 1–6.

supported the army, the administrative state, and the domestics of the palace, they
would add nothing to the political history of a dynasty whose kings never consulted
popular opinion. Ancient historians, moreover, rarely looked beyond the court or
the battlefield. Writers, such as Ammianus, Procopius, or Ibn Miskawayh, who were
themselves advisers within government and the military may be forgiven for laying
so great an emphasis on what they best understood. But we would now consider as
serious flaws their ignorance of foreign customs and languages, which yields rarely
to a serious attempt to comprehend outsiders, and their frequent unwillingness even
to mention commerce (one of mankind’s most natural and important activities).
Accordingly, I have attempted to correct the defects of my sources by filling in the
gaps which I find with such inferences as can be justified by the available evidence,
by the power of common sense, and by my own political acumen. 7
A learned specialist may discover in this book something that he did not know.
But I have more interest in informing a more general, but learned, audience if I can.
This is why I have avoided systems of transliteration employing macrons and dia-
critical markings. If there is a commonly accepted English equivalent of a foreign
word, I have used it. Accordingly I write Ctesiphon instead of Tespon or Tisfun.
But I have tried to remain faithful to the sound of Iranian personal names, and so I
have avoided classicising equivalents. I write Mihrdad and Khusro, not Mithridates
and Chosroes. The maps, however, give the New Persian forms of all Iranian names
of cities, towns, bodies of water, and so forth. I use the pinyin system when translit-
erating Chinese. I quote my sources liberally, and unless I have indicated otherwise,
all the translations are mine.
Finally, something should be said about the title of this book. I do not mean
that there were no more Iranian empires after the fall of the Sasanid state. The Sa-
favid and Qajar states of more recent ages were indeed empires. But they were not
ostensible revivals of the ancient Iranian homeland which Zoroaster called Airyanem
Vaejo (the theoretical counterpart of the Vedic Aryavarta) which may be construed as
the ‘Abode of the Aryans’. The Sasanian Empire of Iran, or Eranshahr as they called
it, was held to be the reconstruction, or at least the spiritual and political heir, of that
mythical dominion of the Iranians described in Zoroastrian scripture. It is possible
that the Sasanid family had not made the first attempt at such a revival, but theirs
was the last.
7 See Polybius, XII.28 for the importance of political experience to the writing of history.
INTRODUCTION 5
Map 1. The Empire of Iran and its Neighbours toward the end of the Sixth Cen-
tury.
Map 2. The Iranian Frontier in the West.

I. EURASIA FROM THE CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER
TO THE FALL OF PARTHIA
THE SETTLED STATES OF EURASIA

When the peoples of the Near East were first gathered into cities, political order
took the form of a succession of empires. 1 The consecutive monarchies of Sumer,
Akkad, Assyria, Lydia, Media, and Babylon ruled over the Near East until Babylon
fell to the arms of the Persian king Cyrus the Great. It is possible to see in these
empires the same expression of civilisation which first developed in the lowlands of
Mesopotamia. Cyrus portrayed himself as the restorer of an ancient sedentary order
which had fallen into ruin, and he associated himself with all the trappings of the
Sumerian, the Assyrian, and the Babylonian monarchies. 2 The art and architecture of
the antique cities of Assyria and Babylon were imitated under the first Persian em-
pire; and the symbols of royal power adopted by Cyrus and his successors were al-
ready ancient when those kings ruled over their empire. 3
The dominion of Cyrus, known to posterity as the Achaemenid empire,
stretched from the waters of the Aegean Sea to the sandy wastes of Bactria. The
descendants of that great king wished to enlarge their empire, and Cambyses, son
and successor to Cyrus, added the lands of Egypt to the conquests of his father.
This was the first attempt to unite within a single polity all the civilised peoples of
the earth; and a flexible, centralised administrative system oversaw the efficient op-
1 Ancient cities were established in order maintain commercial, religious, artistic, and cultural
connections. Rivalry provoked conflict, and competition led to the formation of larger polit-
ical bodies (Chavalas, M., “The Age of Empires, 3100–900 BCE,” in Snell, D. C., A Compan-
ion to the Ancient Near East, 2005, p. 34–47; Kuhrt, A., The Ancient Near East c. 3000–330 BC,
vol. I, 1995, p. 40–44), and these constituted the earliest empires. See also Van de Mieroop,
M., The Ancient Mesopotamian City, 1997, 24–41; and Hawkes, J., The First Great Civilizations:
Life in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and Egypt, 1973, p. 31–45.
2 Briant, P., From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002, p. 43–44.
3 Allen, L., The Persian Empire, 2005, p. 15–35; Root, M. C., The King and Kingship in Achaemenid
Art: Essays on the Creation of an Iconography of Empire, 1979.
7
eration of a great and heterogeneous state. 4 Investment in agriculture on a gigantic

scale and the regulation of goods bought and sold at market nourished the growth
of populous cities; and a vast network of roads connected Mesopotamia with north
Africa and the Mediterranean Sea, as well as with Anatolia and Central Asia. 5
THE WORLD OF THE NOMAD

Beyond the limits of the civilised world was the abode of the nomad. A vast and
forbidding steppe stretches northeast of Mesopotamia between the Crimea and
Manchuria, and the men that dwelt there disdained the labour of agriculture, and
refused confinement within a single place as well as the corrupting luxury of a sed-
entary life. They lived mainly on the milk and meat of their livestock, and the dis-
covery of metal-working gave them the implements both of the hunt and of warfare.
For many ages they wandered, driving their flocks before them from one pasture to
another, according to the rhythm of the seasons and within the narrow limits im-
posed by custom and nature. 6
Mastery of the horse carried nomadic peoples across immense distances, and
the riders of the north established regular contact with cities on the fringes of the
sedentary world. With time the nomads discovered that they could not live on the
products of stockbreeding alone. Some nomads practised a rudimentary subsistence
farming, but it was far easier to pillage a town in an instant than to toil for months
in a field. 7 The borders of sedentary states were solidified and expanded at the ex-
pense of the nomads’ pastures, and predatory raids often aimed to regain access to
the lands occupied by new towns along the frontier. 8 In such conflicts fortune fa-
voured the nomads, for the great sedentary powers could hardly match the strength
of a people whose way of life was better suited to warfare. 9 The great empires of the
south taught their soldiers forcibly to disavow the comforts of sedentary life, to en-
4 Cf. Frankopan, P. Silk Roads: A New History of the World, 2017, p. 3–5; Daryaee, T., Sasanian
Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, 2009, p. 1.

5 Colburn, H. P., “Connectivity and Communication in the Achaemenid Empire,” Journal of
the Economic and Social History of the Orient 56, 2013, 29–52.
6 Beckwith, C. Empires of the Silk Road, 2009, p. 60–62; Benjamin, C.G.R., The Yuezhi, 2007, p.
2–5.
7 Baumer, C., The History of Central Asia: The Age of the Steppe Warriors, v. 1, 2014, p. 84–87;
Kim, H. J., The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe, 2013, p. 41–42; Hildinger, E., Warriors of the
Steppe, 1997, p. 1–14; Whittow, M., The Making of Orthodox Byzantium 600–1025, 1996, p. 22;
Barfield, T. J., The Perilous Frontier, 1989, p. 16–30.
8 Beckwith, C. Empires of the Silk Road, p. 26–27.
9 Graff, D. A., The Eurasian Way of War: Military Practice in Seventh-Century China and Byzantium,
2016, p. 153–155; Hildinger, E., Warriors of the Steppe, p. 1–14; Di Cosmo quotes the analysis
of Sima Qian comparing the tactics of the nomadic Xiongnu with those of the sedentary
Chinese (Di Cosmo, N., Ancient China and its Enemies: the Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian
History, 2002, p. 203).
I. FROM THE CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER TO THE FALL OF PARTHIA 9
dure the rigours of extreme cold and heat, the exhaustion of the forced march, and
the simplicity of the military diet. But the nomad had long been hardened by his
dangerous and inhospitable abode. The grasslands of the high plateaux of Asia
merge with tangles of rugged mountains, sandy deserts, and a formidable belt of
subarctic forest; and even in its most temperate areas and oases the climate of the
steppe is very severe. 10 The skills of riding and shooting were necessary to survival
in the world of the nomad and were imparted to small children long before their
sedentary rivals might learn them; 11 and a nomadic society may deploy a vast num-
ber of soldiers without fear of abandoning a field or neglecting a harvest. 12
To avoid contending with the warriors of the north, sedentary states recruited
them within their own armies as mercenaries. But this was a dangerous policy. In
the seventh century before Christ, the king of Assyria had given his daughter in
marriage to a nomadic chieftain, and the military union of those two nations
crushed the revolt of Babylon and Media and their assault upon the city of Nine-
veh. 13 For a brief moment, this marriage alliance saved from destruction the totter-
ing empire of Assyria; but when it collapsed soon thereafter, the nomads, bereft of
their sedentary masters, overran the Levant and spread terror and destruction eve-
rywhere. 14 The approach of those nomads filled the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah with
alarm, and he pronounced this grim warning:
‘Behold a people cometh from the north country…they shall lay hold on bow
and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and
they ride upon horses… Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the
sword of the enemy and fear is on every side’. 15
Those nomads were the people whom the writer Herodotus called Scythian. 16 They
were the terror of the ancient world, and theirs was the first penetration by a no-
madic power into the sedentary world of the south.
The kings of the Achaemenid line endeavoured to secure their empire against
such an incursion, and in about the year 530 before our era, Cyrus the Great per-
ished in battle with the nomads of the north. An army of the greatest sedentary em-
pire of the Near East was defeated by the people whom Herodotus calls Massage-
tae, and that writer was astounded by the size and ferocity of the battle in which
10 Temperatures can vary by eighty degrees Celsius between summer and winter.
11 So Sima Qian observed (Di Cosmo, N., Ancient China and its Enemies, p. 276).
12 I owe this observation to my friend Philip Wood.
13 Roux, G., Ancient Iraq, 1991, p. 668–719.
14 Roux, G., Ancient Iraq, p. 796–813.
15 Jeremiah 6:22–25.
16 Herodotus, describing the same event, also claims that the Egyptian king Psammeticus
dissuaded the nomads (called Scythians in Herodotus’ text) from invading his country by
means of gifts and prayers (Herodotus, I.104–106).
Cyrus fell. 17 His successor Darius I campaigned against the Scythians to the north of
the Black Sea; and a feigned retreat, the favourite tactic of nomads, drew the Persian
army ever deeper into the steppe before the king abandoned that dangerous expedi-
tion. 18
THE CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT

But the ruin of the first Persian empire came not from the Asiatic steppe but from a
series of small conflicts on the western fringe of the sedentary world. Darius I had
vowed to conquer Greece with an army of two million men, and his invasion might
have succeeded. But the ambition of Darius was first checked at Marathon, and his
heir Xerxes was resisted at Thermopylae, and defeated at Salamis, Plataea, and My-
cale. The national pride of the Greeks will never allow the world to forget their
momentary triumph, but the conquest of the first Iranian empire was achieved by a
Macedonian. Despite the rustic simplicity of Macedonia’s tribal order and primitive
monarchy, the king of Macedon and his court spoke the language, and honoured the
culture, of Greece. Archelaus I of Macedon had been the patron of Euripides, and
the Grecian painter Zeuxis had decorated his capital at Pella. The rhetoric of Isocra-
tes had speculated that the peoples of Asia would willingly submit to Macedonian
rule, and that they would gratefully exchange barbarian despotism for Hellenic pro-
tection. 19 But no one had imagined that a Macedonian would destroy the empire of
Cyrus and diffuse throughout the world the language and culture of Greece.
A great portion of Greek civilisation must trace its origin to oriental models. 20
The use of writing, the alphabet, much of Greek mythology, and a portion of Greek
vocabulary were alike transposed from the Near East; and learned Greeks wrote of
the culture of the Persian empire with a mixture of envy and admiration. 21 When
Alexander established the Macedonian empire upon the ruins of Achaemenid Iran,
we may fairly think of the home-coming of Hellenism and a mingling of Greek and
Asiatic civilisations. 22 It is true that some Greek colonists had demanded a Greek
17 Herodotus, I.214.
18 Herodotus, IV.
19 Isocrates, Letters, V.154.
20 West, M. L., The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry, 1997.
21 See, for example, the respectful treatments of Iran in Herodotus, I.131; Thucydides,
VIII.18; Xenophon, Anabasis, I.ix; Cyropaedia, passim. Consider also, Aeschylus dignified por-
trayal of the Persian queen Atossa (Aeschylus, Persae, l. 159–172; l. 290–298; l. 598–622; l.
709–713), and Aeschylus seems to consider the empire of Darius a model of civil govern-
ment and order (Aeschylus, Persae, l. 852–857). Plato is critical, contemptuous, and full of
envy in his Laws, III.694a.
22 See a late twentieth-century case-study on the installation of Greek rule in Babylonia
(Sherwin-White, S., “Seleucid Babylonia: A Case-Study for the Installation and Development
of Greek Rule,” in Kuhrt, A. / Sherwin-White, S. (eds) Hellenism in the East: The Interaction of
Greek and Non-Greek Civilizations from Syria to Central Asia after Alexander, 1987, p. 1–31); and a
way of life and a Greek education for their children, and some who longed for the
old country rose in revolt. 23 But the form and customs of the Greek city flourished
in the very place where civilisation had first appeared, and were swiftly transposed
to the far reaches of the earth: a school, a gymnasium, baths, and a theatre arose
upon the shore of the Oxus, and the natives of Bactria were taught to declaim the
verses of Homer and to sing the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. 24 In time it
would be rumoured that many a Scythian had committed the Iliad to memory, and
that the scholars of India had translated that poem into their own language. 25
THE SELEUCID MONARCHY

Alexander is said to have imagined a world in which Greek and Oriental were
bound together by ties of blood and the bearing of children. 26 Believing in his late
king’s vision of a new world, Alexander’s general Seleucus had married the daughter
of the Persian governor of Sogdiana in Central Asia. The House of Seleucus was
thus founded upon a union of a Macedonian and an Iranian family, and it was this
dynasty which inherited most of the sedentary world after the death of Alexander. 27
The administrative divisions of the late Persian empire, its bureaucracy, and its
local customs were not altered under Macedonian rule. The structure of that empire
had withstood revolts, problems along its frontiers, and challenges to the royal suc-
cession, 28 and so there was no reason to change or to abolish it. Seleucus established
his capital at a narrow spot between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, and with time
the city of Seleucia surpassed its neighbour Babylon as the great metropolis between
discussion of the blending of the Greek and oriental art after Alexander’s conquest
(Colledge, M., “Greek and Non-Greek Interaction in the Art and Architecture of the Hellen-
istic East,” in Kuhrt, A. / Sherwin-White, S. (eds), Hellenism in the East: The Interaction of Greek
and Non-Greek Civilizations from Syria to Central Asia after Alexander, 1987, p. 134–162).
23 Diodorus, XVIII.7.1.
24 Plutarch, Moralia, IV: de Alexandri magni fortuna ac virtute, 5. For a modern opinion on this
transformation, see Frankopan, P. Silk Roads, p. 8–10. On Bactrian Hellenism, see Francfort,
H.-P., et al., Il y a 50 ans… la découverte d’Aï Khanoum, Mémoires de la délégation archéolo-
gique française en Afghanistan, v. 35, 2014, p. 63–66; Bernard, P., “Deuxième campagne de
fouilles d’Aï Khanoum en Bactriane,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Insciptions et Belles-Lettres,
1967, p. 318–319. For a general description of city life in the Hellenistic age, see Cook, J. M.,
The Greeks in Ionia and the East, 1964, p. 180–199.
25 Dio Chrysostom, Orations, 36. 9; 53.6–7.
26 Plutarch, Moralia, IV: de Alexandri magni fortuna ac virtute, 6.
27 For an exhaustive, but rather old, history of the Seleucid empire, see Bevan, E. R., The
House of Seleucus, 2 vols, 1902. An informative summary can be found in Bickerman, E., “The
Seleucid Period,” in Yarshater, E. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran 3 (1): The Seleucid, Parthi-
an, and Sasanian Periods, 1983, p. 3–20.
28 Kuhrt, A., The Ancient Near East c. 3000–330 BC, II, 1995, p. 676–701.
the two rivers. 29 But at the opening of the third century before Christ, the Seleucid
court was transposed to Antioch in northern Syria: ties to the Mediterranean Sea
and to mainland Greece were strengthened, and authority sat lightly upon the east
and soon failed altogether. A futile war with Egypt, ruled by a rival Macedonian
dynasty, distracted the court at Antioch; and about two hundred and fifty years be-
fore our era the provinces of Bactria and Parthia asserted their independence and
were swiftly overrun by an invasion of nomads known as the Parni.
THE RISE OF PARTHIA

Who were the Parni? Herodotus writes of a confederation of nomads known as the
Dahae. 30 They dwelt upon the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea to the north of the
plain of Gurgan 31 in a land which came to be known as Dahistan, and their reputa-
tion as warriors must have been formidable. Biographers of Alexander record that
contingents of the Dahae had fought with the Persians against the Macedonian host
at the battle of Gaugamela, and that Alexander had later recruited some of the Da-
hae into his own army. 32 The geographer Strabo records the names of the three
tribes within the Dahae confederacy: Xanthii, Pissuri, and the Parni. 33 In the twilight
days of the Seleucid provinces of Parthia and Bactria, the chief of the Parni was
called Arshak. He is known in the west as Arsaces I, and he gave his name to the
Arsacid dynasty. History has not recorded the name that Arshak and his people
called themselves and their kingdom; but when they gained mastery of the Seleucid
province of Parthia, which had lately risen in revolt, they and their successors were
ever thereafter known in the west as Parthians.
Over the course of two centuries, the House of Seleucus preoccupied itself
with civil wars and conflict with the rival Macedonian rulers of Egypt, and the rising
power of Parthia collected the fragments of that crumbling monarchy. Arshak was
the father of the dynasty, but the empire of the Parthians was established under the
rule of Mihrdad I. 34 That famous king asserted the prestige of his empire by abasing
the dignity of Macedonian rule and exalting the memory of the monarchy of Cyrus.
Mihrdad had supplanted the power of Seleucus’ descendants in the ancient heart-
land of their kingdom, and he emphasised this fact by a coronation at the city of
Seleucia. At this solemn occasion, the ancient title of King of Kings, which Cyrus
29 Strabo, XVI.i.16.
30 Δάοι (Herodotus, I.125) or Dahae (Tacitus, Annals, XI.x).
31 In classical sources this region is called Hyrcania.
32 Arrian, Anabasis, III.11; V.12.2; Curtius Rufus, IV.12.5, VII.7.32.
33 Strabo, XI.508; 515.
34 Mihrdad I reigned from about 171 to 137 BC. My exposition of Parthian history follows
secondary authorities, chief amongst which are Wolski, J., L’Empire des Arsacides, 1993, and
Debevoise, N. C., A Political History of Parthia, 1938.
and his successors had used, was attached to the name of the Parthian monarch. 35 It
was shortly after this moment that Ctesiphon was founded: a city built according to
a circular plan which was destined to overshadow nearby Seleucia. 36
Warfare continued between Parthia and the failing House of Seleucus. In the
year 130 before our era Antiochus VII was defeated despite reciprocal damage. But
greater threats to Parthia came from the east and from the south. The Parthian king
Farhad had engaged nomadic mercenaries to defeat Antiochus, but they arrived too
late to the battle. 37 The Parthian king refused payment; the enraged Sakas (as they
were called) pillaged eastern Iran; and border skirmishes were inflamed into a san-
guinary war when Greek mercenaries in the Parthian army joined the nomadic
cause. Farhad and his successor Artaban alike perished in the struggle, and the Sakas
penetrated deep into Iran. They settled in Drangiana, which in time came to be
known as Saka Country, or Sakastan in the Persian language. 38 To the noble Parthian
family of Suren were entrusted the pacification and defence of the eastern frontier,
and a chief of that important name expelled the Saka horde from Drangiana, and
drove them eastwards into Arrachosia and the Punjab. At the same moment, an Ar-
ab king by the name of Hyspaosines captured the city of Antioch upon the estuary
of the Euphrates and the Tigris at the Persian Gulf, and thereby established a
bridgehead from which he advanced into Babylon.
THE MIGRATION OF THE TOCHARIANS

The penetration of the Sakas had been preceded by movements deep within the
Asiatic steppe. In the second century before our era, the Chinese Han dynasty began
to project power westward into the Hexi corridor: 39 a route of six hundred miles
connecting the interior of China with the oasis of Dunhuang upon the edge of the
Taklamakan desert. From there two long and dangerous roads departed and fol-
lowed the northern and the southern flanks of that inhospitable wasteland through
the tiny oasis towns upon the edge of the desert, and converged at the city of Kash-
gar: the junction of the Tian Shan, the Himalaya, and the Pamir mountains. 40 Those
two perilous roads were enough to assure communication and trade, however slow
35 Sarkhosh Curtis, V., “The Iranian Revival in the Parthian Period,” in Sarkosh Curtis, V. /
Stewart, S. (eds), The Age of the Parthians, The Idea of Iran v. 2, 2007, p. 14–15.
36 The Hippodamian grid of Seleucia was abandoned in favour of the vast circle of Ctesi-
phon (Kröger, J., “Seleucia,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. VI, fasc. 4, 1993, p. 446–448). This city
is called Tespon in Middle Persian, and Tisfun in the modern language.
37 Justin, XLII.1.1–5.
38 It is also contracted to Sistan.
39 This is also called the Gansu corridor.
40 Compare the romantic descriptions of this area in Frankopan, P., Silk Roads, 2017, p. 10–
13 and Grousset, R., The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, 1970, p. xii–xiii.
and precarious, between China and the strange world to the west. 41 To the north
arose the Altai mountains, and above them stretched the immeasurable expanse of
the steppe. There a tribal confederacy whom the Chinese called Xiongnu, whom we
may identify with the Huns, 42 were the dominant nomadic power in the age of the
Han.
The Huns launched a series of raids westward from the borders of China in
about the year 176 before our era. Six years later, they had defeated and displaced
another nomadic confederacy known in the west as the Tocharians, and in Chinese
sources as the Yuezhi. 43 The Tocharian federation fled to the fertile valley of the Ili
river where they attempted to re-establish their nomadic customs. But a people
known in Chinese as the Wusun sought and received permission from the Huns to
take revenge upon the Tocharians for a recent humiliation. They attacked the To-
charians and expelled them from the Ili valley in about the year 132 before Christ. A
portion of those dispirited fugitives began a long march to the west, and it was only
two years later that the wanderings of the Tocharians brought them to Bactria,
whence they dislodged the Sakas and overran the eastern relics of Alexander’s em-
pire. 44 Upon the ruins of Greek civilisation in the east, the Tocharians established a
great kingdom stretching from the borders of Iran to the mountains of the Hin-
dukush. A people known as Kushan, who had formed part of the Tocharian con-
federacy, rose to prominence and gave their name to the new state.
The migration of the Tocharians and the invasion of the Sakas were remem-
bered in the lore of Iran. Fighting along the north-eastern border and conflict be-
tween Iranian and Tocharian was raised to the level of the epic, and came to be rep-
resented in a later age as the battles between Iran and Turan in Ferdowsi’s
Shahnameh. The hero Godarz, who bears the name of a real Parthian king, waged
war in the east on behalf of his sovereign, the mythical ruler Kay Khusro, and the
armies of Iran were sent to punish the Turanian invaders and their demonic leader
Afrasiab. Many an elaborate and legendary scene of battle and single combat fill the
pages of the Shahnameh, but at the root of Ferdowsi’s account lie the memory of the
great migration set in motion by the Huns. 45
41 Hansen, V., The Silk Road: A New History, 2012.

42 De la Vaissière, “Huns et Xiongnu,” Central Asiatic Journal, 49/1, 2005, p. 3–26.
43 Kim, H. J., The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe, 2013, p. 31–32; Beckwith, C., Empires of
the Silk Road, 2009, p. 83–85; Liu, X., “Migration and Settlement of the Yuezhi-Kushan: In-
teraction and Interdependence of Nomadic and Sedentary Societies,” Journal of World History,
vol. 12, no. 2, 2001, p. 261–292.
44 Benjamin, C. G. R., The Yuezhi, p. 112–124.
45 Ferdowsi, Kay Khusro, passim; Bivar, A.D.H, “Godarz: ii. The Epic Hero,” Encyclopaedia
Iranica, Vol. XI, Fasc. 1, 2012, p. 31–39; Bivar, A.D.H., “Gondophares and the Indo-
Parthians” in Sarkosh Curtis, V. / Stewart, S. (eds), The Age of the Parthians, The Idea of Iran
v. 2, 2007, p. 28–30; Nöldeke, T., Das iranische Nationalepos, p. 7–9.
THE NATURE OF THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE

The Parthian empire lay in ruins until it was restored by Mihrdad II, son and succes-
sor to Artaban. The power of the renewed monarchy reposed upon the cooperation
of the noble families of Parthia and its subordinate kings. Some are known by their
names: the Suren and Karen families are attested in sources of the Parthian era; and
the Mihran and the Zikh, who are commemorated in sources of a later age, appear
to have had roots in Arsacid times also. In the Sasanian period, there were surely
others who possessed, or who had invented, a similarly ancient origin, and they may
perhaps be identified by their hereditary titles. 46 The loose association of so many
powerful aristocrats provoked the contempt of the Sasanian kings and their minis-
ters, and the Persian royal tradition has derided the Arsacid era as the time of ‘fac-
tional kings’. 47
Under the rule of Mihrdad II and his successors, the ancient Achaemenid pro-
vincial system endured, and the Parthians perhaps united with it their own notions
of a tribal confederacy preserved from their nomadic past. 48 The result was an em-
pire embracing a strange agglomeration of principalities and kingdoms commanded
by indigenous rulers of unequal rank and inconsistent prestige. 49 Pliny the Elder en-
rolled under the rule of Parthia eighteen kingdoms between the Red and the Caspian
Seas, and Tacitus described other territories whose rulers were appointed directly by
the Arsacid monarch. 50 Accordingly, Hyspaosines’ kingdom of Charax Spasinou was
not destroyed, but made tributary; and the lords of Persia were permitted to strike
their own coins according to a pattern which combined Seleucid and Parthian
forms. 51 But perhaps the most illustrative example of the loose style of Parthian rule
can be found in the Antiquities of the Jews. The writer Josephus describes the banditry
of two Jewish men of Babylonia. Their life of crime had attracted a large following
of other outlaws, and so powerful was this gang of bandits that they defeated the
local army which had been sent to oppose them. But Artaban II summoned the
46 Pourshariati, P., Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and
the Arab Conquest of Iran, 2008, p. 37–53.
47 Dinawari, p. 44; Tabari, v. 2, p. 37:
‫م��ك الطوائف‬
Bosworth translates this as ‘party kings’ (Bosworth, C. E., The History of al-Tabari, volume V,
1999, p. 1).
48 Kim, H. J., The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe, p. 9–14. On the organisation of the
Achaemenid empire see Allen, L., The Persian Empire, 2005, p. 111–131; Briant, P., From Cyrus
to Alexander, 2002, p. 338–347; 507–511.
49 Fowler, R., “King, Bigger King, King of Kings: structuring power in the Parthian world,”
Kaizer, T. / Facella, M. (ed.), Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East, 2010, p. 57–77.
50 Pliny, Natural History, VI.112; Tacitus, Annals, VI.42.
51 Wiesehöfer, J. “Fars under Seleucid and Parthian Rule,” in Sarkosh Curtis, V. / Stewart, S.
(eds), The Age of the Parthians, The Idea of Iran v. 2, 2007, p. 44–45.
Jewish brigands to his court, lavished gifts upon them, and installed them as gover-
nors of Babylonia. 52
The rank and position of a local king was variously expressed. The privilege of
wearing the diadem or tiara, the use of signet rings and ceremonial swords, elaborate
greetings and forms of obeisance, protocol at banquets, and the right to sleep upon
a couch of gold – these were some of the symbols of rank and power which the Par-
thian monarch might bestow upon his favourites. 53 It may be possible to see in this
federation of local rulers and elaborate distinctions of privilege something akin to a
feudal system. 54 But this imperfect analogy rather better describes a network of aris-
tocratic privilege and the duties of a military nobility than a system of landholding.
PARTHIA AT WAR
The Parthian monarchy was the first state to inflict a serious defeat upon the legions
of Rome. The humiliation was so severe, that the Roman claim to an empire with-
out end could not survive it. 55 A fratricidal struggle had arisen between the sons of
the Parthian king; and a series of Parthian usurpers who are no more than names to
us bespeaks grave trouble. Marcus Licinius Crassus, the Roman patrician who had
lately risen to the governorship of Syria, wished to exploit Parthian turmoil and win
renown in his old age. 56 A great military victory over Parthia (so Crassus believed)
would assure him of the political and financial power to equal or to surpass his rivals
Caesar and Pompey. 57 But Roman military intelligence was weak, 58 and Crassus ig-
52 Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae, XVIII.337. I discovered this anecdote in Sommer, M., “In
the Twilight: Hatra Between Rome and Iran” in Dirven, L. (ed.), Hatra: Politics, Culture and
Religion Between Parthia and Rome, Oriens et Occidens 21, 2013, p. 33–44.
53 See Josephus’ anecdotes about Izates and Artaban in Antiquitates Judaicae, XX.32–76. And
for a detailed modern discussion of them, see Fowler, R., “King, Bigger King, King of
Kings,” p. 64–67.
54 This seems to have been the assumption of Debevoise (Debevoise, N. C., A Political Histo-
ry of Parthia, p. 40), and later writers seem to assume it also (Kim, H. J., The Huns, Rome, and
the Birth of Europe, p. 10; Wolski, J., L’Empire des Arsacides, p. 110–112).
55 ‘Imperium sine fine dedi’ were the words of Jove, apparently (Aeneid I.279). Vergil’s poem is
from a later age, but the sentiment of an empire without end reflects a much older Roman
opinion. The historian Justin, who epitomised the work of Pompey Trogus, referred to the
Parthians penes quos velut divisione orbis cum Romanis facta nunc orientis imperium est (Justin,
XLI.1.1); cf. Wolski, J., L’Empire des Arsacides, p. 133–134 with n. 40.
56 Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 52; Life of Crassus, 16.2. For a modern authority, see Frendo, D.,
“Roman Expansion and the Graeco-Iranian World: Carrhae, Its Explanation and Aftermath
in Plutarch,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series, vol. 17, 2003, p. 71–81.
57 Ward, A. M., Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic, 1977, p. 262–288.
58 Plutarch describes Crassus’ advance into the Parthian ambush through a dry, trackless
wasteland (Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 22). But the country is in fact adorned by rolling hills,
oases, and villages. Plutarch’s description must have its origin in a mendacious Roman ex-
nored the counsel of the king of Armenia who had offered his horsemen together
with the useful instruction that Crassus invade Parthia through the hills and valleys
of his kingdom: a tactic to weaken the force of the Parthian heavy cavalry. 59 But
Crassus immediately crossed the Euphrates at Zeugma and began to follow the river
south towards Seleucia. 60
The defence of Parthia had again been entrusted to a general of the illustrious
Suren family. He no longer expected an attack through Armenia, and the young Par-
thian general waited in northern Mesopotamia not far from the Roman army. Word
of a feigned retreat came to Crassus: the Roman general commanded pursuit of
Suren, his exhausted and ill-fed men obeyed, and when the army reached Carrhae,
his clients’ cavalry suddenly deserted him and an ambush was revealed. The power
of nomadic military tactics may have been wholly unknown, or unacknowledged at
Rome; but upon a hill near Carrhae the Parthian cavalry was revealed. 61 Suren’s
horsemen stood in formation upon a height above the Roman army, and the ap-
pearance of their silken banners suspended from standards of gold was perhaps the
Romans’ first sight of that costly fabric. 62 The nature and size of the Parthian force
were concealed under a mass of hides, but the Parthian horsemen suddenly threw
off their coverings to reveal the gleam of their swords, their flashing helmets, ar-
mour, and the bronze and steel plates which clad their steeds. The advance guard
charged down upon the enemy with their heavy lances, the Romans were promptly
surrounded, and the Parthian horse-archers descended from the hill, assailing the
foreigners with a seemingly endless torrent of arrows until nightfall. 63 Fighting was
resumed in the following morning, the Roman host was defeated after a failed par-
ley, twenty-thousand of them perished, ten thousand were taken alive, and Crassus
himself was beheaded. 64 This was in the year 53 before Christ.
The victorious Suren held a triumph at Seleucia devoted to the insult and
mockery of the Romans. A Roman captive who bore a resemblance to his late
commander was dressed in the clothes of a woman, and was conducted on horse-
back into Seleucia as the local prostitutes sang scurrilous and bawdy songs about the
planation for Crassus’ defeat. Roman ignorance of the terrain of Mesopotamia and the tac-
tics of Parthians meant that the excuse was believed.
59 Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 19.2; Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia form the Origins to the Pre-
sent, 2008, p. 23–24.

60 Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 19.3–6.
61 On the Roman ignorance of Parthian tactics, see Wolski, J., L’Empire des Arsacides, p. 130–
131.
62 Florus, I.xlvi.11.8.
63 All the while, the Parthian host filled the air with the deep and frightening tone of kettle-
drums covered in bronze bells, whose sound Plutarch likens to a blend of the roaring of a
wild beast and a peal of thunder (Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 23.6–7).
64 Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 31.7.
effeminacy and cowardice of Crassus. 65 The head of Crassus appeared before the
Parthian king Urud in the midst of a feast with the king of Armenia. The entertain-
ment of the evening (as Plutarch tells us) was a performance of Euripides’ Bacchae. A
tragic actor by the name of Jason grasped the lifeless head and, holding it aloft, sang
the grim speech of Agave after she had torn apart her own son in a Dionysian fren-
zy. 66 This strange story must have its origin in Arsacid propaganda, and it proves
that the kings of Iran exploited the trappings of Mediterranean civilisation to the
discredit of its exponents. 67
CONSEQUENCES OF THE IRANIAN VICTORY

Crassus’ defeat taught the vanity of the Romans to acknowledge that the world was
divided into two great powers. 68 But this failed to produce peaceful relations. Cras-
sus’ Parthian war had not been provoked, and yet Caesar meditated a war of re-
venge. 69 Plans for that expedition perished with him. 70 The sclerotic Roman republic
sunk rapidly into civil war, and the kings of Parthia attempted to exploit the Roman
political contest for their own benefit. 71 In the year 37 before Christ, Mark Antony
attempted to intervene in a crisis of succession, and only retreat saved that veteran
general from the fate of Crassus. 72 The diplomacy of Augustus achieved the return
of the Roman standards, as well as many of the prisoners, captured in the campaigns
65 Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 32.1–3.

66 Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 33.3. The hapless Agave believed that she had slain and dismem-
bered a mountain lion (Euripides, Bacchae, l. 1170). The later history of Cassius Dio argues
that Crassus was either cut down by one of his own men, he died of his wounds, or the Par-
thians poured molten gold down his throat (Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, XL.27.2–4).
67 Suren enjoyed his victory only for a moment: the Parthian king Urud I, fearing the great
fame of his young general, commanded his murder (Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 33.5). The life
and reign of Urud are alike forgotten, but the immortal fame of Suren, and the family from
which he came, outlived the young general, and are still preserved within the Iranian Nation-
al Epic (Wolski, J., L’Empire des Arsacides, p. 133); and it may be that the figure of the epic
hero Rustam is based, in part, upon the victor of Carrhae.
68 Justin, XLI.1.1.
69 Mattern-Parkes, S. P., “The Defeat of Crassus and the Just War,” The Classical World, vol.
96, No. 4, 2003, p. 387–396.

70 It was to be a campaign of three years, and the dictator made many elaborate preparations
concerning the Roman government and the organisation of the army (Cassius Dio, Historia
Romana, XLIII.51), and Caesar would have set out in a matter of weeks or perhaps days if he
had not been murdered.
71 The Parthians intervened on the side of Brutus and Cassius, contributing a small force of
mounted archers (Appian, IV.63; 88; 99).

72 Plutarch, Life of Antony, 37–51; Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia, p. 25.
of Crassus and Antony: a small accomplishment of foreign policy which was por-
trayed as a great Roman victory. 73
ARMENIA BETWEEN ROME AND IRAN

Centuries of mingling among indigenous and migrating populations had produced
the nation which foreigners have come to call Armenia. 74 Hurrians, Hittites, and
Phrygians may perhaps be identified as the most noteworthy populations forming
the Armenian people, but the borders of their land varied over time, for the limits of
a small state surrounded on all sides by great empires must always be doubtful, un-
less the powers can respect its autonomy. 75
But the lofty mass of volcanic mountains between the plateaux and highlands
of Anatolia and Iran has always been the heartland of Armenia. To the north, the
forbidding mountains of the Caucasus isolate that country from the Ukrainian
steppe; the Pontic mountains to the northwest face the Black Sea and march into
Paphlagonia, and to the south of Lake Van extend the Hakkari, the Taurus, and the
Anti-Taurus mountains. 76 Such natural barriers ensured that movement from Anato-
lia southward into Syria or Mesopotamia, and the reverse, would be impracticable,
and that traffic between Asia Minor and Iran would pass through Armenia. Where
merchants and goods might travel, so might generals and armies, and two sedentary
states with their respective centres in the Mediterranean Sea and the plateau of Iran
would be destined to clash in Armenia. The formidable economic resources of Ar-
menia included fertile valleys, which were suited alike to an impressive yield of agri-
culture and the breeding of horses, and large deposits of gold. 77 A peculiar social
order bound a potent hereditary nobility to the Armenian king by ties of martial ob-
ligation, and the peasantry owed military service to the lords upon whose lands they
resided. 78 The military resources at the disposal of an Armenian king were therefore
73 Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 21.3. The return of the standards was commemorated by the
erection of a triumphal arch and the striking of coins throughout the Roman empire (Debe-
voise, N. C., A Political History of Parthia, p. 140–141). Cf. Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia,
p. 26.
74 The indigenous name of Armenia is Hayastan.
75 On the formation of Armenia see Russell, J., “The Formation of the Armenian Nation” in
Hovannisian, R. G. (ed.), The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, vol. 1. The Dynastic
Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century, 1997, p. 19–36 and Garsoïan, N., “The Emer-
gence of Armenia” in Hovannisian, R. G. (ed.), The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern
Times, vol. 1. The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century, p. 37–62.
76 Cf. the superb analysis of Armenian geography in Whittow, M., The Making of Orthodox
Byzantium, 1996, p. 25.

77 Strabo, XI.14.9. Redgate, A. E., The Armenians, 2000, p. 83–87.
78 Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia from the Origins to the Present, Palgrave Macmillan, New
York, 2008, p. 29–30; Redgate, A. E., The Armenians, p. 97–98; Adontz, N., Armenia and the
enormous, and either power sought to ensure that so great an advantage be em-
ployed to its benefit alone.
Towards the end of his reign, Mihrdad II foresaw the threat posed to Parthia
by Rome, and directed most of his energies and attention to his western frontier. In
an important campaign, Mihrdad reduced the kingdom of Armenia to vassaldom.
Tigran, the eldest son of the Armenian king, had been a hostage among the Parthi-
ans, and Mihrdad seated him upon his father’s throne in about the year 100 before
our era. The grateful Armenian monarch ceded to Parthia seventy valleys in Arme-
nia, 79 and with time a marriage alliance made the Armenian royal house a branch of
the Arsacid family. This was the beginning of the long and miserable tale of diplo-
matic and military posturing between Rome and Iran in Armenia. 80
Rome refused to tolerate a rival in the Near East. By policy or by accident, the
Roman advance into Asia Minor at first threatened, and in time absorbed, the linger-
ing relics of the Seleucid empire along the Parthian frontier. 81 The kingdoms of
Pontus and Armenia were first to endure Roman aggression: their kings looked to
Parthia for help, but Farhad III offered no assistance. In the year 66 before Christ,
when Pompey had risen to the command of the Roman legions in Asia Minor, he
sought the help of Farhad against the kings of Pontus and Armenia. The arrogant
Roman overestimated his powers of trickery, and promised to cede to Tigran the
land of Corduene, which at the time belonged to Parthia. This insult was never for-
gotten, and it swiftly became the cause of a dispute over boundaries. Pompey’s fool-
ish arbitration in the year 64 before our era united those Asiatic potentates in com-
mon cause against the Roman enemy; but warfare was avoided until the disastrous
expedition of Crassus.
In the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius, there arose an important dispute
over the loyalty of Armenia. Amidst this controversy, the Parthian king Artaban II is
said to have announced that he intended to restore the borders of the ancient Per-
sian and Macedonian empires, and that he would seize all lands held first by Cyrus
and afterwards by Alexander. 82 A Roman may have been puzzled or insulted by
these assertions, but peace between Iran and Rome lasted until the emperor Nero
attempted to settle the Armenian question by warfare. Fifty-four years after the
Christian era, the Parthian king Walagash I gave his brother Tirdat the throne of
Armenia, and (in the language of Tacitus) the Roman general Corbulo was com-
Period of Justinian: the Political Conditions Based on the Naxarar System, 1970, p. 343–361; Tou-
manoff, C., Studies in Christian Caucasian History, 1963, p. 34–144.
79 Strabo, XI.14.14–15.
80 Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia, p. 19–20.
81 This period, and all relevant sources, are described minutely in Debevoise, N. C., A Politi-
cal History of Parthia, p. 70–78.

82 simul veteres Persarum ac Macedonum terminos seque invasurum possessa Cyro et post Alexandro per
vaniloquentiam ac minas iaciebat (Tacitus, Annals, VI.31).

manded to keep it. 83 Corbulo’s soldiers had suffered greatly from two summers of
constant drilling, and the harsh snows of an Armenian winter added to their miser-
ies. Desertion was frequent and sentries died at their posts. 84 But this demoralised
army destroyed the Armenian capital of Artaxata: 85 a testament to the contemporary
weakness of the Parthian king who was distracted by internal revolts and the insur-
rection of a usurper. Tirdat was dislodged from his kingdom, and a Roman client
was seated upon the throne of Armenia. A brief Roman victory failed to decide the
outcome of this vain contest. Two Parthian counterattacks, when at last they came,
restored Tirdat – on condition that he receive his crown at Rome from the hand of
the emperor. Ceremonies of great magnificence greeted Tirdat at Rome; and, pre-
senting himself before the emperor, Tirdat addressed Nero in the most flattering
terms:
‘I, O master, am a descendent of Arshak and brother to Walagash and Bakur the
kings, and I am your slave. I have come to you, my god, to worship you even as I
do Mithra. I shall be however you direct, for you are my fate and fortune’. 86
Nero’s reply reminded his new slave that he possessed the power both to bestow
and to take away kingdoms, and the Roman emperor placed the Armenian crown
upon the head of an Arsacid. 87
THE DECLINE OF THE HOUSE OF ARSHAK

The reign of Walagash was the last to assert the greatness of Parthia before a long
series of fratricidal civil wars and repeated Roman assaults upon Mesopotamia
sapped its strength and buried it in the dust. The Parthian language appeared on
coins for the first time, and Walagash founded a city, named for himself, in the vi-
cinity of Seleucia and Ctesiphon on the Tigris.
The world of the nomad had been quiet for some time. But in the year 72 of
our era towards the end of the reign of Walagash, his north-eastern frontier was
assailed and penetrated by the nomads known as Alans. The province of Gurgan
revolted and allied itself with those wanderers, and northern Iran was overrun. 88 The
Alans ravaged Media, and their invasion of Armenia nearly toppled the monarchy of
83 Domitium Corbulonem retinendae Armeniae praeposuerat (Tacitus, Annals, XIII.8).

84 Corbuloni plus molis adversus ignaviam militum quam contra perfidiam hostium erat, etc (Tacitus,
Annals, XIII.35; Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia, p. 28.
85 Tacitus, Annals, XIII.41.
86 ἐγώ, δέσποτα, Ἀρσάκου μὲν ἔκγονος, Οὐολογαίσου δὲ καὶ Πακόρου τῶν βασιλέων
ἀδελφός, σὸς δὲ δοῦλός εἰμι. καὶ ἦλθόν τε πρὸς σὲ τὸν ἐμὸν θεόν, προσκυνήσων σε ὡς καὶ τὸν
Μίθραν, καὶ ἔσομαι τοῦτο ὅ τι ἂν σὺ ἐπικλώσῃς: σὺ γάρ μοι καὶ μοῖρα εἶ καὶ τύχη (Cassius
Dio, Historia Romana, LXIII.v.2).
87 Tacitus, Annale, XLIII.1–6; Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia, p. 29.
88 Josephus, De Bello Judaico, VII.7.4.
Tirdat. But the Alans refused to rule the lands that they had occupied, and returned
to the steppe with an immense haul of booty.
By the second century of the Christian era, Parthian dynastic squabbling had
become interminable. In the year 114 another Roman emperor (this time with great-
er success) ignored the lessons of Antony and Crassus, and executed an invasion of
Parthia. Trajan’s pretext for warfare was political strife in Armenia: the Parthian
monarch Husro had dismissed the king of that country without Roman consent. 89
The feeble Parthian king’s disregard of the Armenian settlement made under Nero
and Walagash was a foolish diplomatic blunder, but hardly a reason for war. But
Trajan ignored Husro’s requests for peace and advanced into Armenia, where he
symbolically dissolved the Armenian settlement by refusing to crown its new king.
Armenia was to become a province of Rome. 90 In the following two years, Trajan
proceeded to annex Parthia’s western provinces; he sacked Ctesiphon and emptied it
of its treasures, and it is said that the emperor stood upon the shore of the Persian
Gulf and lamented that his age prevented him from further imitation of Alexander. 91
The turmoil of the Roman conquest and the devastation of Ctesiphon shook
the Parthian state but failed to destroy it. Parthian prestige endured and Husro and
his client kings soon threw off the Roman yoke. Trajan attempted compromise by
ceding to Husro Ctesiphon and its hinterland, but on his return through Syria, the
Roman emperor tried to wrest the Mesopotamian city of Hatra from its king who
had risen in revolt. The burning heat of the Syrian desert, terrifying omens, and a
vast cloud of flies compelled the Romans to abandon the siege of that city, 92 and
soon thereafter in the year 117 Trajan himself was dead. His successor Hadrian re-
turned to Parthia what Trajan had conquered. 93
For nearly fifty years, Parthia’s internal problems worsened. Throughout the
second century after Christ, a long procession of Parthian monarchs, pretenders,
and usurpers was shaken successively by an invasion of the nomadic Alans from the
north, by a war with the kingdom of the Kushans who had arisen from within the
Tocharian confederacy in Central Asia, and by the sudden independence of Gurgan
and Bactria to the north-east. But in the year 161 the Parthian king Walagash IV
invaded Armenia and precipitated another Roman war which again delivered Ctesi-
89 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, LXVIII.17. For concise, modern descriptions of Trajan’s
Parthian campaigns, see Edwell, P., “Osrhoene and Mesopotamia between Rome and Ar-
sacid Parthia,” in Schlude, J. M. / Rubin, B. B. (eds.), Arsacids, Romans, and Local Elites, 2017,
p. 112–113, and Lightfoot, C. S., “Trajan’s Parthian War and the Fourth-Century Perspec-
tive,” The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 80, 1990, p. 115–121.
90 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, LXVIII.20.3.
91 Trajan is said to have contemplated further conquests, and εἶπεν ὅτι πάντως ἂν καὶ ἐπὶ
τοὺς Ἰνδούς, εἰ νέος ἔτι ἦν, ἐπεραιώθην (Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, LXVIII.29.1).
92 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, LXVIII.31.4.
93 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, LXVIII.33.
phon to fire and sword. 94 Parthian revenge enflamed rebellion in the Roman client
states of Osroene and Adiabene, and the emperor Septimius Severus vowed to pun-
ish Parthia once and for all. Ctesiphon was sacked again in the year 198. 95 This hu-
miliation might not have been fatal, and the nobility of Parthia might have united
against a common foe. But dynastic strife continued and deteriorated into civil war.
The Roman emperor Caracalla invaded Parthia amidst these troubles; he desecrated
the Parthian royal tombs at Arbela, 96 and might have performed further outrages,
but his assassination was followed by retreat and a peace settlement. The extinction
of the House of Arshak followed swiftly.
The triumph of Parthia upon the ruin of the Persian and Macedonian empires
had begun amidst an obscure rebellion. An empire of nomads may have seemed an
unlikely prospect, but the loose rule of Parthia endured for nearly half a millennium.
The Parni had reunited the shattered fragments of the sedentary Near East, and they
had humiliated the legions of the republic, and had repelled the aggression of the
empire, of Rome. The boasts of Artaban II appeared to revive the vision of a civi-
lised state bestriding the world from the waters of the river Nile to the roots of the
Hindukush mountains. But Parthia never realised this vision, and the House of Ar-
shak endured many humiliations before yielding the rule of the Near East to another
dynasty. When the end came, the House of Arshak may have been surprised that the
stroke which extinguished their rule was dealt neither by a Roman, nor by a nomad,
but by a Persian.
94 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, LXXI.2. See Edwell, P., “Osrhoene and Mesopotamia,” p.
116.
95 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, LXXV.9.1–12.5; Herodian, III.9.1–12; Edwell, P.,
“Osrhoene and Mesopotamia,” p. 126–127. This expedition ended with another failed siege
of Hatra and another shameful retreat.
96 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, LXXIX.1.1–2; Edwell, P., “Osrhoene and Mesopotamia,” p.
127–129.
II. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE HOUSE OF SASAN
THE ORIGIN OF THE NEW DYNASTY

The origin of the Sasanian dynasty is buried in obscurity, and its claims to royal
blood are clouded in a thick fog of fable and propaganda. Ardashir, the first king of
that line, appears to have derived his royal dignity from two mysterious persons:
Pabag and Sasan. The identity of these figures and their relation to Ardashir are var-
iously explained throughout the relics of Sasanian literature that have come down to
us, and with time they became increasingly elaborate and fanciful. It seems probable
that Pabag gave Ardashir a surname, and it is certain that the name of Sasan became
the appellation of the dynasty. But this is the limit of our certainty. 1
The Middle Persian biography of Ardashir, or the Karnamag, as it is called, is a
strange mixture of propaganda and fantasy, but it preserves the received account of
Ardashir’s origin. The Middle Persian text that has come down to us was redacted in
the early seventh century, 2 but three facts attest that the tale is far older. First, Moses
Chorenatsi, the Armenian historian who wrote in the fifth century of our era, knew
of a much older and longer text of the Karnamag, and he alludes to it derisively in his
History of Armenia. The tale of Ardashir’s origins is attributed by Moses to a certain
Khorohbut, a scribe in the service of king Shapur II, and who had been taken pris-
oner by the Romans in the late fourth century. 3 Khorohbut, as it is said, embraced
the new religion of his captors, took the name Eleazar, and (amongst other accom-
1 Noteworthy attempts to explain who Sasan and Pabag were include: Olbrycht, M. J., “Dy-
nastic Connections in the Arsacid Empire and the Origins of the House of Sasan” in Sar-
kosh, V., et al., The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires: Adaptation and Expansion, The British
Institute of Persian Studies, 2016, p. 23–35; Daryaee, T., “Ardaxšīr and the Sasanians’ Rise to
Power,” Anabasis: Studia Classica et Orientalia, v. 1, 2010, p. 236–255; and Widengren, G.,
“The Establishment of the Sasanian Dynasty in the Light of New Evidence” in La Persia nel
medioevo, 1971, p. 711–782.
2 Grenet, F., La Geste d’Ardashir fils de Pabag, 2003, p. 26.
3 Այս Խոռոհբուտ դպիր եղեալ Շապհոյ թագաւորին Պարսից (Moses Chorenatsi,
II.70). Muraviev seems to agree that this Khorohbut was a real person (Muraviev, A., “The
Syriac Julian Romance and its Place in the Literary History,” Khristianskiy Vostok 1(7), 1999,
p. 194–206).
25
plishments) translated into Greek a work devoted to the earliest kings of the Sasa-
nian line. This book, as Moses seems to imply, was an earlier and longer redaction
of the Karnamag than what has come down to us. 4 Second, apart from the rise of
Ardashir, the Karnamag is greatly interested in the royal origin and distinguished
youth of Shapur I and Hurmazd I, the second and third Sasanian kings, whom that
mysterious text connects respectively with the union of Ardashir and a daughter of
the last Parthian king and the congress of Shapur and the daughter of a Parthian
nobleman. 5 The Arsacid filiation of Shapur and Hurmazd, whether real or fictive,
could only have appeared important at a very early time in the life of the Sasanian
dynasty. So we may reasonably infer that the Karnamag is founded upon the legends
invented during the reigns of the first three Sasanian kings. 6
The Karnamag asserts that Sasan was a shepherd employed by Pabag, governor
of Persia. Sasan appeared to Pabag in three successive dreams: Pabag beheld Sasan
with a great light shining from his head; he saw him seated upon a white elephant
clad in splendid ornaments and a multitude of men bowed before him, praising and
blessing him; and three sacred fires burned within the dwelling of Sasan and gave
light to the whole world. 7 Interpreters of dreams assured Pabag that the man whom
he saw, or one of his descendants, would rule the world. It was soon revealed that
Sasan was descended from one of the Achaemenid kings named Darius, whose
progeny had dwelt amongst Kurdish shepherds after Alexander’s conquest of Iran. 8
Pabag had no son to succeed him and was so greatly impressed by the words of the
interpreters that he gave his daughter in marriage to this shepherd. 9 Ardashir was
born of that union, and Pabag adopted the son of Sasan as his heir. Similar exposi-
tions of the origin of Ardashir can be found in the history of Dinawari and the
Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. These books attest the endurance of the legend of the Kar-
namag after the fall of the House of Sasan. 10 But during the reign of the Sasanian
dynasty, enemies and critics of the royal house spread about a hostile parody of this
4 Moses is aware of Pabag’s dream and the astrological portents which are familiar from the
Middle Persian Karnamag. His allusions to the fire that proceeded from Sasan, and to stories
involving goats and various other beasts including an eagle and a crow are unattested else-
where and imply an older, longer redaction of the Karnamag (Moses Chorenatsi, II.70; cf.
Thomson, R. W. (ed. / trans.), History of the Armenians: Translation and Commentary by Robert W.
Thomson, 1979, p. 217 with note 6). On the authenticity of Moses’ work, see Mahé, A. / Ma-
hé, J.-P., Histoire de l’Arménie par Moïse de Khorène, 1993, p. 18–24.
5 Karnamag I.8–10. These references are to the edition and translation prepared by Frantz
Grenet (Grenet, F., La Geste d’Ardashir fils de Pâbag, 2006).

6 Cf. Grenet, F. La Geste d’Ardashir fils de Pâbag, p. 25–29.
7 Karnamag, I.9–11.
8 Karnamag, I.6–7; II.16–19.
10 But the legend is deprived of much of its Zoroastrian character for the benefit of a Mus-
lim audience.
II. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE HOUSE OF SASAN 27
fable. 11 A Christian spy informed the Greek writer Agathias that Ardashir had issued
from the adulterous union of the wife of Pabag, a cobbler, and Sasan, an itinerant
soldier; and Pabag and Sasan then quarrelled over the generation of Ardashir. The
spy portrayed this absurd lampoon as an extract from the Sasanian royal archives,
and Agathias recorded it in his history of the sixth century. 12
The material productions of an ancient culture in the form of epigraphy, coins,
works of art, and engineering can often correct the imperfect record of garbled his-
tories or mythology. But not even the monumental inscription of Ardashir’s son and
heir, Shapur, can lift us out of the morass of myth and fancy. The second king of
the Sasanid line identifies two, and only two, of his male ancestors: his father Ar-
dashir and his grandfather Pabag. The most distant ancestor invoked by the inscrip-
tion is a woman: Denag, mother of Pabag. 13 But no connection is made with any
ancestor named Sasan. That name appears ten times in the inscription, but not even
a certain ‘Lord Sasan’ is an ancestor of Pabag, Ardashir, or Shapur. 14 A monumental
inscription erected by the later king Narseh derives the ruling house from the family
of Sasan, 15 and so we can infer that the link between that mysterious figure and the
Iranian monarchy was strengthened with time.
It was not only strengthened, but also embellished. Other accounts of Ar-
dashir’s origin were known to, or were invented by, later writers. Tabari asserts that
Ardashir was the second son of Pabag, and that Ardashir had outlived his elder
brother Shapur and had inherited power from his father, who had overthrown
Gochihr, one of the last governors of Persia. 16 In the opinion of Tabari, Sasan was
Ardashir’s grandfather, Pabag’s father, and custodian 17 of a fire temple dedicated to
11 Agathias, II.26; cf. Cameron, A., “Agathias on the Sasanians,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol.
22–23, 1969–1970, p. 27–29.
12 Agathias claims that it was recorded ἐν ταῖς βασιλείοις διφθέραις (Agathias, Historiae,
II.27); cf. the βασιλικὰ ἀπομνημονεύματα (Agathias, Historiae, IV.30).

13 Back, M., Die Sassanidischen Staatsinschriften, 1978, p. 349–350. Rodag, Ardashir’s own moth-
er is also mentioned.
14 Back, M., Die Sassanidischen Staatsinschriften, p. 338. Rezakhani, K., ReOrienting the Sasanians,
p. 44.
15 Paikuli Inscription, p. 10–11.
16 Tabari, v. 2, p. 37–38. Tabari claims that Pabag had received permission from Gochihr to
place Ardashir in the care of a certain Tira, who was commandant of the castle at Darabgird.
When Tira died, Ardashir succeeded him, and began to extend his power by killing local
princes. Ardashir urged Pabag to overthrow Gochihr, the father complied with the son’s
request. Pabag requested that the Parthian king recognise the sovereignty of his eldest son
Shapur over Istakhr, but the Parthian king refused. This was the beginning of the rebellion
which Ardashir supposedly led. Ardashir succeeded his brother Shapur when the latter was
killed accidentally by a falling stone at Istakhr.
17 �ّ �‫( ق‬Tabari, v. 2, p. 37): it is not at all clear what role Sasan is supposed to have had at the
fire temple.
the goddess Anahita at Istakhr. Modern historians tend to assume that Tabari’s ex-
position of Ardashir’s descent is the original and unvarnished truth. Tabari’s claim
that Sasan was connected with a fire temple may represent an attempt to assert the
religious identity of the Sasanian line at a time when it may have been in doubt. But
Tabari’s seemingly more rational genealogy cannot be tested or verified and it is still
mingled with the claim, asserted in a letter attributed to the last Parthian king, that
Sasan was a shepherd. The king of Parthia addresses Ardashir thus:
‘You have risen beyond your station, and you have brought ruin upon yourself, O
shepherd raised among the tents of shepherds! 18 Who allowed you the crown that
you wear, and the lands that you have gathered together whose kings you have
vanquished?’ 19
Tabari may have thought that he had transmitted a Parthian slur upon Ardashir and
his family. But the Persian historian has really preserved an allusion to the same Sas-
anian myth which is in found in the Karnamag. The final form of this myth is first
attested in the history of Dinawari. The Achaemenid king, whom Dinawari calls
Bahman, 20 was expected to bestow his kingdom upon his son Sasan, but Bahman’s
daughter Khumana ruled in place of him. At this insult, the furious Sasan departed
his father’s capital and dwelt as a shepherd amongst the Kurds, and so (says Dina-
wari) the kings of the Sasanid line have always been reviled for keeping livestock. 21
Khumana ruled for a time and then gave birth to her son and successor Darius III
whose empire was destroyed by Alexander the Great.
This bizarre story was repeated down to the very last days of the Sasanian dyn-
asty. In the seventh century, during the reign of Khusro II, there arose a usurper by
the name of Bistam. He was the reigning king’s uncle, and he claimed descent from
Bahman through Darius III. He wrote to Khusro II:
‘I am the son of Darius son of Darius, who fought Alexander. But you (O son of
Sasan) took what was rightly ours by art and craft. Your forefather was only a
shepherd, and if his father had known better he would not have kept the king-
dom from him and given it to his daughter Khumana!’ 22
According to the rebel Bistam, the Parthian kings traced their descent directly to the
last Achaemenid king; and so Ardashir, the descendant of Sasan who had never sat
18 Tabari, v. 2, p. 39:
‫أ��ا ال��دي ا��ر�ى َ �ي خيام ا��اد‬
The figurative, not literal, meaning of Kurd is intended, i.e., a shepherd or mountain-dweller,
not an ethnic Kurd (cf. Grenet, F., La Geste d’Ardashir fils de Pâbag, p. 31).
19 Tabari, v. 2, p. 39.
20 Bahman seems to be a mythical amalgam of Cyrus the Great and Artaxerxes I.
21 Dinawari, p. 30.
22 Dinawari, p. 108.
upon the Achaemenid throne, had no right to wrest the sceptre from the Arsacid
line. We may infer that, at some point, the kings of the Sasanid family asserted their
fitness for rule by reason of their descent from an ancient royal ancestor whose pat-
rimony had been unjustly denied.
But who was this mysterious royal ancestor Sasan? The truth may be that Sasan
was a remote and dimly remembered forefather, as was Achaemenes who had been
portrayed as the ancient progenitor of the family of Cyrus. 23 But a different explana-
tion is possible. A curious passage in the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi alleges that Sasan
son of Bahman fled the destruction of the Achaemenid empire and transported
himself to India. Four generations of the offspring of Sasan dwelt in that distant
land, where they worked as camel-drivers and shepherds, until the younger Sasan
returned to Iran and Pabag employed him. 24 It is possible that the connection be-
tween Sasan and India is a reminiscence that the family of Ardashir, despite its sup-
posed nobility, was foreign to Persia. 25 Could it be that a distant ancestor by the
name of Sasan had originated from the branch of the Arsacid family that ruled over
a great portion of north-western India? The Indo-Parthian dynasty, as it is called,
succeeded to the rule of Sakastan and Sindh between the collapse of Greek rule in
Bactria and the conquests of the Kushans. Their history is mysterious and sur-
rounded by controversy. 26 But the evidence of coins shows that the personal name
Sasan was common amongst the kings of the Indo-Parthians, 27 and coins struck by
Ardashir resemble models which originated in the east. The coins issued by the
kings of Parthia and their Persian vassals foreshadowed neither the style of Aramaic
letters nor the image of an altar of fire, which adorn the money of Ardashir – a clue,
perhaps, that the origin of the first Sasanian king was not in Persia. 28 Bold inferences
suggests themselves: Ardashir claimed descent from the Indo-Parthian cadet branch
23 Nöldeke, T., Geschichte der Perser und Araber, p. 1.

24 Ferdowsi, Ashkanian, l. 91–93:
‫ز ساسان ی�� کود�ی ما�� د‬ ‫به هندوستان در به زاری ��رد‬
‫��ی نام ساسا�� دی ��ر‬ �� ‫��ن هم��ان تا چهارم‬
‫��ه سا�� با ر�ج و ک�ر ��ان‬ ‫شبانان ��ی و �� ساربان‬
The tale then proceeds as in the Karnamag.
25 Rezakhani, K., ReOrienting the Sasanians, p. 44–45.
26 Rezakhani, K., ReOrienting the Sasanians, p. 30–40; Fröhlich, C., “Indo-Parthian Dynasty,”
in Encylopaedia Iranica, vol. XIII, fasc. 1, 2012, p. 100–103.

27 The last two kings of the Indo-Parthian Dynasty bore the names Farn-Sasan son of Adur-
Sasan (Olbrycht, M. J., “Dynastic Connections in the Arsacid Empire and the Origins of the
House of Sasan” in Sarkosh Curtis, V., et al. (eds), The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires:
Adaptation and Expansion, 2016, p. 24).
28 Rezakhani, K., ReOrienting the Sasanians, p. 41–45; Rezakhani, K., “From Aramaic to Pahla-
vi: Epigraphic Observations Based on the Persis Coin Series,” in Sarkosh Curtis, V., et al.
(eds), The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires: Adaptation and Expansion, 2016.
of the House of Arshak and a mysterious ancestor called Sasan with connections to
India was found, or invented, to bolster the claim.
There is some corroboration for those inferences in the relics of Persian litera-
ture that have survived. The Karnamag indicates that the first Sasanian king relied
upon the opinion of an Indian soothsayer who prophesied that the rule of Iran
would pass to Ardashir after the destruction of his last rival Mihrag Anoshagzad. 29 It
may be possible to connect that notice with the influence of Indian religions upon
the Indo-Parthians. We may also recall the white elephant upon which Sasan sat in
the vision of Pabag. 30 That strange beast recalls the mythical Airavata: the white ele-
phant which carries the god Indra and which is familiar to the Hindu and the Bud-
dhist religions as a symbol of wisdom and strength. 31 The religion of Zoroaster held
a different view of the elephant, which the Bundahishn enrols among the noxious
animals created by the evil god Angra Mainyu. 32 But the interpreters of dreams con-
sulted by Pabag made the unusual announcement that the elephant signified bravery,
power, and victory. 33 With time, the auspicious vision of Sasan which Pabag beheld
in a dream may have won the sanction of Zoroastrian orthodoxy, but its origin must
have been Indian. 34 Finally we may invoke Ferdowsi’s claim that the image of Sasan
which appeared to Pabag involved both an elephant and the interesting detail that
the hand of Sasan grasped the hilt of an Indian sword. 35
We shall never know who Sasan really was, or where he originated, and it is
impossible to say exactly when and in what order these fictions were developed and
diffused throughout the Iranian world. But it is reasonable to infer that the more
elaborate formulas of Ardashir’s descent represent a later evolution of Sasanian
propaganda. Ardashir’s mythical genealogy had the benefit of undermining Parthian
dignity and prestige by abbreviating Arsacid rule to nearly half its real duration. 36
Five centuries had elapsed between the death of Darius III and the appearance of
Ardashir. But the Sasanian legend filled this wide space with only five descendants
29 Karnamag, XII. Mihrag Anoshagzad cannot be identified, but the Indian soothsayer (or ked
in Middle Persian) declared that the monarchy of Iran could belong either to Ardashir or to
Mihrag, but not to both.
30 Karnamag I.9–11.
31 Airavata appears first in the Mahabharata. For more about this special elephant, see Swami
Parmeshwaranand, Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the Puranas, vol. 1, 2001, p. 36–37.

32 Bundahisn, XXIV.38.
34 Daryaee, T., “From Terror to Tactical Usage: Elephants in the Partho-Sasanian Period,” in
Sarkosh Curtis, V. et al. (eds.), The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires: Adaptation and Expan-
sion, 2016, p. 36.
35 Ferdowsi, Ashkanian, l. 100:
‫ی�� تیغ هندی ��فته به دست‬ ‫�� ساسان به پیل ژ یان ��ست‬
36 Cf. Taqizadeh, S. H., “Some Chronological Data Relating to the Sasanian Period,” Bulletin
of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, vol. 9, no. 1, 1937, p. 138–139.
of the mythical king Bahman, 37 and imputed only two hundred and sixty years to the
Parthian monarchy. This impossible chronology places the rule of Ardashir at about
the same time as the life and ministry of Jesus – a strange coincidence which was
exploited in the politics of later reigns. 38
A final question must be asked: why is the mythical ancestor of the Sasanid line
so often portrayed as a shepherd? The answer seems to lie in the received Achae-
menid account of the birth and youth of the founder of the ancient dynasty. 39 Asty-
ages, grandfather to Cyrus and king of Media, feared lest his daughter’s son should
take his place upon the throne. Harpagus, an agent of the Median king, was sent to
kill the young child; but he shrunk from the task, and so he entrusted the care and
upbringing of the infant Cyrus to one Mihrdad: a shepherd employed by king Asty-
ages. The themes of this legend – a child destined to overthrow a kingdom; who was
abandoned at birth; and who was raised by a shepherd – have often been repeated
throughout Near Eastern history and religion. 40 When those themes were applied to
Ardashir, they covered up his obscure origin, connected him with the oldest Persian
monarchy, and surrounded his rise with an aura of mystery and predestination.
37 Dinawari reports that Ardashir was the son of Babak, son of Sasan the younger, son of
Fafak, son of Mahris, son of Sasan the elder, son of Bahman (Dinawari, p. 44).
38 In the late Sasanian period, there arose a myth that the founder of the Sasanian dynasty
was a Christian. One of Christ’s apostles had arrived at the court of Ardashir, and the king
and his vizier Abarsam were converted by his preaching (Dinawari, p. 46–47, 85; Nihaya, p.
185–186). Avestan legend held that the conversion of king Gushtasp to the religion of Zoro-
aster was actuated by the prophet’s healing of the king’s horse (Schilling, A., “L’apôtre du
Christ, la conversion du roi Ardashir et celle de son vizir,” in Jullien, C. (ed.), Chrétiens en terre
d’Iran II: Controverses des chrétiens dans l’Iran sassanide, 2008, p. 107). In time, this myth took on a
Christian form. According to Sasanian legend, the founder of the new dynasty and his vizier
embraced Christianity when Christ’s apostle revived one of the royal horses after its death.
39 Herodotus, I.95 et seqq.
40 The legend associated with the youth of Cyrus the Great are very similar to the more cele-
brated myth of Oedipus, and it is probable that Sophocles drew some inspiration from his
friend Herodotus who had communicated the legend to him. The themes of that legend
occasionally varied, and they embellished the lives of Moses, Esarhaddon, Sargon of Akkad,
and even Shah Isma’il who founded the Safavid dynasty in the sixteenth century (Grenet, F.,
La Geste d’Ardashir fils de Pâbag, p. 31; and cf. Thompson, T. L., The Messiah Myth: The Near
Eastern Roots of Jesus and David, 2007, p. 152–156). Incidentally, Ctesias reports what may be
understood as a caricature of the myth record recorded by Herodotus. Ctesias denies any
relation between Cyrus and the kingdom of the Medes, and enrolls him among the nomadic
tribe of the Mardi. Poverty had reduced Cyrus’ father to banditry, says Ctesias, and his
mother herded goats (Stronk, J. P., Ctesias’ Persian History, Part I: Introduction, Text, and Transla-
tion, 2010, p. 290).
THE REIGN OF ARDASHIR

The elaborate fables associated with the origin of the Sasanid line give way to a very
doubtful narrative of the reign of its first king. Under the successors of Seleucus and
Arshak, the province of Persia acknowledged the rule of a Macedonian or a Parthian
monarch. 41 The descendants of Arshak claimed for themselves the Achaemenid title
of King of Kings, and their Persian vassals inscribed upon their coins the appella-
tion of frataraka: the common Achaemenid title of governor. 42 The lords of Persia
ruled amidst the venerable ruins of Persepolis and Pasargadae, and they possessed
both the tomb of Cyrus upon the Murghab plain and the Achaemenid royal necrop-
olis at the site of Naqsh-e Rostam. It was in Persia that the memory of the builders
of those impressive structures remained vivid, and so its governors commanded a
real prestige which the Arsacid king possessed only in theory. Any vassal of the Par-
thian dominion might have asserted his independence, but only the rulers of Persia
in southern Iran could have founded a new dynasty.
By the third century of our era, Ardashir had become ruler of Persia. Amidst
the decay of the House of Arshak, he began to extend his power into Media, along
the coast of the Persian Gulf and northeast Arabia, 43 and as far east as Kirman on
the Iranian plateau. The Karnamag transforms these developments into a series vague
allusions to subduing Armenia and the abode of the Kurds, and a fantastical story
involving a mysterious potentate named Haftowad, whose power over southern
Persia was derived from his possession of a gigantic worm. 44 The testimony of Ta-
bari may be more trustworthy: the Parthian king’s attempt to discredit the Persian
rebel served rather to irritate than to the subdue the spirit of Ardashir, and the up-
start announced that God himself had granted him both crown and power, but this
failed to convince the Parthian king. 45 When battle finally came, 46 the vigour of Par-
thia was broken, Artaban perished in the contest; and, at some point afterward, Ar-
dashir claimed for himself the title of King of Kings. But the defeat of Artaban was
41 Strabo, XV.3.3
42 Wiesehöfer, J., “Frataraka Rule in Early Seleucid Persis: A New Appraisal” in Erskine, A. /
Llewellyn-Jones. L. (eds), A Hellenistic World, 2011, p. 107–121; Wiesehöfer, J., “Frataraka,”
Encyclopaedia Iranica, v. 10, fasc. 2, 2002, p. 195.
43 Some of the evidence for this is discussed in Potts, D. T., The Persian Gulf in Antiquity: From
Alexander the Great to the Coming of Islam, v. II, 1992, p. 232–233.

44 Karnamag, V; VII–IX. Ardashir destroyed both Haftowad and his strange pet.
45 Tabari, v. 2, p. 40.
46 The decisive battle of Hurmazdagan was fought on 28 April, AD 224 (Nöldeke, Geschichte
der Perser und Araber, p. 411). The Karnamag confines this battle to a single sentence, without
mentioning its name (Karnamag, V.13).
not the final overthrow of the Arsacid monarchy. Until the year 228, coins were
minted in the name of Walagash VI, against whom Artaban had rebelled. 47
PARTHIAN CIVIL WAR, ROMAN AGGRESSION,

AND THE TRIUMPH OF ARDASHIR
The imaginary account of the Karnamag attributes the triumph of Ardashir to super-
natural causes. So great was the prestige of that prince that, when he had attained his
fifteenth year, Ardashir was invited to dwell at the court of Artaban. 48 Reading, the
game of polo, horsemanship, hunting, and other chivalrous disciplines occupied the
young Ardashir. Rivalry arose between Ardashir and the son of Artaban, but the
admonishment of Pabag failed to halt that jealous contest, and a favourite concu-
bine of the Parthian king was seduced by the gaze of Ardashir as he sat singing and
playing the tambur. 49 An astrological consultation predicted the rise of a new mon-
archy and that royal authority would pass to whichever of Artaban’s subordinates
should flee within the following three days. Hearing these words, Ardashir and the
concubine resolved upon immediate escape to Persia. Treasure, armaments, and
horses procured by the girl accompanied them, Artaban was enraged at the theft and
flight, and the Parthian king commanded the pursuit and apprehension of his rebel-
lious courtier. 50 Four thousand soldiers attempted to intercept Ardashir along the
road to Persia. Successive witnesses reported first that a mysterious ram had fol-
lowed the two fugitive riders, and later that it had reached them and had sat upon
Ardashir’s horse. In the opinion of a Parthian hierophant, the ram embodied the
royal glory of Ardashir, and signified the doom of Artaban. Returned to Persia, Ar-
dashir received the supplication of other kings, and a united army confronted and
defeated the last king of Parthia. 51
But the true account of Ardashir’s rise is different. The triumph of the Sasanian
dynasty was assisted by the troubles that had lately assailed the Parthian monarchy.
At the close of the second century of our era, the king of Parthia was Walagash V.
His eldest son, also called Walagash, succeeded him in about the year 207, but not
long thereafter the late Walagash younger son, Artaban, rose in revolt and civil war
ensued. With great enthusiasm the Roman emperor Caracalla had devoted his life to
47 Photographs of the coins of Walagash, or Vologases, VI can be seen at

http://www.parthia.com/vologases6.htm. I discovered that site in Hauser, S. R., “Where is
the Man of Hadr, Who Once Built it and Taxed the land by the Tigris and the Chaboras? On
the Significance of the Final Siege of Hatra,” Dirven, L. (ed.) Hatra: Politics, Culture and Reli-
gion Between Parthia and Rome, 2013, p. 135.
48 Karnamag, II.
49 Karnamag, III. The tambur is a musical instrument similar in principle to a guitar.
50 Karnamag, IV.
51 Karnamag, V.
the imitation of Alexander the Great. 52 He called himself Alexander, adopted his
symbols, surrounded himself with a Macedonian phalanx, and was eager to conquer
Iran. Caracalla had long meditated war and saw his moment to strike at a weakened
Parthia. The curious pretext for war was that the emperor demanded the return of
two fugitives: a Greek philosopher by the name of Antiochus and a man of seem-
ingly Arsacid extraction called Tiridates. 53 Walagash preferred rather to prosecute his
struggle with his brother than to involve Parthia in another war with Rome, and so
the emperor’s request was granted. But Walagash perished in the fratricidal contest,
and Artaban ascended the Parthian throne. In further imitation of his Macedonian
hero, who had taken an Iranian wife, Caracalla immediately demanded Artaban’s
daughter in marriage. 54 The refusal of this request was another pretext for war.
The war was brief. If the writer Herodian can be believed, the Roman emperor
came upon Artaban’s palace at Arbela where he was received by the king, his court,
and some of the local inhabitants. On a sudden, Caracalla commanded that his men
fall upon his hosts, and the Parthian king and his followers fled in panic. 55 A Parthi-
an counter-attack upon northern Mesopotamia was prepared, but Caracalla perished
on his progress to Carrhae, where he intended to perform an act of devotion at the
Temple of the Moon. Macrinus, captain of the praetorian guard, had instigated the
murder of his commander, and replaced him. The late emperor was blamed for the
conflict with Iran, Macrinus returned Parthian prisoners, and sued for peace. 56 Arta-
ban dictated terms which must have represented the will of a great part of the Irani-
an nobility: the Romans were to vacate all Mesopotamia; they were to rebuild at
their own expense all towns and fortresses which they had damaged or destroyed;
and they were to pay reparations for the desecration of the Parthian royal tombs at
Arbela. Macrinus refused, battle was joined in the vicinity of Nisibis, and the Roman
force was worsted.
Peace was established by a treaty of the year 218, but the terms which had been
required by Artaban formed no part of the settlement. Armenia was confirmed as a
protectorate, and northwestern Mesopotamia remained a province, of Rome; the
only supposed benefit to Iran was that the Romans were obliged to pay two hun-
dred million sesterces in cash and gifts to Artaban. Macrinus in his turn was
promptly murdered by his own men, but his incompetent and cowardly successors,
52 Cassius Dio, LXXVIII.7–9; Herodian, IV; Edwell, P., “Osrhoene and Mesopotamia,” p.
127.
53 Cassius Dio, LXXVIII.19.
54 Cassius Dio, LXXIX.1; Curiously, Herodian claims that this request for an Iranian wife
was eventually granted, but this is most doubtful (Herodian, IV.11.1). See Edwell, P.,
“Osrhoene and Mesopotamia,” p. 128.
55 Herodian, IV.11.3–7.
56 Cassius Dio, LXXIX.26.2.
Elagabalus and Severus Alexander, made no attempt to alter Roman policy in the
east.
After sixty years of humiliating warfare with Rome, the terms dictated by Arta-
ban must have aroused the hope that the dignity of Iran would be revived. The de-
mand that Rome relinquish Mesopotamia and Armenia reasserted an older policy of
re-establishing the ancient limits of the Iranian monarchy. 57 The government of
Artaban failed to implement this policy, and Rome had deprived Parthia of a large
part of Mesopotamia. Discontent with the ruling house must have been great. This
was the occasion for a great leader to replace the Arsacid king, and the ruler of Per-
sia alone commanded the prestige required for such an enterprise. 58
The success of a great leader depends upon his ability first to perceive and then
to command the mood of a multitude. The mendacious informant of the historian
Agathias alludes dimly to certain confederates whom Ardashir had gathered to him-
self, 59 and thereby transforms the rise of the Sasanian dynasty into an obscure con-
spiracy. The first historians of Armenia are perhaps more trustworthy. The writer
known as Agathangelus suggests that a rumour had reached the Armenian king that
the Parthians preferred the rule of Ardashir to that of their own countryman. 60 The
historian Moses Chorenatsi names two branches of the Suren and Asparapet fami-
lies who were united with Ardashir, and he informs us that the Armenian king
Khosrov was dismayed that so many of his relatives could be found on the side of
Persian rebel. 61 The promise of military adventure in the west may have been
enough to attract such support, but Ardashir is said to have vowed to restore to the
Suren and Asparapet families their ancient capital of Balkh and the region that sur-
rounds it. 62 If Moses can be trusted, the king’s gratitude for the support of Parthian
57 Tacitus notes that such was Parthian policy under Artaban II: simul ac veteres Persarum ac
Macedonium terminos, seque invasurum possessa primum Cyro et post Alexandro per vaniloquentiam ac
minas iaciebat (Tacitus, Annals, VI.31). See also Shayegan, M. R., Arsacids and Sasanians: Political
Ideology in Post-Hellenistic and Late Antique Persia, 2011, p. 293–295; 306.
58 Isaac notes that ‘there is no need to assume a radical change in imperial ideology…to ex-
plain Persian counter-attacks in the third century (Isaac, B., “Hatra Against Rome and Persia:
From Success to Destruction,” Dirven, L. (ed.) Hatra: Politics, Culture and Religion Between Par-
thia and Rome, 2013, p. 28–29).
59 Ξυνωμότας ἀγείρας is his expression (Agathias, Historiae, II.26)
60 I am referring to the Armenian text of Agathangelus, 18–20; see Thomson’s English trans-
lation (Agathangelus / Thomson, R. W., Agathangelos: History of the Armenians, 1976, p. 35–
39). In the Greek text of Agathangelus, Ardashir sends an embassy to the Parthian king, and
among the envoys are leaders of the Karin and Zik families (Dodgeon, M. H. / Lieu, S. N.
C., The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, p. 13).
61 Moses Chorenatsi, II.71–74.
62 Moses Chorenatsi, II.74. The circumstance of this promise is Ardashir’s failed attempt to
conquer Armenia. For a very recent interpretation of this notice, see Olbrycht, M. J., “Dy-
noblemen might have ensured the defence of Iran’s northeastern frontier while Ar-
dashir carried war into the west.
SASANIAN PROPAGANDA AND ROMAN ANXIETY

The Iranian and Hellenic peoples over whom the Parthian monarchy ruled may
have been rallied to a common purpose, or stirred up to a patriotic fervour, by vir-
tue of the fiction that Arsacid rulers had a double lineage. Mihrdad VI, the king of
Pontus, had exalted himself over his Roman enemies with the claim that his paternal
descent originated with Cyrus and Darius, and that Alexander and Seleucus were the
ancestors of his mother. 63 In the time of Ardashir, learned Romans may have re-
membered the strange vaunt of Mihrdad VI of Pontus, and they may have recalled
the furious boast of Artaban II who promised to restore the borders of Iran as they
were under both Cyrus and Alexander. 64
The Roman government must have been astounded to hear those claims reiter-
ated by a far more dangerous antagonist. 65 Ardashir is said to have announced that
he would win back all lands formerly held by Iran as far as the Aegean Sea, and this
claim was reinforced by a Sasanian embassy to Alexander Severus. 66 The embassy
alleged that those lands belonged to Ardashir, by right of inheritance, as it is implied,
from the Achaemenid kings and their Macedonian conqueror.
The association of the new Persian dynasty with the memory of Cyrus and Al-
exander may have originated within Arsacid propaganda, but it had new significance
for Iran’s western foe. By the third century after Christ, the Roman world had been
nastic Connections in the Arsacid Empire and the Origins of the House of Sasan” in Sar-
kosh, V., et al., The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires: Adaptation and Expansion, 2016, p. 30.
63 Se autem, seu nobilitate illis conparetur, clariorem illa conluuie conuenarum esse, qui paternos maiores
suos a Cyro Darioque, conditoribus Persici regni, maternos a magno Alexandro ac Nicatore Seleuco, condi-
toribus imperii Macedonici, referat (Justin, XXXVIII.7).
64 Tacitus, Annals, VI.31.
65 For the Roman perception of the rise of Ardashir, see Gariboldi, A., “The Birth of the
Sasanian Monarchy in Western Sources,” in Sarkosh Curtis, V. et al. (eds.), The Parthian and
Early Sasanian Empires: Adaptation and Expansion, 2016, p. 47–52.
66 ὅσα ποτὲ ὁι πάλαι Πέρσαι μέχρι τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς θαλάσσης ἔσχον (Cassius Dio, Historia
Romana, LXXXb.4.1). The Aegean Sea is meant. Cf. Herodian VI.2.2. Herodian records that,
on the eve of war, Ardashir sent four hundred of the tallest and most richly adorned Persians
as an embassy to the Roman emperor. They commanded the Romans to vacate Ionia and all
Asia opposite Europe and to allow Ardashir to rule all nations separated by the Aegean Sea
and the gulf of the Propontis, because they were his by right of inheritance (Herodian,
VI.4.5). For the connection with Alexander the Great and the Achaemenid monarchy, see
Cf. Shayegan, M. R., “The Arsacids and Commagene,” in Sarkosh Curtis, V. et al. (eds.), The
Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires: Adaptation and Expansion, 2016, p. 8–21; but see especially
p. 9–10. There was apparently an old Parthian tradition of invoking both a Macedonian and
an Iranian heritage.
dominated by a succession of princes who were stimulated by a singular obsession.

The imitation of Alexander the Great may have revived, or may have appeared to
revive, the martial virtue of a degenerate age. 67 The spirit of the conqueror of the
Achaemenid empire could not have failed to impress itself upon the Roman mind
amidst renewed conflict with Parthia, and many a Roman prince, senator, and bu-
reaucrat must have dreamt of subduing Iran. Who but Alexander had accomplished
this before? The Roman people had recently known Trajan and Caracalla: two
princes whose chief interests were imitating Alexander and warfare in the east. But
at the opening of the third century of our era, the figure of Alexander was an object
of general fascination, a singular manifestation of which was noticed by the Roman
senator and historian Cassius Dio. A prophecy had announced that ‘an Alexander’
should come from the city of Emesa to replace the emperor Elagabalus, and the
truth of the prophecy was strengthened by the appearance of a phantom who
claimed to be, and who resembled, the Macedonian conqueror. 68 The prophecy and
the ghost, which ranged over a large part of the Roman world, appealed to Roman
credulity and accelerated the rise of Elagabalus’ successor: a youth by the name of
Alexander Severus. 69
The Sasanian hereditary claim to the empire of Macedon ought to have ap-
peared preposterous, and their claim to descent from Alexander the Great an absurd
fantasy. But these fictions were no less ridiculous that the posturing of Trajan and
Caracalla, or the fearsome portents attending the rise of Alexander Severus. They
were no less ridiculous, in fact, that the celebrated Alexander Romance which lay at
the root of many ancient opinions about the conqueror. This romance falsely im-
putes an Egyptian origin to Alexander, who is portrayed as the offspring of Olympi-
as, wife of Philip of Macedon and the Egyptian king Nectanebo, who had disguised
himself as the god Ammon and seduced her. 70 Sasanian propaganda invented a dif-
ferent genealogy whereby Alexander was the product of a union between Darius son
of Bahman and the daughter of Philip of Macedon. This strange fiction transformed
Alexander into the nephew of Sasan and a cousin of Ardashir; it was inserted into
the Middle Persian redaction of the Alexander Romance, and it survives in later Per-
67 For a brief discussion of this, see Potter, D. S., The Roman Empire at Bay, 2004, p. 214; and
Millar, F., A Study of Cassius Dio, 1964, p. 151.
68 Cassius Dio, LXXX.18.1–3.
69 Dio says that the ghost appeared first along the river Ister and proceeded through Moesia
and Thrace, as though in solemn procession, as far as Byzantium and Chalcedon. The ghost
was attended by a numerous train of associates. It took up lodging amongst the people of
Thrace, provisions were offered it at the public expense, and no one dared oppose it. Word
of the ghost reached Dio in Asia Minor. No one would have believed in this ghost if it had
not fitted into a fantasy which had been widely diffused throughout the Roman world. Millar
ventures a rational explanation of the appearance of the ghost (Millar, F., A Study of Cassius
Dio, p. 214–218).
70 Pseudo-Callisthenes, I.4–7.
sian and Arabic histories. 71 The survival of this spurious genealogy suggests that it
was widely believed; and because it justified the Sasanian claim to lands which they
had never held, no one but they could have invented it.
ARDASHIR’S WESTERN CONQUESTS

It may yet be possible to assess the effect of this fable upon the Roman state. Cas-
sius Dio assures us that the rise of Ardashir was an object of universal fear and
alarm, 72 for Ardashir’s first purpose was to capture Hatra: a forward base from
which to attack the Romans. Trajan and Septimius Severus had failed to take that
independent city, and Ardashir could not subdue it either. But moving northward,
he seized large portions of Media and Gurgan, 73 and despite a reversal in Armenia, 74
Ardashir now threatened the Roman provinces of Mesopotamia and Syria. Here the
stream of Dio’s narrative begins to run dry. But he leaves us with the curious obser-
vation that the chief danger posed by Ardashir was that Roman troops either sur-
rendered to him without a fight or joined the Persian side; and the troops in Meso-
potamia rose up and murdered their commander. 75 Resuming Dio’s narrative, He-
rodian presents a scene of general disorder throughout the Roman east. Letters and
an embassy could not persuade Ardashir to withdraw behind the river Euphrates.
When the Roman state resolved to accomplish by arms what words had failed to
achieve, mutiny spread through the emperor’s expeditionary army, and the forces in
Syria attempted to proclaim a new emperor. 76 It is possible that Sasanian policy not
only exploited these problems, but also exacerbated them.
The emperor and his ministers discovered and suppressed those tumults, but
they could not subdue the Persian king. War was declared in the year 233. The Ro-
man strategy was to divide the military power into three armies, and each was to
attack the enemy respectively by a northern, a middle, and a southern route. The
largest force was to be commanded in person by the emperor; but in the event, Al-
exander shrank from the contest, and entrusted command to another general. This
army was cut in pieces by a more numerous host led in person by Ardashir, and He-
rodian calls the defeat a very great misfortune, the like of which could not easily be
71 For example, see Dinawari, p. 37.

72 Cassius Dio, LXXXb.31. This portion of Dio’s text merits further examination than Mil-
lar’s treatment which amounted to half an octavo page (Millar, F., A Study of Cassius Dio,
1964, p. 171).
73 Dio referes to the latter under the name ‘Parthia’.
74 Cassius Dio, LXXXb.3.3; Moses Chorenatsi II.71–73.
75 Cassius Dio, LXXXb.4.1–2. The commander’s name was Flavius Heracleo. Dio arraigns a
general licentiousness and lack of discipline among the soldiers of the eastern frontier.
76 Herodian VI.4.7. The usurper was called Taurinus, and, according to an uncertain author,
he threw himself into the Euphrates after his insurrection had failed (Epitome de Caesaribus
XXIV.2).
remembered. 77 The fate of the Roman army in the north was decided not by arms
but by the severity of the Armenian winter which killed most of the soldiers and left
many others mutilated. Alexander attempted to unite the wreckage of his three ar-
mies at Antioch, where the Romans prepared to respond to another Iranian attack. 78
But there was no further engagement in this doubtful war.
It may be true that Ardashir’s army suffered greatly when harrying Roman
forces in the north, but it is improbable that Iranian and Roman losses were nearly
equal. 79 Neither side vanquished the other but both contestants announced a victo-
ry. 80 The Roman emperor appeared to have halted, or at least to have delayed, the
westward advance of the Persian king. Ardashir had inflicted a signal humiliation
upon a Roman army. Wresting territory from Rome would come with time, and the
rule of Pabag’s son was secure and the continuation of his dynasty was certain. But
the fate of the Roman emperor was very different. Two years after the Persian war,
Alexander made an ignominious peace with the tribes of Germany, and a conspiracy
led by the strange usurper Maximin ended the emperor’s life and reign, and extin-
guished the Severan dynasty. 81
THE CONSOLIDATION OF ARDASHIR’S CONQUESTS

AND THE END OF HIS REIGN
The death of Alexander Severus in the year 235 was the occasion for Ardashir to
renew warfare in the west. 82 Iranian forces swiftly reduced several Mesopotamian
fortresses and among these were the important cities of Nisibis, Carrhae, and Hatra.
Ardashir had already carried Iranian arms southward to the shores of eastern Arabia,
and he possessed the port of Charax Spasinou upon the estuary of the Euphrates
and the Tigris at the Persian Gulf. These conquests degraded Roman prestige and
confirmed Iranian command of the maritime trading routes from India to the Per-
sian Gulf and overland to the caravan junction at Hatra. Iranian possession of that
important city, which had been accomplished perhaps by subterfuge, was achieved
in the year 240: the last year of Ardashir’s life and reign. 83
77 μεγίστη τε αὕτη συμφορὰ καὶ οὐ ῥᾳδίως μνημονευθεῖσα (Herodian VI.6.6). Despite this
claim, Herodian’s description of the Persian tactics and Roman failure recalls the defeat of
Crassus.
78 Herodian VI.6.3–4.
79 But this is what Herodian claims (Herodian VI.6.6.).
80 For a brief summary of the Roman propaganda linked with this conflict, see Dignas, B. /
Winter, E., Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity, p. 74–77.

81 Herodian VI.8.4; VII.1.2.
82 Dignas, B. / Winter, E., Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity, p. 19–21.
83 For a modern view of the taking of Hatra see Hauser, S. R., “Where is the Man of Hadr,”
p. 119–139.
ARDASHIR’S EXPANSION EASTWARD

The first westward thrust of the Huns had expelled the Tocharians from the border-
lands of China, and the consequences of that migration had nearly destroyed the
Parthian state. Central Asia was overrun, and the last vestiges of Hellenism and the
relics of Alexander’s empire were buried in the sands of Bactria. In the second cen-
tury before our era, the Tocharians were a federation of five nations; and when they
had transposed themselves across the river Oxus, a new state arose under the lead-
ership of one of their constituent peoples. 84 The Kushans had founded their capital
at Kapisi to the north of modern Kabul in Afghanistan, and an interesting amalgam
of Inner Asian, Indian, and Hellenistic forms adorned an impressive city which
commanded the southern foothills of the Hindukush. With time, the Kushan king-
dom extended between the two great rivers Oxus and Ganges. A vast system of ca-
nals and irrigation works covered the great floodplains of the Zarafshan Valley and
the lower Oxus. 85 Terraced fields, tunnels, and aqueducts which improved the yield
of agriculture evince a complex and centralised state. Kushan coins imitated those of
the Romans and of the Greek kings of Bactria, whose dominions they had inherited,
and this uniform and stable currency was a great boon to foreign trade. 86 It was the
fate of the Kushans to be the royal patrons of the Buddhist religion under the mon-
archy of Kanishka. But the Kushan kingdom was absorbed insensibly within the
growing power of the Sasanian dynasty, the nomadic world of Inner Asia, and the
Gupta empire of northern India.
Tabari asserts that a Kushan king submitted himself to Ardashir toward the
end of the latter’s reign, 87 but the military or diplomatic operations which preceded
this are obscure. 88 The Sasanian portion of the ancient Kushan state was placed un-
der the authority of a viceroy who bore the title of Kushanshah; 89 and with time his
84 Rezakhani, K., ReOrienting the Sasanians, p. 49–71; Liu, X., “Migration and Settlement of the
Yuezhi-Kushan: Interaction and Interdependence of Nomadic and Sedentary Societies,”
Journal of World History, vol. 12, no. 2, 2001, p. 261–292. For more general discussions, see
Liu, X., The Silk Road in World History, 2010, p. 42–61; Thorley, J., “The Roman Empire and
the Kushans,” Greece & Rome, vol. 26, no. 2, 1979, p. 181–190; and Baldev, K., The Early
Kushans, 1973, p. 14–41. For the Kushans and nomadism, see Grenet, F., “The Nomadic
Element in the Kushan Empire (1st–3rd Century AD),” Journal of Central Eurasian Studies, vol.
3, 2012, p. 1–22.
85 Mukhamedjanov, A. R., “Economy and Social System in Central Asia in the Kushan Age,”
in History of civilizations of Central Asia Vol. 2 The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations:
700 B.C. to A.D. 250, 1999, p. 265–273.
86 Mukhamedjanov, A. R., “Economy and Social System in Central Asia,” p. 285–288.
87 Tabari, v. 2, p. 41.
88 Carter, M. L., “A Numismatic Reconstruction of Kushano-Sasanian History,” Museum
Notes (American Numismatic Society), vol. 30, 1985, p. 216–218.

89 The first mention of this title is in the Paikuli inscription of about the year 293 (Paikuli
Inscription, p. 52); see also Agathias, Historiae, IV.27. For a modern authority, see de la
dominions became a buffer between Iran and the nomads of the steppe. 90 Iranian
might impressed itself gently upon the peoples whom the Kushans had ruled: coins
minted by the Kushanshahs amalgamated the symbols of Zoroastrian, Inner Asian,
and Indian religions; and a vague titulature 91 appealing alike to the peoples of Bactria
and Gandhara implied the necessity of maintaining the favour of a heterogeneous
population until the migration of the Huns out of Inner Asia extinguished the
Kushan state in the middle of the fourth century.
The eastward expansion of Iranian might was assisted by the distraction of the
nomads of the Asiatic steppe. For many centuries the Huns had been the great no-
madic power in that vast region. In the early second century before our era, the col-
lapse of the Qin dynasty, gave way to the rule of the Han whose seventh emperor
Wu inaugurated a policy of offensive warfare which drove the Huns from the Chi-
nese border and which opened the west to Chinese expansion. 92 After the lapse of
nearly two centuries, internal feuds and the military efforts of the Chinese succeeded
in dividing the Huns into a northern and southern kingdom. Soon we shall follow
the destiny of the southern Huns, who were pleased to ally themselves with the Han
and to settle within the borders of China; but the northern Huns were crushed and
subjugated by the very peoples whom they had dominated. In about the middle of
the first century, a confederacy known to the Chinese as the Xianbei triumphed up-
on the degraded remnants of the northern Huns, and renewed the nomadic cause
against the sedentary Chinese. 93 A series of conflicts in the north preoccupied the
arms of the Xianbei and those of the Han until that famous dynasty succumbed to
civil war in the year 220. The three mutually hostile states which arose upon the ru-
ins of the Han monarchy might have been easy prey to the Xianbei. But the generals
of the Wei, Shu, and Wu, and the Jin who succeeded them, resisted all incursions
from the steppe throughout the third century, and no great movement of peoples
was to issue from Inner Asia again until the middle of the fourth century. 94
Vaissière, E., “Kushanshahs, i. History,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2016 online edition. Obviously,
the establishment of this power occurred at some point in or after the reign of Ardashir I,
but the precise dates and even the order in which Kushanshahs reigned are doubtful
(Schindel, N., “Kushanshahs ii. Kushano-Sasanian Coinage,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2016,
online edition).
90 Rezakhani, K., ReOrienting the Sasanians, p. 72–86.
91 Carter, M. L., “A Numismatic Reconstruction of Kushano-Sasanian History,” Museum
Notes (American Numismatic Society), vol. 30, 1985, p. 215–281.

92 Beckwith, C., Empires of the Silk Road, 2011, p. 86–88; Barfield, T., The Perilous Frontier, p.
51–59.
93 I am summarising the detailed exposition in Holcombe, C., “The Xianbei Chinese Histo-
ry,” Early Medieval China, 2013, p. 1–38, which is the fullest treatment of the subject available
in English.
94 For more detail, see Barfield, T., The Perilous Frontier, p. 85–97; and Grousset, R., The Em-
pire of the Steppes, 1971, p. 53–54.

It is a curious fact that the disintegration of the Han, the defeat of the northern
Huns, and the ascendancy of the Xianbei coincide with the rise of the House of Sa-
san. Though the appearance of the new Iranian dynasty cannot of been caused by the
political and military condition of Inner Asia, the House of Sasan surely benefited
from the preoccupations of the nomadic world which assured a stable frontier in
eastern Iran throughout the second century. That region remained calm until the
migration of the southern Huns set in motion the vast movement of peoples which
nearly overwhelmed the two great powers in the third and fourth centuries.
THE CHARACTER AND LEGACY OF ARDASHIR

The first Sasanian king must have been a man of extraordinary energy and confi-
dence, and one who possessed a talent for persuasion. Although it is easier to per-
turb a foreign enemy that to arouse and maintain domestic support, Ardashir was a
master of both. He understood Roman anxieties and he exploited Roman imperial
propaganda to his own advantage. Ardashir had convinced an influential portion of
the Parthian nobility that he was fit to restore the dignity of Iran and to implement a
policy of western warfare. But he maintained the confidence of that nobility despite
his failure to achieve the conquest of Hatra in his first Roman war, and he rallied
support for a renewed attack after the death of Alexander Severus. Ardashir’s vision
of an Iranian revival was convincing and he made others believe in it. The author of
the Letter of Tansar, a document of the sixth century, remarks that Ardashir was
‘more richly endowed with virtues than the ancients and…his custom is better than
the customs of old’. 95 If this does not commemorate public opinion in Ardashir’s
time, it must represent the manner in which Ardashir wished to appear.
The political revolution instigated by Ardashir achieved a singular transfor-
mation of the Iranian state. The flexible and loose system of Parthian rule gave way
to the might of a central power under the dominion of the House of Sasan. A uni-
form issue of coins, whose purity remained consistent throughout the rule of Sasa-
nid family, replaced the heterogeneous currencies of the Near East. 96 The use of
administrative seals issued from a central authority, the regulation of market places,
irrigation works on a gigantic scale, and the investment in military infrastructure –
95The Letter of Tansar, p. 36–40.

96 See the arguments in Howard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanian State: The Evidence of Coinage
and Military Construction,” Journal of Ancient History, 2(2), 2014, p. 144–181. Those argu-
ments are based on: Alram, M. / Gyselen, R., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum, Band I, 2003, p.
76–77; p. 81–84; p. 162–167; p. 268–271; Alram, M. / Gyselen, R., Sylloge Nummorum Sasani-
darum, Band II, 2012, p. 88–92; p. 98–102; Schindel, N., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum, Band
III/1, 2004, p. 17; p. 55–58; p. 103–11; p. 197–209; and Blet-Lemarquand, M. (with Gyselen,
R. / Gordus, A. A.), “La question récurrente de la raison d’être de ’pd sur le monnayage de
Khusrō II (590–628): Étude préliminaire” in Gyselen, R. (ed.), Sources pour l’histoire et la géogra-
phie du monde iranien (224–710), 2009, p. 41–58.
these policies announce a potent central government. 97 The writing of the Middle
Persian language involved a complex system of ideograms and phonetic transcrip-
tion of Iranian words in Aramaic letters. The Achaemenid bureaucracy had be-
queathed the use of that Semitic alphabet, and its adaptation to an Indo-Iranian lan-
guage had evolved slowly. But only a policy of enforcement could have preserved
that system of writing and the use of ideograms, and only a central authority could
have trained a class of scribes and bureaucrats in the rigours of that cumbrous script
and in the use of a language which was written but not pronounced. 98 The nature of
the evidence permits only such general observations as I have made. But that no
other dynasty ever supplanted the descendants of Ardashir attests alike the effect of
those centralising policies and the potency of Sasanian efforts to maintain an organ-
ised system of dynastic power.
A large state devoted to warfare must have a strong base of resources and taxa-
tion. Ardashir’s aim to control and exploit Mesopotamia shows that he understood
this important principle. Since the fourth millennium before our era, the arts of irri-
gation had transformed the fertile alluvium of Mesopotamia into a rich and popu-
lous centre of agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing. 99 The cities of Mesopota-
mia had grown in size, density, and wealth; and the merchants of Mesopotamia and
Khuzestan had established contacts overland to Asia Minor and Central Asia and
southwards to the Indian Ocean and the western coast of India. Sasanian control
over this region assured a large base of taxation and an immense yield of agriculture
to pay and to feed the army. Ardashir rightly foresaw the importance of these ad-
vantages, took possession of them, and passed them on to his son and successor.
Even after the extinction of the Sasanid line, Mesopotamia remained the centre of a
great empire.
Ardashir’s capital was founded in the vicinity of Ctesiphon, where the Arsacid
kings had made their winter palace. The form of an irregular circle was imposed up-
97 Jackson Bonner, M. R., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 137–138; Frankopan, P.,
Silk Roads, p. 23; Howard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanian State, p. 148–157; Howard-Johnston,
J., “The Late Sasanian Army” in Bernheimer, T / Silverstein, A. (eds), Late Antiquity: Eastern
Perspectives, 2012, p. 93–108; Gyselen, R., La Géographie administrative de l’empire sassanide: les
témoignages sigilographiques, 1989; Rahimi-Laridjani, Die Entwicklung der Bewässerungslandwirtschaft
im Iran bis in Sasanidisch-frühislamische Zeit, 1988; Taffazoli, A., “List of Trades and Crafts in
the Sasanian Period,” in Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran 7, 1974, p. 192–196.
98 Jackson Bonner, M. R., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 138 with note 844.
99 Adams, R. McC., Heartland of Cities: Surveys of Ancient Settlement and Land Use on the Central
Floodplain of the Euphrates, 1981, p. 200–214; Adams, R. McC., “Agriculture and Urban Life in
Early South-Western Iran,” in Caldwell, J. R. (ed.) New Roads to Yesterday, 1966, p. 436–465;
Adams, R. McC., The Land Behind Baghdad: A History of Settlement in the Diyala Plain, 1965, p.
69–83. I owe these references to Mr James Howard-Johnston, my former supervisor.
on the ancient settlement known in the Aramaic language as Coche. 100 Veh Ardashir
covered slightly more than seventeen-thousand acres, and its formidable circuit wall
attained a height of thirty-two feet. The fortifications of Ardashir’s capital included a
gigantic citadel, called Garondagan in the Middle Persian language, large towers pro-
ceeding from the circuit wall, and a network of trenches and moats. 101 Rectangular
blocks of irregular size divided the city, and large streets whose breadth was twenty-
three feet, diminished into a network of alleys and passages. We may imagine a
dense agglomeration of houses constructed of mud bricks surrounding regions in
which the shops of tradesmen of all kinds were arranged indiscriminately, and open
markets flanked the main streets 102 – an obvious contrast with the more orderly and
rectilinear form of ancient Seleucia nearby.
We should not be surprised to find that the character of Ardashir is represent-
ed in the art which commemorates his reign. A gigantic frieze carved into the side of
a mountain near Firuzabad in Persia is Ardashir’s first monument to himself. 103 The
leader who commissioned this image had no care for the depiction of individual
characteristics: only armour, insignia, and weapons distinguish the combatants.
Three pairs of warriors confront one another on the field of battle. At the centre of
this frieze the first Sasanian king holds a gigantic lance by means of which Artaban
and his horse are arrested in the midst of a gallop and suspended in the air. The sce-
ne is stiff and lifeless, and attest a mind satisfied by the crude imitation of older
forms on a colossal scale.
THE ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION

Two carvings of Ardashir’s investiture announce that king’s belief in the divine
sanction of his rule, as well as his pretentions to equality with the supreme god. The
first scene of Ardashir’s investiture is also at Firuzabad in a gorge a few hundred
yards from the image of Artaban’s defeat. 104 Ardashir and the god Ahura Mazda are
of equal size, beholding one another face to face. The king receives from the hand
of the god a large ring – an Achaemenid symbol of royal and divine power. 105 Ar-
dashir is attended by three small figures which may represent advisers or perhaps
100 Simpson, St J., “Sasanian Cities: Archaeological Perspectives on the Urban Economy and
Built Environment of an Empire,” in Sauer, E. (ed.), Sasanian Persia: Between Rome and the
Steppes of Eurasia, 2017, p. 25–27.
101 Simpson, St J., “Sasanian Cities,” p. 33. But it is possible that the moats were added later.
102 Simpson, St J., “Sasanian Cities,” p. 40–41.
103 Ghirshman, R., Iran: Parthes et Sassanides, 1962, p. 125–130.
104 Ghirshman, R., Iran: Parthes et Sassanides, p. 131.
105 This ring is of ancient Mesopotamian origin, and it came to be associated with the
Achaemenid dynasty, notably on the tomb of Darius at Naqsh-e Rostam (Root, M. C., The
King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art: Essays on the Creation of an Iconography of Empire, 1979, p.
173–174).
leaders of noble families who supported the new king. A more impressive, and
somewhat more lifelike, relief at Naqsh-e Rostam also depicts the investiture of Ar-
dashir. 106 The king and the god appear at the same gigantic size, and the image of
one seems to reflect that of the other, as though in a mirror. They are seated upon
two stout and impossibly small horses, and Ardashir reaches out to receive the royal
ring from the hand of Ahura Mazda. The hooves of their steeds are raised above the
heads of their prostrate enemies: the last Arsacid king and the evil god Angra
Mainyu. A figure holding a wand, or perhaps a fly-whisk, stands behind Ardashir.
The left hand of Ahura Mazda clutches a rod of power, or perhaps the barsom twigs
essential to Zoroastrian ritual, and Ardashir raises the first finger of his left hand in a
gesture of devotion and humility. An inscription below the image, repeated in three
languages, says: ‘this is the image of his Mazda-worshipping majesty Ardashir, king
of kings of Iran, whose descent is from the gods, the son of his majesty king
Pabag’. 107
Although a philosophical mind would reject Ardashir’s absurd claim to divine
lineage, it must be acknowledged that Ardashir understood the political use of reli-
gion. He is reputed to have revived and purified the Zoroastrian faith, to have de-
termined the canon of its scriptures, and to have established it as the ideology of an
empire. 108 What did Ardashir himself believe in? The question cannot be properly
answered. The Zoroastrian religion, like that of the pagan Romans or the modern
Hindus, expressed itself variously throughout the Iranian word. The surviving relics
of its scriptures are mutilated and incomplete. Though we know that much is miss-
ing, we may only guess at what has vanished, and many a regional variation must
remain forever obscure; and so I may describe only those beliefs which were proba-
bly held by all Zoroastrians. 109
The religious system endorsed by Ardashir belonged properly to a primitive
age, for the teachings of Zoroaster had been imposed upon the ancient Indo-
110
Iranian religion. An assembly of gods reminiscent of the Vedic, the Norse, and the
Olympian pantheons, a ritual and symbolism of fire, the cult of the soma, rites of
purification employing animal urine, funerary customs, and a peculiar cosmology
106 An impressive recent photograph of this relief appears as figure 6 in Grenet, F., La Geste
d’Ardashir fils de Pâbag, p. 14–15.
107 Back, M., Die Sassanidischen Staatsinschriften, p. 281.
108 Daryaee, T., Sasanian Persia, p. 69–71.
109 Cf. Crone, P., The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism,
2012, p. 317–320.
110 Cf. Keytenbroek, P. G., “How Pious Was Shapur I? Religion, Church and Propaganda
under the Early Sasanians,” in Sarkhosh Curtis, V. / Stewart, S. (eds), The Sasanian Era: The
Idea of Iran, v. III, 2008, p. 13–14.
formed the common heritage of the Indian and Iranian peoples. 111 Such customs
and beliefs bespeak the culture and habits of nomads before the great migration
which populated the Indian subcontinent and the plateau of Iran in the very remote
past. Many centuries later, a vision appeared to a priest of the old religion, and he
began to expound a doctrine of the primaeval unity of a single divine being. 112
In the beginning, as Zoroaster explained, there had been but one benevolent
deity, the Wise Lord, or Ahura Mazda in the Avestan language. But the prophet also
postulated the existence of an evil counterpart, or twin, to the Supreme Being, and
he called him the Malign Spirit, or Angra Mainyu. Upon the meeting of these two
uncreated antithetical gods, both life and its opposite appeared; and the Wise Lord
ordained that the followers of the Lie should be condemned to a base existence, but
that righteousness and other bounties were the recompense of those who followed
the Truth. 113 Here we have the lineaments of a doctrine of a constant struggle be-
tween the forces of good and those of evil, and the obligation of mankind to partic-
ipate on the side of Ahura Mazda. The prophet reimagined the divinities of the In-
do-Iranian pantheon as the first creations of the Wise Lord. 114 The seven Bounteous
Immortals, lesser divinities who were also worthy of adoration, 115 and other beings,
who might be compared to angels or tutelar divinities, were brought into existence
to assist the Wise Lord in the struggle against the evil principle. 116 These divine
helpers aided Ahura Mazda’s creation of the world, and all good things that are in it.
In the natural processes of time, the revolutions of night and day, summer and
winter, life and death, Zoroaster beheld evidence of a great battle. The purpose of
this struggle was to restore the original condition of the universe when Ahura Maz-
da and his assistants had created it. Zoroastrian holy writ foresees eternal bliss for
the good within the House of Ahura Mazda, and the wicked shall dwell in misery in
the House of the Lie until the end of the world, 117 a consummation ushered in by
the successive appearance of three saviours.
These saviours, called Ukhshyaterta, Ukhshyatnemah, and Astwaterta, are the
sons of three virgins who bathed in a mysterious lake in which the seed of Zoroaster
111 Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, 1976, p. 3–177; Gnoli, G., “Indo-
Iranian Religion,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XIII, fasc. 1, 2012, p. 97–100.
112 Rose, J., Zoroastrianism: An Introduction, 2011; Skjærvø, P. O., An Introduction to Zoroastrian-
ism, 2005; Boyce, Zoroastrians, p. 181–191; 192–228.

113 Yasna, XXX: 3–5.
114 Some of these divinities emerge more clearly than others from the darkness of religions
speculation. Mithra and Anahita were, respectively, the god of the sun and the goddess of
fertility, and were rather prominent.
115 Bundahishn, I.53. There is an excellent and succinct description of the Bounteous Immor-
tals in Skjærvø, P. O., An Introduction to Zoroastrianism, 2005, p. 16–17.

116 Boyce, Zoroastrians, 1976, p. 196; Shaked, S., “The Notions Menog and Getig in the Pah-
lavi Texts and Their Relation to Eschatology,” Acta Orientalia, vol. 33, 1971, p. 70–72.
117 Videvdad, XIX; Bundahishn, XXX; Menoy Khrad, II.
had been preserved. 118 The sacrifices performed by each saviour would renew the
pristine condition of the world for a period of one thousand years. The age of
Ukhshyaterta had terminated in harsh rain and a vehement winter which annihilated
nearly all mankind; that of Ukhshyatnemah issued in the escape of the gigantic
dragon Azdahag; and Astwaterta, as it was foretold, shall lead the final battle against
the forces of Angra Mainyu. Astwaterta shall raise the dead, and every good and evil
deed shall then be revealed. All evil men shall be tortured for three days and nights
in the House of the Lie, the dragon Gochihr shall fall to the ground and burn the
whole earth, and a river of molten metal shall form mankind’s final ordeal. 119 For
the good the passage through that river shall be without pain or discomfort, but it
shall be a purifying agony for the wicked. A final sacrifice, performed by Zoroaster
and the ancient, mythical king Gushtasp, shall achieve the final restoration of the
world, the final defeat of the Lie, and the abolition of death. 120 The annual celebra-
tion of the Now Ruz, the Zoroastrian New Year, was observed at the spring equinox,
and it prefigured the total renewal of the world. That festival, which has survived
the triumph of Islam, remains a symbol not of the common belief, but the national
unity, of the Iranian people. 121
The hymns composed by Zoroaster suggest that he belonged to a sedentary
society in north-eastern Iran, 122 but the imagery which he employs is derived from
the pastoral life of the Asiatic steppe and is rooted in the deep past. 123 The prophet
called his homeland the Abode of the Aryans, or Airyanem Vaejo as it is written in
the Avesta. 124 In the opinion of the prophet, this was the centre of the world and
the origin of political order. The confrontation between Ahura Mazda and the forc-
es of evil expressed the primary meaning of the universe; and in that contest the
Aryan people was to be the Wise Lord’s most potent ally. A signal achievement of
Zoroaster’s religion was its assimilation of the ancient Iranian priesthood, the Magi,
to a new spiritual system; and the religion was similarly the strongest, and perhaps
the oldest, mystical support for the Iranian monarchy. Achaemenid inscriptions
118 I am following Shaked, S., “Eschatology i. In Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrian Influence,”

in Encylopaedia Iranica, vol. VIII, fasc. 6, 2012, p. 565–569 and Boyce, Zoroastrians, 1976, p.
229–246.
119 Bundahishn, XXX.17; the image of molden metal is vaguely adumbrated in the more an-
cient Yasnas, 30.7; 32.7; and 51.9.

120 Yasht, XIX.
121 Crone, P., Nativist Prophets, p. 378.
122 Malandra, W., “Zoroaster ii General Survey” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2009. On the mean-
ing of the word ‘Aryan’, see Bailey, H. W., “Arya” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. II, fasc. 7,
1987, p. 681–683.
123 Boyce, Zoroastrians, 1976, p. 3–21.
124 Videvdad, p. 3; Skjaervo, P., “The Avesta as Source for the Early History of the Iranians,”
in Erdosy, G., The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity,
1995, p. 164.
proclaim the Wise Lord as the tutelar deity of the Iranian monarch, and the enemies
of the king are servants of the Lie. 125 But, though the cosmological speculation of
the prophet might hold significance for all mankind, the metaphysical system which
he established was the exclusive religion of the Iranian people. 126
The faith of Zoroaster was at once a national, a religious, and a political identity.
So potent was the force of that identity that it had survived the Macedonian con-
quest of Iran, and was revived with new vehemence under the House of Sasan. 127 In
recollection of the mythical Aryan homeland, the dominion of Ardashir was called
Eran Shahr, the empire of Iran, and it was to be the continuation of the rule of the
legendary kings of the world who held sway from the Abode of the Aryans. 128 The
House of Sasan ruled Iran for nearly four centuries until the metaphysical system
attributed to a priest of Bactria gave way to the incantations of a merchant of Mec-
ca. The political order established by Ardashir was the last empire of Iran. So close
was the attachment between the religion and the dynasty that the two were buried in
a common grave. Yet the vision of an empire governed by a single ruler and one
religion outlived both Ardashir and his dynasty; and was imitated and improved by
the successors to Constantine and Muhammad. 129
125 Kent, R. G., Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon, 1950, p. 117–119; 129–131.
126 Shaked, S., “Human Identity and Classes of People in the Pahlavi Books,” in Cereti, C. G.
(ed.), Iranian Identity in the Course of History: Proceedings of the Conference Held in Rome, 21–24 Sep-
tember 2005, 2010, p. 332; Shaked, S., “Religion in the Late Sasanian Period: Eran, Aneran,
and Other Religious Designations,” in Sarkosh Curtis, V. / Stewart, S. (eds), The Sasanian
Era, vol. 3 of The Idea of Iran, 2008, p. 106; 109; Crone, P. / Cook, M., Hagarism: The Making
of the Islamic World, Cambridge, 1977, p. 41–42.
127 Crone, P., Nativist Prophets, p. 375–385; Crone, P. / Cook, M., Hagarism, 1977, p. 43.
128 Gnoli, G., The Idea of Iran: an Essay on its Origin, 1989.
129 Cf. Hoyland, R., “Early Islam as a Late Antique Religion,” in Johnson, S. F. (ed.), The Ox-
ford Handbook of Late Antiquity, 2012, p. 1053–1077.

III. FROM SHAPUR I TO SHAPUR II
THE BEGINNING OF SHAPUR I’S REIGN

The birth and youth of Ardashir’s son and successor fall under the same shadow
that obscured the origins of the Sasanid dynasty. Shapur was not the natural son of
Ardashir, but rather his adopted heir born to an unknown man, and the mother of
Shapur was none other than the daughter of the last Arsacid monarch. When the
House of Arshak was overthrown, Ardashir took many prisoners and one of these
was a royal daughter who was with child. Ardashir had commanded his chief priest
to execute this captive, but he could not bring himself to kill a pregnant woman. By
some mysterious means, the hierophant concealed the Parthian princess, who in
time gave birth to Shapur whom she raised for seven years. The chief priest revealed
the identity of the child, and Ardashir adopted him as his son and heir. This is the
strange account presented in the Karnamag, 1 and if it is not wholly imaginary, it may
conceal a marriage between Ardashir and an Arsacid princess or perhaps merely a
noble lady connected with the Parthian aristocracy.
An historian might easily surmise that the family of Ardashir appeared more le-
gitimate by virtue of a real or fictive dynastic marriage. But on this topic the monu-
mental inscription, which Shapur himself commissioned, is silent. The second Sasa-
nian king identifies himself as the son of Ardashir and a lady called Mirdod, 2 about
whom nothing is known. The inscription of Shapur neither corroborates nor con-
tradicts the mysterious claims of the Karnamag.
Later narratives of Shapur’s strange origins either reveal the contents of anoth-
er redaction of the Karnamag or later embellishments of its legends. In the history of
Dinawari and the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Ardashir’s anonymous chief priest is re-
placed by a vizier by the name of Abarsam. This vizier hid the pregnant princess and
vouched for the truth of the royal birth by means of a singularly loathsome act.
Abarsam removed his testicles and packed them with salt within a sealed box. The
shrivelled organs were produced when the boy Shapur was revealed and adopted by
1Karnamag, X.13–17.
2Back, M., Die Sassanidischen Staatsinschriften, p. 341. This name is spelt Mirdod in both Parthi-
an and Middle Persian, but ΜΥΡΡΟΔ in Greek.
49
Ardashir. 3 The inscription of Shapur I confirms that a dignitary named Abarsam

served in the court of Ardashir, 4 but there is no independent evidence for the be-
haviour described in the legends of Dinawari and Ferdowsi. It is possible to imagine
that such a story was invented to refute a rumour which associated the child with
Abarsam – otherwise it is hard to know what to make of this bizarre tale.
Many years pass in the life of Shapur before he emerges from the gloom of
mythology and fable. Ardashir and Shapur fought together in the Roman campaign
of the year 240, but the activities of the son in his father’s war are obscure. 5 Shapur’s
participation in the taking of Hatra is preserved in the Arabian legends associated
with the fall of that city. 6 Nadira, daughter of the king of Hatra, is said to have fallen
in love with Shapur, and the prince of Persia returned her affections. A lovers’ con-
spiracy took shape, and the gate of Hatra was opened to the Iranian army by the
perfidious princess. We must assume that Shapur had received at least as rigorous a
training in the art of war as he had acquired in the art of love. The father must have
taken pains to ensure the smooth succession of the son, and the historian Tabari
asserts that Shapur was crowned king in his father’s lifetime. 7
Shapur greatly surpassed his father in the field of war. His first battles drew
him to the shores of the river Oxus and to the mountains of Media, and thence to
the lands of the Gil, the Daylamite, and the Hyrcanian peoples. 8 In the north-east,
Shapur defeated a king by the name of Pahlizag, who may have been of Kushan
descent, and the city of Nishapur was founded near the battlefield. 9 The Syriac
Chronicle of Arbela and the Middle Persian Shahrestaniha-yi Eranshahr, which are the
sources for these conflicts, fail to indicate the cause of them. We may suppose that
the tribes of those distant countries had attempted to assert their independence
from the Sasanid government, perhaps in response to a military levy before war with
Rome. Or perhaps Shapur simply pacified his naturally rebellious frontiers in prepa-
ration for more serious operations. But these small battles hardly foreshadowed the
astonishing wars that followed in the west.
3 Dinawari, p. 45; Ferdowsi, Ardashir, l. 67–72.

5 Dodgeon, M. H. / Lieu, S. N. C., The Roman Frontier and the Persian Wars, p. 23.
6 The legend of the fall, as well as the archaeological evidence for the siege, of Hatra are dis-
cussed thoroughly in Hauser, S. R., “Where is the Man of Hadr, Who Once Built it and
Taxed the land by the Tigris and the Chaboras? On the Significance of the Final Siege of
Hatra,” Dirven, L. (ed.) Hatra: Politics, Culture and Religion Between Parthia and Rome, 2013, p.
119–139.
7 Tabari v. 2, p. 41.
8 Kawerau, P. / Króll, T., The Chronicle of Arbela, 1985, p. 17–18.
9 Shahrestaniha-i Eranshar §15.
III. FROM SHAPUR I TO SHAPUR II 51
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR

The Roman emperor Gordian III had resolved to wrest Hatra from Iranian control,
and in the year 243 he led a Roman army into Mesopotamia. Battle was joined at
Misiche in the following year. Iranian forces were victorious, the Roman army was
disgraced, and Gordian was assassinated. 10 The new emperor was Philip the Arab,
upon whom Shapur forced an ignominious peace treaty which compelled the Ro-
mans to cede to Iran both Mesopotamia and Armenia. 11
The peace was of short duration, for Roman opinion could not long endure
that disgraceful cession of territory. But the cause for renewed conflict is doubtful.
Zonaras (the Byzantine epitomist whose testimony is very late, but founded on good
sources), claims that the emperor Philip broke his treaty with Iran, so that he might
recover what he had been forced to give up. 12 The historian Moses Chorenatsi sug-
gests that Khosrov, the king of Armenia, had requested Roman assistance against
Iran. 13 But, whatever the real or stated causes of warfare, a massive Roman counter-
offensive was planned, and sixty thousand men were put into the field. But in the
year 252 Shapur led the Iranian army deep into Syria and, with a much smaller force,
destroyed the Roman field army where it had mustered at Barbalissus. Antioch,
Zeugma, and Samosata were put to fire and sword, and the Iranian army ravaged the
Syrian countryside – proof, perhaps, that Shapur had not intended, or was unable, to
attach that country to his empire. A third Iranian offensive of the year 260 is one of
the most memorable confrontations in the annals of war. 14 Shapur overran Syria a
second time, devastated Cappadocia, and besieged Edessa; and when Roman and
Iranian forces met in Syria, the Roman emperor suffered the double humiliation of
defeat and captivity.
10 For a modern historiographical discussion of conflict with Gordian, see Edwell, P. M.

Between Rome and Persia: The Middle Euphrates, Mesopotamia, and Palmyra Under Roman Control,
2008, p. 169–172.
11 Σπονδὰς δὲ πρὸς Σαπώρην θέμενος τὸν τῶν Περσῶν βασιλεύοντα, τὸν πρὸς Πέρσας
κατέλυσε πόλεμον, παραχωρήσας ἀυτοῖς Μεσοποταμίας καὶ Ἀρμενίας (Zonaras, XII.19). See
also Banchich, T. / Lane, E. N., The History of Zonaras from Alexander Severus to the death of The-
odosius the Great, 2009, p. 8–11; 46. For a discussion of the controversy surrounding this trea-
ty, see Edwell, P. M. Between Rome and Persia, p.173–181.
12 Μέτ᾽ὀλίγον ἠθέτησε τὰς συνθήκας καὶ τῶν χωρῶν ἐπελάβετο (Zonaras, XII.19).
13 Moses Chorenatsi, II.71.
14 Zosimus, Historia Nova, I.xxxvi–xxxix; Zonaras, XII.23. The chronicler John Malalas men-
tions the legendary resistance of a furious priest of Aphrodite at the city of Emesa. Sampsi-
geramus (that was the priest’s name) lead a small battalion of hierophants against Shapur,
whom they assaulted with slings. The priest was received as an ambassador; and during the
parley, a small stone discharged from an Emesene sling struck Shapur and slew him instantly
(Malalas, Chronographia, XII, p. 296).
The emperor Valerian had hoped that an embassy and an immense quantity of
gold might persuade the Persian king to retire. 15 But the ambassadors were detained
and at length dismissed, and Shapur set out to confront the emperor in person. The
circumstances of Valerian’s capture and the end of his life are alike mysterious. The
historical epitome produced by Zonaras records two possibilities. Valerian was ei-
ther surrounded and taken prisoner outside Edessa, or perhaps he willingly surren-
dered to Shapur when famine beset that city and his men attempted to overthrow
him. In either event, Zonaras assures us that Valerian was treated respectfully by
Shapur; but the Byzantine writer omits not only the lurid fable that Shapur used the
Roman emperor as a mounting block, 16 but also the gruesome legend that the skin
of Valerian was removed from his body, dyed red, stuffed with straw into the hu-
man form, and exhibited in a Persian temple as a memorial to the great victories of
Shapur. The latter tale, reported by Lactantius, seems to have a looser connection
with the truth than with a Christian rhetorician’s hatred of Valerian and the Persian
king’s reputation for cruelty. 17
After the capture of Valerian, Shapur stormed the cities of Antioch, Tarsus,
and Caesarea. The last of these populous cities was betrayed to the Persian king by
one of its inhabitants – not in this case a beautiful princess but rather a physician
who revealed a secret entrance to the city under torture. 18 An enormous number of
persons was taken prisoner, and the army of Shapur proceeded to pillage a great part
of the Roman east. But the Iranian army was halted by the efforts of two generals:
one the Roman prefect named Callistus and the other a man from Palmyra known
as Odeinath. 19 The first attacked Shapur and captured a part of that king’s baggage
train which included the royal harem; and the second harried Iranian forces as they
crossed the Euphrates. The retreat of Shapur put an end to the Romans’ troubles,
and tales of it were embellished. It was said that Shapur had bribed the soldiers of
Edessa, so that the Iranian army might retreat more swiftly, proffering the excuse
that he wished to celebrate a festival in his own home. 20 The historian Agathias
transmits the hideous and incredible detail that Shapur and his baggage train crossed
valleys and gorges only after they had been filled with the corpses of slain captives
15 Petrus Patricius, frag. 9 in Müller, K., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, v. IV., 1851, p. 187.
16 Epitome de Caesaribus, XXIII.6.
17 Lactantius also claims that the stuffed skin of Valerian was always presented by the Persian
to Roman ambassadors, ne nimium viribus suis fiderent cum exuvias capti principis apud deos suos
cernerent (Lactantius, De Mortibus Perecutorum, V). These details were transmitted by a Christian
adviser to Constantine I who took a fiendish delight in relating the deaths of enemies of his
religion. On the fate of Valerian and associated stories, see Reiner, E., “The Reddling of
Valerian,” The Classical Quarterly, New Series, vol. 56, No. 1, 2006, p. 325–329.
18 Zonaras, XII.33.
19 Zosimus, Historia Nova, I.xxxix; Historia Augusta, Valerianus, IV.2–4; Gallienus, III.1–5; Gal-
lienus, X.1–8. For a modern authority, see Potter, D., The Roman Empire at bay, p. 25–259.
20 Petrus Patricius, frag. 11 in Müller, K., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, v. IV., p. 187.
so that the ground reached a more practicable height. 21 But tales of the alliance of
Callistus and Odeinath, as well as rumours of Shapur’s flippancy or cruelty, could
not counterbalance nearly twenty years of Roman humiliation.
The Persian king ensured that his victories would never be forgotten. A relief,
now greatly mutilated, near the city of Bishapur, depicts the investiture of Shapur I.
It was plainly made in imitation of his father’s scene of investiture, but only the low-
er portion of it has survived. The horse of the supreme god and that of the Persian
king face one another; and their respective enemies, Angra Mainyu and Gordian III,
lie dead and rigid below the hooves of their animals. A surprisingly pathetic image
of Philip the Arab between them begs mercy of Shapur. 22 The absence of Valerian
suggests that this relief was made shortly after Shapur’s first Roman war.
A monument to Shapur’s three great victories was inscribed upon a mysterious
Achaemenid tower at Naqsh-e Rostam in Persia. 23 In imitation of the great Achae-
menid inscription at Behistun, Shapur boasted of his ‘most renowned and manly
deeds’ in three languages: Middle Persian, the language of the new dynasty; Parthian,
the language of the former ruling house; and Greek, the common tongue of the civi-
lised world. 24 The principle fault of this inscription is that it appears to conflate
three military campaigns into a single war, but it corroborates and augments the
Roman account. It has been alleged that Shapur claimed to have killed the Roman
emperor Gordian, but the inscription merely asserts, with some ambiguity, that
Gordian ‘was killed’ after the battle at Misiche, not that the king of Iran had slain
him. 25 The inscription speaks with greater clarity elsewhere. Shapur humiliated Phil-
ip the Arab, forcing him to cede Armenia and Mesopotamia and pay five hundred
thousand denarii; he smashed the Roman field army of sixty thousand men at Barbalis-
sus; he captured the emperor Valerian with his very own hands; and he carried off a vast
number of prisoners including senators, the praetorian prefect, and other officers
and soldiers. Later Persian historians claim that Shapur settled these captives in the
city of Gundishapur, and employed them to build a dam across the river Shushtar in
Khuzestan. 26
21 Agathias, Historiae, IV.xxiv.3. This is repeated and embellished in Zonaras XII.23.

22 Ghirshman, R., Parthes et Sassanides, p. 159.
23 Back, M., Die Sassanidischen Staatsinschriften, p. 284–371.
24 The meaning of the Pahlavi and Middle Persian are elucidated by the Greek
ΠΟΛΥΟΝΟΜΑ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΔΡΕΙΟΤΗΤΑ ΕΠΟΙΗΣΑΜΕΝ (Back, M., Die Sassanidischen

Staatsinschriften, p. 327). On the similarities between the inscription of Shapur and that of
Darius I, see Huyse, P., “Les Provinces romaines dans la grande inscription trilingue de
Šābuhr Ier sur la Ka’ba-ye Zardošt,” La Crise de l’empire romain: de Marc Aurèle à Constantin,
2006, p. 312.
25 Back, M., De Sassanidischen Staatsinschriften, p. 292 with note 161. Cf. see Huyse, P., “Les
Provinces romaines,” p. 311–312.

26 Tabari v. 2., p. 47. Dinawari, p. 49. The fate of Valerian is also doubtful in these sources.
Dinawari claims that Valerian was released when the work was complete; Tabari repeats that
The triple victory of Shapur is also commemorated by an enormous relief

carved into the side of a mountain near the city of Bishapur. 27 The Persian king sits
upon a stout and muscular horse which is in the midst of trampling down the body
of a Roman man. This may indicate the emperor Gordian III. Two other Romans
are on either side of the monarch: one appears behind the horse and grasps the
hand of Shapur; the other kneels before him in a pose of self-abasement. Respec-
tively these may depict Valerian and Philip the Arab. The image of a fat child, per-
haps a messenger of the god Ahura Mazda, hovers awkwardly over this strange sce-
ne, and he offers the monarch the ring of power. Another similar relief faces the
image that I have just described. The central picture of this scene repeats the image
of Shapur and his Roman enemies. Both reliefs include asymmetrical rows of
mounted knights and courtiers adopting respectful, but mannered, poses around the
image of the king. The artist had plainly intended to depict an orderly military aris-
tocracy and the loyal retinue of nobles populating the Persian court; and his work
imitates the Achaemenid reliefs of Persepolis. The impression may be compared to
the effect of the carvings on Trajan’s column, 28 for it was executed perhaps by Ro-
man prisoners. But the reliefs of Shapur display neither individual characteristics,
nor movement. Shapur commissioned another relief of himself humiliating Philip
the Arab and Valerian, and he had it engraved upon the tomb of Darius at Naqsh-e
Rostam. 29 This represents Shapur’s bold claim to equality with the Achaemenid dyn-
asty.
THE FATE OF ARMENIA

The Roman emperor Trajan’s brief annexation of Armenia would have terminated
the settlement ratified by Nero and Walagash and reduced that country to a Roman
province. The royal house of Armenia, a branch of the Arsacid family, might soon
have acquired Roman citizenship and a senatorian rank. But this fate was averted by
the emperor Hadrian’s retrocession of Trajan’s conquests. Shapur I achieved for
himself precisely the opposite of what Trajan had wanted. 30 The terms which
Shapur had settled with Philip the Arab began the process of attaching Armenia to
the empire of Iran. Though Philip had attempted to regain what he had ceded to
Shapur, he failed; and the Armenian king Khosrov, without Roman protection, was
left to face the full force of Sasanian arms and diplomacy. After Shapur’s victory
over Gordian III, Khosrov was murdered, and his young son Tirdat followed him
tradition and adds two different stories to the effect that Shapur either cut off Valerian’s
nose or killed him. The dam is called to this day Caesar’s Dam. There is an interesting pic-
ture of this dam in Ghirshman, R., Parthes et Sassanides, p. 137.
27 Ghirshman, R., Parthes et Sassanides, p. 153–158.
28 Ghirshman, R., Parthes et Sassanides, p. 158.
29 Ghirshman, R., Parthes et Sassanides, p. 160–161.
30 I am following Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia, p. 32–34.
on the Armenian throne, but he was forced to flee to Rome when Shapur annexed
Armenia after his second Roman war of the year 252. 31 Thereafter, Armenia became
a province of the Iranian empire, and Shapur installed as governor his son and heir
Hurmazd-Ardashir. 32
SHAPUR’S LATER REIGN AND THE RISE OF PALMYRA

Shapur was a magnificent soldier, but he lacked his father’s political acumen. When
the Roman orient trembled at the name of the Persian king, Shapur gave the title of
emperor to a Roman citizen who called himself Cyriades. 33 The Augustan History ac-
cuses this man of murdering his father, harsh cruelty, and the height of excess, and
he is said to have betrayed Antioch to Iranian forces. 34 Shapur rewarded him with a
hollow title and a meaningless designation, but despite this unusual achievement
Cyriades amounted to nothing and was killed either by the treachery of his followers
or by the Persian king. 35 Whatever the truth about this strange man, the elevation of
Cyriades seems to be Shapur’s only recorded attempt to press his advantage against
Rome after his victory over Valerian.
The fate of the Roman east had been decided by an Arab of Palmyra. Odeinath
had expelled Shapur from the Levant, and had reclaimed all that Shapur had con-
quered. He had even advanced to the vicinity of Ctesiphon. 36 The victories of
Odeinath transformed a merchant into a hero and his wife into a queen. Zenobia,
who was descended from the Macedonian kings of Egypt, administered Palmyra
with firmness and confidence; and the grateful emperor Gallienus acknowledged her
husband as a colleague, and bestowed upon him the title of imperator. 37 Odeinath was
assassinated mysteriously, and Zenobia and her son Wahb-Allat inherited and ruled
an empire which extended from the river Euphrates to the border of Bithynia and
31 Agathangelos, I.23–36; Moses Chorenatsi, II.76–78; Zonaras, XII.21.

32 The title of the governor was Great King of Armenia (Back, M., Die Sassanidischen
Staatsinschriften, p. 332).
33 Historia Augusta, Triginta Tyranni, II; Ammianus, XXIII.v.3; Malalas, Chronographia, XII, p.
295. Ammianus calls this traitor Mariades, a more Semitic version of the same name. Edwell
provides a succinct discussion of the strange career of Mariades (Edwell, P. M. Between Rome
and Persia, p. 182–184), and Hartmann has prepared a punctilious historiographical analysis
of the life and times of ‘Mareades’, as he calls him (Hartmann, U., “Mareades – ein sasa-
nidischer Quisling?,” Wiesehöfer, J. / Huyse, P., Ērān ud Anērān: Studien zu den Beziehungen
zwischen dem Sasanidenreich und der Mittelmeerwelt, 2006, p. 105–142).
34 Parricidium et aspera tyrannis et summa luxuria (Historia Augusta, Triginta Tyranni, II).
35 Contrast Ammianus, XXIII.v.3 with Malalas, Chronographia XII.
36 Zosimus, Historia Nova, I.39.
37 For modern, and sceptical, opinion on Zenobia and her husband, see Burgersdijk, D.,
“Zenobia’s Biography in the Historia Augusta,” Talanta XXXVI–XXXVII, 2004–2005, p.

139–151 and de Blois, L., “Odaenathus and the Roman-Persian War of 252–264 A.D.,” Ta-
lanta, vol. VI, 1975, p. 7–21.
southward into the fertile lands of Egypt. 38 The son of Zenobia gave himself the
title of Augustus, and the boy and his mother asserted their independence from
Rome. But the empire of Zenobia crumbled before the advance of the emperor Au-
relian until her authority was confined within the walls of Palmyra. The besieged
queen and her companions held out in the hope that the enemy’s provisions would
be exhausted. But the persistence of the Romans compelled Zenobia to flee to Iran.
She was conveyed out of her city upon a camel, but was intercepted as she crossed
the Euphrates and was taken to Rome. 39 It was at about this moment in the year 272
that Shapur I died.
The little city of Palmyra had grown from an important commercial centre into
the foremost power between Rome and Iran. 40 This development was seen, at least
by the emperor Aurelian, as a great benefit to his empire. 41 That ephemeral state
would have been the only bulwark against another Sasanian invasion; and while
Palmyra stood between the two great powers, Shapur made no further attempt to
prosecute war with Rome. The capture of Valerian was merely the latest in a long
procession of calamities which had assailed the Roman state. Over the course of the
third century of our era, warfare, pestilence, famine, seditions, usurpations, and mili-
tary anarchy had conspired for the ruin of the Mediterranean world. 42 If Shapur had
crossed the Euphrates a fourth time, he might have destroyed his western antago-
nist. In her last moments as queen, Zenobia rightly assumed that the empire of Iran
was a natural ally against their mutual enemy. Shapur never seems to have held a
reciprocal opinion, and his double failure to press his advantage against Rome and
to ally himself with Palmyra presents a surprising problem. It is impossible to see
what obstacle stood in the way of those two obvious strategies. As his health de-
clined, and as his life drew to an end, Shapur may have calculated that a policy of
mutual toleration with Rome was better for his young dynasty, as did later kings, but
this fails to explain why he gave no support to the Palmyrene empire. If we cannot
38 Zosimus, Historia Nova, I.xliv.1–2; Historia Augusta, Divus Claudius, XI.i–ii, Probus, IX.v.
39 Zosimus, Historia Nova, I.lv.1; Historia Augusta, Aurelianus, XXII–XXVIII.
40 Zuchowska, M., “Palmyra and the Far Eastern Trade,” Studia Palmyrenskie: Fifty Years of
Polish Excavations in Palmyra 1959–2009, 2013, p. 381–387; Millar, F., “Caravan Cities: The
Roman Near East and Long-Distance Trade by Land,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Stud-
ies, v. 42, Issue S71, 1998, p. 119–137; Howard-Johnston, J., “The Two Great Powers,” p.
188–189.
41 Historia Augusta, Triginta Tyranni, XXX.4–12; especially XXX.6: possum dicere illius esse quod
Odaenathus Persas vicit ac fugato Sapore Ctesiphonta usque pervenit.

42 Potter, D. S., The Roman Empire at Bay, p. 211–290; Corcoran, S., “Before Constantine” in
Lenski, N. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, 2006, p. 35–39; Williams, S.,
Diocletian and the Roman Recovery, 1985, p. 15–23; Millar, F. et al., The Roman Empire and Its
Neighbours, 1967, p. 239–248.
blame Shapur’s lack of political sense, can we infer some domestic distraction or the
insecurity of a distant frontier? 43
THE SUCCESSORS TO SHAPUR I

AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN MANI AND KIRDER
The twenty-one years that elapsed between the death of Shapur and the accession of
Narseh were wasted in a futile contest for the soul of Iran. An itinerant prophet of a
new spirituality and a Zoroastrian priest competed for power and influence at the
Sasanian court and throughout the lands ruled by the Persian king. That two reli-
gious antagonists sought to persuade members of the royal house, without recourse
to powerful aristocrats or local potentates, suggests that an organised system of dy-
nastic power, and a strong central government, were firmly established after the
reign of Ardashir. But this vain struggle accuses the weakness of royal power and
reveals the triumph of bigotry and priestcraft under the sons of Shapur.
Mani 44 was descended from two Parthian aristocratic families. His father, a no-
bleman by the name of Patik, frequented a shrine where mysterious voices com-
pelled him to abstain from food, from wine, and from the society of women. The
father had introduced the son to this obscure gnostic cult, but the son converted his
parents to a new religion. A celestial messenger, whom Manichaean tradition calls
The Twin, appeared to Mani and summoned him to the office and duties of a
prophet. The Twin was a heavenly double of Mani, identical with the Holy Ghost,
who bestowed upon his terrestrial counterpart all knowledge of the past and of fu-
turity. His first instruction was to abandon his father’s religion. At the end of the
reign of Ardashir, Mani carried his new faith to India where it was improved by the
influence of the Buddhist religion. The death of Ardashir and the accession of
Shapur recalled Mani to Iran. The prophet’s first great victory was over Shapur’s
brother Peroz, and this eager proselyte ensured a favourable reception at the Sasanid
court. Shapur granted Mani the privilege of spreading his religion throughout the
empire of Iran.
Kirder 45 was an ambitious Zoroastrian priest who exerted an ever greater influ-
ence upon the Sasanian court. He had been encouraged, as it seems, by the new
43 Cf. Widengren, G., Mani and Manichaeism, 1965, p. 5. Widengren assumed such an insecuri-
ty but without precision or detail.
44 My reconstruction of the life and career of Mani follows Gardner, I. / Lieu, S. N. C., Man-
ichaean Texts from the Roman Empire, 2004, p. 3–8 and Widengren, G., Mani and Manichaeism, p.
23–42. The primary sources for the life of Mani are translated and set forth in Gardner, I. /
Lieu, S. N. C., Manichaean Texts, p. 46–108.
45 I follow Gignoux, P., “L’inscription de Kartir à Sar Mašhad,” Journal Asiatique CCLVI,
1960, p. 387–417 and Kreyenbroek, P. G., “How Pious Was Shapur I? Religion, Church and
Propaganda under the Early Sasanians,” in Sarkosh Curtis, V. / Stewart, S. (eds), The Sasanian
dynasty’s preference for his religion, and he oversaw its diffusion throughout the
lands which Shapur had conquered. In imitation of his rival Mani, he claimed to
have a spiritual counterpart which transmitted to his earthly eye visions of heaven
and hell. 46 This fanatic claimed that Shapur had placed in his charge the religious
affairs of the empire, and that he had empowered him to administer various pious
foundations. Under Shapur’s successors, Kirder commissioned a monumental in-
scription which appeared to usurp royal prerogative, boasting that he had greatly
multiplied the rituals of Zoroastrianism throughout Iran; that many public fire tem-
ples had been established; that he had sealed their charters; that he had enriched the
Zoroastrian clergy; that he had promoted and multiplied the consanguineous mar-
riages favoured by the Magi; that he had punished heretics who had refused to ad-
here to Zoroastrian orthopraxy; and that he had tormented the votaries of every
other sect and religion.
It is said that these two men accompanied Shapur on his western campaigns. 47
If this be true, it can only be because Shapur had refused to take a side in a contest
which had not yet attained its full vehemence. The prospect of a warrior king listen-
ing with equanimity to the hostile speculations of a soothsayer and a bigot is too
difficult to credit; and we may rather suppose that Shapur did not know what those
two men preached, or did not care. 48 Hurmazd-Ardashir succeeded Shapur, and he
appears to have maintained his father’s indifference. His experience as governor of
Armenia might have prepared him for a long and stable reign, but he sat upon the
Sasanid throne for only a single year, during which he built a city in Khuzestan, 49
and perhaps also the royal residence called Dastgard about sixty miles north-east of
Ctesiphon. 50 Hurmazd-Ardashir was replaced by Bahram I who terminated his pre-
decessors’ indifference to the contest between Mani and Kirder.
The brief reign of the first Bahram was commemorated by a monumental relief
at Bishapur in imitation of those of Ardashir and Shapur I. The king Bahram’s re-
ception of the ring of power from the deity Ahura Mazda takes shape amidst har-
Era: The Idea of Iran, v. III, 2008, p. 10, and Dignas, B. / Winter, E., Rome and Persia in Late
Antiquity, 2007, p. 215.
46 For a comparison and analysis of the two visions, see Dilley, P., “’Hell Exists and We
Have Seen the Place Where it is’: Rapture and Religious Competition in Sasanian Iran,” in
Gardner, I. et al. (eds.), Mani at the Court of the Persian Kings, 2015, p. 214–224.
47 Alexander Lycopolitanus, §II (see also Gardner, I. / Lieu, S. N. C., Manichaean Texts, p.
116); Gignoux, P., “L’inscription de Kartir à Sar Mašhad,” Journal Asiatique CCLVI, 1960, p.
387–417.
48 Kreyenbroek, P. G., “How Pious Was Shapur I? Religion, Church and Propaganda under
the Early Sasanians,” The Sasanian Era, 2008, p. 7–15.

49 Agathias, Historiae, IV.xxiv.5; Shahbazi, S., “Bahrām I,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, III/5, pp.
514–522.
50 Hamza Isfahani, p. 49.
monious proportions and pleasing balance. 51 This is perhaps the finest example of
Sasanid rock sculpture, or at least a noteworthy improvement upon the stiff distor-
tions of an earlier time.
The power of Kirder had grown, and he prevailed upon Bahram to arrest, ar-
raign, and murder Mani. Kirder and his associates prepared a syllabus of Mani’s reli-
gious crimes, and a hearing was convened. The Sasanian king shared Kirder’s spirit
of fanaticism and was insensible to Mani’s pleas for mercy. The prophet was
weighed down by heavy chains and cast into prison. He perished not long thereafter
– a victory for Kirder and his fellow priests. Mani may have been beheaded; or per-
haps, as later sources allege, he was flayed alive, his skin was stuffed with straw, and
his lifeless form was displayed above the gate of Gundishapur. 52
The career of Kirder seems to offer some insight into the religious policy of
the Iranian government. Official and hieratic opinion ignored the ancient variety of
Zoroastrian belief and practice; and it was believed that the long interval between
the fall of the Achaemenid monarchy and the appearance of Ardashir had corrupted
the primitive unity of the Zoroastrian religion. An ancient uniformity of ritual and
doctrine, as it was said, had been shattered into innumerable regional varieties.
There was no supreme king, no chief priest; and doubtful faiths, pernicious heresies,
unbelief, and various laws had multiplied amidst popular confusion and competition
amongst antithetical hieratic schools. 53 Such was the condition of the religion of
Zoroaster, whose basic tenets I have already described, when Ardashir overthrew
the last Parthian king. The various principalities and kingdoms of the Arsacids fell
under the sway of the new monarch and his descendants, but the great variety of
belief could never be made uniform, and the Sasanian state could impose only con-
formity of ritual and orthopraxy. 54 This was Kirder’s purpose, and he was perhaps
inspired by a great sense of urgency as the doctrines of Judaism and Christianity
were solidified and diffused throughout Iran. 55 Though Kirder boasted of torment-
ing other sectaries, and though he vanquished his rival Mani, his will was not to de-
stroy all other religions but to compel them to augment their practices with the rites
due to the sun, the moon, fire, water, and all the divinities honoured by the Iranian
people. Those who had been subjected to such compulsion must have responded
with anger and resentment, even if they had agreed to conform. But Kirder and the
Sasanian government must have believed that they had demanded nothing more
than loyalty to the empire of Iran. 56
51 Schmidt, E. F., Persepolis III: The Royal Tombs and Other Monuments, 1970, p. 129.
52 Tabari, v.2, p. 54.
53 Arda Viraz Namag, I:8–15.
54 Crone, P., Nativist Prophets, p. 379–384.
55 BeDuhn, J., “Mani and the Crystallization of the Concept of ‘Religion’ in Third Century
Iran,” in Gardner, I. et al. (eds.), Mani at the Court of the Persian Kings, 2015, p. 247–307.
56 This is the force of the arguments in Payne, R., A State of Mixture, 2015.
THE REIGN OF BAHRAM II

The Sasanid monarchy grew weak and unstable, as Kirder reached the height of his
power under Bahram II who succeeded in the year 274. 57 This king regarded his
high priest as his benefactor and mentor upon whom he bestowed a title, 58 a noble
rank, and the position of custodian of the temple at Anahita at Istakhr. The histori-
an Tabari’s claim that the mysterious Sasan had had charge of that temple may rep-
resent a later Sasanian justification for wresting it from the Magian priesthood. But
if the Sasanid dynasty had claimed a hereditary right to that shrine from the begin-
ning, Kirder’s authority over it may announce the weakness of the royal power. Up-
rising and civil war proceeded under the shadow of the religious tyranny of Kirder.
A rebellion led by Hurmazd, the governor of Sakastan, attracted nomads and fron-
tier peoples, and greatly disturbed the Iranian state. 59 Bahram II maintained his
throne: a notice in the history of Agathias suggests that Bahram II crushed the re-
bellion launched from Sakastan where the king installed his homonymous son as
governor. 60
THE REVENGE OF ROME

The calamities of civil strife left Iran open to a Roman invasion. The emperor Pro-
bus had meditated an expedition in the year 282, but he was murdered by his sol-
diers before he could lead them to war. His successor accomplished what Probus
had planned. Carus broke off hostilities with the people of Sarmatia and proceeded
without opposition to Mesopotamia. An oracle had declared that an ill fate awaited
the man that would seize the Persian capital, and Roman writers allege that Carus
captured Ctesiphon, but could advance no further because he was struck by light-
ning while encamped upon the Tigris. 61 This story may have been invented to con-
ceal some form of disgrace or mutiny, or perhaps to excuse the soldiers’ fear of ad-
vancing deeper into Iran. Numerian, Carus’ successor, was proclaimed emperor: he
abandoned Ctesiphon, and vacated Mesopotamia without even suing for peace. It
appears that Bahram II recovered Mesopotamia and his capital somehow, but he
57 Little has been written about this obscure king (Shahbazi, S. “Bahrām II,” Encyclopaedia
Iranica, III/5, p. 514–522.
58 The title was bokht ruwan i Warahran, which could be construed as ‘saviour of Bahram’s
soul’, or ‘whose soul was saved by Bahram’ (Skjærvø, P., “Kartir,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica,
online edition, 2011).
59 Ipsos Persas ipsumque regem adscitis Sacis et Rufiis et Gelis petit frater Ormies nec respicit vel pro maies-
tate quasi regem vel pro pietate quasi fratrem (Panegyrici Latini, III.xvii.2). The name Ormies is
plainly a corruption of Hurmazd.
60 Agathias, Historiae, IV.24.6–7.
61 Liber de Caesaribus, XXXVIII.ii–iv; Festus, Breviarium, XXIV.vi–xi; Historia Augusta, Carus,
VII.i, VIII.i–ix.
failed to restore the dignity of Iran. For nearly twenty years thereafter Iran wavered
between warfare and diplomatic engagement with Rome.
THE IGNOMINIOUS REIGN OF NARSEH

In the year 290 the Roman emperor Diocletian exploited lingering Sasanian weak-
ness to negotiate the return of a portion of Armenia to a ruler of Arsacid descent.
Not long thereafter, king Tirdat returned to power in Armenia. 62 Bahram II required
peace on his western frontier and was willing to pay a high price for it, and this is
surely a sign of some grave internal trouble. When Bahram II died, a nobleman
known as Wahnam seized the opportunity to put the young Bahram III 63 upon the
throne. But a rival faction of nobles approached Narseh, and persuaded him to take
the throne for himself. He raised the standard of revolt at a place called Paikuli
where he later erected a monumental inscription. 64 Narseh also tampered with the
investiture scene of Bahram I: he substituted his own name for that of his predeces-
sor, and added the image of a fallen enemy beneath the hooves of the king’s horse. 65
Narseh invaded Mesopotamia, killed Wahnam and his creature Bahram, and ruled in
his stead. Narseh terminated his inscription with the phrase ‘Caesar and the Romans
were grateful, peaceable, and friendly to me’. 66
There is some truth to those words. The Roman state was about to undergo
the ambitious reforms of Diocletian which issued in a great expansion of the appa-
ratus of government. After three centuries, the administration of Augustus was ob-
solete, and it was the firm resolve of Diocletian to dismantle and to replace that sys-
tem. The imperial office was to be shared amongst two senior and two junior col-
leagues, a division of the civil and the military powers was rigorously enforced,
provinces were divided into smaller units, and the number of officials and function-
aries multiplied. 67 A heterogeneous mass of local systems of taxation was replaced
by a single tax policy and a single system of fiscal measures. 68 A stable and quiet
62 Agathangelos, I.45–47; Moses Chorenatsi, II.82; Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia, p. 33.
63 This unfortunate man sat upon the throne for only four months (Klíma, O., “Bahrām
III,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, III/5, p. 514–522).
64 Paikuli Inscription.
65 Herrmann, G., The Sasanian Rock Relief at Bishapur, pt. 2, 1981, p. 19–20; Schmidt, E.
F., Persepolis III: The Royal Tombs and Other Monuments, 1970, p. 129 with note 71.
66 Paikuli Inscription, p. 51
67 Lo Cascio, E., “The New State of Diocletian and Constantine from the Tetrarchy to the
Reunification of the Empire,” in Bowman, A. K. / Garnsey, P. / Cameron, A. (eds), The

Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 12, The Crisis of Empire A. D. 19–331, 2005, p. 170–183; Wil-
liams, S., Diocletian and the Roman Recovery, p. 102–114. More generally, see Corcoran, S., The
Empire of the Tetrarchs: Imperial Pronouncements and Government A.D. 284–324, 2000 and Barnes,
T. D., The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine, 1982.
68 Bransbourg, G., “The Later Roman Empire,” in Monson, A. / Scheidel, W. (eds.), Fiscal
Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States, 2015, p. 258–281; Bowman, A. K., “Diocle-
eastern frontier would have assisted this enormous venture which was only com-
pleted in the reign of Constantine I.
But the peace was of short duration. Narseh declared war upon Rome in the
year 296, the very year in which Constantius Chlorus had launched his fleet for the
invasion of Britain. The Persian king had hoped to profit from a general disorder in
the Roman world, and his pretext for war was Roman encroachment upon the Ira-
nian border. 69 Diocletian’s meddling in Armenia and the construction of an impos-
ing Roman fortress in Osrhoene must have been received with alarm. The strong-
hold of Circesium was built at the junction of the rivers Khabur and Euphrates, the
easternmost point of the Roman frontier with Iran. 70 It was both an observation
post to guard against a Sasanid invasion of Syria and a forward base from which to
attack Iran. We can assume that Narseh, the former Persian governor of Armenia,
was understandably enraged by his late king’s abandonment of that country. But the
Roman fortifications in Osrhoene were perhaps equally annoying and more danger-
ous.
In the year 297, the armies of Narseh and Galerius met somewhere between
Callinicum and Carrhae. An early Iranian victory appeared to recover the prestige of
the Sasanian dynasty, but in the following year the same antagonists met at Satala in
Armenia and the Iranian host was humiliated. Galerius stormed into the Persian
camp and put Narseh to flight. 71 Lactantius, who commemorated this event, notes
that the Persian king was aggravated and immobilised by a numerous train of fol-
lowers which included his own family and harem, as well as a great mass of baggage.
The chronicler John Malalas adds the interesting detail that the Persian queen, and
presumably many other royal relatives, were captured and taken to Daphne on the
Orontes. 72 Roman propaganda remembered this triumph in coins and medals struck
in the year 298, Diocletian and his associates adopted epithets of victory, and Galer-
ius erected a monumental arch in Thessalonica which appropriated the Iranian im-
age of two equestrian warriors confronting one another in combat. 73
tian and the First Tetrachy, A. D. 294–305” in Bowman, A. K. / Garnsey, P. / Cameron, A.

(eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 12, The Crisis of Empire A. D. 19–331, 2000, p. 6–89;
Carrié, J. M., “Dioclétien et la fiscalité,” Antiquité tardive 2, 1994, p. 34–64.
69 Eutropius, IX.22.1. Other similar notices are set forth in Dodgeon, M. H. / Lieu, S. N. C.
The Roman Frontier and the Persian Wars AD 226–363, 1991, p. 124–125.
70 Ammianus, XXIII.v.1; Procopius, Pellum Persicum, II.5.2–3; Procopius, Aedificia, II.6.1–2.
Wiesehöfer, J., “Circesium,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. V, Fasc. 6, 1991, p. 595–596.

71 Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum, IX.5–8.
72 John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 308.
73 See the pictures and the analysis in Dignas, B. / Winter, E., Rome and Persia in Late Antiqui-
ty, p. 85–88. The epithets of victory are Persicus maximus II, Armenicus maximus, Medicus maxi-
mus, Adiabenicus maximus. It is possible that this triumphal arch was a response to Shapur I’s
monumental reliefs.
THE PEACE TREATY OF 298

Though Galerius appeared to acknowledge Narseh as an opponent of equal rank
with himself, the Romans foisted an ignominious peace settlement upon Iran. The
treaty, called the Treaty of Nisibis, was signed in year 298. 74 The masters of the Ro-
man world had empowered an obscure secretary to deliver a peace accord. 75 The
Persian ambassador presents a surprising contrast. He was a glib aristocrat who was
a very close friend of the king, who spoke with a combination of allegory and insin-
uation. These interesting differences may tell us much about the two great empires:
the reforms of Diocletian favoured an immense and inscrutable bureaucracy; and
the extreme conservatism of the Sasanids ensured that all important posts would be
held by noble relatives and friends of the king.
Afarban (that was the name of the Persian ambassador) declared the Sasanian
view of Iran’s relationship with Rome:
‘It is obvious to all mankind that the Roman and Persian realms are as it were two
lamps; and like eyes, one must be adorned by the radiance of the other, and they
must not strive for one another’s destruction. For this is not considered a virtue,
but rather levity or weakness’. 76
The wording of this declaration may have been influenced by the rhetoric of a later
time, for Peter the Patrician recorded his history in the age of Justinian. 77 But the
doctrine of equality, however it was expressed, was surely a policy which the Sasa-
nian court was prepared to assert in a time of weakness. Afarban appeared to seek
only the release of his king’s family, and was prepared to make many concessions.
He flattered Roman vanity by praising Galerius and by referring the niceties of the
peace settlement to the emperor Diocletian alone. But the Persian ambassador also
reminded the Caesar of the mutability of human affairs, by which he implied that
the present Roman victory might soon be overturned. This remark excited the rage
of Galerius, who interrupted in a trembling voice:
‘How well you preserved the measure of victory in Valerian’s case, when you de-
ceived him with tricks, took him captive and did not release him, until extreme
old age and his shameful end, when you, after his death, preserved his skin by
74 Petrus Patricius, frag. 13–14 in Müller, K., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, v. IV., 1851, p.
188–189; Dignas, B. / Winter, E., Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity, p. 122–130; Potter, D. S.,
The Roman Empire at Bay, p. 285–290.
75 The Roman ambassador is otherwise unknown (Banchich, P. / Banchich, T., The Lost His-
tory of Peter the Patrician, 2015, p. 135).

76 Petrus Patricius, frag. 13 (my translation) in Müller, K., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, v.
IV., 1851, p. 188–189; cf. Banchich, P. / Banchich, T., The Lost History of Peter the Patrician, p.
133.
77 Maksymiuk, K., “The Two Eyes of the Earth: The Problem of Respect in Sasanid-Roman
Relations,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 58, 2018, p. 250.

some loathsome technique and thereby afflicted the mortal body with immortal
offense’. 78
The capture of Valerian was still a great irritant to the Romans, or at least to Galeri-
us, and it is possible that Narseh feared some signal outrage upon his family as a
token of revenge. But the royal prisoners were released unharmed in accordance
with Roman custom. The Persian ambassador’s lesson on the vicissitudes of fortune
had failed to persuade Galerius and his senior colleague. Afarban’s first utterance
had been more convincing. Diocletian could not assail the Iranian right to an em-
pire, nor impugn its equality with his own, but the formal treaty which followed this
meeting was mostly to Rome’s advantage.
Sicorius Probus, who bore the strange title of Master of the Memory, was the
Roman ambassador. 79 He met the Sasanid king somewhere in Media and presented
a treaty which guaranteed Roman control of the three main routes from Mesopota-
mia into southern Armenia. Iran was to surrender five provinces: Ingilene,
Sophanene, Arzanene, Corduene, and Zabdicene. Diocletian left those small lands
under the rule of local aristocrats – a policy calculated to establish buffer states be-
tween Rome and Iran at a tender spot along the frontier between Mesopotamia and
Armenia. But influence over these lands gave Rome control over the approach to
the Tigris river through the anti-Taurus mountain range, as well as access to the
Bitlis Pass, and mastery of the great plain of Tur-ʿAbdin. Rome now dominated the
easiest routes northward from Mesopotamia into Armenia: an area which the Ro-
mans promptly fortified. It would be impossible for an Iranian army to move
through that region unobserved.
Two other provisions were involved in this treaty. The Master of the Memory
stipulated that Iberia was to become a Roman protectorate, 80 and that Nisibis was to
be established as a place of trade between the two empires. The first provision was
another Roman encroachment which put Iran at a strategic disadvantage, but
Narseh was in no position to refuse. The second stipulation would have proved
most ineffectual and foolish along a porous frontier, and Narseh rejected it. The
Master of the Memory replied in the language that we would expect from a bureau-
78 Petrus Patricius, frag. 13 (my translation) in Müller, K., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, v.
IV., 1851, p. 188–189; cf. Banchich, P. / Banchich, T., The Lost History of Peter the Patrician, p.
134.
79 ἀντιγραφεὺς τῆς μνήμης or magister memoriae (Petrus Patricius, frag. 14 in Müller, K., Frag-
menta Historicorum Graecorum, v. IV., 1851, p. 189); Banchich, P. / Banchich, T., The Lost Histo-
ry of Peter the Patrician, p. 134–136.
80 The provision was τὸν…Ἰβηρίας βασιλέα τῆς οἰκείας βασιλείας τὰ σύμβολα ῾Ρωμαίοις
ὀφείλειν (Petrus Patricius, frag. 14 in Müller, K., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, v. IV.,
1851, p. 189). This appears to be the same settlement, mutatis mutandis, which was made for
Armenia under Nero.
crat: ‘concession must be made on this point; the embassy lacks full powers, and
nothing has been enjoined by the emperors about it’. 81
The emperor Diocletian might have congratulated himself on a treaty which
determined his eastern frontier to his own advantage against Iran. But the great
tormenter of Christians could not have foreseen that this settlement would ease the
spread of the religion that he hated and persecuted. 82 The culture of Syriac Christi-
anity now bestrode the river Tigris and soon moved northward. The Armenian king
Tirdat, ousted by a Zoroastrian Persian and restored by a pagan Roman, would be
the first monarch to embrace the Christian religion, and the swift spread of Christi-
anity northward into Iberia was to be a further detriment to Iranian influence in that
troublesome region. 83
THE END OF THE FIRST SASANIAN CENTURY

The dynasty which Ardashir had established had humble beginnings, but it acquired
greater power and importance under the reign of his successor. Shapur I had proved
that a strong Persian leader could inflict humiliating defeat upon Rome and spread
devastation throughout the Roman orient. The second Sasanian king celebrated his
impressive victories by giving himself the grandiose title of ‘King of kings of the
Aryans and non-Aryans’, 84 which represented the king’s rule over lands which he
had wrested from Rome. Not all his successors could rightly claim to wield power
so widely, and Narseh appears not always to have used that appellation. 85 Roman
victories and domestic strife may have convinced many Iranians that the Sasanid
throne might swiftly be overturned, and that not all kings would be as strong as Ar-
dashir and Shapur.
Shapur’s monumental inscription lists the respective dignitaries of his own and
his father’s court. Under the reign of Shapur the number of courtiers had greatly
multiplied itself; and, we must infer, so did that of an immense train of pages, advis-
ers, scribes, assistants, eunuchs, priests, and other functionaries and staff. 86 Shapur
seems even to have enlarged the ranks of the nobility for whimsical and arbitrary
81 Petrus Patricius, frag. 14 in Müller, K., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, v. IV., 1851, p. 189.
82 On the persecution of Christians under Diocletian, see Williams, S., Diocletian and the Ro-
man Recovery, p. 173–185.
83 Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia, p. 34–38; Potter, D., The Roman Empire at Bay, p. 288–
290.
84 This is my translation of Shahanshah i Eran ud An-Eran which appears on Shapur I’s great
inscription (Back, M., Die Sassanidischen Staatsinschriften, p. 284). The Greek version of the
inscription (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΩΝ ΑΡΙΑΝΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΑΡΙΑΝΩΝ) justifies my con-
strual.
85 Certain issues of his coins omit this title (Daryaee, T., Sasanian Persia, p. 13).
86 Daryaee, T., Sasanian Persia, 2009, p. 9–10; Frye, R. N., “Notes on the Early Sassanian State
and Church,” Studi Orientalistici in Onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida, vol. I, 1956, p. 25–46.
reasons. There is an inscription accompanying a monument erected by a Sasanian

scribe by the name of Apasay. The monument which it adorned was a bust of the
king, ‘and when Shapur saw it, he sent Apasay the scribe gold, silver, slaves, girls, a
garden, and lands’. 87 If this is the manner in which Shapur exalted a scribe, he cannot
have hesitated to reward many others of higher or lower rank with similar favours.
No government ever voluntarily reduces its own size, and under the rule of the
feeble successors to Shapur the structure of the state may have enlarged itself many
times. It is probable that rival factions, usurpations, and Kirder’s diffusion of Zoro-
astrian orthopraxy abetted this growth. This vast apparatus might rapidly have en-
gulfed the throne and degraded the king into a mere cipher for its own power. But
the whims of the nobility would be less obnoxious than the tyranny of the clergy. If
Kirder had achieved even a small portion of his claims, a great many people must
have hated him. Narseh seems to have taken the salutary measure of curbing the
power of that priest. The evidence of this is that Narseh sponsored a Manichaean
insurrection in Roman Egypt to the great consternation of the Roman emperor Di-
ocletian. 88 Roman authorities recognised those sectaries as Iranian partisans, and this
presupposes a reconciliation between the House of Sasan and the Manichean sect.
Our sources conceal what concessions the high priest demanded; and what Narseh
may have been prepared to offer to Kirder is likewise obscure.
THE RISE OF SHAPUR II

Of the two immediate successors to Narseh, very little is known. The historian Aga-
thias records that the son of Narseh, Hurmazd II, reigned for seven years. Tabari
adds the vague claim that the rule of Hurmazd began with harshness and severity
and ended with clemency and mildness. 89 We must ask in vain whom this king op-
pressed or persecuted, and for what reason, or perhaps what violent circumstances
attended his accession. A mysterious notice in the Chronicle of Arbela asserts that
Hurmazd plundered many Roman cities in revenge for Diocletian’s persecution of
Christians. 90 This is hard to credit, and the effect of these razzias, in they ever oc-
curred, must have been small; for the peace treaty of 298 endured for forty years.
Adur-Narseh succeeded his father Hurmazd II, and sat upon the throne for a
single year. A fragment attributed to the lost the chronicle of John of Antioch re-
lates the legendary account of the king’s inauspicious childhood which presaged a
87 Back, M., Die Sassanidischen Staatsinschriften, p. 378–383.

88 Widengren, G., Mani and Manichaeism, p. 118–119; cf. Dignas, B. / Winter, E., Rome and
Persia in Late Antiquity, p. 216.
89 Tabari v. 2., p. 54–55.
90 Kawerau, P. / Króll, T., The Chronicle of Arbela, p. 22. For more on this controversial text,
see Jullien, C. / Jullien, F., “La Chronique d’Arbèles. Propositions pour la fin d’une contro-
verse,” Oriens Christianus 85, 2001, p. 41–83 and Fiey, J. M., “Auteur et date de la chronique
d'Arbèles,” L'Orient Syrien 12, 1967, 265–302.
brief reign of cruelty. Hurmazd had procured for Adur-Narseh a tent made from the
hides of Babylonian animals, and the father asked the son whether it pleased him.
‘When I am king,’ said Adur-Narseh, ‘I shall fashion a more beautiful tent from the
skins of men’. 91 It is impossible to know what truth may be represented by this grim
remark, but Adur-Narseh appears to have been hated by a faction of the nobility
and was swiftly replaced by Shapur II.
These scant notices must conceal some internal preoccupation which coincided
with the Romans’ fortification of their eastern border. In the third century of our
era the strength of the Roman frontier had failed, and the ease with which Shapur I
had crossed the Euphrates had permitted him to carry war into the vicinity of popu-
lous cities. This taught the Romans the necessity of transforming their border with
Iran into a system of well-defended points capable of prolonged resistance. 92 A co-
lossal effort established a new strategy of defence in depth, and proceeded in the
long interval of peace that followed the Treaty of Nisibis. Boundary posts, fortress-
es, and military camps arose along the frontier; these were connected by a paved
road called the Street of Diocletian which extended northward from Damascus to
Palmyra and thence to Sura; and an enormous system of military roads, fortresses,
and watch towers originated in the southern extremity of Syria and proceeded
southward to the desert of the Sinai; 93 and Diocletian established armament facto-
ries at Edessa and Damascus with which to supply his armies. 94 Hurmazd and Adur-
Narseh must have been sensible of the danger posed by a fortified and well-
provisioned Roman frontier, and unless we deprive those kings of all political and
military sense, they must have begun fortifying their borders also. 95
The coronation of John I of France is said to have occurred on the same day
on which he was born. 96 John might have been the youngest person ever to have
been made king, but Agathias describes the placement of the royal diadem upon the
91 He said that καλλίονα ταύτης ποιήσει ἐξ ἀνθρωπίνων δερμάτων (Joannes Antiochenus,

frag. 178 in Müller, K., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, v. IV, 1851, p. 605). John of Antioch
was a monk. Zonaras repeats and embellishes this bizarre anecdote (Zonaras, XIII.5.19–24).
92 Edwell, P. M. Between Rome and Persia: The Middle Euphrates, Mesopotamia, and Palmyra Under
Roman Control, 2008, p. 181–182; Williams, S., Diocletian and the Roman Recovery, p. 91–101.
93 Many of Diocletian’s eastern defences are still visible. For examples, see Kennedy, D. /
Riley, D., Rome’s Desert Frontier from the Air, 1990, p. 125–137; 175–176; 179–184; 203–207,
and the accompanying pictures.
94 John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 307–308. Malalas claims that there were three such factories,
but mentions only two. Other sources detailing Diocletian’s fortifications are set forth in
Dodgeon, M. H. / Lieu, S. N. C. The Roman Frontier and the Persian Wars, p. 136–139. See also
Dignas, B. / Winter, E., Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity, p. 31–32. Cf. Howard-Johnston, J.,
“The Two Great Powers,” p. 182–187.
95 Cf. Kennedy, D. / Riley, D., Rome’s Desert Frontier, p. 33.
96 John’s reign, if that is the right word, began at his birth and lasted for five days of the year
1316.
belly of Shapur’s mother. If we can believe this myth, the Persians were the only
people ever to have crowned a foetus. 97 The historian Tabari adds that a faction of
the Sasanid nobility ruled in place of Shapur until he reached a mature age. But the
partisans of Shapur cannot have known the sex of the royal child; and this story
must conceal a struggle associated with a doubtful succession and the growth of
noble power. Shapur’s coronation had been contested by a rival faction which had
supported his two uncles. 98 One, also called Shapur, was blinded; the other, who
was called Hurmazd, was cast into prison, and the faction which supported the em-
bryo king ruled with firmness and stability. In the third year of young Shapur’s life,
an Iranian army raided and destroyed the city of Maximianopolis in Osrhoene. 99
This assault was the Iranian reaction to the Roman suppression of a revolt in Arme-
nia, and we must infer that government continued its customary operations during
the minority of Shapur.
But one noble faction refused to vacate its claim to the throne. Hurmazd had
languished in prison until he effected an escape. The historian Zosimus claims that
the wife of Hurmazd concealed within the body of a fish a file which the prisoner
used to burst his bonds. Several camels laden with food and wine were prepared hy
the mother of Hurmazd and they assured the intoxication, and the slumber, of the
guards. The royal prisoner then fled to the king of Armenia and thence to the court
of the Roman emperor Constantine. 100 A similar tale is found in a fragment attribut-
ed to the history composed by John of Antioch. 101 The mother and the wife of
Hurmazd are said to have won the favour of the guards who watched over their son
and husband. They were admitted to his presence, and they replaced his heavy fet-
ters with lighter chains which, by some contrivance, concealed pearls within them.
The mother of Hurmazd prepared for the guards a soporific meal; and while the
guards slumbered, the royal prisoner escaped his chains by means of a file and fled
on horseback across the Euphrates into the bosom of Rome. The pearls hidden
within the chains of Homizd afforded the fugitive some riches during his flight. Li-
cinius, colleague and rival to the emperor Constantine, is said to have received the
Persian defector with honour. We may infer that a plot was formed to induce the
Roman government to support Hurmazd’s bid for the Sasanid throne; and it is also
likely that the Persian pretender had promised help to Licinius amidst his war with
Constantine. This was about the year 324.
97 Ἀνεῖτον βασιλέα τὸ ἔμβρυον (the whole narrative is found in Agathias, Historiae, IV.25.2–
5).
98 Joannes Antiochenus, frag. 178 in Müller, K., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, v. IV, 1851,
p. 605.
100 Zosimus, Historia Nova, II.27.
101 Joannes Antiochenus, frag. 178 in Müller, K., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, v. IV, 1851,
p. 605.
CONFRONTATION WITH THE ARABS

While the Roman world was convulsed by the contest between Constantine and his
antagonists, the empire of Iran faced a new threat which had arisen in the south.
Some Bedouins of the Arabian desert burst their sandy confines and crossed the
Persian Gulf from the island of Bahrain, and pillaged the district of Ardashir-
Khwarra near Firuzabad in Persia. Later historians assert that Shapur took revenge
upon the Arabs early in his reign, but we can hardly credit the report that the young
king led his troops in person at the age of sixteen. 102 Shapur had determined to pro-
hibit another Bedouin advance so far out of the Arabian interior. He devastated the
southern desert of Iraq and the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf, and he destroyed
wells in those areas. This drove the enemies of Shapur deeper into the Arabian Pen-
insula and established Sasanian control over both shores of the Persian Gulf.
The Sasanian court established a policy of managing Arab affairs. 103 The im-
portance of the city of Hatra and the astonishing transformation of Palmyra from a
nexus of trade into a military power had taught the Sasanid government to respect,
and perhaps to fear, the Arabs of the desert. Recent predations were perhaps more
destructive, and the Sasanid state required stronger defences. The double expedient
of fortifications and a military alliance was the solution upon which the government
of Shapur settled.
I. A large defensive system arose and shut out the Arabian desert from Mesopota-
mia. Yaqut, a writer of the thirteenth century, has left us a description of these forti-
fications. 104 A network of watchtowers was imposed upon the desert and guarded
the approach to the Euphrates; and a regular series of turrets and forts were pro-
tected by an enormous trench which proceeded from the city of Hit and encircled
the area around the modern city of Basra. 105 Smaller forts, such as those discovered
at the sites of Ruda, Ukhaydir, and Qusayr, defended routes of communication be-
tween larger castles and watch towers. 106 These impressive works guarded the west-
ern limit of the alluvial plain of Mesopotamia, where a rise in the height of the land
forbade the penetration of canals further into the desert.
102 Tabari, v. 2, p. 55–56.

103 Howard-Johnston, J., “The Two Great Powers,” p. 188–189; Potts, D. T., The Persian Gulf
in Antiquity: From Alexander the Great to the Coming of Islam, v. II, 1992, p. 228–241.
104 Yaqut, v. II, p. 479; cf. Daryaee, T., “If These Walls Could Speak: The Barrier of Alexan-
der, Wall of Darband, and Other Defensive Moats,” in Pellò, S. (ed.), Borders: Itineraries on the
Edge of Iran, Eurasiatica 5, 2016, p. 81–82.
105 Lawrence, D. / Wilkinson, T. J., “The Northern and Western Borderlands of the Sasanian
Empire: Contextualising the Roman/Byzantine and Sasanian Frontier,” in Sauer, E. (ed.),

Sasanian Persia: Between Rome and the Steppes of Eurasia, 2017, p. 104–106. This study focuses on
the area between Fallujah and Najaf, photographed using high-resolution satellite imagery.
106 Morley, C., “The Arabian Frontier: A Keystone of the Sasanian Empire,” in Sauer, E.
(ed.), Sasanian Persia: Between Rome and the Steppes of Eurasia, 2017, p. 273.
certain ʿAmr king of Lakhm was a vassal and ally of the empire of Iran. 107 We may
II. The monumental inscription at Paikuli, erected by the king Narseh, noticed that a
infer that patronage of that Saracen tribe and arisen before the reign of Shapur II,
but it was that Sasanian king whose favour raised the Lakhm and their capital Hira
to greater importance than ever before. The purpose of this client kingdom was to
police north-eastern Arabia and to keep its tribes quiescent, and it was to be the
outermost layer of Sasanian defense in north-eastern Arabia. A Sasanian nobleman
by the name of Mihrzad was made superintendent of the Lakhmid client kingdom
and overseer of its defences; 108 and to the Lakhmid Arabs Shapur granted dominion
over every other tribe allied to the empire of Iran. This relationship was founded
upon rewards for service to an imperial patron, and it may remind us of the ties be-
tween the Persian king and the noble houses of Armenia. 109 So successful was this
system, that the great western antagonist of Iran established the same form of alli-
ance. The emperor Justinian elevated the Ghassanid Arab Harith to the rank of
king, and his descendants became the main opponents of the Lakhm, 110 but this was
about two centuries after the Iranian example.
With time the Lakhmid capital at Hira became the confluence of the three great reli-
gions of Zoroastrian Iran, Syrian Christianity, and the heathen rites of Arabia. 111 At
Hira a population of learned Christians flourished. Some traditions suggest that a
form of the Arabic alphabet was developed there before it was carried southward to
Mecca, 112 and the scholars of Hira enriched the Arabic language with a great number
of Persian words derived from the administrative, scientific, astrological, and artistic
vocabulary of Iran. 113 When the Sasanid line was extinct, and when the triple culture
107 Paikuli Inscription, p. 71.

108 Shahrestaniha i Eranshahr, §25.
109 Morley, C., “The Arabian Frontier,” p. 273. For this reason, Morley argues in favour of
calling the Saracen clients of Iran ‘Nasrids’, but I have retained the more conventional term
‘Lakhmid’.
110 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xvii.46–48. Morley, C., “The Arabian Frontier,” p. 274.
111 Toral-Niehoff, I., “Late Antique Iran and the Arabs: The Case of al-Hira,” Journal of Per-
sianate Studies 6, 2013, p. 115–126.

112 On the Christian population of Hira, see Toral-Niehoff, I., Al-Ḥīra: Eine arabische Kultur-
2014, Toral-Niehoff, I., “The ʿIbād of al-Ḥīra: An Arab Christian Community in Late An-
metropole im spätantiken Kontext, (Islamic History and Civilization. Studies and Texts 104), Leiden,
tique Iraq,” in A. Neuwirth / Sinai, N. / Marx, M. (eds), The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and
Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu, (Texts and Studies on the Qurʾān 6), Leiden, 2010, p.
323–347, Fisher, G., Between Empires: Arabs, Romans, and Sasanians in Late Antiquity, 2011, p.
64–70, and Trimingham, J. S., Christianity among the Arabs in Pre-Islamic Times, 1979, p. 156–
157; 227.
113 Tafazzoli, A., “Arabic Language ii. Iranian Loanwords in Arabic,” Encyclopaedia Iranica,
vol. II, fasc. 3, 1986, p. 231–233.

of Hira had yielded to the religion of Muhammad, the poets of Baghdad yet extolled
the ruins, and the builders, of the Lakhmid capital:
‘Where are they who built you, Hira the White,
And they who prepared habitations within you;
They who split the earth from the grass,
And made rivers to flow in your clefts;
They who honoured guests when the north wind blew,
And kindled fires?’ 114
THE RENEWAL OF WARFARE WITH ROME

The peace established by the Treaty of Nisibis held until the death of the emperor
Constantine. That Roman prince had meditated a Persian campaign, perhaps at the
instigation of the fugitive Hormazd, but plans for the invasion perished with him.
The settlement of the Treaty of Nisibis had been greatly to Iran’s disadvantage, and
the Sasanian court would not long endure Roman influence over Mesopotamia,
Armenia, and Iberia. This was the principle stimulus to war.
But another cause for war may be discerned. The rise of the emperor Constan-
tine had achieved the public establishment of the Christian religion. That emperor,
and most of his immediate successors, connected the worship of Christ with the
happiness and prosperity of the Roman empire, and perhaps of the entire world. 115
The churchman Eusebius claims to preserve a letter sent by the emperor Constan-
tine to his Persian colleague congratulating him on the presence of Christians within
Iran. ‘May the very best come to you’, wrote Constantine, ‘and at the same time the
best for those Christians, since they also are yours…I entrust them to you, putting
114 al-Sharif al-Radi, Diwan, v. 1, p. 509:

‫ـضاء وا��وطئون منك ا��يارا‬ ‫أ�ن بانوك أ��ا ا��ة ُ البيـ‬
‫ـــــــــب وأ� �ْ�وا ��ل� ا��ارا‬
ِ ‫وا��و�ى شققوا ��اك من العشـ‬
‫ـت �ما�� ً وا��وقدون النارا‬
ْ ‫ا��هيبون بالضيوف إذا هبَّـ‬
This is part of a poem composed by al-Sharif al-Radi who died about the year 1016, and he
is said to have recited it at Hira towards the end of the year 1003 (Talib, A., “Topoi and To-
pography in the Histories of al-Hira,” in P. Wood (ed.), History and Identity in the Late Antique
Near East, 2013, p. 127–128).
115 See the letter of the emperor Constantine to Shapur II, which Eusebius claims to have
translated into Greek. Even if not genuine, it must represent the Roman attitude to the im-
portance of Christianity to good government (Vita Constantini IV.9–13 in Cameron, A. /
Hall, S. G., Eusebius: Life of Constantine, 1999, p. 156–158), but Smith has recently vouched for
its authenticity (Smith, K., Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia: Martyrdom and Religious
Identity in Late Antiquity, 2016, p. 17–32).
their very persons in your hands, because you too are renowned for piety’. 116 This
letter was sent when Shapur was still a young man, perhaps as early as the year
324, 117 and the Sasanid court would have recognised in the words of Constantine a
challenge to the Persian king’s authority over his Christian subjects, and an oblique
threat lest those Persian Christians be mistreated. 118
Were they mistreated? The fifth-century historiographical tradition of the
Church of the East accuses Shapur II of persecuting his Christian subjects, but that
evidence is doubtful. The contemporary Martyrdom of St Simon shows that Christians
were at first oppressed by an increase in taxation, that the humiliated bishop Simon
bar Shabba’e was compelled to enforce this excessive levy, and that some Christians
are said to have found martyrdom for refusing both to collect and to pay taxes. 119
But the Martyrdom of Aqebshma (a somewhat fanciful text of the fifth century) trans-
forms this increase in taxation into a campaign to exterminate every Iranian Chris-
tian. 120 The increase in taxation must have remained a painful memory even when
the Martyrdom of Aqebshma was written, but its exaggerated claims are probably
wrong. Taxes were raised undoubtedly in preparation for warfare; and employing
bishops to collect them may have been a method of integrating Christians within the
Iranian fiscal system – not a means by which to exterminate them. But there was a
persecution. 121 This is confirmed by a letter composed by the Syrian churchman
Afrahat who wrote at the beginning of Shapur’s persecution:
‘I wrote this letter to you, my friend, in the month of Ab, in the year six hundred
and fifty-six of Alexander, the son of Philip of Macedon; the thirty-sixth year of
the reign of Shapur the Persian king, who began the persecution; the fifth year of
116 I have made a paraphrase of Vita Constantini IV.13 in Cameron, A. / Hall, S. G., Eusebius:
Life of Constantine, 1999, p. 158). There is a new translation of the letter in Smith, K., Constan-
tine and the Captive Christians of Persia, p. 181–183.
117 On the date of the letter, see Fowden, E., “Constantine and the Peoples of the Eastern
Frontier” in Lenski, N., The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, 2006, p. 389 and
Frendo, D., “Constantine’s Letter to Shapur II, Its Authenticity, Occasion, and Attendant
Circumstances,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series, vol. 15, 2001, p. 57–69.
118 Frankopan, a modern writer, has also detected a threat in the language of Constantine’s
letter (Frankopan, P., Silk Roads, p. 43).

119 The evidence for this is found in the Martyrdom of St Simon, p. 715–778; for a rigorous and
somewhat sceptical analysis, see Smith, K., Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia, p.
109–124.
120 Martyrdom of Aqebshma, p. 361–362.
121 Contra Payne, R., A State of Mixture, 2015, p. 38–44.
the destruction of churches; the year of the great slaughter of martyrs in the
east’. 122
The moment at which the persecution became violent was about the year 345, and
this coincides with the first phase of Shapur’s Roman war. 123 Before that time, con-
temporary evidence refers only to taxation and the destruction of churches. Afra-
hat’s brief description gives us an idea of the substance of Shapur’s persecution as it
was perceived by a contemporary Christian. But we must look elsewhere for the
reason for it.
We have already observed that the land of Armenia connected the highlands of
Anatolia with those of Iran, and that the two great powers competed for power and
influence in that region. The influence of Iran had always been stronger, and it had
shaped the culture of Armenia, its institutions, and the customs of its aristocracy.
Grand hunts, banquets, and the recitation of courtly poetry imitated Iranian models
and maintained the prestige of the Armenian nobility, whose local supremacy,
whose castles, and whose surnames remind us of European feudalism. 124 Such a
system of regional power and competing prestige was naturally resistant to any high-
er authority; but as long as Armenia remained Iranian, the Persian government had
little cause for concern in the northwest. But in the early fourth century, the Arme-
nian king Tirdat III and some of his nobility embraced the Christian religion. The
new faith was intended perhaps to distinguish the Armenian nation from the two
great powers which surrounded it, but this was a doubtful and ephemeral advantage.
Many, perhaps most, among the Armenian nobility adhered to their ancient cults
and disdained the worship of Christ, which they viewed as a foreign influence and a
divisive religion. 125 Nobles who held this opinion were pleased to make common
cause with Shapur against their Christian compatriots. But when the Roman empire
had adopted the religion of Christ, that state appeared to be a natural ally of Arme-
nian and Iranian Christians alike; and the growth of Christianity appeared to be an
extension of Roman power.
A delegation of Armenian noblemen arrived in Constantinople in the year 336.
Perceiving the threat of Iranian conquest, those Armenians pledged their obedience
to the Roman emperor in expectation of military support against their eastern op-
ponent. The moment of their absence was the occasion for Iranian meddling: the
122 Afrahat, Demonstratio XXIII.69. I note, however, that Smith raises some doubts about the
use of Afrahat’s Demonstrations as evidence Shapur’s persecutions (Smith, K., Constantine and
the Captive Christians of Persia, p. 103–109.
123 See Nöldeke, T., Die Geschichte der Perser, p. 441, note 1.
124 Thomson, R. W. / Howard-Johnston, J. / Greenwood, T., The Armenian History Attributed
to Sebeos, Part II: historical commentary, 1999, p. xii–xiv; Garsoïan, N., “Prolegomena to a
Study of Iranian Aspects in Arsacid Armenia,” in Hande’s Amso’reay 90, 1976, p. 17–234;
Toumanoff, C., Studies in Christian Caucasian History, p. 112–141.
125 Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia, p. 38.
Armenian king Tirdat was blinded and deposed, and Shapur’s brother Narseh as-
cended the vacant throne of Armenia. 126 Tensions between the two powers rose,
and an Iranian embassy of the year 337 failed to halt the emperor’s preparations for
conquest of the east. 127 The end of these plans came suddenly on the twenty-second
of May when Constantine died, and this was the moment for Shapur II to invade
Roman territory through Armenia – the beginning of nearly fifteen years of constant
and doubtful fighting. 128
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR

The war began with clashes at Singara, Eleia, and Constantina. But these produced
no decisive outcome. Nisibis endured three sieges which the historian Festus judged
to be more injurious to the army of Shapur than to the city. 129 According to the
church historian and bishop Theodoret of Cyrrus, Shapur employed every tactic in
order to capture Nisibis. A large army of horse and foot, as well as a great many ele-
phants surrounded the city. Siege engines and towers were constructed, but no at-
tempt to take the city succeeded supposedly because the prayers of a holy man, Ja-
cob of Nisibis, averted the missiles and arrows of the Iranian army. One of these
sieges involved the singular tactic of assaulting Nisibis with a gigantic wave. 130 The
river Mygdonius that runs past that city was dammed behind a vast wall of earth;
and when it was released, the huge force of the water destroyed a portion of the
outer bulwarks of Nisibis. Jacob, bishop of that city, kept morale high as the citizens
laboured to rebuild their defences. The writings of Theodoret notes the seemingly
incredible detail that Shapur beheld Jacob upon the battlements of Nisibis and mis-
took him for the emperor Constantius. Though Shapur was greatly disturbed by
this, the Christian writer claims that a worse calamity befell the Persian king. The
prayers of the holy man raised up a vast cloud of gnats and mosquitoes which as-
sailed the Iranian force: the insects filled the hollow trunks of Shapur’s elephants as
well as the ears and nostrils of other animals, and Shapur’s host fled in confusion.
But the progress of Shapur was retarded less by the prayers of a bishop than by the
demands of nature and the fortifications erected by Diocletian. The vast pool of
water which Shapur had created would have attracted many insects to annoy his
126 Paustos Buzandatsi, III.21. For a modern authority, see Fowden, E., “Constantine and
the Peoples of the Eastern Frontier” in Lenski, N., The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Con-
stantine, 2006, p. 391–392.
127 For the embassy, see John Lydus, De Magistratibus, III.33–34. For Constantine’s elaborate
plans for the conquest of Iran, see Eusebius, Vita Constantini, IV.56–57.
128 Payaslian, S., The History of Armenia, p. 38–39.
129 Ter autem est a Persis obsessa Nisibis: sed maiore suo detrimento, dum obsideret, hostis affectus est (Fes-
tus, Breviarium XXVII). Other, minor sources for these battles are set forth and analysed in
Dodgeon, M. H. / Lieu, S. N. C., The Roman Frontier and the Persian War, p. 165–210.
130 Theodoret, Historia Religiosa, I.11–12; Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, II.30.
troops and the wet earth would have needed some time to dry before the Iranian
army could renew its assault upon the city. It was in this interval that the inhabitants
of Nisibis repaired the walls of their city.
The obstinacy of the Persian king won no important victory, nor did the sys-
tem of Roman defences persuade him to retire altogether. This conflict might have
continued as a war of attrition to the utter exhaustion of the belligerents. But in the
early 350s, Shapur suddenly relinquished the siege of Nisibis, and his armies vacated
Mesopotamia. A very serious threat had imposed itself upon north-eastern Iran, and
Shapur hastened to the relief of that beleaguered frontier.
THE MIGRATION OF THE HUNS

One thousand years before Attila had impressed the Roman people with the terrors
of his name, his ferocious ancestors were already considered enemies of civilisa-
tion. 131 The origin of the Huns 132 was in the high steppe of the Ordos region of In-
ner Mongolia which is surrounded on three sides by the Great Bend of the Yellow
River. Fear of the strange world of the northern barbarian compelled the imagina-
tion of the very ancient Chinese to populate the lands beyond their frontier with
stout, ugly men with the heads of beasts, or the bodies of fish. One-eyed men dwelt
beside others with only a single foot and a single hand. Others lacked bellies or had
hollow eyes. They knew nothing of agriculture. Demons haunted their tenebrous
and ice-ridden abode, from which they only emerged to torment the rich and settled
land to the south like birds of prey. It is only upon the pages of the great historian
Sima Qian, who died about a century before our era, that we meet the first rational
description of the Huns in the literature of China. 133
Sima Qian situates the first certain appearance of the Huns, or at least their dis-
tant ancestors, seven hundred and seventy-one years before our era. Raids launched
from the Ordos region are said to have issued in the destruction of the Zhou capital
at Haojing. Thereafter the Huns spread terror throughout China until the armies of
the first Qin emperor expelled them from the Ordos region. Earlier Chinese king-
doms had attempted to block the advance of the Huns by means of ramparts and
watch towers. The Qin state connected and strengthened those fortifications into a
131 Graff, D. A., The Eurasian Way of War: Military Practice in Seventh-Century China and Byzanti-
um, 2016, p. 153–156.
132 The main authorities which have shaped my thinking on the Huns are: Kim, J., The Huns,
2016, p. 12–16; Kim, H. J., The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe, 2013, p. 17–35; Grousset,
R., The Empire of the Steppes, 1970, p. 19–60; and, to a small extent, Sinor, D., “The Hun Peri-
od,” The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, 1990, p. 177–180.
133 For a learned analysis of the Huns in Chinese historiography, see Di Cosmo, N., Ancient
China and its Enemies, p. 267–293.

vast defensive system, and the Great Wall established a grim boundary between ‘the
men with bows and arrows and those with hats and girdles’. 134
The collapse of the Qin dynasty in the late third century before Christ pro-
ceeded amidst rebellion and factional strife, and the Huns returned to the Ordos
region. The Han state arose upon the ruins of the Qin, and at about the same mo-
ment the leadership of the Hunnish king Modu forced the Han to pay an annual
tribute. In place of generals, the Han sent their daughters into the steppe, and suc-
cessive marriage alliances suggested the parity of two mutually hostile states. 135
Modu led the westward expansion of the Huns into the Tarim Basin, and his con-
quests united nearly all Inner Asia within a single nomadic confederacy. In the sec-
ond century before our era, it was the son of Modu, Laoshang, who crushed the
Tocharians and forced them to flee southwest, where they overthrew the remnants
of Greek civilisation in Bactria and overran Parthian Iran. Hereafter, internal feuds
began to disrupt the Hunnish state; and with time a northern and a southern faction
became permanent distinctions. A series of humiliations inflicted by the armies of
the Han emperor Wu, and assaults by other nomads, deprived the northern Huns of
an empire. The Han occupied the Hexi corridor and seized control of the Taklama-
kan desert and its two perilous, but profitable trade routes. The northern Huns were
then beaten back and confined to the region of the Altai mountains; and the
Xianbei, their former subjects, triumphed over them.
The fortune of the southern Huns was different. In the middle of the first cen-
tury of our era, the leader of the southern Huns was a man by the name of Bi. Bi,
and the eight hordes that he commanded, threw off their allegiance to the supreme
ruler of the northern Huns, and submitted themselves to the Han emperor Guang-
wu. Like the Germanic federates who guarded the outer limits of the Roman em-
pire, the southern Huns were entrusted with the defence of the borders of the Gobi
and the marches of Gansu and Shaanxi, and the son of Bi dwelt as a hostage at Luo-
yang. A century and a half later, when Ardashir I had established himself as sole rul-
er of Iran, the Han state dissolved into three mutually hostile kingdoms. One of
these kingdoms was established by a military dictator known as Cao Cao. Fearing
Hunnish power, he separated that nation into five divisions over which he placed
Chinese superintendents, and he detained the leader of the Hunnish federates within
the Chinese capital at Luoyang. Cao Cao had employed contingents of Huns in his
efforts to reassemble the fragments of the Han empire, but the reunification of Chi-
na was achieved not by the armies of Cao Cao but by the short-lived Jin dynasty.
Towards the end of the third century of our era, civil wars threatened to topple
the Jin empire, and Hunnish federates advanced ever further southward below the
134 Di Cosmo, N., “The Northern Frontier in Pre-Imperial China,” Loewe, M. / Shaugh-
nessy, E. L., The Cambridge history of ancient China: from the origins of civilization to 221 B.C., p.
1999, p. 893.
135 Barfield, T., The Perilous Frontier, p. 45–46.
Great Wall. On a sudden Liu Yuan, a direct descendent of Modu, who dwelt at
Luoyang, declared his independence from the authority of the Jin; and, recalling that
a distant ancestor of his had been a Han princess, Liu Yuan announced himself as
the legitimate continuator of the Han dynasty. His son and successor, Liu Cong,
triumphed over Jin China in the year 311 and again in 316. The capitals of Luoyang
and Chang’an were successively delivered to fire and sword, and two Jin emperors
were taken prisoner and forced to serve their Hunnish masters as cupbearers before
their ignominious executions. 136 It is yet possible to sense the mood of that grim
time; for, in a personal letter which yet survives, a Sogdian merchant resident in
China lamented the total destruction of Luoyang, the occupation of Chang’an, and
the horrors of famine which had spread throughout China. 137
Dynastic squabbling within the Hunnish state was followed by Chinese re-
venge. In the year 350 the general Ran Min seized power and commanded the mur-
der of all foreigners within China: his purpose was to destroy the Huns and their
allies, but it is said that anyone with a high nose and a full beard was murdered. The
severed heads of slain barbarians were exchanged for rewards, and in this manner
many tens of thousands of foreigners perished in a promiscuous massacre. In the
end two hundred thousand corpses arose outside the walls of the imperial capital
where they were devoured by jackals, wolves, and wild dogs. 138
Organised migration followed organised slaughter. A modern scientific study
has proven that, in the middle of the fourth century, the region of the Altai had be-
come uninhabitable by reason of a fall in temperature and a shortage of pasturelands
for Hunnish livestock. 139 The southern Huns, who were to put a vast distance be-
tween themselves and the turbulent state of China, could not follow their northern
cousins to the Altai. They moved to the southwest, perhaps following the same
route which the Tocharians had used nearly half a millennium earlier, and they ap-
peared upon the eastern borders of Iran when the army of Shapur was engaged in
136 Barfield, T., The Perilous Frontier, p. 101–103. A member of the Jin imperial family and his
court relinquished northern China to the barbarians and fled to Jiankang, near the modern
site of Nanjing, where a second Jin dynasty was established in the year 317. This memorable
development has been compared with the establishment of Constantine’s capital at Byzanti-
um (Grousset, R., The Empire of the Steppes, p. 56–57).
137 See the evidence of Sogdian Ancient Letter II in Livšic, V. A., “Sogian Ancient Letters (II,
IV, V),” Scrinium, vol. 5, Issue 1, 2009, p. 344–352, and the analysis of de la Vaissière, É.,
Histoire des Marchands Sogdiens, 2002, p. 48–51.
138 Kim, H. J., The Huns, 2016, p. 30. The evidence for this can be found in the Jin Shu which
I cannot read (for a summary of it, see Graff, D. A., Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300–900, 2002,
p. 62–63).
139 Schlütz, F. / Lemkuhl, F., “Climatic change in the Russian Altai, southern Siberia, based
on palynological and geomorphological results, with implications for climatic teleconnec-

tions and human history since the middle Holocene,” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany,
2007, p. 101–118.
that doubtful struggle along the Roman frontier. The sudden end to this conflict,
without a formal armistice, demonstrates that the arrival of the Huns was appre-
hended as a grave emergency requiring the presence of the Sasanid king and the full
weight of the Iranian army. The Persian historical tradition passes over this momen-
tous occasion in silence. The best contemporary Roman historian has left us some
slim but informative notices in which the Huns are invoked under the half-Iranian,
half-classicising name of Chionitae. 140
SHAPUR II’S RETURN TO THE WESTERN FRONT

Nearly ten years were consumed in fighting and diplomatic engagements with the
Huns until Shapur returned to his western front in the year 359. 141 Gurumbad, 142
king of the Huns, and much of his people, would soon fight at the side of Shapur,
along with contingents of Kushans. 143 But first, the Roman praetorian prefect in the
east, Musonian, met in secret with an Iranian governor by the name of Tamshapur.
The praetorian prefect suggested to the governor that he persuade the Persian mon-
arch to put an end to warfare between their empires. This secret conference revealed
weakness and hinted at distant military difficulties in the Roman west, and this intel-
ligence was communicated to the royal court at Ctesiphon. Shapur was determined
to profit from Roman distraction, and he swiftly dispatched an embassy demanding
that the Treaty of Nisibis be overturned. The ambassador delivered Shapur’s letter
to Constantius whom the Sasanian king acknowledged in the language of flattery as
his brother. But the force of the letter was not fraternal:
‘I shall state my proposal in brief terms, mindful that what I am about to say I
have oft repeated. Even your own ancient records testify that the empire of my
forefathers reached as far as the river Strymon and the boundaries of Macedonia.
140 Ammianus, XVI.ix; Rezakhani, K., ReOrienting the Sasanians, p. 87–93; Kim, H. J., The
Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe, 2013, p. 36; Howard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanian Strategic
Dilemma,” in Börm, H. / Wiesehöfer, J. (eds), Commutatio et Contentio: Studies in the Late Ro-
man, Sasanian, and Early Islamic Near East in Memory of Zeev Rubin, 2010, p. 41–43; de la
Vaissière, É., Histoire des Marchands Sogdiens, 2002, p. 102–104; Frye, R. N., The Golden Age of
Persia, 1975, p. 32; Bivar, A. D. H., “The History of Eastern Iran,” in Yarshater, E. (ed.), The
Cambridge History of Iran, vol. III.1: The Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian Periods, p. 211.
141 Destruction in the regions of Bamiyan and Begram have been associated in the archaeo-
logical record with the war between Shapur II and the Huns (Tarzi, Z., “Les fouilles stras-
bourgeoises de la maison Z. Tarzi à Bāmiyān (2002–2008)” in Ducœur, G. (ed.), Autour de
Bāmiyān: De la Bactriane hellénisée à l’Inde bouddhique, 2012, p. 86–87).
142 The name which Ammianus renders as Grumbates must be the same name as Gurumbad,
or Kurumpat, attested in Bactrian documents dated between AD 420 and 460 (Sims-
Williams, N., “The Sasanians in the East. A Bactrian archive from Northern Afghanistan,” in
Sarkosh Curtis, V. / S. Stewart (eds), The Sasanian Era. The Idea of Iran III, 2008, p. 93).
143 Ammianus’ expression Eusenos (XVI.ix.4) should be emended to Cusenos.
It is fitting that I should demand these lands…But…I have never allowed myself
to do anything for which I had cause to repent…And thus it is my duty to recov-
er Armenia and Mesopotamia, which had been wrested from my grandfather by
fraud.’ 144
The Persian king’s letter appears to relinquish the Sasanian claim to the lands be-
tween Asia Minor and Macedonia – a prudent omission since the Roman capital had
been transferred to Byzantium. The Sasanian claim to those lands was perhaps al-
ways fanciful, and Iranian policy now appeared to acknowledge publicly that the
annexation of the Roman empire was impossible. 145 The rest of the letter is less
conciliatory. Constantius is instructed to heed the lesson of the wolf or the beaver.
Those animals, as it was said, would detach voluntarily the bodily organs for which
they were hunted; 146 the wolf would relinquish a tuft of hair, and the beaver would
gnaw off his testicles. With an oblique hint at these strange examples, Shapur de-
clared that war would be renewed if the Roman emperor failed to cede Armenia and
Mesopotamia.
The reply of the emperor disavowed the activities of his praetorian prefect, and
asserted his indifference to the peace which had been suggested. 147 ‘It was not
through slackness,’ the emperor Constantius declared, ‘but through self-restraint
that we have sometimes accepted rather than offered battle, and when we are at-
tacked we defend ourselves with the most forceful spirit of a clear conscience.’ 148
Warfare was resumed in the spring of the year 359.
SHAPUR II RESUMES THE WAR

The native Iranian tradition offers a paltry commemoration of the last twenty years
of Shapur II’s reign. But the exiguous and fragmentary collection of historical notic-
es, upon which we have so far depended, at last gives way to a copious and circum-
stantial narrative composed by a Roman historian. Ammianus Marcellinus was a
Greek-speaking native of Antioch. 149 He was a man of liberal education, and in his
144 Ammianus, XVII.v.3–8 (my translation).

145 Frendo, D., “Sasanian Irredentism and the Foundation of Constantinople: Historical
Truth and Historical Reality,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, v. 6, 1992, p. 59–66.
146 The letter refers to animals quae cum advertant cur maximo opere capiantur, illud propria sponte
amittunt ut vivere deinde possint inpavidae (Ammianus, XVII.v.7).

147 A modern writer has suggested that Constantius may have authorised back-channel
communication in order to be free to deny and condemn it later (Marcos, M., “Some Notes
on the Backchannel Communications of the Prefect Musonianus with the Persians,” Historia:
Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 61, H. 4, 2012, p. 507–510).
148 I have summarised the letter. The last phrase is fortissimo benevolentiae spiritu (Ammianus,
XVII.v.14).
149 Rohrbacher, D. Historians of Late Antiquity, 2002, p. 14–41; Barnes, T., Ammianus Marcelli-
nus and the Representation of Historical Reality, 1998, p. 54–64.

early twenties he had been attached to the staff of Ursicinus, commander of the
Roman army in the east. 150 The singular literary task of Ammianus was to carry the
history of Tacitus down to his own day. When warfare was renewed in Mesopota-
mia, Ammianus had attained the maturity of about thirty years, and his account of
the conflict is the record of a soldier and a man of letters. His history is the work of
an eye-witness composed in Latin; but it is marred by a mannered and ornamental
style, involving at times a strained and unnatural syntax, a poetic vocabulary, and
occasional lapses into colloquial usages. He often struggles to express a trivial mean-
ing amidst laboured antiquarianism and pompous literary allusions. But we rarely
have an alternative to Ammianus, and he is the first Roman historian to offer any
great insight into Iranian affairs.
We must assume that Iranian spies had attempted to induce defections, had
probed Roman cities for weaknesses, and had recommended an attack upon the
northern Mesopotamian city of Amida. These operations would have preceded
Shapur’s invasion by a long interval. But the military historian mentions only one
Roman defector: Antoninus, a former merchant and accountant to the Roman
commander of Mesopotamia, and a man who had ascended the ranks of the Roman
bureaucracy and abused his position to find out secrets. 151 The traitor had purchased
a remote estate upon the river Tigris; and with the help of loyal servants who had
mastered the art of swimming across the river, Antoninus communicated to the Per-
sian governor Tamshapur the inner affairs of the Roman orient and every prepara-
tion which had been made for warfare. Persian authorities then ferried the defector,
his family, and all his possessions across the river into Iran. The campaign that fol-
lowed could not have proceeded without the intelligence provided by Antoninus,
and it is probable that he was not the only defector. 152
Iranian disinformation seems to have attempted to convince the Romans that
an invasion would be further south in Osrhoene – not at Amida as must have been
planned from the beginning. According to Ammianus, notice of the Persian advance
was transmitted by means of a parchment hidden within a scabbard at Antioch, and
this obscure document was interpreted to mean that the Persian king had crossed
the Greater Zab and Tigris rivers, led on by the traitor Antoninus. 153 The Roman
response was to investigate the truth of this report, and Ammianus, escorted by a
centurion, was sent on a mission of reconnaissance. The military historian claims
that an Iranian governor, who bore the Roman name of Jovinian, had passed his
150 Ammianus calls himself miles quondam et Graecus (Ammianus, XXXI.xvi.9).

151 Ammianus, XVIII.v.1–4.
152 An Iranian effort to seduce a part of the local Roman population may be reflected in an
anecdote about Shapur’s manipulation of a beautiful woman captured at a fortress in north-

ern Mesopotamia (Ammianus, XVIII.x). This lady’s husband dwelt in the city of Nisibis, and
Shapur promised to reunite that couple and thereby achieve the conquest of that city.
153 Ammianus, XVIII.vi.17.
youth as a hostage in Syria; and his secret sympathy with the Romans prompted him
to defect. 154 We must assume that Jovinian was something akin to a double-agent;
otherwise he would not have maintained his position, nor would he have been privy
to any important political or military information. Jovinian received Ammianus and
the centurion and sent them on with a guide who led them to a lofty cliff, perhaps
near Dohuk or Yakmala which are now in Iraqi Kurdistan. 155 There Ammianus and
his companions waited for two days. On the third day, Ammianus beheld upon the
wide plain below him the mustering of the Iranian army. Shapur was conspicuous at
the head of a vast host, and upon his left was Gurumbad, king of the Huns; and the
king of the Albanians was on his right. There followed a great multitude populated
by various chieftains of high rank and the strongest soldiers of the countries that
surround Iran. 156
THE FALL OF AMIDA

The Roman army seems to have expected an attack near Edessa or Carrhae. The
countryside was evacuated, people took shelter in fortresses, and the river Euphrates
was fortified with towers, stakes, and catapults. Fields were set on fire to prevent the
Persians from gathering fodder. 157 But these tactics neither slowed nor deterred the
Iranian invasion, for the Roman defector Antoninus led the enemies of his people
northwards towards Amida through a part of Mesopotamia which had not been
ravaged. 158
The city of Amida is situate upon the plain which commands the western bank
of the upper Tigris river. This position places the city at the intersection of two an-
cient highways: one running from Karput in the north to Mardin in the south, and
from east to west from the edge of the Caspian to the shore of the Mediterranean
Sea. 159 The emperor Constantius recognised the vulnerable importance of Amida
and fortified it in the early fourth century of our era, and the Fifth Legion Parthica
was installed there. 160 The capture of Amida would require a difficult siege, but it
would give the Persians control over the Roman province of Mesopotamia and per-
haps authority over other disputed lands also. Ammianus wrongly ascribes the siege
and fall of Amida not to Iranian strategy but rather to a series of accidents. The
154 Ammianus, XVIII.vi.20.

155 At Dohuk mountains rise about three thousand feet; at Yakmala more than six thousand
feet. For a learned discussion of this matter, see Kelly, G., Ammianus Marcellinus: the Allusive
Historian, 2008, p. 81–83.
156 Ammianus, XVIII.vi.22–23.
157 Ammianus, XVIII.vii.1–4.
158 Ammianus, XVIII.vii.7–11.
159 Sellwood, D., “Amida,” Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. 1., 1989, p. 438. Amida is the modern
Diyarbekir in southern Turkey.

160 Ammianus, XVIII.ix.3.
cowardice of seven hundred Illyrian horsemen allowed twenty thousand Iranians to

occupy the hills near Amida, and the inhabitants of the countryside took shelter in a
disorderly panic within the ramparts of that city. The Persian king and his Hunnish
ally are said to have provoked the Roman garrison by riding too near the walls. A
missile launched from a Roman ballista amidst a general bombardment slew the son
of Gurumbad, and the king of the Huns demanded the destruction of Amida in re-
venge. 161
Amida endured a siege of seventy-three days. 162 The defenders of that city
fought manfully against Iranian engines and they endured the hideous sight of the
elephants which had accompanied the warriors of Sakastan. 163 The bodies of the
slain accumulated within Amida, and an outbreak of epidemic disease elicits from
Ammianus less sympathy for the victims than a series of learned allusions to the
History of Thucydides and the Iliad. 164 Spontaneous sallies 165 and raids 166 troubled
now one side and now another, but Ammianus’ oblique hints at the inexperience of
Gaulish auxiliaries and a conflict between two commanders at Amida suggest that
the Romans were bound to lose. But when the host of Shapur finally stormed Ami-
da, Ammianus blames neither a want of Roman endurance nor the strength of the
Persian attack, but the collapse of a heap of earth behind a part of the city walls. 167
THE RISE OF THE EMPEROR JULIAN

AND THE ESCALATION OF WARFARE
The fall of Amida was the first of many disasters 168 which beset the Roman world at
the end of Constantius’ reign. Ammianus describes distant and domestic disturb-
ances, an eclipse of the sun and other grim celestial portents, and an uprising in the
west which ended in the proclamation of Julian, cousin of the emperor Constantius,
as sole emperor of the Romans. 169
161 Ammianus, XIX.ii.1. The rhetor has overpowered the military historian: the events before
the walls of Amida have been transformed into a miniature Trojan War, and the death of
Gurumbad’s son is likened to that of Patroclus (Ammianus, XIX.i.7–9).
162 Ammianus, XIX.ix.9.
163 Ammianus hates elephants quorum stridore inmanitateque corporum nihil humanae mentes terribili-
us cernunt (Ammianus, XIX.vii.6).

164 Ammianus, XIX.iv.
165 Ammianus, XIX.v.
166 Ammianus, XIX.vi.7.
167 Ammianus, XIX.viii.
168 Ammianus’ word is sollicitudines (Ammianus, XIX.xii.1), is something of an understate-
ment.
169 Ammianus, XX.ii–iv. For a modern summary of the events of Julian’s elevation and
march to Constantinople, see Bowersock, G. W., Julian the Apostate, 1978, p. 46–65.
Amidst these calamities, Shapur pressed his advantage against his western foe.
He besieged and captured Singara with the aid of a gigantic battering ram. 170 Every-
one in that city, including the two legions which had defended it, were carried off
into captivity. An offer of peace and the demand of capitulation were sent to Bez-
abde and refused. The fall of that city is blamed on a perfidious bishop who had
been given leave to parley with the Persian king. It is reported that he either asked
the king to retire in peace or that he indicated to him precisely which portion of the
city wall was weakest and best to bombard. Ammianus claims to disavow the more
insidious rumour, but after the parley it was not long before the Persian battering
ram had pierced the wall of Bezabde. 171 Shapur tried and failed to capture the for-
tress which Ammianus calls Virta, and then withdrew. The emperor Constantius
failed to retake the city of Bezabde, and the Iranian garrison proved that it was as
skilled in resisting as in prosecuting a siege. 172
The military contest had ended plainly to the advantage of Shapur, and the
Roman emperor could not risk further warfare while Julian steadily gained control
of the Roman world. But neither could Constantius relinquish the east to Shapur.
The Romans turned to diplomacy, and attempted to ensure the loyalty of their Ar-
menian and Iberian clients. 173 Shapur must have known of the unstable position of
Constantius and the advance of Julian, and there are some slender notices in Am-
mianus which suggest that Shapur took advantage of this trouble. The Persian king
increased a general state of alarm and confusion by means of a campaign of disin-
formation. He put about the rumour that the Iranian army had gathered again and
was prepared for another imminent attack. 174 Iranian scouts and supposed deserters
transmitted conflicting information, 175 and Constantius was detained in the east
while Julian invaded Thrace and prepared to occupy Constantinople. But as the
Roman world appeared to descend into civil war, Shapur returned to his capital and
Constantius retired to Antioch where he developed a fever and died. 176 Julian be-
came sole emperor of the Romans, and civil war was avoided by Constantius’ en-
dorsement of his cousin upon his deathbed.
Shapur II had humiliated the Romans. Bezabde was fortified with new walls
and a garrison of veterans, Singara was deprived of its defences and left a solitary
ruin, and when Constantius visited the site of Amida he found it a heap of ashes. At
this grim sight, the Roman treasurer who had accompanied the emperor remarked
dryly that the enormous burden of maintaining the defence of cities such as Amida
170 Ammianus, XX.vi.

171 Ammianus, XX.vii.13.
172 Ammianus, XX.xi.
173 Ammianus, XXI.vi.7–9.
174 Ammianus, XXI.vii.6–7. Roman intelligence could not verify this rumour.
175 Ammianus, XXI.xiii.4.
176 Ammianus, XXI.xiii.8; xv.1–3.
was likely to exhaust the imperial treasury and to no good purpose. 177 The Roman
state and military apparatus had been thrown into confusion. A great number of
Roman civil and military leaders had been captured or executed. Ursicinus, com-
mander of the Roman army in the east, was blamed for the fall of Amida and dis-
missed. Courts martial followed, as did trials and condemnations for high treason.
Shapur must have rejoiced at these humiliations, but the aims of his renewed war-
fare had not yet been achieved, and the ignominious Treaty of Nisibis yet held.
THE EXPEDITION OF JULIAN

Shapur made several offers of peace to the new emperor, but Julian refused them. 178
In his youth, the philosophical emperor had written a humorous treatise on the lives
of his imperial predecessors in which he laments the Roman failure to conquer Per-
sia. 179 Now Julian resolved to surpass the successors to Augustus and to punish
once and for all the insolence of Rome’s greatest foe. 180 In a harangue before his
assembled army, Julian compared the present antagonism with Iran to Rome’s an-
cient struggle against Carthage and to the Numantine and Social wars. 181 But the
outcome of the war with Iran was otherwise than the issue of those memorable con-
tests. The war was to end in the death of the emperor, the shameful retreat of the
Romans, and reversal of the Treaty of Nisibis.
The Roman plan was to march boldly into the heartland of the Iranian empire,
seize the capital of Ctesiphon in a pincer movement, and install the pretender
Hurmazd upon the Persian throne. 182 The Iranian strategy appears to have consisted
alike of diplomatic and military subterfuge. The Roman emperor had commanded
the king of Armenia to gather and send an army; 183 but no such force appeared and
177 En quibus animis urbes a milite defenduntur cui ut abundare stipendium possit imperii opes iam
fatiscunt (Ammianus, XX.xi.5) were the words of the treasurer.
178 Libanius, Orationes, XII.76; XVII.19; XVIII.164.
179 Julian, Caesares, p. 324.
180 Ammianus, XII.xii.1.
181 Julian also claims that abolenda nobis natio molestissima gladiis nondum nostrae propinquitatis ex-
aruit cruor (Ammianus, XXIII.v.19). These comparisons may rather reflect the antiquarianism
of Ammianus than the real address of an emperor before a battle, but it must be admitted
that such historical reminiscences would have appealed to Julian and perhaps to his officers
also.
182 The pagan sophist Libanius hoped τὸν βασιλέα (i.e., the emperor Julian) τὸν μὲν νῦν
ἄρχοντα (i.e., Shapur II) ἄγοντα παραδόντα δὲ τῷ φεύγοντι (i.e., Hurmazd) τὴν ἀρχήν (Liba-
nius, Epistula 1402.3), and this discloses the Roman aim of the war (Shayegan, M. R., Arsacids
and Sasanians, p. 368; Nöldeke, T., Die Geschichte der Perser und Araber, p. 51 with note 3),
which can be inferred only with great difficulty from Ammianus’ text (Matthews, J., The Ro-
man Empire of Ammianus, 1989, p. 138–140). For brief summaries of the campaign see Bow-
ersock, G. W., Julian, p. 106–119; Browning, R., The Emperor Julian, 1975, p. 181–216.
183 Ammianus, XXIII.ii.1–8.
it is possible to suspect that Iranian influence persuaded the Armenian monarch to

withhold help to the Romans. Julian’s progress from Antioch down the river Eu-
phrates was harried only once by a Persian raid until the Roman army came to the
environs of the Persian capital. 184 Despite a small ambush at the walls of Mahoze,
the Romans stormed that city, and a member of the illustrious Suren family assailed
the Roman pack-animals and then withdrew. 185 The fortress of Peroz-Shapur, which
is now the modern town of Anbar in Iraq, was defended by a double wall and encir-
cled by a branch of the river Euphrates. During an obstinate siege of two days, the
defenders repeatedly called for a parley with the defector Hurmazd only to assail
that traitor and deserter with insults and abuse. The stroke of a battering ram de-
stroyed a portion of the wall of Peroz-Shapur, and the soldiers of Julian rushed into
the city and occupied it. 186 The Romans proceeded to the ancient Royal Canal which
connected the two great rivers of Mesopotamia. 187 A tributary of this aquifer was an
artificial river dug by the emperor Trajan amidst his Parthian war. This channel de-
livered the waters of the Royal Canal into the Tigris above the city of Ctesiphon: a
tactic which Trajan had employed to threaten Ctesiphon with total inundation. The
Iranian government had blocked Trajan’s canal; but without opposition the Romans
released the blockage, and the water which filled that channel bore the Roman fleet
from the Euphrates to the Tigris above the Iranian capital.
When the Roman army was disbarked, Julian gave the order to burn the ships
that had carried his troops, equipment, and provisions. 188 The observations of an
ancient military historian are often of high value to a modern writer, but Ammianus
failed to recognise a series of feigned retreats and a campaign of disinformation
which lured the army of Julian into a trap. Ammianus acknowledges the influence of
Persian deceit, but he is at pains to excuse Julian’s foolish command. The testimony
of a Doctor of the Roman Church and an archbishop of Constantinople surpasses
the work of the military historian on this matter. Gregory Nazianzen claims with
perfect credibility that a clever Persian, pretending to be in conflict with Shapur, had
won Julian’s confidence and had promised to lead him by a shortcut in order to
avoid a bend in the river Tigris. To make this easier, the false defector convinced the
emperor to incinerate his fleet. 189
184 The raid is described in Ammianus, XIII.iii.4.

185 Ammianus, XXIV.iv.1–7.
186 Ammianus, XXIV.v.
187 Ammianus, XXIV.vi.
188 Ammianus, XXIV.vii.3–5. The deceit of the Iranian defectors was confessed under tor-
ture (tortique perfugae aperte faterentur se fefellisse) (Ammianus, XXIV.vii.5).

189 Gregory Nazianzen, Oratio V.10–12.
THE BATTLE OF CTESIPHON

AND THE RETREAT OF THE ROMANS
The region of the Persian capital was an agglomeration of several cities and towns
which had superseded one another over the course of many centuries. One of these
was Seleucia upon the Tigris river, which antique writers honoured as one of the
finest cities of the east. 190 An ancient mixture of the Semitic and Iranian peoples had
blended with the culture of their Macedonian conquerors, and adorned the favoura-
ble position of that city between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Nearby, across the
Tigris was Ctesiphon which the Parthian kings had erected as their winter palace. In
time, it became an important centre of trade, and the decay of Seleucia yielded to the
flourishing of Ctesiphon. On the western bank of the Tigris, the first Sasanian mon-
arch had founded Veh-Ardashir. With time the shifting of that river had divided
Veh-Ardashir, and its eastern half was gradually absorbed into the city of Ctesiphon
as its western portion fell into ruin.
These cities were intersected and surrounded by the ancient dikes and canals of
Mesopotamia. Some of these had been burst or diverted to retard the progress of
the Roman army. Irrigation works in the fertile alluvium of Babylon, its shallow reed
beds, fields of wheat and barley, and date groves announced the Sasanid capacity for
agriculture and hydraulic infrastructure on a gigantic scale. 191 Julian and his men
would have beheld structures of mud bricks dried by the heat of the sun and ce-
mented by bitumen, ancient water mills, circular rafts fashioned of reeds, or boats
made of hollow trees and covered with pitch, and plumes of smoke wafting from
bitumen springs. 192 A learned Christian in Julian’s army would have recalled the
journey of Abraham from Ur to Harran, or remembered the Psalmist’s invocation
of the waters of Babylon where the captive Israelites lamented the loss of their
homeland. 193 The imposing ruin of sand-strewn Seleucia and its derelict port clogged
with silt would have formed a strange contrast with the impregnable ramparts of
Ctesiphon; and nearby, Julian beheld a luxurious park filled with the animals of the
Persian king, the melancholy frame of a palace in the Roman style, relics of the em-
peror Carus’ failed campaign, and the grim sight of corpses lately impaled in Veh-
190 Strabo, XVI.i.16; ii.5; Pliny, Natural History, VI.122.

191 Adams, R. McC., Land Behind Baghdad: A History of Settlement on the Diyala Plains, 1965, p.
69–83.
192 Cf. Matthews, J., The Roman Empire of Ammianus, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, p.
140–143. Ammianus specifically mentions a bitumen spring (Ammianus, XXIV.ii.3), the use
of baked bricks (Ammianus, XXIV.ii.12), and a raft made of a hollow tree (Ammianus,
XXIV.iv.8). I have supplied sights which were, and which remain, characteristic of lower
Mesopotamia (cf. Pollock, S., Ancient Mesopotamia: The Eden That Never Was, 1999, p. 28–44).
193 Genesis 11:31 to 12:4; Acts 7:2–4; Psalm 137.
Ardashir – a dreadful punishment for the men who had surrendered the fortress of
Peroz-Shapur. 194
Below the walls of Ctesiphon, Iranian heavy cavalry assembled in close for-
mation before the Roman army. Ammianus took note of the densely-fitted plate
mail which clad the horsemen, and the raw hides covering their steeds: a dazzling
spectacle under the light of the Mesopotamian sun. Behind them stood the infantry,
armed with bows and arrows and oblong shields fashioned of wickerwork and hides.
Last were the elephants, objects of fear and loathing, which Ammianus compares to
walking hills. 195 A short battle ensued, and Ammianus claims that two-thousand
five-hundred Persians were slain. Again the army of Shapur withdrew, some within
the walls of the capital, and others dispersed themselves throughout the surrounding
countryside. Neither the emperor nor his historian apprehended the severe danger
to the Roman forces; and buoyed up by the appearance of a victory, Julian attempt-
ed to sacrifice ten bulls to Mars the Avenger. Nine of these animals fell to the
ground willingly, and the tenth burst his bonds and fled. When the fugitive animal
had been caught and slaughtered, the reading of its entrails was grim, and the fanati-
cal emperor cried out to Jove in superstitious indignation. 196
Shapur was preoccupied with more serious matters. Only twelve ships survived
Julian’s rash order, and a swift retreat was now impossible. Shapur immediately or-
dered the incineration of the circumjacent fields in order to restrict the Romans to a
single place and to hinder the arrival of any allied force. Famine began to afflict Jul-
ian’s forces, his soldiers loudly demanded a retreat, and the word of the Etruscan
soothsayers (which Julian vehemently rejected) warned against battle. Julian resolved
to withdraw to Corduene, and on that melancholy journey divisions of the Persian
army harried the Roman force. There were some small skirmishes over the course of
a few days. Julian plunged himself into the midst of a mellay, having forgotten his
coat of mail. A cavalryman’s spear pierced Julian’s right side and lodged itself in his
liver, and the last pagan emperor of the Romans expired in his tent a few hours later
– but not, Ammianus assures us, before pronouncing a turgid oration upon the
course of his life and the necessity of death. 197
THE END OF THE WAR AND THE TREATY OF 363

Word of Julian’s death reached Shapur, who ordered an immediate assault upon the
Roman rear guard. But the strength of Roman discipline held, and a retreat followed
the elevation of the new emperor Jovian. 198 The Iranian army renewed its harass-
ment of the Romans as they withdrew up the Tigris. Weary, famished, and muti-
194 Ammianus, XXIV.v.3.

195 Ammianus, XXIV.vi.8.
196 Ammianus, XXIV.vi.17.
197 Ammianus, XXIV.iii.6–23.
198 Ammianus, XXV.vi.
nous, Jovian’s force had not even crossed into Roman territory when Shapur’s offer
of peace was made and accepted near Dura. Ammianus foolishly suggests that
Shapur surrendered in fear of Roman revenge, but the Persian king plainly dictated
terms to a humbled opponent. 199 The retreat of Jovian from the field gave way to a
rout at the negotiating table. At the head of the Roman embassy were Arintheus and
Salutius, two officers among Jovian’s senior staff, whose diplomatic antagonist was a
member of the Suren family who vastly outwitted his Roman rivals. Ammianus la-
ments that it would have been better to fight ten battles than to yield to a single Ira-
nian demand, but Suren asked for and received Arzanene, Moxoene, Zabdicene,
Rehimene, Corduene, as well as Nisibis, Singara, Castra Maurorum and fifteen other
fortresses, and the Romans promised never again to ally themselves the Arsacid
monarch of Armenia. 200 This treaty was to hold for thirty years. 201
The transfer of the city of Nisibis to Iranian control was a moment of high im-
portance in both the history of the Near East and that of the Christian religion. The
emperor Jovian commanded the evacuation of the populace of Nisibis, for which he
allowed a mere three days. 202 The Iranian standard was hoisted above the city by its
new governor, a Persian magnate called Binesh. The Roman army threatened with
death the civilian population who would not vacate Nisibis, and Ammianus de-
scribes the melancholy scene which followed. No sound was heard but universal
wailing, weeping throngs clung to the doors of their houses; and the countryside was
filled with displaced persons transporting as much property as they could carry and
going wherever they could find refuge. 203 Many were received at Amida, and the
famous Syrian theological school at Nisibis was removed to Edessa where it was
united with a similar institution under the leadership of St Ephraim the Syrian. 204
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE TREATY OF NISIBIS

The Treaty of 363 had two other important effects. Although Ingilene and Sophene
remained Roman, all lands to the east and south-east of the Nymphius and Tigris
rivers were ceded to Iran. The Treaty of Nisibis had therefore been undone, and the
Iranian sphere of influence was enlarged along the border with Rome. The cession
of the fortresses at Singara and Nisibis undermined the Roman defensive system in
eastern Mesopotamia. Iran now controlled the main routes to the Euphrates and
199 Ammianus, XXV.vii.

200 Ammianus, XXV.vii.9–12.
201 For a analysis of the terms of the treaty, see Blockley, R. C., “The Romano-Persian Peace
Treaties of A.D. 299 and 363,” Florilegium vol. 6, 1984, p. 34–38.

202 Ammianus, XXV.vii.11; XXV.ix.4.
203 Ammianus, XXV.ix.5–6.
204 Wood, P., The Chronicle of Seert: Christian Historical Imagination in Late Antique Iraq, Oxford,
2013, p. 27–28; Baum, B. / Winkler, D. W., The Church of the East, p. 11.
Syria, the Tur ʿAbdin plain, and the Sinjar mountain range. The thirty years’ duration
of the treaty provided time for Iran to consolidate her new position. 205
THE STATE OF ARMENIA AND THE EVENTS

WHICH LED TO ITS DIVISION BETWEEN ROME AND IRAN
Additional humiliations were forced upon the Romans, and their effect was greatly
to increase Iranian influence in Armenia and the Transcaucasus. The embassy of
Shapur had submitted the provision to the effect that the king of Armenia never be
allowed to help the Romans against Iran – a clause designed to assure Iranian con-
trol over Armenia. The emperor’s ambassadors unwittingly agreed to this; and when
Jovian died, Shapur felt no impediment to seizing the portion of Armenia which
borders on Media, and he captured its king Arshak. 206 In the opinion of Ammianus,
a dinner party was the occasion of this abduction, and Arshak was blinded, bound in
chains of silver, and cast into the fortress of Agabana where he was tortured and
killed. 207 The rule of Armenia passed to Pap, the son of Arshak, but Shapur in-
structed two Roman deserters, a eunuch by the name of Cylaces and a commander
called Arraban, to watch over the new king. 208 This was a grim punishment for Ar-
menia’s former alliance with Rome. Shapur then turned to Iberia and expelled the
Roman client-king Sauromaces. In his place, an Iranian loyalist by the name of As-
parug was appointed, and Ammianus interpreted this as an insult to Roman authori-
ty. 209
Ammianus describes a plot to persuade king Pap to betray his capital Ar-
togerassa to Iran. Cylaces and Arraban were then ordered to threaten that Armenian
fortress with total destruction, and a menacing Persian force was gathered before
it. 210 But the interview between Shapur’s lieutenants and the Armenian king
achieved the opposite of its intended effect. We cannot know what Pap promised,
but Cylaces and Arraban defected to him, the gate of Artogerassa was thrown open,
and an Armenian army sallied forth and attacked the Iranian camp. 211 Pap and his
205 Blockley, R.C., “The Romano-Persian Peace Treaties,” p. 35.

206 Ammianus, XXV.vii.12.
207 Ammianus, XXVII.xii.3.
208 Ammianus, XXVII.xii.5. In the work of Pawstos Buzandatsi, who narrates this episode
also, these figures are not Roman deserters but the Iranian noblemen Zikh and Karen (Paw-
stos Buzandatsi, IV.55).
209 Ammianus claims that Shapur did this ut arbitrio se monstraret insultare nostrorum (Ammianus,
XXVII.xii.4). Ammianus renders the name Asparug as Aspacures (Braund, D., Georgia in
Antiquity, p. 215; 260).
210 Ammianus, XXVII.xii.5. For a modern summary and analysis of the Pap affair, see Block-
ley, R. C., Ammianus Marcellinus: A Study of his Historiography and Political Thought, 1975, p. 62–
72.
211 Ammianus, XXVII.xii.7–9.
followers left the Roman defectors in Artogerassa, and fled to Roman territory. But
Valens capitulated to a demand that Pap be returned to his throne on condition that
he be denied royal insignia. 212 By the stipulation of this condition, Valens had hoped
to avoid violating the peace treaty signed under Jovian and Shapur, but he failed.
In a transport of rage, Shapur commanded the devastation of Armenia. 213
Many strongholds were taken by force or betrayal; and Shapur stormed Artogerassa,
and carried off the wife of the late Arshak and mother of Pap, and emptied the city
of all its treasures. Cylaces and Arraban were murdered and their severed heads were
tokens of Pap’s submission to Shapur. The Roman response to Pap’s Persian obedi-
ence was to return the client king Sauromaces to the throne of Iberia. But the Per-
sian loyalist Asparug, who yet ruled that nation, proposed the intolerable plan that
he and Sauromaces rule Iberia together. 214 The emperor Valens suggested a partition
of Iberia, Shapur refused, and war was resumed without a decisive outcome. 215
Intrigue and subterfuge continued until the Gothic invasion of Thrace forced
the Romans to withdraw from the contest to the south of the Caucasus. A plot or-
ganised by the Roman commander in Armenia ended the life and reign of Pap. 216 A
Persian embassy to Valens presented the choice of vacating Armenia or withdrawing
from Roman Iberia. 217 Valens refused the choice, and sent a vague ultimatum to
Shapur to the effect that the Persian king would soon be forced to do what he
would not do willingly. This antagonism issued in the partition of Armenia between
Iran and Rome in the year 387: a settlement which appeared to remove the greatest
cause of dispute between the two great powers. 218
Ammianus’ narrative of the troubles in Armenia is largely reliable. 219 But the
pagan historian omits the important facts that the party which opposed Pap was the
faction of Christian Armenia led by Narses, the patriarch of that nation; and that
Pap, his antagonist, inclined to the old religion and disdained the worship of Christ,
and his party had sympathies with Iran. The religious and social character of this
contest was of great importance in the history of the Armenian nation, and was the
212 Ammianus, XXVII.xii.10.

213 Shapur was ultra hominem efferatus (Ammianus, XXVII.xii.11).
214 The two men were, after all, cousins.
215 Ammianus, XXVII.xii.18; XXIX.i.4; Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, 1994, p. 260–261.
216 Pap was killed at a luncheon by an assassin (Ammianus, XXX.i.18–21).
217 Ammianus, XXX.ii.2.
218 According to Ammianus, Armenia was perpetua aerumnarum causa (Ammianus, XXX.ii.2).
The date of the partition has been controversial (Blockley, R. C. “The Division of Armenia
Between the Romans and the Persians at the end of the Fourth Century A.D.,” Historia:
Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 36, H. 2, 1987, p. 222–234). But I am inclined to adopt the
dating proposed by Greatrex (Greatrex, G. B., “The Background and Aftermath of the Parti-
tion of Armenia in A.D. 387,” The Ancient History Bulletin, 14.1–1, 2000, p. 35–48). For the
partition in the Armenian historical tradition, see Pawstos Buzandatsi, VI.I.
219 Blockley, R. C., Ammianus Marcellinus, p. 68–70.
chief interest of its historians, but the indigenous history of Iran takes no notice of
it.
THE COLLAPSE OF IRAN’S EASTERN FRONTIER

Exerting control over Armenia was not Shapur’s sole preoccupation toward the end
of his reign. Two slim notices in the Epic Histories of Armenian historian Pawstos
Buzandatsi describe warfare in the northeast against a foreign enemy. That Armeni-
an historian invokes the foreigners under the archaising name of Kushan. But to
judge by later developments, Shapur’s antagonists were most certainly the same con-
federation of Huns whom he had confronted in the 350s, but they had been united
under a new ruling house. In the year 367 Shapur led his forces in person and was
defeated. 220 He had brought with him a large contingent of Armenian soldiers, many
of whom were captured by the enemy, but they fought with equal bravery and loyal-
ty. It was said that, in the midst of battle, Shapur was surrounded by Huns and was
rescued by an Arsacid eunuch. A later confrontation in about the year 375 ended in
a worse humiliation. 221 Shapur, who had not commanded the host a second time,
avoided capture and death; but of the army which he had assembled not a single
Iranian soldier survived: only two Armenians, Manuel and Koms Mamikonean, es-
caped to bring word of defeat to Shapur. The most serious consequence of Shapur’s
contest with the Huns was the collapse of Sasanian power in the east. The Sasanian
Kushan state had been founded as a buffer between Iran and the Asiatic steppe. But
towards the end of the fourth century this buffer was overwhelmed by the Huns,
repeated efforts to retain it failed, and these grim reverses foreshadowed the trou-
bles which nearly destroyed the Iranian empire in the century that followed. 222
220 Pawstos Buzandatsi, V.7.

221 Pawstos Buzandatsi, V.37.
222 Rezakhani, K., ReOrienting the Sasanians, 2017, p. 85; de la Vaissière, E., “Kushanshahs, i.
History,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, online edition, 2016.

IV. THE WORLD OF THE NOMAD
Shapur II had restored the honour of the Sasanian state and raised its military and
diplomatic powers higher than ever before. The establishment of a secure border
along the desert frontage of Arabia; the transformation of a portion of the Huns
into an ally; the total humiliation of the Romans; and the dissolution of the Treaty
of Nisibis were the achievements of a vigorous and energetic king. But the victory
of the year 363 had come at a high cost. A large portion of the agricultural heartland
of Iran was in ruins: canals had been diverted, dikes burst, plains flooded, and vast
swathes of Mesopotamia had been trampled or reduced to ashes. Much of Shapur’s
later reign must have been devoted to repairing, and perhaps to augmenting Iranian
infrastructure and defences. In the interval of peace which followed the death of
Shapur in 379, that king’s successors continued a project of renewal.
THE AUGMENTATION OF SASANIAN DEFENCES

The first task must have been to restore Iran’s western infrastructure. So sensible
were the Sasanian monarchs of the importance of lower Mesopotamia that it was
their most serious care to fortify and defend it. The lowlands of Babylon were alike
the political and economic heartland of the empire: here was the seat of the Sasanid
monarchy, and here the fruits of agriculture and land taxes sustained a large standing
army. Herodotus had observed that the plain of Babylon was the most fertile land in
the world, and that the absence of rain in that country necessitated a network of
canals which conveyed the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers to vast planta-
tions of wheat, millet, and sesame. 1 But under the rule of the Sasanids, the size and
complexity of those irrigation works reached a height that had not been seen before
and which has never been equalled. 2 These works would have been rehabilitated
immediately, as was, perhaps, much of the local industry.
1Herodotus, I.193.1–3.
2Butzer, K. W., “Environmental Change in the Near East,” p. 123–151; Adams, R. McC.,
Heartland of Cities:, p. 200–214; Adams, R. McC., “Agriculture and Urban Life in Early South-
Western Iran,” p. 436–465; Adams, R. McC., Land Behind Baghdad, p. 69–83.
93
The forward defences which guarded the approach to the Iranian capital would
also have been repaired and perhaps strengthened. A line of island fortresses sup-
ported by the heavily fortified city of Peroz-Shapur augmented the natural bulwark
of the Euphrates river. 3 Many of these forts had been damaged or destroyed in the
emperor Julian’s progress towards Ctesiphon. The fosse which ran from Hit to
Peroz-Shapur may have been restored or strengthened also. The river Tigris was
reinforced and defended by the imposing fortress of Nisibis, lately wrested from
Roman control, and it is probable that other Roman forts in the upper Tigris valley
were taken over also. The fortress of Chlomaron and several other forts, guarded
Arzanene and the frontier on the river Batman. 4 The defence of Persian Armenia
appears to have been entrusted to local noblemen and an Iranian garrison at Dvin –
an important administrative matter, but entailing comparatively little infrastructure.
PEACE IN THE WEST AND ROMAN DISTRACTION

The Treaty of 363 had promised thirty years of peace with Iran’s Roman foe. But
the western frontier remained stable for longer than expected. The partition of Ar-
menia between Iran and Rome removed a perpetual stimulus to warfare, but the
abasement of the Roman state after a military disaster compelled that power to re-
linquish its hostility to Iran. The flight of the Huns had displaced many other peo-
ples; and a population of Huns, who had moved far westward into the vicinity of
the northern shores of the Caspian Sea, expelled from the Ukrainian steppe a people
whose name is associated with the extinction of Roman government in western Eu-
rope. The Goths fled southward below the Danube river, and the Roman struggle to
control these dangerous migrants and to restore order in the plains of Thrace gave
way to the worst military disaster in Roman history. 5 In the year 378, at the Battle of
Adrianople, most of the Roman army was destroyed and the emperor Valens him-
self perished. The example of the Roman defeat must have suggested that incursions
from the steppe were more threatening to the great powers than either was to the
other.
THE HUNNISH INVASIONS OF THE LATE FOURTH CENTURY

AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES
Echoes of Tocharian troubles under the reign of the Parthian kings reverberated in
Iranian lore. The Alan invasion through the Gurgan plain down into Media in the
reign of Walagash I may have made a similar impression. But the historian must
wonder in vain whether the Sasanid administration retained any institutional
3 Some of these are described in Ammianus, XXIV.i.6; ii.1–2. Cf. Howard-Johnston, J., “The
Two Great Powers,” p. 181–186; 188–189.
4 Howard-Johnston, J., “The Two Great Powers,” p. 190.
5 On the Germanic migrations, see Heather, P., Empires and Barbarians: the Fall of Rome and the
Birth of Europe, 2009, p. 151–188.

IV. THE WORLD OF THE BARBARIAN 95
memory of those events, for it was only at the end of the fourth century that the
Sasanian monarchy began the project of fortifying their northern and eastern bor-
ders against nomadic incursions.
Shapur II had waged two wars against the Huns in years 367 and 376. These
had issued in defeat and humiliation, and had perhaps invited further antagonism. In
the year 395, the sudden penetration of the Huns through the Caucasus passes,
down the Euphrates, and into the vicinity of Ctesiphon 6 precipitated a change of
policy. The Huns spread devastation on both sides of Iran’s border with Rome, and
captives were seized and deported from Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Cappadocia,
and Galatia. In Iran, villages between the two rivers were destroyed and fields were
devastated, but the Persian capital was spared aggression. A similar but less destruc-
tive invasion was reiterated in the year 397 or 398. A counterattack was prepared, a
contingent of Huns fell to the arms of Iran, their haul of booty was retrieved, and
eighteen thousand Roman captives were rescued from that ferocious nation. Bah-
ram IV, the Sasanian monarch at that time, treated the Roman peace with such re-
spect that he allowed the Roman captives to live in Veh-Ardashir and Ctesiphon,
and he granted them rations of bread, wine made of both the grape and the date,
and oil; and he sent most of them back to their own lands. The few prisoners re-
maining thereafter were returned in the reign of Yazdgard I.
The Hunnish invasions taught the Sasanid monarchy that gaps in Iran’s natural
defences must be plugged and fortified. The two great powers were especially vul-
nerable in the Caucasus: a region which possessed strategic importance and which
was naturally troublesome. The empires of Iran and Rome had a mutual interest in
protecting the terrestrial and maritime trade which passed through the Caucasus,
and commercial relations might be conducted there without trespassing upon the
territory of a rival power. But few roads crossed this forbidding and mountainous
area, through which invaders were likely to be concentrated as they swarmed south-
ward towards the settled powers of the Near East. Routes along the shores of the
Black and Caspian seas, the Darial Pass, and the Caucasian and Caspian gates (as
they were known) were the principal weakness in the Caucasus which the Empire of
Iran was at pains to secure. 7 The small, but important, countries of Iberia and Alba-
6 Chronicle to 724, p. 136–137. For a discussion of this, and sources related to it, see Greatrex,
G. / Lieu, S. N. C., The Roman Eastern Front and the Persian Wars, p. 17–19 and Greatrex, G. /
Greatrex, M., “The Hunnic Invasion of the East of 395 and the Fortress of Ziatha,” Byzan-
tion, tome LXIX, fascicule 1, 1999, p. 65–75.
7 John Lydus, De Magistratibus, III.52; Priscus, frag. 41.1 in Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary
Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus, and Malchus, II,
1983, p. 344–346; Dignas, B. / Winter, E., Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity, p. 188–189;
Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity: A History of Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia 550 BC – AD 562,
1994, p. 44–46.
nia held many Iranian fortresses including the Caucasian Gates, and so maintaining
peace and order in that region was vitally important to the security of Iran.
The passage between the foothills of the Caucasus and the western shore of
the Caspian was the easiest route from the northern steppe southward into Trans-
caucasia. It was this narrow strip of land which, nearly a millennium earlier, had
conducted the Scythians into Media, 8 and it may have been the route of the maraud-
ing Alans also. The Sasanid state strengthened this vulnerable area with a series of
walls at Darband. 9 Two parallel walls there were about thirteen feet in thickness and
sixty-five feet high, and were strengthened by a procession of seventy-three enor-
mous watch towers placed about two hundred and thirty feet apart. Twenty-seven
round towers were built about every five-hundred and fifty to six-hundred and fifty
feet. By the sixth century, limestone slabs covered those walls; and in their final
form, the defences at Darband linked a fortified harbour to the foot of the Cauca-
sus. A third stone wall marched westward for about twenty-one miles into the
mountains, and was adorned by towers and forty small forts, and to the south were
two more defensive walls. A large fortified compound about twelve miles to the
south of the outer Darband wall served as a place to muster troops, and perhaps as
a garrison for reinforcements.
At the river Ghilghilchay, in what is now called Azerbaijan, was a wall of mud
brick about twenty-three feet in thickness and twenty-three feet high. 10 This wall
extended for five miles and terminated in a large, square fortified camp at the base
of the Caucasus. A long moat, thirty-three feet wide, followed the wall in parallel.
One hundred and ninety towers, separated by intervals of one hundred and twenty-
eight feet defended this wall as it proceeded for twenty-two miles into the Caucasus.
The security of that region was assured by blocking the passes and narrow defiles in
those formidable mountains, and the most important fortification closed and de-
fended the Darial Pass. 11 The defensive works which established and fortified the
8 Herodotus, I.104.
9 My views of Iran’s eastern defences are founded on Lawrence, D. / Wilkinson, T. J., “The
Northern and Western Borderlands of the Sasanian Empire,” p. 99–125; Howard-Johnston,
J., “The Sasanian State,” p. 148–157; Howard-Johnston, J., “The Late Sasanian Army,” p.
100–104, and Howard-Johnston, J., “The Two Great Powers,” p. 192–195. All measure-
ments are expressed in imperial units which are more familiar to an Anglo-Saxon and North-
American audience.
10 For a thorough historiographical and archaeological discussion of this wall, see Aliev, A.
A., et al., “The Ghilghilchay Defensive Long Wall: New Investigations,” Ancient West and
East 5, 2006, p. 143–177.
11 Priscus, frag. 47 in Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising Historians, p. 352–354. The
name of this fortress is written defectively in Prsicus’ history as Ἰουροειπαὰχ and in John
Lydus as Βιραπαράχ (John Lydus, de Magistratibus, III.52). Kettenhofen believes that this was
the name of the fortress at Darial Pass, and the name is probably a corruption of Vrka-
parakh: the Armenian words for ‘Iberian fortress’ (Kettenhofen, E., “Darband,” in Encyclo-
limits of the Iranian empire in the Caucasus served a double purpose. Evidence sug-
gests that the fields behind those defences were carefully irrigated by means of long
canals, and the yield of agriculture and taxation must have been formidable. The
Caucasian bulwarks ensured that the Iranian government might profit fully from
arable land to the south of that dangerous region. 12
THE WALL OF GURGAN

But Iran was most vulnerable on the eastern side of the Caspian Sea. Here an invit-
ing, fertile plain was a constant enticement to marauders from the steppe. Here the
civilised empire of the Sasanids passed insensibly into the abode of demons and the
habitation of the nomad. 13 Fear of this strange outer world and its inhabitants was
expressed in literary form in the grim struggle between Iran and Turan narrated in
the Shahnameh. It found physical expression in the largest and most heavily defended
wall in western Asia. The wall of Gurgan 14 ran one hundred and twenty-one miles
from the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea to the Pishkamar mountains and into
those of the Arab Dagh. It was such an imposing fortification that the Iranian
Christian imagination transformed it into a barrier erected by Alexander the Great
to retard the advance of Gog and Magog. 15 The wall was enclosed by a large moat to
the north and to the south flowed the Gurgan river, and this triple line of defence
was punctuated by a series of thirty-six fortresses. A well-fortified base overlooking
the fertile plain of Gurgan was an important command centre for operations south
of the wall and the river. A smaller wall, known as the wall of Tammishe, defended
the southern coast of the Caspian and its approach to Tabaristan, terminating at the
foothills of the Alburz mountains; and a cluster of forts secured the Atrek valley
which penetrates deep into Khurasan. Further to the east Sasanian defensive policy
paedia Iranica, Vol. VII, Fasc. 1, 1994, p. 13–19). This is, alas, the only fortress in the Cauca-
sus mentioned in the historical record, but there were nine passes through the Caucasus
(Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 44), and so there was surely a similar number of fortress-
es.
12 Alizadeh, K., “Borderland Projects of Sasanian Empire: Intersection of Domestic and
Foreign Policies,” Journal of Ancient History, 2(2), 2014, p. 93–115.

13 Afrasiab, the principal antagonist of Iranian mythology who dwells in the Asiatic steppe, is
portrayed a demon in Zoroastrian holy writ (Denkard, III.110; Bundahishn, XXXIII.5–6). See
also Cereti, C., “Xiiaona and Xyon in Zoroastrian Texts,” in Alram, M. (ed.), Coins, Art, and
Chronology, vol. 2: The First Millennium, C. E. in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands, 2010, p. 59–72.
14 My understanding of the wall of Gurgan, its construction, and purpose is founded upon
Sauer, E. W. / Rekavandi, H. O. / Wilkinson, T. J. / Nokandeh, J., Persia’s Imperial Power in

Late Antiquity: The Great Wall of Gorgan and Frontier Landscapes of Sasanian Iran, 2013, and How-
ard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanian State,” p. 155–156.
15 See Ferdowsi, Sikander, l. 1621–1682. For an exhaustive treatment of the legends associat-
ed with Gog and Magog, see van Donzel, E. J. et al., Gog and Magog in Early Christian and Is-
lamic Sources: Sallam’s Quest for Alexander’s Wall, 2010.
aimed at deploying massive force in order to intercept an invader. The ancient

Achaemenid city of Marv became a Sasanian outpost on the fringe of Central Asia, a
place from which to launch missions of reconnaissance and perhaps to analyse intel-
ligence. The city of Nishapur, capital of Khurasan, was the main base from which
eastern Iran was defended. Cavalry, which formed the core of the Sasanian military,
would have been stationed there in large numbers.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF SASANIAN FORTIFICATIONS

The defences, which I have just described, were augmented or installed over the
course of about a century and a half. We cannot know the dates or the precise order
of each phase of rehabilitation or construction. But it is reasonable to assume that
work began soon after the peace of 363, was repeated after the Hunnish raids of the
390s, and proceeded far into the fifth century. The fortification in stone represent a
later phase of construction – perhaps as late as the reigns of Kavad I or Khusro I. 16
The wall of Gurgan was Iran’s largest investment in military infrastructure at any
time in Antiquity or the Middle Ages, and it announced the Sasanian capacity for
planning and executing defensive projects on a gigantic scale. Radio-carbon dating
places the construction of the wall between the early fifth and the early sixth centu-
ries, and it was surely complete before Peroz’ disastrous Hephthalite war in the year
484. 17
THE HUNS AND THEIR INFLUENCE UPON IRAN

The government of Ardashir I had aimed to restore the dignity of Iran and that king
had inaugurated a project of warfare in the west. That contest between Iran and
Rome might have proceeded without interruption, or decisive outcome, as long as
the eastern borderlands of Iran were secure. The tranquillity of the east gave way to
disorder and confusion in the reign of Shapur II, and the westward migration of the
Huns forced Iran to look to the north and the east from the middle of the fourth
century onward. In earlier ages, the Huns left the steppe to pillage, and sometimes
to destroy, the sedentary lands of China. The payment of tribute and the formation
of marriage alliances were calculated to appease the northern barbarians and to pro-
tect China from destructive incursions. 18 The Huns were to enforce upon the Sasa-
nid state a similar tributary condition; 19 and the formidable ramparts at Gurgan and
16 Howard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanian State,” p. 151; Aliev, A. A., et al., “The Ghilghilchay
Defensive Long Wall,” p. 145–147.
17 Sauer, E. W. / Rekavandi, H. O. / Wilkinson, T. J. / Nokandeh, J., Persia’s Imperial Power,
p. 616–619; Howard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanian State,” p. 155–156.

18 Barfield, T. J., The Perilous Frontier, p. 45–49.
19 My view of the Huns follows Payne, R. “The Reinvention of Iran: The Sasanian Empire
and the Huns” in Maas, M. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Attila, 2015, p. 282–
299, and Kim, H. J., The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe, p. 59.
in the Caucasus may be compared with those raised by the first Qin emperor to di-
vide the agricultural, sedentary world from the mobile horsemen of the north.
The kings of Iran had been accustomed to assert the majesty of an empire
which subordinated to itself all other earthly powers, and claimed an hereditary right
to the patrimony of both Cyrus and Alexander. With the passage of time, such ideas
gave way to an admission of equality with Iran’s principal western antagonist. To-
gether Iran and Rome were transmuted into the two robust supports of human civi-
lisation and sedentary order, and this idea took shape amidst implacable warfare
with the Huns. Iranian lore and holy writ represented the Asiatic steppe as the
abode of the most ancient enemies of Iran. The struggles against the new rulers of
the steppe revived the memory of those antique conflicts, and the contest between
Iran and the Huns acquired a religious and epic character reminiscent of the holy
books of Zoroastrianism. 20
The word Hun is not an ethnic name. 21 We must not think of a homogeneous
band of wandering marauders who remained a single nation over the course of a
millennium, but rather of a political expression which united various peoples under
a curious amalgam of the customs of the steppe and the bureaucratic apparatus of
China which they had imitated. 22 Chinese textual evidence proves that the Huns had
been in Central Asia at about the same time as they appeared upon Shapur II’s east-
ern frontier. A single wave of migration had transported the Huns out of China; but
the successive clans which ruled over them may be mistaken for different nations,
and the consequences of an imaginary invasion have often falsely explained the fall
of an old, and the rise of a new, clan. There may have been many Hunnish clans, but
only two are known for certain: they were called Kidiro and Ebodalo in the Bactrian
language, and Jiduoluo and Yeda in Chinese. 23 Classicising sources call them the Kir-
20 Cf. Payne, R. “The Reinvention of Iran,” p. 284.

21 De la Vaissière, E., “The Steppe World and the Rise of the Huns” in Maas, M. (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to the Age of Attila, 2015, p. 178–182. Most of the main Chinese sources
on the Huns are set forth, translated, and analysed in de la Vaissière, E., “The Nationality of
the Hephthalites?” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series, vol. 17, 2003, p. 119–132.
22 One of the main points of Kim’s study of the Huns is that that people possessed a com-
plex and well-developed form of government (Kim, H. J., The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of
Europe, 2013); Payne, R. “The Making of Turan: The Fall and Transformation of the Iranian
East in Late Antiquity” in Journal of Late Antiquity, Volume 9, Number 1, Spring 2016, p. 10.
Crossley calls the Huns a ‘hierarchical booty network’ (Crossley, P. K., Hammer and Anvil:
Nomad Rulers at the Forge of the Modern World, 2019, p. 48).
23 Rezakhani, K., ReOrienting the Sasanians, p. 93; 134; Grenet, F., “Kidarites,” Encyclopaedia
Iranica, 2005; Alram, M., “Hunnic Coinage,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. XII, Fasc. 6, 2005, p.
570–573. The name of the ruling clan of the Huns whom Shapur II confronted is not
known, but it is possible that it was Kidarite also.
darite and Hepthalite Huns. 24 The indigenous Iranian tradition confounds both
clans under the anachronistic name of Turk, although the word Haital is occasionally
used for the Hephthalite Huns.
At the end of the reign of Yazdgard I, the Kidarite Huns dominated much of
Inner Asia. They maintained their Hunnish identity, but they promoted the culture
of the sedentary peoples over whom they ruled. They preserved the title ‘King of
the Kushans’ and built cities according to a Hellenistic grid plan. The Kidarite Huns
had conquered territories on either side of the Hindukush mountains, and they
posed a very grave threat to the Gupta empire of India. During the reign of king
Kumaragupta I, 25 the Kidarite Huns invaded the Punjab and very nearly destroyed
the Gupta empire later in the fifth century. It was only the revolution which in-
stalled the Hephthalite clan that delayed the extinction of that Indian state. 26
The Kidarite Huns defeated the armies of Iran many times, and they imposed a
tribute upon the Sasanian dynasty. The payment of subsidies to the Huns was not a
burden upon the Iranian treasury, but it was nonetheless humiliating. 27 The purity of
the Sasanian drachm had replaced nearly every heterogeneous currency of the Near
East and had united in a common imperial project the noble houses of Parthia. The
drachm was alike a symbol of the Sasanian empire and a reward for participating in
that structure of power. Assuring a steady supply of Sasanian silver coins overstruck
with their own legends gave the Huns the appearance of legitimacy: it allowed them
to retain the military services of other nomads, and it helped them to persuade the
settled peoples over whom they ruled that the customary fiscal system and econom-
ic order had not changed. The conquest and use of Sasanian mints assisted this poli-
cy also. There is perhaps no more convincing proof that the Huns had formed a
potent state and that they represented a threat which could not easily be removed.
Tribute may have begun in, or before, the reign of Yazdgard I when Iran re-
quired peace on all fronts. Payment continued throughout the reign of his son and
successor Bahram V, but was halted in the reign of Yazdgard II. 28 This was cause
for a war in which Iran achieved some important victories. Toward the end of that
same reign, the Sasanian state attempted to reverse the tribute to which it had been
subjected: another war ensued, Iran was again humiliated, and all previous gains
over the Huns were overturned. The empire of Iran descended into civil war, but
the Hephthalite Huns intervened on the side of Peroz who became the next Sasa-
nian king. Toward the end of the fifth century, the Hephthalite clan cooperated with
Iran for the destruction of their mutual rival the Kidarites. But the ascendancy of
24 To take just two examples see Priscus, frag. 33 in Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising
Historians, p. 336, and Procopius I.iii.1–7.
25 He reigned AD 413 to 455.
26 Kim, J., The Huns, 2016, p. 50.
27 Payne, R. “The Making of Turan,” p. 11–19.
28 Priscus, frag. 41.3 in Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising Historians, p. 348.
the Hephthalite Huns would soon prove to be the most formidable threat confront-
ed by the House of Sasan, 29 and a war in the year 484 was to end in the death of
Peroz, the annihilation of the Iranian army, and immense strain upon the Iranian
social order.
THE SUCCESSORS TO SHAPUR II

The Persian royal tradition offers only meagre treatment of the three reigns which
followed the death of Shapur II. Such scant notices can hardly form the basis of a
narrative, and they offer little insight into the grim conflict waged along Iran’s
north-eastern frontier, and so the historian must often turn to the evidence of for-
eign sources, royal monuments, and coins.
Ardashir II reigned for four years. He was not the son, but rather the younger
brother of his predecessor Shapur II. 30 The Persian royal tradition reports a brief
483F
and troubled reign: according the historian Tabari, Ardashir II was an unpopular
king who murdered a great number of his nobility and was deposed. 31 Ardashir’s 48F
short reign is commemorated in the rock of Taq-e Bostan near the modern city of
Kermanshah. His forefathers had carved their images in Persia near the site of Per-
sepolis, but this custom ceased toward the end of the fourth century. 32 The style and 485F
execution of the relief of Ardashir differ from earlier models which emphasised the
king’s equestrian and divine attributes. Ardashir II is rather depicted standing on the
lifeless body of a Roman, and he is flanked by the divinity Mithra and another figure
which may represent the god Ahura Mazda, or perhaps Shapur II. 33 The god, or the 486F
king, bestows the ring of power upon the new Sasanian monarch. If the body of the
Roman may be said to represent the emperor Julian, 34 we may perhaps infer that 487F
Ardashir had assisted at the mellay in which that emperor perished. But despite the
innovative themes of Ardashir’s investiture, the execution of the relief is crude, and
may signify extreme haste or that the workmen were unskilled in the art of carving. 35 48F
For the two kings who followed Ardahsir II upon the throne, the Persian tradi-
tion provides only exiguous notices of murder. Shapur III (son of Shapur II) and
29 Kim, J., The Huns, 2016, p. 52–53.

30 Agathias, Historiae, IV.26; For other opinions, see Shahbazi, S., “Ardašīr III” in Encyclopae-
dia Iranica, Vol. II, Fasc. 4, 1986, p. 380–381.
31 Tabari, v. 2, p. 62:
.��‫ ��لعه الناس بعد أربع سن�ن من مل‬،ً ‫ فقتل م��م �لقا ً كث��ا‬،‫ف�� ّا استقر ّ به ا��ل� قراره عطف ا�ى العظماء وذوى ا�� ياسة‬
32 This must mean that the political centre of Iran had shifted from the ancient Achaemenid
heartland towards Mesopotamia.
33 Ghirshman, R., Iran: Parthes et Sassanides, p. 190–191. I have supplied the inference that one
of the figures may represent Shapur II.

34 Shahbazi, S., “Ardašīr III,” p. 380–381.
35 Ghirshman, R., Iran: Parthes et Sassanides, p. 191.
Bahram IV (son of Shapur III) 36 alike perished on hunting expeditions: the former is
said to have died in his tent when a band of assassins caused that structure to col-
lapse upon him; and the latter was shot with arrows, apparently by accident. 37 These
notices may conceal plots to bring down two unpopular or weak kings and may ad-
umbrate fratricidal contests and factional strife within the Sasanian court amidst the
grim struggle with the Huns. It is not surprising that numismatic evidence connects
the reign of Shapur III with an important reverse in the east. A population of Huns
had taken control of the mint at Kabul, and the drachms which were produced there
were overstruck with a Bactrian inscription representing the origin of the conquer-
ors and announcing that those Huns had both usurped the power and prestige of
the Sasanian monarchy and extended it into Central Asia. 38 This conquest must have
been received with great alarm at the court of Shapur III, and would have added to
the troubles of his reign.
THE REIGN OF YAZDGARD I

A measure of stability returned with the reign of Yazdgard I. It was the policy of
that king to pacify his frontier with Rome, and so sensible was Yazdgard of the ne-
cessity of peace in the west that he reversed the attitude of his government to Chris-
tianity. 39
By the end of the third century, the number of Christian proselytes within the
empire of Iran had grown into a significant minority. Those sectaries had attracted
the attention of the priest Kirder, who boasted of tormenting them. The intolerance
of Bahram II failed to distinguish between the votaries of Christ and those of Mani,
and the Chronicle of Seert holds that a persecution of both religions continued until
the differences between either faith were explained to the Persian king. 40 But such
real or imaginary suffering failed to halt the spread of the new religion within Iran,
and greater troubles awaited. In the late third and early fourth centuries, the bishop
of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the see connected with the Persian capital, was Papa bar Ag-
gai, and it was his solemn purpose to unite the jarring sects of Iranian Christendom,
to establish a regular episcopal succession, and to make himself the primate or cathol-
36 There is some confusion as to his genealogy (Klíma, O., “Bahrām IV,” Encyclopaedia Iranica,
III/5, p. 514–522.
37 Dinawari, p. 53.
38 Schindel, N., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum, Band III/1, p. 282–284. See also Payne, R.
“The Making of Turan,” p. 11–12.

39 Decret, F., “Les Consequences sure le Christianisme en Perse de l’affrontement des em-
pires romain et sassanide: de Shapur Ier à Yazdgard Ier,” Recherches Augustiniennes XIV, 1979,
p. 149–152.
40 Chronicle of Seert I(1), p. 237–238.
icus, of all Iranian Christians. 41 The various names under which Iranian Christians
were known announce the absence of ecclesiastical uniformity and discipline to
which Papa reacted. ‘Christian’ was regularly applied to persons deported from the
Roman empire: the Messians and Nazorenes may have differed from them on
points of doctrine and ritual, and a single city may have hosted more than one bish-
op. 42 But the efforts of Papa were initially defeated at a synod of the year 315, and
his principle opponent was Simon bar Sabbaʿe, his own deacon. But the intervention
of bishops from across the Roman frontier, to whom Papa appealed, swung a later
vote in his favour, and Simon was induced to favour the new arrangement by a
promise that the patriarchal throne would pass to him at the death of Papa. 43 The
community of Iranian Jews enjoyed a special relationship with the Persian king
though their leader the Exilarch, and it was surely this example which prompted the
organisation which Papa had imagined. The deacon Simon, as it was said, had en-
joyed the favour of Shapur II, and the Christians of Iran may have looked forward
to orderly and harmonious relations with the court at Ctesiphon. But this was not to
be, for Simon and his colleagues were caught up in the violence of the 340s, they
perished as martyrs, and the project of Iranian Christian unity and royal patronage,
or at least toleration, was suspended until the reign of Yazdgard I.
Enforcing the maxims of intolerance and hatred is an operation of great cost
requiring the full participation of the apparatus of government. Cancelling the base
expedient of persecuting the real or imaginary allies of Rome allowed the resources
of the state to be deployed more fully and with greater effect for the project of forti-
fying the north-eastern borders of Iran. But even at the distance of more than fif-
teen centuries, it is possible to perceive that the policy of Yazdgard divided his no-
bility and clergy. Persian tradition preserves the relics of noble and clerical hatred
41 Baum, W. / Winkler, D. W., The Church of the East, p. 9–10. The person and activities of
Papa may be entirely legendary. On the title catholicus, see De Vries, W., “Der Katholikos-
Patriarch der persischen Kirche,” Ostkirchliche Studien 33/1, 1984, p. 21–45 and Fiey, J. M.,
“Les étapes de la prise de conscience de son identité patriarcale par l’église syrienne orien-
tale,” L’Orient Syrien 12/1, 1967, p. 3–22. I owe the last two references to Christelle Jullien.
42 I am following Smith, K., Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia, p. 132–135, and
Greatrex, G., “The Romano-Persian Frontier and the Context of the Book of Steps,” Heal, K.
S. / Kitchen, R., Breaking the Mind: New Studies in the Syriac Book of Steps, 2014, p. 24–27, who
summarise the copious evidence for this problem. However, the Jullien twins have noted
that the term, which I construe as Nazorene, may have been one of abuse without reference
to liturgical or ecclesiastical differences (Jullien, C. / Jullien, F., “Aux frontières de l’iranité :
“nāṣrāyē” et “krīstyonē” des inscriptions du mobad Kirdīr. Enquête littéraire et historique,”
Numen 49, 2002, p. 282–335).
43 This curious affair is narrated only in the Chronicle of Arbela (Kawerau, P. / Króll, T., The
Chronicle of Arbela, 1985, p. 22–23).

for the tolerance of Christianity and for peace with Rome. 44 The warmongering of
aristocrats and the bigotry of hierophants imposed themselves upon the will and
confidence of a king who saw what was in the best interests of his empire. But three
facts allow us to judge that Yazdgard was not only realistic but also sincere.
I. The Roman emperor Arcadius, who reigned until the year 408, is said to have
asked Yazdgard to be the guardian of his son and successor Theodosius. This im-
portant request is reported first by Procopius, the most important historian of the
reign of the emperor Justinian, but the truth of that report is vehemently denied by
the historian Agathias. 45 Later emperors of Rome and Sasanian kings were united by
ties similar to what Procopius alleges, but there is no evidence that the proposed
adoption occurred. But stronger bonds between Ctesiphon and Constantinople
were more than merely a political symbol. The Chronography of Theophanes, a work
of the ninth century of our era, records that Yazdgard dispatched to the court at
Constantinople a eunuch by the name of Antiochus whose task was to assure a
smooth transfer of power to Theodosius. 46 The very fact that the adoption was
mooted announces an easing of tension between the two great powers, but the ca-
reer of Antiochus suggests that the belligerency of Shapur II had given way to a pol-
icy of intimate diplomatic involvement in Roman affairs. 47
II. A law within the Code of Justinian refers to an agreement of about the year 408
which regulated trade between the two great powers. 48 The exchange of goods was
limited to the cities of Callinicum, Nisibis, and the Armenian city of Artaxata, the
last two of which were controlled by Iran. The experience of warfare under Shapur
II had perhaps taught the Romans to fear Iranian spies, and so Yazdgard conceded
that espionage by merchants should be rigorously punished by exile and confisca-
tion of property. This agreement represents a genuine effort to protect and to regu-
late the border with Rome. It proves that Yazdgard exerted himself in defence of
the financial interests of his empire but willingly paid a high price for peace by re-
ducing Iran’s capacity to gather intelligence along its western frontier.
44 Dinawari, p. 53; Tabari, v. 2, p. 63–65. This is why Yazdgard I is called ‘the sinner’ in the
Persian royal tradition (cf. Mosig-Walburg, K., “Yazdgerd I., „der Sünder“,” in Gignoux, P. /
Jullien, C. / Jullien, F. (eds), Trésors d’Orient: Mélanges offerts à Rika Gyselen, (Studia Iranica, Ca-
hier 42), Paris, 2009, p. 245–268).
45 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.ii.6–10; Agathias, Historiae, IV.26.3–7.
46 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 80.
47 Dignas, B. / Winter, E., Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity, 2007, p. 94–96. On the career of
Antiochus, see Greatrex, G. / Bardill, J., “Antiochos the Praepositus: a Persian eunuch at the
court of Theodosius II,” in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 50, 1996, p. 171–197.
48 Codex Justinianus, IV.63.4
III. In imitation of the Roman precedent, Yazdgard began the process which led to
the establishment of an indigenous Iranian church. 49 Contact between Rome and the
court of Yazdgard had been opened by the Roman ambassador Marutha; and the
advice of this bishop may have aided the Persian king and his ministers in framing a
policy of toleration throughout the empire of Iran. 50 But Marutha also advised
Yazdgard to convene a synod at the city of Seleucia in the year 410. The decisions of
this synod, which yet survive, 51 endorsed the faith of Nicaea and proclaimed twenty-
one canons for the regulation of the Iranian church and its ministers, and Mar Isaac
was confirmed as bishop of Ctesiphon and archbishop of all the Orient. In the pre-
amble to the canons of that synod, Yazdgard is saluted as the bringer of peace and
tranquillity to the Christians of Iran. The tempest of persecution had been dis-
persed, ruined churches were rebuilt, altars which had been demolished were care-
fully restored, votaries of Christ who had languished in prison were released, and the
hierarchy of the church was permitted to circulate freely and without fear. This re-
markable change of policy, which can be compared to the emperor Constantine’s
Edict of Milan, 52 required some explanation; and with reference to the Proverbs of
Solomon it was announced that the heart of the king was as a stream of water in the
hands of the Lord who can direct it whithersoever he will. 53 Yazdgard commanded
that his edict of tolerance be distributed throughout the empire of Iran, and he pro-
claimed joyfully that ‘East and West are one dominion under the power of my mon-
archy’ 54 – a splendid achievement of both policy and political communication, which
the Roman delegation at the Synod would have heard in the same year in which Ala-
ric sacked the city of Rome.
Another example of Yazdgard’s clemency is embodied in the legendary claim that he
had married the daughter of the leader of the Jews resident in Iran. The exilarch’s
daughter was called Shishin-Dukht, and it was said that she was the mother to Bah-
ram V, son and successor to Yazdgard I. This doubtful descent is affirmed by a brief
notice within the Shahrestaniha-yi Eranshahr, and cannot be corroborated. 55 If true, it
49 I am following, somewhat loosely, Labourt, J., Le Christianisme dans l’empire perse sous la dyn-
astie sassanide (224–632), 1904, p. 92–99.

50 Socrates Scholasticus, VII.8.1–20; Chronicle of Seert, I(2), p. 318.
51 The record of this synod is preserved in Synodicon Orientale, p. 17–36. A brilliant analysis of
the significance of that council can be found in Wood, P., “Collaborators and Dissidents:
Christians in Sasanian Iraq in the Early Fifth Century,” in Bernheimer, T. / Silverstein, A.
(eds), Late Antiquity Eastern Perspectives, 2012, p. 58–62.
52 Cf. McDonough, S., “A Second Constantine? The Sasanian King Yazdgard in Christian
History and Historiography,” Journal of Late Antiquity 1.1 (Spring), 2008, p. 127–141.
53 Synodicon Orientale, p. 19; Proverbs, XXI.1.
54 Synodicon Orientale, p. 19:
̈ ‫ܡܕܢܚܐ ܘܡܥܪܒܐ ܚܕ ܫܘܠܛܢܐ‬
.‫ܗܘܝ �ܘܚܕܢܐ ܕܡܠܟܘܬܝ‬
55 Shahrestaniha i Eranshahr, §47.
may mean that differences of religion were of small importance to Yazdgard I. If

false, the origin of this claim may be either Sasanian propaganda designed to assure
the loyalty of the Jews, or it may adumbrate a Jewish fable reminiscent of the ro-
mance of Esther and Ahasuerus. 56
THE END OF YAZDGARD’S REIGN

The relationship between Yazdgard and Marutha merits our attention. Socrates, an
ecclesiastical historian, reports that Yazdgard was greatly impressed by the piety and
medical knowledge of Marutha. 57 The bishop is said to have cured the king of the
headaches that had afflicted him, and to have expelled from the king’s son a demon
which Zoroastrian physicians had failed to exorcise. But the high honour in which
Marutha was held aroused the envy and hatred of the Zoroastrian clergy. If the his-
torian Socrates can be believed, in the ensuing contest Zoroastrian priests employed
stratagems to prove the falsity of the Christian faith and to impose the truth of their
own religion upon the mind of their king. Yazdgard frequented a fire shrine, and a
man was commanded to hide under the floor of it and to declare, as though he were
the voice of the fire, that the king must be deposed because he had favoured a
Christian priest. But the source of the divine voice was found out and the trick was
revealed. The Zoroastrian hierophants plotted a second time, and contrived that a
foul smell should be diffused wherever the king appeared. This stench was blamed
upon Christians, but the real perpetrators were discovered. The ties of friendship
and loyalty between Yazdgard and Marutha were renewed and strengthened, and the
influence of the bishop grew. The force of Socrates’ narrative suggests that the Per-
sian king had meditated a conversion to the religion of Christ. But the ecclesiastical
historian asserts that Yazdgard died before receiving the sacrament of baptism. 58
The narrative of Socrates conceals great tensions within the court of Yazdgard.
The policy of tolerance may have appeared to give way to exclusive favour of Chris-
tians, and jealous Zoroastrians would have perceived in the advice of Marutha the
influence of the Roman government. Persian tradition takes slim notice of a conflict
between Yazdgard and his vizier Mihr-Narseh who appears to have represented no-
ble and clerical interests against the supposedly tyrannical policy of the king. 59 Con-
temporary accounts of martyrdom, composed in Syriac, are perhaps more instruc-
tive.
Toward the end of the life and reign of Yazdgard, demands for a renewal of
persecution grew in vehemence until a zealous bishop, and a mob of Christian en-
56 Neusner, J., A History of the Jews in Babylonia, vol. 5, 1970, p. 9–11.

57 Wood, P., “Collaborators and Dissidents,” p. 62–64.
58 Καὶ ὁ Ἰσδιγέρδης μὲν ἔφθασε τελευτῆσαι, πρὶν τελείως Χριστιανίσαι (Socrates Scholasti-
cus, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII.8.20).

59 Tabari, v. 2, p. 64.
thusiasts, destroyed a fire shrine. 60 ‘I destroyed the building and I extinguished the
were the words of ʿAbda (that was the name of the offending priest) when he was
flame, for it was not a house of God, neither is the fire the daughter of God’. 61 Such
summoned before Yazdgard; and the Sasanid monarch attempted to persuade that
bishop to restore the ruined temple. The liberal spirit of the ecclesiastical historian
refusal to rebuild it. 62 The Persian king responded to ʿAbda’s defiance by executing
Theodoret condemns the destruction of the shrine, but he applauds the bishop’s
him and perhaps by allowing the Zoroastrian hierarchy to revenge themselves upon
some other refractory Christians. A similar fate awaited Narseh, a notable convert
and martyr. An Iranian nobleman had embraced the faith of Christ and erected a
church; but his ephemeral conversion ended in a return to the religion of Zoroaster,
and the sanctuary, which he had built, became a temple of fire. In a transport of rage
Narseh entered the shrine, put out the fire, and removed all trappings of Zoroastri-
an worship. The civil and religious authorities proposed that Narseh preserve his life
by repairing the damage which he had wrought, but the ascetic zealot refused; and a
brief imprisonment terminated in his execution. 63 Such was the limit of Yazdgard’s
tolerance. But we can scarcely believe Theodoret’s claim that Yazdgard threatened
the destruction of all Iranian churches as additional punishment for the behaviour of a
The destruction wrought by ʿAbda, Narseh, and their associates demonstrates

small cabal of fanatics. 64
that Yazdgard and his successors would never fully succeed in involving the Church
within the hierarchies of power of the Iranian empire. Though many a noble Iranian
might be loyal both to Christ and to the House of Sasan, it would be impossible to
control the lower clergy and their invincible hatred of indigenous Iranian religion. 65
The policy of the Sasanid court attempted to portray the destruction perpetrated by
Christian partisans as damage to public institutions which those enthusiasts refused
to correct or reverse; and such refusal necessitated the supreme penalty. 66 But no
one can have seriously believed that Christians would have agreed to repair, or to
rebuild, a temple of fire.
60 Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, V.39.1–6. For modern analysis of this period, see Wood,
P., “Collaborators and Dissidents,” p. 64–65, and Smith, K., Constantine and the Captive Chris-
tians of Persia, p. 145–153.
61 The Martyrdom of Mar Abda, p. 252.
62 ἴσον γὰρ μοι δοκεῖ, says Theodoret, τοῦ προσκυνῆσαι τὸ πῦρ τὸ τούτῳ τέμενος δείμασθαι
(Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, V.39.4).

63 The Martyrdom of Narsai, p. 172–173.
64 Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, V.39. The testimony of the Chronicle of Seert is similar, but
somewhat more realistic (Chronicle of Seert, I(2), p. 326–328).

65 Wood, P., “Collaborators and Dissidents,” p. 70.
66 Payne, R., A State of Mixture, p. 47–48.
en to extirpate. The execution of ʿAbda and Narseh, and the renewal of persecution
The reign of Yazdgard ended in a revival of the intolerance which he had striv-
seems to have elicited Roman sympathy for the victims, and threatened to disrupt
the tranquillity which had followed the wars of Shapur II. But we can sense only
indirectly that peace in the west had been threatened. In the final year of the life and
reign of Yazdgard I, the archbishop of the Orient was Mar Yahballaha. This man
was sent to the Roman emperor as an ambassador in order to assure ‘the tranquillity
and reconciliation of the two empires which constitute the mighty supports of the
world’. 67 The mission of Yahballaha was successful, and conflict was averted for a
brief moment, despite the strain upon relations between the two great powers.
The ecclesiastical historian Socrates implies that Yazdgard I died a natural
death. But the historian Tabari reports that a horse kicked that king with such ve-
hemence that he died instantly. 68 This important event is said to have occurred in
the region of Gurgan. From a window of his palace in that country, Yazdgard be-
held a mysterious horse galloping toward him. The horse halted at the gate of the
palace and would allow no one but the king to apply the accoutrements of riding,
but the king’s attempt to adjust the crupper elicited the kick which slew him. The
horse fled mysteriously and was never seen again. This strange notice most probably
conceals a royal assassination while the Persian king was engaged in some important
business away from the Persian capital. 69 The mention of Gurgan is noteworthy, and
may recall Yazdgard’s attention to his north-eastern frontier.
FROM BAHRAM V TO PEROZ I

A conspiracy of noblemen had deprived Yazdgard I of his life and reign, and those
zealous aristocrats vowed that no son of Yazdgard should ever sit upon the Sasanid
throne. Yazdgard had achieved much for the tranquillity of Iran, but his toleration
of Christianity had elicited from his grandees and hierophants only envy and hatred.
The historian Dinawari records the names of the conspirators, 70 and notes that they
appointed a man bearing the name of Khusro as the successor to Yazdgard. Shapur,
the eldest son of Yazdgard who had governed Iranian Armenia, had attempted to
mount the throne, but did not survive his return to Ctesiphon. But Bahram, a
younger son to the last king, would not relinquish his hereditary right, and chal-
67 Synodicon Orientale, p. 37–38:

̈
‫ܚܝܠܬܢܝܬܐ ܕܥܠܡܐ‬ ̈ ‫ܕܡܠܟܘܬܐ ܣܠܝܢ ܬܪܝܬܝܗܝܢ ܕܐܝܬܝܗܝܢ ܟ‬
‫ܬܦܬܗ‬ ̈ ‫ܠܫܝܢܐ ܘܠܬܪܥܘܬܐ‬
68 Tabari, v. 2, p. 64.
69 Dinawari, p. 57.
70 These were: Bistam of the Ispahbudan family who held the rank of Hazaraft, Yazd-
Gushnnasp whose rank was Padgosban, Pirak of the Mihran family, Godarz the scribe of the
army, Goshnasp Adurbish, who was a bureaucrat connected with the tax system, Panna
Khusro master of alms-giving, and other amongst the nobility and the royal house (Dina-
wari, p. 57).
lenged Khusro. 71 A civil war takes shape upon the pages of Tabari and Dinawari,
and this important struggle merits our attention and requires explanation.
THE POWER OF IRAN’S ARAB CLIENTS

The Lakhmid capital at Hira had formed an important part of Iran’s south-western
fortifications since the time of Shapur I, and Yazdgard I cultivated that court also.
Relations between the Persian monarch and the Lakhmid king Mundhir must have
involved the granting and the demand of favours, and the consolidation of Iran’s
frontier defences must have included Iran’s Saracen client; but we know of only one
important exchange in the early fifth century. The son of Yazdgard had been sent to
the court of Hira for his upbringing and education. Upon the death of his father and
the elevation of the pretender Khusro, the young Bahram left Hira escorted by
Mundhir and a numerous train of Arab soldiers. A series of razzias and abductions
in the vicinity of the Iranian capital compelled the partisans of Khusro to negotiate,
and Bahram was made king in place of the usurper. We cannot know the details of
the negotiation which issued in the elevation of Bahram. The aristocratic and clerical
parties must have demanded a reversal of the empire’s policy on Christianity, and
perhaps other demands also. But the indigenous Persian tradition transforms the
negotiation into a fabulous ordeal in which the royal accoutrements were placed
before two ferocious lions, and the rule of Iran was granted to Bahram who slew
both animals with a mace and who fearlessly claimed the regalia for himself. 72
The ordeal of the lions gives way to a long procession of chivalrous, heroic,
sybaritic, and erotic notices concerning Bahram V. Indigenous Iranian tradition as-
sociates the reign of Bahram V with tales of that king’s prowess in war, his skill at
hunting and polo, his fondness for wine, his memorable combat with an elephant,
and his connection with a songstress called Azada, a Roman slave girl who would
sing to him whilst seated upon the back of a camel. 73 He is said to have composed
poetry in the Arabic language, and because he was a lover of entertainments, he
transported a great number of musical Gypsies from India to Iran. 74 Even after the
passage of seven hundred years, the Persian poet Nizami (who wrote in the twelfth
century) was inspired to compose a romance about the life of Bahram. The Seven
Princesses, as it is often called in English, remains one of the most important poetical
creations of all time, and it is a masterpiece of erotic literature. 75 Nothing can entire-
71 Tabari, v. 2, p. 71.
72 Syvänne argues that this ordeal was likely to have occurred (Syvänne, I., “The Reign of
Bahrām V Gōr: The Revitalization of the Empire through Mounted Archery,” Historia i
Świat, nr 4, 2015, p. 77), but I doubt it.
73 Dinawari, p. 57; Tabari, v. 2, p. 78–79; Ferdowsi, Yazdgard-i-Bazagar, l. 166–233. See also
Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 271–272.

74 Hamza Isfahani, p. 55.
75 De Blois, F. “Haft Peykar” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XI, fasc. 5, 2002, p. 522–524.
ly disperse the mist of fable and romance that surrounds the reign of Bahram, and it
is perhaps fitting that the historian Dinawari asserts that that king vanished on a
hunting expedition and was never seen again. 76
The lot of Iranian Christians worsened under Bahram V and provoked Roman
intervention. Three writers (Quodvultdeus, the person called Pseudo-Dionysus, and
St Augustine of Hippo) demonstrate that the force and violence of the Iranian per-
secution was felt throughout the Roman world. 77 Punishment and torment was vis-
ited even upon those Iranian Christians who served in the royal administration, for
sixteen scribes were arrested and compelled on pain of death to renounce the wor-
ship of Jesus. 78 Cyril of Scythopolis adds the important detail that the Zoroastrian
hierarchy wished to hunt down, and (we may presume) to kill, the Christians of
Iran. 79 The evidence of St Augustine asserts that Christians fled to Roman territory;
and from the severity of the persecution, that saint inferred that the church would
perhaps endure anguish and affliction until doomsday. 80 Amidst a general campaign
of intimidation and terror, one of the torments inflicted was the disinterment of
Christians whose bodies had been buried in the earth for some time. 81 Cyril adds
that the Zoroastrian hierophants had commanded Arabian soldiers to erect road-
blocks upon the highways which crossed the Roman frontier, and those Saracens
were to prevent the escape of the fugitives. But one of the Saracen commanders,
who bore the Iranian title of Aspebet, felt compassion for the persecuted Christians,
and helped many of them to seek refuge among the Romans. The Aspebet was ac-
76 Dinawari claims that Bahram pursued a herd of wild asses into the vicinity of a bottomless
swamp, and then fell into it mysteriously (Dinawari, p. 59–60).
77 Quodvultdeus, Liber Promissorum III.34.36; Pseudo-Dionysus I.193.10–12; Augustine, De
Civitate Dei XVIII.52. Payne (Payne, R., A State of Mixture, 2015) makes no reference to these
pious authors’ notices of the persecutions in Iran.
78 Labourt, J., Le Christianisme, p. 113–117.
79 Cyril of Scythopolis, Vita Euthymi, 10.
80 Sed…adfirmare aliquas futuras a regibus praeter illam novissimam, de qua nullus ambigit Christianus,
non minoris est temeritatis. Itaque hoc in medio relinquimus neutram partem quaestionis huius astruentes
sive destruentes, sed tantummodo ab adfirmandi quodlibet horum audaci praesumptione revocantes (Augus-
tine, De Civitate Dei XVIII.52).
81 The order for this atrocious element of the persecution was given by Bahram’s chief
mobad whose name was Mihr-Shabur (The Martyrdom of Peroz, p. 254):

.‫ܫܡܫܐ‬̈ ‫ܫܢܝ ܐܒܘܗܝ ܩܦܐ ܐܪܕܘ ܐܢܘܢ ܠܥܝܢ‬ ̈ ‫ܡܝܬܐ ܕ ܩܒܝܪܝܢ ܗܘܘ ܡܢ‬ ̈
This persecution is discussed in Brock, S., “Christians in the Sasanian Empire: A Case of
Divided Loyalties,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, II, 1976, p. 9 with note 37. The Chroni-
cle of Seert appears to confirm the disinterment (Chronicle of Seert I(2), p. 332):
.‫ابتدأ ��دم البيع ور�ى عظام ال��دآء ا��دفونة ف��ا‬
Despite the weight of the evidence, Payne appears to deny that any such persecution oc-
curred (Payne, R., A State of Mixture, p. 46–48).
cused before the Persian king, and that noble Saracen fled to the Roman general of
the east, who made him commander of Rome’s Arabian clients. 82
WAR WITH ROME

War with Rome broke out in the year 421 and lasted a single year. The fullest ac-
count of this momentary conflict is provided by the ecclesiastical historian Socra-
tes. 83 That writer alleges that the court of Theodosius had sought to avenge the per-
secuted Christians of Iran. That was the principle cause of war. But other grievances
were: that Iran had refused to return a company of Roman gold miners hired by the
Sasanian government; that Iranian officials pursued a policy of seizing the wares of
Roman merchants; and that the ambassadors of the Iranian court had demanded the
extradition of Christian fugitives. The bias of Socrates ensured that he would take a
special interest in the fate of his fellow votaries of Christ, but he is not wrong about
the religious stimulus to warfare. Immediately before the outbreak of war, a jewelled
cross was erected upon the place of Christ’s crucifixion by the Roman emperor’s
sister Pulcheria, and a gold solidus was issued bearing the image of Victory support-
ing a long cross, and the cloaks of the Roman soldiers were adorned with crosses of
bronze. These signs have been interpreted to mean that the Roman state treated the
conflict with Iran as a holy war. 84
The course of the war may be narrated briefly. The emperor Theodosius sent
to the east the general Ardaburius, who invaded Arzanene through Armenia. The
Iranian army commanded by Mihr-Narseh was defeated, and the Roman force pro-
ceeded to besiege the city of Nisibis. Bahram, who commanded his army in person,
brought with him a large army of Saracen clients, and they compelled the Romans to
relinquish the siege of that fortress. But the reciprocal attack upon Antioch was not
crowned with success: the Saracens were thrown into confusion and many of them
fell into the river Euphrates and perished. Another battle followed, the Roman gen-
eral Areobindus worsted the host of Bahram, and a truce was negotiated. 85
82 Cyril of Scythopolis (Vita Euthymi, 10) claims that the king at the time was Yazdgard I, but
the more reliable chronology of the ecclesiastical historian Socrates proves that these events
occurred in the reign of Bahram V (Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica VII.18).
83 Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica VII.18. Syriac sources provide some small details of this war
also (Schrier, O. J. “Syriac Evidence for the Roman-Persian War of 421–422,” Greek, Roman,
and Byzantine Studies, 33, 1992, p. 75–86. For a modern treatment of this war, see Greatrex,
G. “The Two Fifth-Century Wars Between Rome and Persia,” Florilegium, 12, 1993, p. 1–14.
84 Holum, K. G., “Pulcheria’s Crusade A.D. 421–422 and the Ideology of Imperial Victory,”
Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 18, 1977, p. 153–172.

85 The terms of the peace were not settled (we are told) until a contingent of Persians, called
‘the Immortals’, had been defeated by the armies of a certain Procopius who had recently
been appointed magister militum per orientem (Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica II.20; Theodoret
Historia Ecclesiastica V.37.6–10). See also Greatrex, G. “The Two Fifth-Century Wars.”
In the midst of that war between Iran and Rome, a large force of Huns pene-
trated through the Caucasus into Media. 86 Basich and Cursich, who commanded the
Hunnish host, plundered that land and were only halted by the missiles of an Iranian
army sent to oppose them. The danger to the Sasanid state was enormous: for a
brief moment the Huns of Europe and those of Inner Asia threatened Iran on all
sides but its southern coast. According to the writer Priscus, Attila, king of the Eu-
ropean Huns, contemplated the annihilation of the empire of Iran. Hearing of this,
the Romans prayed for the extinction of their eastern foe, but Constantiolus (a Ro-
man ambassador familiar with the court of Attila) feared that the Roman state
would not long survive the Hunnish subdual of Iran. 87 From this we may judge the
fear which united the two sedentary powers in a policy of mutual defence against
the Huns.
THE TREATY OF 422

The treaty of peace which followed that brief war was advantageous both to Iran
and Rome. Neither great power had sought to destroy the other, and so it was easy
to reassert and to strengthen a policy of cooperation. Four terms of the treaty can
be reconstructed. 88 Both powers agreed not to allow defections from their respec-
tive Saracen clients, as Rome had lately received the renegade Aspebet; the construc-
tion of border fortifications was immediately halted, the latest example of which was
the Roman fortification of Theodosiopolis; and Rome agreed to pay a subsidy for
the defence of the Caucasus passes, which both powers regarded as a common
weakness, although only one empire maintained those defences. 89 The final term
was a promise to end the persecution of Christians within the empire of Iran, and
86 Priscus, frag. XI.2 in in Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising Historians, p. 278; Kim,
H. J., The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe, p. 54–55.
87 Ἡμῶν δὲ κατὰ Περσῶν ἐλθεῖν αὐτὸν ἐπευξαμένων καὶ ἐπ᾽ ἐκείνους τρέψαι τὸν πόλεμον, ὁ
Κωνσταντίολος ἔλεγε δεδιέναι μήποτε καὶ Πέρσας ῥᾳδίως παραστησάμενος ἀντὶ φίλου
δεσπότης ἐπανήξει (Priscus, frag. XI.2 in in Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising Histori-
ans, p. 278).
88 The sources are Marcellinus Comes, a.c. 422; Malchus, frag. 1. in Blockley, R. C., The Frag-
mentary Classicising Historians, p. 404–406; Kawerau, P. / Króll, T., The Chronicle of Arbela, p.
31; Procopius, Bellum Persicum I.2.11–15. For a modern analysis, see Holum, K. G., “Pulche-
ria’s Crusade,” p. 170–171.
89 I believe that the matter of the Caucasian defences was most probably agreed to in the
context of this treaty since it appears to fit the context well. John the Lydian seems to think
that there was such an agreement in the year 363, but this is most doubtful (John Lydus, de
Magistratibus III.52). The main reasons for my rejection of an earlier agreement is that the
project of fortifying the Caucasus was not undertaken until the fifth century and the agree-
ment mentioned in the reign of Yazdgard I is the first of which we can be certain (Blockley,
R. C., “Subsidies and Diplomacy: Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity,” Phoenix, vol. 39, no. 1,
1985, p. 62–74).
Rome undertook in return to spare Zoroastrians within its own borders – a token
promise since those sectaries were not numerous outside Iran.
The provision concerning the Caucasian defences merits further attention. This
important matter is noticed briefly in one of the surviving fragments of the writings
of Priscus. That man had served in what we might call the foreign ministry of the
emperor Theodosius II, and Priscus’ Byzantine History preserves the Iranian attitude
to those important bulwarks in the Caucasus. 90 Priscus’ mention of them occurs in
the circumstance of an embassy in the later reign of the king Peroz, but the argu-
ments of the Iranian diplomats must have been the same as those put forth in the
420s. It was not right, as Iranian ambassadors argued, that Iran alone should have
the burden of defending the Caucasus, and the Romans were asked either to pay or
to send troops to guard that turbulent and forbidding region. 91 If the Romans fail to
help, they said, ‘the evil wrought by the circumjacent nations shall come not only
upon the Persians but also upon the Romans; and so it is right that the Romans
should help with money in the war against the Kidarite Huns since they would have
an advantage if the Persians were victorious, for that nation would not be permitted
to cross into the Roman dominion.’ 92 Priscus notes that those words were pro-
nounced in a later reign, but the Iranian embassy in the year 422 must have ex-
pressed the same sentiment.
The words of the Iranian embassy could be construed to imply the equality of
the two great powers. But the payment of a subsidy allowed the government of Bah-
ram V to announce that the Roman state had been made tributary to the empire of
Iran. This appears to be concealed within a remark by the historian Tabari to the
effect that, in the reign of Bahram V, an embassy lead by Mihr-Narseh came to
Constantinople for the purpose of making a truce and discussing tribute to be paid to
Iran. 93
The testimony of the writer commonly called Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite con-
firms that, by late fifth century, a formal agreement on the subsidy had been
reached. A treaty had stipulated that either power should send, whenever necessary,
90 The history of Priscus covered the years 434 to 474 (or thereabouts) and survives only in
large fragments. The history is written in a clear and straightforward style; and, in my view,
this suggests that he had experience outside the imperial bureaucracy. For other views, see
Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising Historians, p. 48–70).
91 Priscus, frag. 41.1; 47 in Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising Historians, p. 344–346;
352–354).
92 Εἰ γὰρ ἐνδοῖεν, οὐκ ἐς Πέρσας μόνους, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐς Ῥωμαίους τὰ ἐκ τῶν παροικούντων
ἐθνῶν κακὰ ῥᾳδίως ἀφίξεσθαι. Χρῆναι δὲ αὐτοὺς ἔλεγον καὶ χρήμασιν ἐπικουρεῖν ἐπὶ τῷ
πρὸς Οὔννους πολέμῳ τοὺς Κιδαρίτας λεγομένους· ἔσεσθαι γὰρ σφίσιν αὐτῶν νικώντων
ὄνησιν, μὴ συγχρωρουμένου τοῦ ἔθνους καὶ ἐς τὴν Ῥωμαϊκὴν διαβαίνειν ἐπικράτειαν
(Priscus, frag. 41 in Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising Historians, p. 346).
93 Tabari, v. 2, p. 79. We must also assume that the Roman government had agreed to pay
the subsidy, or else it could not have cancelled it in the time of Peroz.
three hundred men with their arms and horses, or three hundred staters in place of
each man. 94 The Stylite’s hatred for the Iranian empire suggests that he has not mis-
represented the provisions of the treaty. His persistent denial confirms that the gov-
ernment of Iran portrayed the payment as a form of tribute. 95 But Iranian diplomacy
prudently concealed this exaggeration in formal exchanges with Rome. Toward the
middle of the six century, a letter of Kavad I addressed the emperor Justinian as his
brother, and referred to the same agreement described by the Stylite. 96
The Roman government was zealous to respect this agreement – at least at
first. An inscription at the fortress at Darband commemorated an important sub-
vention in the middle of the fifth century. ‘Marcian, the autocratic Caesar, built this
city and these towers with money from his own treasury’, or so says the Armenian
historian Lewond. 97 But successive emperors were not always as generous as Marci-
an, and some withheld payment altogether.
BAHRAM V IN THE EAST

At the conclusion of the war with Rome, Bahram turned to the east. If the history
of Dinawari can be trusted, Bahram was the first Sasanian king to confront and de-
feat the Kidarite Huns. 98 Sasanian policy settled upon a feint. An embassy bearing
treasure and tribute was dispatched to the Kidarite court in order to persuade that
people to spare Iran. Although a diplomatic exchange had been expected, Bahram
had assembled an army of seven thousand men who came upon the Huns at a de-
sert place six parasangs from the city of Marv. The Huns were thrown into confu-
sion, and Bahram slew their king, plundered their treasures, captured the Hunnish
queen, traversed the river Oxus, and achieved the total submission of that nation.
The Huns are supposed to have asked the Persian king to establish a barrier beyond
94 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, VIII.

95 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, VIII; IX–X.
96 ηὕραμεν ἐν τοῖς ἡμετέροις ἀρχαίοις ἀναγεγραμμένα…ἐάν τις ἐπιδεηθῇ σωμάτων ἢ
χρημάτων, παρέχειν τὸν ἕτερον (John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 449–450).

97 Lewond, XII. Marcian reigned in the years 450–457. This curious notice in the Armenian
history of Lewond claims that the Arabs, who conquered the fortress at Darband in the year
717, discovered that inscription. The text predicted (says Lewond) that ‘the sons of Ishmael’
would one day destroy and rebuild Darband, but this supposed prophecy may have less to
do with Arab vanity than with Christian apocalyptic imagery concerning both Ishmael and
the barrier which restrained the nations of Gog and Magog. I am inclined to doubt that the
second part of the inscription is genuine, but it is not impossible. ‘The sons of Ishmael’ had
apocalyptic significance before the rise of Islam (Grypeou, E. / Spurling, H., The Book of
Genesis is Late Antiquity: Encounters Between Jewish and Christian Exegesis, 2014, p. 248–249). Al-
iev vouches for the authenticity of the first half of the inscription and omits the second (Al-
iev, A. A., et al., “The Ghilghilchay Defensive Long Wall,” p. 144).
98 Dinawari, p. 57–59. The Kidarite Huns are invoked anachronistically under the name of
Turk.
which they should never pass, and Bahram commanded the erection of an imposing
tower.
That legendary account implies that an event of some significance occurred on
Iran’s north-eastern frontier early in the reign of Bahram V. The historian Dinawari
states that Bahram left his brother to rule in his stead, and so we may infer that the
enterprise in the north-east was attended by the risk that the king might not survive
it. It is possible to infer that Dinawari has preserved a fanciful reminiscence that
Bahram V opened relations with the Kidarite Huns, and it is likely that both a mili-
tary demonstration and a diplomatic exchange occurred. But it cannot be true that
the Sasanian state inflicted so serious defeat upon the Huns as Dinawari’s source led
him to report. Bahram V most probably halted the westward expansion of the
Kidarite Huns at Marv, and diverted them southward into Gandhara. It was only in
the following reign of Yazdgard II that the Kidarites resumed their expansion into
Sogdiana and conquered the important city of Samarqand. 99
THE ABOLITION OF THE ARMENIAN MONARCHY

AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
The partition of Armenia had divided that country between the two great powers.
The king of Roman Armenia had died in the year 390, and the government at Con-
stantinople had allowed no successor to ascend the throne. But the nobles of that
country were not ruled directly by the Roman emperor, for a viceroy bearing the
title of Count of Armenia was installed at Theodosiopolis. In the reign of Bahram
V, the fate of Iranian Armenia was similar, and the extinction of the Armenian
monarchy had consequences which extended across the reigns of Yazdgard II and
Peroz I. 100
Since the reign of Ardashir I, one Armenian monarch after another had been
enthroned or deposed with the connivance of the Persian court. This arrangement
came to an end in the fifth century. The Persian monarch appointed Artashes IV
son of Vramshapuh to rule over Armenia, but the reign of that Arsacid descendant
irritated the princes of Armenia. The noble houses of that country demanded the
removal of Artashes, and he was replaced by an Iranian governor in the year 428.
For the moment the nobles of Armenia were content with the expansion of their
power under the rule of a Sasanid viceroy. But the view of the Christian hierarchy
was different. The princes of Armenia adhered to the culture and to the religion of
Iran, and that obedience was repugnant to the sensibilities of Christians. Many noble
houses held the religion of Jesus in contempt, and considered its votaries to be Ro-
man spies and traitors. At the behest of the nobility, the Armenian patriarch Sahak,
99 De la Vaissière, É., Histoire des Marchands Sogdiens, p. 113–114. For the expansion of the
Kidarites, the author cites evidence from Chinese sources which I am incapable of reading.
100 My summary of Armenian history at this point follows Payaslian, S., The History of Arme-
nia, p. 40–44 and Toumanoff, C., “Introduction to Christian Caucasian History,” p. 3–6.
who led the opposition to the Iranian governor, was arrested and detained for a few
years. In time Sahak was released and he resumed his office, but this failed to re-
solve the problem of an incipient civil war.
THE BATTLE OF AVARAYR

The contest in Armenia attained its full vehemence in the reign of Yazdgard II. A
memorable battle in the year 451 may be seen as a contest for the soul of Armenia
waged between rival princes and their Christian and Zoroastrian associates. 101 The
nobleman Vardan Mamikonean led an army of Armenian Christians against their
magian and Iranophile antagonists. The Sasanian government had promoted a poli-
cy of forcible conversion, and intervened on the side of Zoroastrian Armenia. The
Christian party suffered a disastrous defeat; many churchmen attained martyrdom,
and the Christian nobility and hierophants were led away into captivity. All Trans-
caucasia was embroiled in warfare, and the Sasanian government was greatly dis-
turbed by these convulsions. According to Armenian tradition, it was better to die
than to be an apostate, and the martyrdom of Vartan and his companions assured
the continuance of Armenian Christianity, which had come to be seen as the herit-
age of their nation. Iranian fears of Roman intervention proved to be unfounded,
for appeals to that Christian empire were unanswered. The heroic defeat at Avarayr,
a little to the south-east of the snowy peak of Ararat, is remembered to this day with
intense feeling, and its anniversary remains an important day in the Armenian litur-
gical year. 102
The policy of forcible conversion was instigated by the grand vizier who had
served Yazdgard I, Bahram V, and Yazdgard II. In the year 450, Mihr-Narseh issued
a letter which commanded the Armenians to convert to the religion of Iran. The
letter is recorded in the Armenian history composed by Elishe. ‘You must know’,
the letter announced, ‘that every man who dwells below heaven and who keeps not
the laws of the Zoroastrian religion is deaf and blind, and is deceived by the demons
of Angra Mainyu. 103 This aggressive beginning gives way to an exposition of the ori-
gins of the universe, the doctrine of a good and an evil creation, a mocking rebuttal
101 It is a popular misconception that the Armenian and Iberian peoples were not originally
votaries of the Zoroastrian religion; and it is commonly, but wrongly, asserted that they ad-
hered to local and indigenous cults influenced only mildly by Iranian ideas (de Jong, A.,
“Armenian and Georgian Zoroastrianism” in Stausberg, M. / Sohrab-Dinshaw Vivaina, Y. /
Tessmann, A. (eds), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism, 2015, p. 83–102).
102 Van Lint, T. M., “The Formation of Armenian Identity in the First Millennium,” Church
History and Religious Culture, vol. 89, No. 1/3, Religious Origins of Nations? The Christian Communi-
ties of the Middle East, 2009, p. 273–274.
103 The letter from Mihr-Narseh and its response can be found in Elishe, p. 24–27. For a
modern translation, with some useful notes, see Thomson, R. W. (trans.), History of Vardan
and the Armenian War, 1982, p. 77–80.
of the Christian religion, and an invitation to join the ranks of the Persian king’s
Zoroastrian nobility. We cannot be surprised that the letter failed to achieve its in-
tended aim. A written response announced the Armenians’ refusal to relinquish their
ancestral customs; and an enraged assembly of prelates and noblemen launched the
revolt which issued in the confrontation at Avarayr and the devastation of much of
the Caucasus. In the successive reigns of Peroz and Balash these troubles were re-
solved, but only with great difficulty.
THE REIGN OF YAZDGARD II

Persian tradition passes over the reign of the second Yazdgard in nearly complete
silence. Dinawari merely notices his name, 104 and Tabari’s only statements are that
the new king had promised to uphold the policies, and to continue the legacy, of
Bahram V, and that the term of the grand vizier Mihr-Narseh was to be renewed. 105
The reign of Yazdgard II was not as uneventful as those writers suggest, but so few
sources have survived that is not possible to write a satisfactory history of that
king’s reign. 106
Only a small glimpse of the domestic policy of Yazdgard has been preserved
for us. A strange hagiographical text, known as The History of Karkha de Beth Slokh, 107
records a campaign of murder and intimidation in northern Mesopotamia against
land-owning Christians of the middle rank of the provincial nobility; and worse
torments, including banishment and castration, were visited upon disobedient offic-
ers within the Iranian army. A violent purge of the Sasanid court which ended the
life of the king’s own daughter is also noticed in that text, as is the castration of
eight thousand Zoroastrian priests. Although some of these details may represent
the imaginative efforts of a pious writer to blacken the character of the monarch, it
may be possible to see in the cruelty operated by the government of Yazdgard the
rigid enforcement of aristocratic discipline, the punishment of refractory noble
houses, and the strengthening of the sovereign’s personal rule. 108 But devotion to
the religion of Iran’s most potent antagonist was surely an aggravating element, if
not the primary cause, of the brutality and violence in the reign of the second
Yazdgard.

105 Tabari, v. 2, p. 82.
106 For a modern reconstruction of this king’s reign, which takes account of numismatic evi-
dence, see Schindel, N., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum III/1, p. 384–387.

107 History of Karkha de Beth Slokh, p. 507–535. The town of Karkha is the modern Kirkuk in
northern Iraq.
108 Payne, R., A State of Mixture, p. 45–46; McDonough, S. J., “A Question of Faith? Persecu-
tion and Political Centralization in the Sasanian Empire of Yazdgard II (438–457 CE)” in
Drake, H. A. (ed.), Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices, 2006, p. 69–81.
A BRIEF WAR WITH ROME

A moment of Roman distraction afforded an opportunity for warfare. Under the
leadership of Attila, the Huns of Europe posed a great threat to the Roman empire,
and Yazdgard II wished to take advantage of that problem. But the incursion of the
Iranian army as far as Nisibis was halted by a payment of money and treasure. 109
The emperor Theodosius and his successor Marcian wished to leave intact the peace
treaty of 422. Anatolius (the general of the east) was dispatched to perform the ne-
gotiation with the Sasanian king, and the emperor Marcian provided money for the
refurbishment of the castle at Darband – a subvention commemorated in an inscrip-
tion upon one of the walls of that fortress. 110 It is noteworthy that even an Armeni-
an writer who hated Yazdgard approved of this settlement between the two great
powers. 111
YAZDGARD II’S WAR WITH THE HUNS

The history of Yazdgard’s wars against the Huns is delineated incidentally in the
writings of two Armenians. The principle theme of both Lazar Parpetsi and Elishe
Vardapet was the great uprising and the Battle of Avarayr in the year 451, but the
two narratives differ greatly. 112 The phraseology of Lazar is terse and laconic and
Elishe is verbose and effusive, but both men readily deploy biblical allusions and
declamatory rhetoric. The former ascribes the origin of the Armenian revolt to a
conflict between noble houses, but the latter accuses only the malevolence of the
Persian king and his evil associates, and yet both Lazar and Elishe were animated by
such a vehement hatred of Yazdgard II and his government that their histories regu-
larly descend into scurrilous slander and abuse. But we must rely upon the testimony
of these men.
It is sometimes hard to comprehend those Armenian accounts of Yazdgard’s
eastern campaigns. Elishe appears to interpret warfare in the east as a means to tor-
ment Armenian Christians who had been pressed into military service or imprisoned
in distant fortresses. A royal edict called upon the soldiers of Armenia and the whole
empire of Iran to join an expedition into the land of the Huns, and Elishe implies
that many Armenians expected to die in that distant country. That historian also
seems to connect Yazdgard’s warfare with the demand of the Magian hierarchy to
enforce the religion of Zoroaster throughout Iran. The Zoroastrian priesthood, we
are told, had persuaded Yazdgard that victory over the Huns would be assured if the
Christians of Iran were exterminated. It may be that Elishe’s own paranoia has
blended itself with a misunderstanding of Iranian propaganda which portrayed the
109 Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica V.37.5–6; Moses Chorenatsi, III.67; Elishe, p. 7.

110 Lewond, XII.
111 In the opinion of Elishe, the behaviour of the emperor Theodosius apparently restrained
anger of Yazdgard (Elishe, p. 7).

112 See Elishe, p. 3–9, and Lazar, p. 1–33.
struggle against the Huns as a holy war. But Iranian policy plainly intended to re-
move Christian leaders as far from Armenia as possible. The principle contributions
of Lazar are his inclusion of the date at which Yazdgard shifted operations from
Gurgan to Khurasan, and his brief description of warfare in that distant country.
But Lazar fails to take note of warfare in Gurgan, and appears to believe that the
campaign at Nishapur was merely an opportunity for Yazdgard II to afflict his Ar-
menian captives with new torments.
Nevertheless, it is possible to reconstruct the following narrative. Yazdgard II
cancelled the tribute paid to the Huns, and opened such a fierce and prolonged war
that it continued into the reign of his successor. 113 Yazdgard’s Hunnish war was
prosecuted in two phases. In the first phase, operations were conducted in the re-
gion of Gurgan, where two years of fighting achieved nothing against the Huns. But
an annual levy of fresh troops improved the military fortune of the Persian king; and
in the place of an annual expedition, Yazdgard II transposed his capital to the north-
east for a long series of battles. The Persian king established a forward base at a
place which he called the City of Yazdgard, 114 and he dwelt there from the fourth to
the eleventh year of his reign. Yazdgard ascribed his success to his empire’s adher-
ence to the Zoroastrian religion: he multiplied the sacrifices which occurred in the
fire temples of Iran, he lavished honours and distinctions upon the Magian clergy,
and he commanded that all goods and possessions of the Iranian Christians should
be seized. In the year 450, the twelfth year of his reign, Yazdgard undertook a mas-
sive assault upon the Huns. If Elishe can be believed, the Iranian army pursued a
flying enemy deep into Central Asia, pillaging as they went, capturing fortresses and
cities, and accruing an immense haul of captives and booty. The second phase of
fighting began when operations were further east. The Armenian historian Lazar
adds the important detail that Yazdgard’s forward base was transposed from Gur-
gan to Nishapur in the year 454, 115 and fighting continued. The opening of that new
front was followed by a grievous defeat inflicted by the Huns; but a fragment of
Priscus’ history indicates that, two years later, the Persian king had continued to
wage war upon the Kidarites, 116 despite that earlier reversal.
114 It was called Shahrestan-i Yazdgard or Eran-Khwarra-Yazdgard in Persian (Gyselen, R., La
Géographie administrative, p. 47–48). It is not clear precisely where in Gurgan this city was.
115 Lazar situates this shift in the sixteenth year of Yazdgard’s reign (Lazar, p. 86).
116 The attendant circumstance was the Roman seizure of Lazica, to which the Iranian king
could not react: ὁ μὲν τῶν Πάρθων μόναρχος, ὡς πολέμου αὐτῷ συνισταμένου πρὸς Οὔννους
τοὺς Κιδαρίτας καλούμενους, ἀπεσείσατο παρ᾽αὐτὸν τοὺς Λαζοὺς κατφεύγοντας (Priscus,
frag. 33.1 in Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising Historians, p. 336). The use of the term
‘king of the Parthians’ is an obvious anachronism.
The revolution which exalted the Hephthalite Huns must have placed great
strain upon the Iranian frontier, and Iran was compelled to resist that pressure. 117 It
is probable that Yazdgard intervened in the struggle between the rival Hephthalite
and Kidarite clans. As Elishe implies, an enormous number of men must have been
required to do this. A secure base at or near the wall of Gurgan, made it possible to
assemble and to supply such a large army, and to carry on a war for nearly a decade.
The campaign of Yazdgard may have demonstrated to the Huns that their southern
neighbour was an important military power; and Iran’s intervention upon the steppe
may have precipitated the issue of a civil war. 118 The warfare at Gurgan had perhaps
succeeded in driving the Huns away from that portion of the Iranian frontier. But
Yazdgard’s energetic fighting in the east continued long into his reign, and apparent-
ly without resolution. The great expenditure of blood and treasure is represented by
the disproportionately high production of the mints at Gurgan and Nishapur
throughout the reign of Yazdgard. 119
THE END OF THE REIGN OF YAZDGARD II

The religious and military policies of Yazdgard promoted instability and provoked a
violent reaction. Social and religious struggles might have been confined to Armenia
without the intervention of the Persian king, and his wars with the Kidarite Huns
appear to have accelerated the rise of a more dangerous enemy. These troubles out-
lived the reign of Yazdgard, and some of them grew worse. Neither the conflict
within Central Asia, nor the disorders in the Caucasus, were resolved until the disas-
trous reign of Peroz. It was perhaps a symptom of Yazdgard’s failure that the em-
pire of Iran was plunged into civil war at his death.
REFLECTIONS ON THE STATE OF THE IRANIAN EMPIRE

IN THE FIFTH CENTURY
We have already observed that the loose rule of the Arsacids gave way to the more
organised system of dynastic power established by the House of Sasan. But Ardashir
I had merely begun the process of centralisation which his successors were to per-
fect. In the narrative that I have rehearsed in this chapter two facts suggest that that
transformation had been very gradual until the fifth century, when we suddenly de-
tect that the Iranian state had undergone important changes.
117 The struggles between Hephthalites, Kidarites, and the Sasanian empire is adumbrated in
De la Vaissière, É., Histoire des Marchands Sogdiens, p. 114–115.
118 It may be possible to connect the campaigns of Yazdgard II with the end of Kidarite rule
in Gandhara (Vondrovec, K., Coinage of the Iranian Huns and their Successors from Bactria to
Gandhara (4th to 8th century CE), vol. 1, 2014, p. 47–48.
119 Schindel, N., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum III/1, p. 384–387. I suspect that the king
would have contemplated, and soldiers would have demanded, higher pay in those long and
difficult campaigns.
I. The huge scale of military infrastructure, which I have described in this chapter,
could not have been erected without the cooperation of many branches of govern-
ment. We may be certain that the military and the financial administrations worked
with those organs of government overseeing the treasury and public works. The
troops required for the garrisons of the new fortifications may have numbered
about one hundred and eighty-thousand men, who required armour, provisions, and
accommodation. 120 So large an army stationed along the frontier suggests a com-
mensurate number of military and civilian staff to serve them and to maintain good
order and high morale in those grim fortifications. This presupposes the rigorous
management of supply lines, procurement of goods, and regular communication
between the centre and the frontier. There can be no question that the new defence
policy was formed at the centre of the Iranian government, and that the various or-
gans of the administrative state were directed by a single, supreme authority. We
may judge Sasanian defence policy, and the administrative structure which it re-
quired, by their results. The Iranian army had already matched and defeated its west-
ern antagonist in the third and fourth centuries. Iranian offensive operations, siege
warfare, armour, and other equipment had equalled those of Rome. But the fifth
century saw the construction of fortresses and walls which surpassed in size and
strength their Roman counterparts. 121 It may fairly be argued that the Sasanian state
of the fifth century attained the military supremacy of Eurasia, and we may perhaps
ascribe the disastrous defeat of Peroz in the year 484 not to any material weakness,
but to an excess of confidence. 122
II. A strong central government requires powerful functionaries to command its
operations and to see that the ruler’s will be enacted. An influential bureaucrat rarely
emerges from the shadow of the throne, and so the historian must struggle to per-
ceive the activities, the deliberations, and the advice of high officials. But in the fifth
century, the life and career of Mihr-Narseh present incontrovertible evidence of the
centralised Iranian government, and the powers of its chief minister. The position of
the wuzurg framadar, often construed as grand vizier, was not new. That office had
been held by the mysterious Abarsam who served Ardashir I, and under Yazdgard I
a certain Khusro-Yazdgard bore the same title, and there were surely others, who
120 Howard-Johnston, J., “The Late Sasanian Army,” p. 108–113. Howard-Johnston general-
ises from the size of the thirty-six garrisons found along the Gurgan wall which could have
accommodated twenty- to thirty-thousand men each.
121 The Sasanian fortress at the modern site of Qaleh-ye Gabri in Kerman was perhaps the
largest fortress in the ancient world. See the evidence and arguments presented in Sauer, E. /
Nokandeh, J., / Pitskhelauri, K. / Rekavandi, H. O., “Innovation and Stagnation: Military
Infrastructure and the Shifting Balance of Power Between Rome and Persia,” in Sauer, E.
(ed.), Sasanian Persia: Between Rome and the Steppes of Eurasia, 2017, p. 241–267.
122 Sauer, E. / Nokandeh, J., / Pitskhelauri, K. / Rekavandi, H. O., “Innovation and Stagna-
tion,” p. 263.
are not represented in the historical record, who filled that office in the interval be-
tween those reigns. 123 That the career of Mihr-Narseh announces an expansion of
the grand vizier’s powers is well attested by two of his bullas, which have sur-
vived; 124 and together with the high priest Kirder, Mihr-Narseh is the only other
official to have commissioned an inscription. Near the scene of the first Ardashir’s
investiture, Mihr-Narseh erected, at his own expense, a bridge across the river Tang-
e Ab, and beside it is written:
‘This bridge was built by the order of Mihr-Narseh, the grand vizier, for the bene-
fit of his soul, at his own expense. Whoever shall come upon this road, let him
perform a prayer for Mihr-Narseh and his sons because he built this crossing.
And so long as the gods be his help, may there be no violence or deceit in
him.’ 125
The civil, military, diplomatic, and religious policies overseen by Mihr-Narseh
throughout his time in office are consistent with a consolidation of power at the
centre of government, and it is no surprise that the man who exerted such authority
wished to commemorate himself. But our Armenian writers would not have agreed
with Mihr-Narseh’s favourable appraisal of himself and his own piety, for in the
opinion of Elishe and Lazar the grand vizier was a man who could be compared
only with Satan. None could escape the clutches of the ‘prince and commander of
the whole Persian empire’, who was an old and poisonous snake, alternately roaring
and hissing at those far and near; he fed on the flesh of the saints and drank the
blood of the innocent. 126 Even the king obeyed the commands, and cooperated in
the sinister schemes, of that ‘malicious and evil-minded man’, whose greatest care
was the destruction of weak souls. 127 It is easy to conceive of reasons to detest the
functionaries of a powerful state, but the hatred common to Elishe and Lazar was
enflamed by the efforts of Mihr-Narseh to enforce within their country the rites and
doctrines favoured by a Zoroastrian government. Yet we may note that neither writ-
er doubted, or attempted to diminish, the power of the grand vizier and the might
of the centralised state which he served. 128
123 See the evidence presented in Chaumont, M. L., “Framadar,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2012,
online edition.
124 Gyselen, R. Great-Commander (vuzurg-faramadār) and Court Counsellor (dar-andarzbed) in the
Sasanian Empire (224–651): The Sigillographic Evidence, 2008.

125 Back, M., Die sassanidischen Staatsinschriften, p. 498.
126 Elishe, p. 89–90.
127 Lazar, p. 39.
128 A neat summary of this man’s career, which I have followed, is found in Daryaee, T.,
“Mehr Narseh,” Encyclopaedia Irania, 2012, online edition.

V. HUMILIATION AND HERESY
A great cloud of ignorance hangs over the long and disastrous reign of Peroz down
to the end of the fifth century. The Persian royal tradition is especially lacunary for
that period, our Armenian writers (who are normally informative) take little interest
in Iranian affairs which had no bearing upon their country, and chronology is diffi-
cult to determine. Small but important details may be extracted from Syriac chroni-
cles and church histories, the fragments of the Byzantine History attributed to Priscus,
and the history of Procopius. But it is impossible to write a satisfactory narrative of
the sad reign of Peroz on the warrant of a few seemingly unconnected notices. I
have tried to set forth the facts as clearly as possible, and to fill in missing intervals
with whatever inferences may be justified by the evidence and the balance of proba-
bilities.
CIVIL WAR AND THE RISE OF PEROZ

Yazdgard II and his wife Denak had two sons. The elder was Hurmazd, and the
younger Peroz. These two brothers disputed the succession at the death of their
father. Hurmazd III appears to have reigned for two years, but a curious notice in
the history of Tabari suggests that Denak was ruler in Ctesiphon whilst her two sons
vied for supremacy. 1 That is the limit of our knowledge of Denak. The brief reign of
Hurmazd III may have yielded only one historical notice. 2 The biography of the
Iberian king Vakhtang remarks that Shahendukht, the daughter of Hurmazd III, was
given in marriage to that Caucasian monarch 3 – proof of the continuing importance
of that region to Iranian affairs even in the midst of civil war.
1 Tabari, v. 2, p. 82:
.�‫ وك�نت با��دا�ن �� ّ� ما يل��ا من مل‬، ‫ وا�مها دين َك‬، ‫ك�نت أ�ّ�ما وا�دة‬
But Ferdowsi computes his reign at a single year (Ferdowsi, Hurmazd-i Yazdgard, l. 1–18).
2 Schindel, however, rejects the reign of Hurmazd III altogether, judging the coins attributed
to him to be fakes (Schindel, N., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum, III/1, p. 388–389).

3 The History of King Vakhtang Gorgasali, p. 173; Rapp, S. H., The Sasanian World through Georgian
Eyes: Caucasia and the Iranian Commonwealth in Late Antique Georgian Literature, 2014, p. 318; see
also p. 313–314; 322; 341. The name is written ‘Balendukht’ in Georgian, but this must be a
123
It is difficult to describe this war between Peroz and Hurmazd. But the Arme-
nian historians Lazar and Elishe have preserved the important fact that the victory
of Peroz was achieved by the intervention of the ancient noble family of Mihran.
Those two accounts are otherwise different. Lazar claims that Peroz was the foster
son of Ashtad Mihran who personally slew Hurmazd III and installed the new king
upon the throne. 4 Elishe asserts that the tutor to young Peroz was a man named
Raham of the Mihran family whose army defeated the host of Hurmazd, and the
tutor captured and murdered Hurmazd, and then crowned his brother Peroz. 5 The
involvement of the Mihran family is the most important feature of both accounts.
That the two sources disagree as to which Mihran and the nature of his relationship
with Peroz is of smaller significance.
Three letters composed in the Bactrian language, which can be dated between
the years 457 and 459, seem to corroborate the fact of a civil war. Those letters
mention a certain Kirdir-Warahran who was ruler of the Bactrian city of Rob be-
tween Kabul and Balkh. The man Kirdir-Wahrahan is otherwise unknown, but two
of those texts salute him as ‘glorious through Hurmazd’, and the other describes
him as ‘true to Peroz’. 6 The activities of Kirdir-Warahran, and his involvement in
Sasanian affairs, are obscure; but it seems that, shifting his allegiance from one Sasa-
nian faction to the other, that local potentate received consecutive honorific titles
from both royal brothers. This may adumbrate Iranian diplomatic efforts to involve
within the Sasanid civil war the masters of Bactria who, at that moment, were the
Hephthalite Huns. Might Kirdir-Warahran have performed the work of an ambas-
sador after Peroz drew his allegiance away from his brother?
However that may be, the Persian royal tradition alleges that Hephthalite inter-
vention decided the struggle between Peroz and Hurmazd. But the testimony of that
tradition is somewhat garbled and fanciful. The historian Dinawari reverses the Ar-
menian consensus, and alleges that Peroz was the elder brother of Hurmazd. When
the younger brother unfairly mounted the throne, the elder fled to the court of the
Hephthalite king who offered to lend thirty thousand of his troops for the struggle
against Hurmazd. ‘But,’ said the Hephthalite king, ‘I shall not answer your request,
unless you swear that you are older than your brother by one year’. 7 The solemn
oath of Peroz satisfied the king of the Hephthalites, Hurmazd was dislodged from
the throne, and the younger was forgiven and set free by his elder brother. The price
of Hephthalite assistance was, as Dinawari says, the establishment of the eastern city
misunderstanding of the name ‘Shahendukht’ (Gippert, J., “Onomastica Irano-Iberica: I. The

Name of Vakhtang Gorgasali’s Persian Wife,” Enat’mec’nierabis sakit’xebi, 2011, p, 91–98.
4 Lazar, p. 108; 113.
5 Elishe, p. 197.
6 Sims-Williams, N., “The Sasanians in the East: A Bactrian Archive from Northern Afghan-
istan,” p. 93–94.
7 Dinawari, p. 60.
V. HUMILIATION AND HERESY 125
of Tirmiz as the border between the abode of the Hephthalites and the Empire of
Iran – a detail which may adumbrate the Iranian cession of Talaqan mentioned by
the historian Tabari. 8
The testimony of the indigenous Persian tradition and that of Lazar and Elishe
cannot be fully reconciled, and a rational account of the reign of Peroz must prefer
the contemporary Armenian witnesses to the claims of a later time which reverse
the ages of Peroz and his brother. But a Hunnish intervention is neither impossible
nor improbable. 9 A part of the Persian royal tradition may be harmonised with the
evidence of Lazar and Elishe if we infer that the Mihran family had enlisted Heph-
thalite help in the civil war between Hurmazd and Peroz. 10
It is also likely that Peroz had allied himself with the Hephthalite clan in order
to overthrow a mutual enemy. 11 The eastern policy of Yazdgard II had been to paci-
fy, to maintain, and perhaps to extend his frontier with the Kidarite Huns, and there
can be no doubt that a state of war with that people continued into the reign of
Peroz. The rise of the Hephthalites, which vanquished the power of the Kidarite
Huns, may well have been assisted by an alliance with the faction that put Peroz
upon the throne. Dinawari and Tabari appear to preserve only one term of that alli-
ance, but there is circumstantial evidence to reconstruct other elements of it. Frag-
ments of Priscus’ Byzantine History announce that the removal of the Kidarites was
so important an aim of Peroz’ government, that an earlier Iranian embassy had in-
vited the Romans to assist in destroying those foreigners although they posed no
direct threat to Rome. 12 Diplomatic overtures to the Chinese court of the Northern
8 Tabari, v. 2, p. 81.
9 Christensen rejected the alliance between Peroz and the Hephthalites on the doubtful
ground that ‘les Hephtalites n’avaient pas encore pénétré jusqu’aux frontiers de l’Iran’ (Chris-
tensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 284, with note 5). But Zeimal considers it almost certain
(Zeimal, E. V., “The Kidarite kingdom in Central Asia” in Litvinsky, B. A. (ed.), History of
civilizations of Central Asia. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750 III, 1996, p. 120.
10 It is of course impossible to reconcile our sources’ differing views of the relative ages of
Peroz and Hurmazd.

11 Such an alliance is inferred in Rezakhani, K., ReOrienting the Sasanians, p. 99.
12 In this connection, Priscus narrates the legendary origin of Peroz’ conflict with the Kidar-
ite Huns. A marriage alliance had been contracted, and Peroz attempted to trick the Kidarite
monarch by dispatching a low-born woman in place of his sister (Priscus, frag. 41.3 in Block-
ley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising Historians, p. 348–349). This is nearly the same as He-
rodotus’ tale of Cambyses and the Egyptian king Amasis and his daughter (Herodotus, III.1),
and so we may fairly dismiss it – although it is possible that a marriage alliance with the
Kidarite Huns and the House of Sasan may have been proposed at some time (Christensen,
L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 288 with note 1).
Wei in the years 461 and 466 may have had a similar purpose; but the precise nature
of those embassies is not known. 13
When the Kidarite capital at Balkh had fallen, the Iranian government issued a
series of gold dinars bearing the name of Peroz and his title in the language of Bac-
tria, 14 and an Iranian embassy, described by the historian Priscus, boasted to the
Romans of a great victory over the Huns. 15 But Chinese sources attest that Bactria
(of which Balkh was the chief city) was possessed by the Hephthalites at about the
same time. 16 This may imply that the territories of Iran and those of the Huns now
abutted one another directly in the east, or that Bactria was disputed between those
two powers.
The arrival of a Persian embassy at Constantinople in about the year 467, the
seventh year of Peroz’ reign, was the occasion for the boasting noticed by Priscus;
and this important fact permits the conclusion that the Kidarite monarchy fell no
later than that year. An Iranian embassy to the court of the Northern Wei which
arrived in the year 468, may perhaps have announced the Iranian victory also. 17
THE THREAT OF WAR WITH ROME

Intermittent tension with Rome afflicted the reign of Peroz down to its ignominious
conclusion. Early in that reign, in the mid-460s, a plot was disclosed to the Roman
emperor Leo I. The government of Iran had welcomed the defection of Ardaburius,
the Roman commander in the east; and the defector had urged Peroz to attack his
western foe, and promised military assistance and, we may presume, intelligence
also. 18 The only source for this is the Life of St Daniel the Stylite. The secret conspiracy
was discovered by the future Roman emperor Zeno, who at the time was perhaps a
member of the imperial bodyguard. The incriminating letters of Ardaburius were
intercepted and conveyed to the emperor Leo I who deprived that traitor of all mili-
tary office, and summoned him to Constantinople. Nothing more is known of this
13 Tashakori, A., Iran in Chinese Dynastic Histories: A Study of Iran’s Relations with China prior to the
Arab Conquest, unpublished MA thesis, Australian National University, 1974, p. 42–34;
Ecsedy, I., “Early Persian Envoys in Chinese Courts (5th–6th Centuries A. D.),” Acta Antiqua
Academiae Scientarum Hungaricae 25, 1977, p. 229.
14 Sims-Williams, N., “The Sasanians in the East: A Bactrian Archive from Northern Af-
ghanistan,” p. 94 with fig. 2.

15 ἐμήνυον δὲ τὴν νίκην καὶ βαρβαρικὼς ἐπεκόμπαζον τὴν παροῦσαν αὐτοῖς μεγίστην
δύναμιν ἀποφαίνειν ἐθέλοντες (Priscus, frag. 51.1 in Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising
Historians, p. 360–361). The name of the city of Balkh is corrupt and appears as Βαλαὰμ on
the pages of Priscus.
16 De la Vaissière, E., “Is there a Nationality of the Hephthalites?,” p. 121–122.
17 Tashakori, A., Iran in Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 42–34; Ecsedy, I., “Early Persian Envoys
in Chinese Courts (5th–6th Centuries A. D.),” p. 229. We do not know what was said during
these embassies: my guess about the embassy of 468 is most speculative.
18 Vita Sancti Danielis Stylitae, 55 (p. 53–54).
interesting plot; but much may be inferred from the slim notice of it. The govern-
ment of Peroz had successfully perverted the loyalty of a Roman general of the
highest rank. The plot may have involved considerable military preparations, as well
as promises perhaps to install Ardaburius as a new emperor loyal to Iran. But if
Peroz had not aimed at conquering his western antagonist, the purpose of the plot
may have been to foment instability and confusion in the eastern lands of the Ro-
man Empire. The Roman government responded to this tension in three important
ways, all of which might have been construed as small steps towards war.
I. The emperor Leo I strengthened his eastern border by fortifying the city of Callin-
icum in Osrhoene 19 – a project which reinvigorated the policy of reinforcing the
Mesopotamian frontier and which promoted a tense atmosphere between the two
great powers.
II. Leo I cancelled the Roman subsidy of Iran’s Caucasian defences. In the atmos-
phere of distrust and suspicion which followed the threat of warfare in the mid-
460s, the Roman government understandably refused to assist a foreign power
whose aspect had become increasingly hostile. The historian Priscus notes that the
emperor Leo I refused payment in the year 467, 20 shortly after the exposure of the
treachery of Ardaburius. Another refusal is noted when Peroz was on the point of
war with the Huns in the reign of Leo II. This matter had become an irritating dip-
lomatic problem which demanded constant management. Priscus records that an
embassy, which was surely one of many, was sent to Peroz from Constantinople to
discuss in detail the Caucasian defences. 21 But no resolution to the problem was
found, and the subsidy was not renewed until the time of Zeno whose reign began
in the year 474. 22
III. The Roman government began to demand the return of the city of Nisibis. The
fortress of Nisibis had been ceded to Iran under the reign of Shapur II in the year
363, and the transfer of that important city had exercised the pen and the vocabulary
of Ammianus Marcellinus. 23 The eyewitness testimony of that writer assumed that
Nisibis was to be a permanent possession of Iran. But the later chronicle of Joshua
the Stylite reflects the Roman claim that Nisibis was to be returned after a term of
one hundred and twenty years. 24 It is most improbable that this retrocession was
mentioned in the original treaty; but if it had been a real provision of the agreement,
19 Chronicon Edessenum, LXX, p. 8.

20 Priscus, frag. 41.1 in Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising Historians, p. 344–346.
22 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, VIII–IX. On the high worth of this source, see Trombley, F. R.
/ Watt, J. W., The Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, 2000, p. xxx–xxxvii.

23 Ammianus, XXV.ix.5–6.
24 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, VII.
it is unlikely that the Romans could ever seriously have expected its fulfilment with-
out conflict.
The two great powers crept slowly towards warfare until the reign of the em-
peror Zeno, who eased much of that tension when he ransomed Peroz who had
been taken captive by the Huns. 25 That same emperor renewed the payment of an-
nual subsidies and dispatched an embassy to assist Peroz in his struggles against the
Hephthalites. But the pacific spirit of the first Yazdgard had dissipated from within
the Iranian government, and Iranian Christendom was soon to be convulsed by
forces of theological dispute and mutual hatred which were to achieve the perma-
nent division of the Roman and Iranian churches. But open war was avoided until
the beginning of the sixth century.
THE DOMESTIC POLICIES OF PEROZ

The Persian royal tradition claims that the reign of Peroz was afflicted by a drought
of seven years. 26 Tabari asserts that the king managed this disaster with such compe-
tence that only one person died of want throughout that calamity. No taxes were
levied, and public money was distributed to persons in need of it. Dinawari is more
effusive, but equally doubtful. 27 The waters of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates di-
minished, and we may infer that the fertile plain of Babylon failed to produce its
normal yield of food. The unhappy governor who allowed a subject to die of hunger
was himself threatened with death; peasants were exempted from taxation and an
increase in rents upon uncultivated fields encouraged an industrious people to work
the land with redoubled effort. A letter composed by Barsauma, metropolitan of
Nisibis, in the early 480s makes mention of a drought. ‘For two successive years
now’, wrote Barsauma to his colleague Acacius, ‘we have been afflicted by an ab-
sence of rain and a shortage of commodities’, and ‘famine reigns everywhere’. 28 The
drought of two years forced Iran’s Arab clients to move northward and to encroach
upon the territory of Rome. War was very nearly the result of this intrusion, but
Qardag (an Iranian nobleman stationed along the western frontier with Rome) in-
tervened both to pacify Arab raiders on either side of the border and to negotiate a
treaty of peace with Rome. 29 It is easy to believe that the Persian royal tradition
might have exaggerated the importance, and prolonged the duration, of this calami-
ty. But the competing accounts of the drought bear almost no resemblance to one
another.
25 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, X.

26 Tabari, v. 2., p. 82–83.
27 Dinawari, p. 60–61.
28 Barsauma, epistle 2 in Synodicon Orientale, p. 526–527.
29 Barsauma, epistle 4 in Synodicon Orientale, p. 529. Barsauma refers to the marzban Qardag
Nakoragan.
Though the Persian royal tradition lauds Peroz’ management of the drought, it
is a curious fact that the historian Dinawari declares that Peroz was a feeble king
who achieved little. 30 Such criticism of Peroz is found in no other similar source.
But it is found in Christian chroniclers and historians, such as Joshua the Stylite,
Agathias, and the Armenian writer Lazar Parpetsi. The common belief of those men
was that Peroz was a rash and aggressive ruler, who refused to follow advice, and
who brought ruin upon himself and his empire. 31 The criticism recorded by Lazar is
the most vehement. It emerges from the mouth of one Zarmihr, potentate of the
illustrious Karen family. Peroz ‘merely acted as a tyrant,’ said Zarmihr, ‘and at his
own whim; without regard for anyone’s person or consulting anyone, he did what-
ever he wanted and despotically carried out his own wishes. The result of his ne-
glecting his advisers was the destruction and downfall not only of himself but of all
the empire of Iran also’. 32 Such accusations, expressed by a representative of the
House of Karen, may be intended as political bluster directed at the rival Mihran
family which favoured the rise of Peroz. But that opprobrium originated amongst
Iranian Christians. 33
PEROZ AND THE CHRISTIANS OF IRAN

Christian hatred of Peroz would have been justified for many reasons. Though per-
secution had been relaxed somewhat since the reign of Yazdgard II, it had not been
halted altogether. 34 Early in his reign, the government of Peroz tormented Jews and
Christians alike, and the catholicos of Iran was cast into prison where he languished
for two years on account of his apostasy from the religion of the Magi. Religious
tensions in the Caucasus, provoked by the malevolence of the second Yazdgard and
his minister Mihr-Narseh, remained a serious problem even after the death of Peroz.
But the reign of that king is especially connected with a bitter revolution in theologi-
cal opinion which yet divides the Christian world.
The fifth century was preoccupied by attempts to establish the limits of Chris-
tian orthodoxy, and the churches of Iran and Rome alike sought to purge them-
selves of theological error. Christendom was divided by different opinions of the
nature of Christ, and the history of these debates is essential to an understanding of
30 Dinawari, p. 60.
31 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, IX–XI; Agathias, Historiae, IV.27; Lazar, p. 157.
32 The whole speech is found in Lazar, p. 157. Աշխարհ Արեաց is the phrase which I have
construed as ‘empire of Iran’. It could mean, literally, ‘country of the Aryans’, but it is etymo-
logically the same as Eranshahr.
33 This was first noticed (as far as I know) by Averil Cameron (Cameron, A., “Agathias on
the Sasanians,” p. 113; 153).

34 Again I follow Labourt, J., Le Christianisme, p. 129–130. But I do not share Labourt’s
doubts concerning the testimony of Barhebraeus.

the theological revolution which occurred in the reign of Peroz. 35 In the first half of
the fifth century, Nestorius, the archbishop of Constantinople, had proclaimed that
a distinction must be made between the Son of God, who shares his essence with
God the Father, and the human person of Jesus who was born a man, lived in Jeru-
salem, and died upon the cross. 36 The opposite view was that the salvation of man-
kind depended upon the unambiguous divinity of the Son of God, and so the divine
nature of Christ received special emphasis. Christians who hold this opinion are
now called monophysite, but their ancient antagonists associated them with an ar-
chimandrite by the name of Eutyches whose views of the single, divine nature of
Christ were especially extreme. 37
A council held at Ephesus in the year 431 was the first important attempt to
resolve the problems raised by the opinion of Nestorius. 38 This unhappy synod was
disgraced by division, controversy, and violence. The partisans of a single divine
nature were led by Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria, who rigorously condemned the
teachings of Nestorius. But the Nestorian party, whose leader was John of Antioch,
arrived late to the synod, and established their own rival council at which monophy-
site opinions were condemned. This hostile body pronounced the deposition both
of Cyril and the bishop of Ephesus. Representatives of the bishop of Rome arrived
yet later, and declared themselves for the monophysite and Cyrillian party. Months
passed while the two antithetical factions refused to meet and while they exchanged
a disgraceful correspondence of accusation and self-justification with the emperor
Theodosius in Constantinople. In the end the Roman government endorsed the
opinions of Cyril, Nestorius was deposed, and he returned to his convent in Syria.
For the next several years, the policy of Theodosius was to urge the party of John of
Antioch towards some form of reconciliation with that of Cyril. No explicit con-
demnation of Nestorius emerged from the court at Constantinople until the year
436 when Nestorius was sent into exile. But conflict arose again in the 440s, and the
extreme monophysite opinion of Eutyches were declared orthodox at the second
Ephesian synod of the year 448. The Synod held at Chalcedon in the year 451 repre-
sented an attempt to find a middle way between the opposite opinions of Nestorius
and those of Eutyches by affirming both the divine and the human natures of
35 My summary of Christological differences follows Grillmeier, A., Christ in Christian Tradi-
tion: From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451), v. 1, John Knox Press, 1975, p. 447–463; 473–
484 and Millar, F., A Greek Roman Empire, 2006, p. 157–167.
36 The words of Nestorius: τῆς δὲ θεότητος καὶ ἀνθρωπότητος ἔστι διαίρεσις, etc (Rouët de
Journel, M. J., Enchiridion Patristicum, 1959, p. 641).

37 Eutyches seemed to teach that the incarnate Son of God was a fusion of divine and hu-
man natures (Cf. Denzinger, H. / Bannwart, C. (eds.), Enchiridion Symbolorum, 1928, p. 63–64,
in which Pope Leo I refutes the opinions of Eutyches).
38 Grillmeier, A., Christ in Christian Tradition, p. 484–487.
Christ, but without mixture or division. 39 But this failed to pacify the theological
antagonists, and the parties of the single and the double nature continued their feud.
The Roman emperor Basiliscus mounted the throne when the monophysite
cause was ascendant, and his attempts to reconcile that faction with Orthodox opin-
ion miscarried dreadfully. An encyclical letter which he issued in the year 476 pro-
voked a violent reaction from monastic communities as well as the opposition of
the patriarch of Constantinople. 40 In the year 481, the Roman emperor Zeno ad-
dressed a letter to the churches of Egypt which announced a common faith founded
upon the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. The Henoticon, as this letter was
called, condemned the opposite errors of Nestorius and Eutyches; but its apparent
rejection of the Chalcedonian synod seemed to justify monophysite opinion and
provoked a schism with the western half of Christendom under the authority of the
Bishop of Rome. 41 But the Encyclical of Basiliscus and the Henoticon of Zeno plainly
demonstrated that the imperial government had assumed the authority and opera-
tions of an ecumenical synod and had begun to dictate, or at least to endorse, doc-
trine. It was not long before the government of Iran imitated this example.
The Roman government had rejected the teaching, or at least the person, of
Nestorius; but dyophysite Christology which its critics called Nestorian, soon found
welcome in the Empire of Iran. 42 The triumph of a non-Chalcedonian, dyophysite
Christology, which occurred in the reign of Peroz, established an independent Irani-
an church, and divided the Christians of Iran from those of Rome. The principal
architect of this unhappy transformation was a former student and teacher at the
theological school of Edessa. Barsauma, 43 whose enemies called him a disciple of
Nestorius, rigorously distinguished the divine from the human person of Christ, and
he had been condemned as a heretic at the Ephesian Synod of 431. His later with-
drawal to the Iranian Empire afforded him greater room to expound his teachings.
39 Grillmeier, A., Christ in Christian Tradition, p. 488–554. The creed of Chalcedon confessed
Christ ἐν δύο φύσεσιν ἀσυγκρέτως, ἀτρέπτως. ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως γνωριζόμενον,
οὐδαμοῦ τῆς ἰδιότητος ἑκατέρας φύσεως, καὶ εἰς ἕν πρόσωπον καὶ μίαν ὑπόστασιν
συντρεχούσης; and, in further contradistinction to the Nestorian doctrine, οὐκ εἰς δύω
πρόσωπα μεριζόμενον ἢ διαιρούμενον, etc (Denzinger, H. / Bannwart, C. (eds.), Enchiridion
Symbolorum, p. 66).
40 The Encyclical of Basiliscus may be read in Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica, III.iv.
41 For the Henoticon of Zeno, see Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica, III.xiv.
42 I cannot pursue the subtleties of the argument here, but it should be observed that the
theology of Iranian Christianity was not properly Nestorian (Brock, S. P., “The “Nestorian”
Church: a lamentable misnomer,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester
78/3, 1996, p. 23–35).
43 For a brief summary of this man’s career, see Vööbus, A., “Barsauma” in Encyclopaedia
Iranica, vol. III, fasc. 8, 1988, p. 824. For a longer, more thorough exposition of the same, see
Gerö, S., Barsauma of Nisibis and Persian Christianity in the fifth Century, (Corpus Scriptorum Chris-
tianorum Orientalium 426, subsidia 63), Louvain, 1981.
With time, Barsauma became metropolitan of Nisibis, and he ingratiated himself

with the Sasanian monarch who preferred the pliant sycophancy of that bishop to
the more rigorous attitude of the patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, whom he regard-
ed as a Romanising traitor. Conflict between Baboy (that was the patriarch’s name)
and Barsauma was inevitable. The two churchmen fought alike over the nature of
Christ and the legality of married bishops amongst perhaps other minute points of
doctrine and ecclesiology. The dispute terminated in the execution of Baboy on a
charge of treachery. Baboy (as it was alleged) had attempted to involve the Roman
emperor in his contest with his allegedly Nestorian antagonist; but Barsauma
claimed to have intercepted a letter dispatched to the emperor Zeno and revealed it
to Peroz who commanded that Baboy be crucified, suspended by his ring finger,
and flogged to death. 44
The death of Baboy allowed Barsauma to place the Iranian church under the
influence, if not the patronage, of the Sasanian court. Barsauma’s embrace of di-
ophysite Christology and his disavowal of clerical celibacy made the Christian reli-
gion somewhat more appealing to a nation of Zoroastrians; and Barsauma’s vision
of an alliance between throne and altar would have appealed to the royal court. But
the process by which this was achieved is obscured by the hatred of Barsauma’s op-
ponents. ‘Unless’, Barsauma is supposed to have said to Peroz, ‘unless the faith of
the Christians in your dominions be separated from the faith of the Christians in the
dominions of the Greeks, their hearts and feelings shall never be loyal to you’. 45 It
was the view of his enemies that Barsauma had promised (if given the proper
means) to make Nestorians of all Iranian Christians and to establish reciprocal ha-
tred between Iranian and Roman Christians. 46 So vehement was the zeal of Barsau-
ma that, as his antagonists alleged, seven thousand and seven hundred Orthodox
Christians perished in Nisibis at his behest. 47 However this may be, Barsauma suc-
ceeded in severing the churches of the two great powers, and the final separation
was ratified at a synod of the year 486, two years after the death of Peroz. 48
The independence of the Iranian church has been portrayed as a political victo-
ry for the Sasanid monarchy. 49 This is true only insofar as the Roman emperor
would have been deprived of all real or theoretical responsibility for Iranian Chris-
tians. But the supposed Nestorian, or at least dyophiste, settlement made nonsense
44 Barhebraeus, v. III, p. 66.

45 Barhebraeus, v. III, p. 66.
46 Barhebraeus, v. III, p. 68:
̈ ‫ܘܐܢ ܝܗܒ ܐܢܬ ܠܝ ܚܝ� ܐܢܐ ܠܟܠܗܘܢ ܟ�ܝܣܛܝܢܐ ܕܒܐܬ�ܘܬܟ‬
‫ܒܢܝ ܬܪܠܝܬܗ ܕܓܒܪܐ ܗܘ ܥܒܕ ܐܢܐ‬
The man to which the passage refers is Nestorius.
47 Barhebraeus, v. III, p. 70; though I note that Labourt seems to reject this notice (Labourt,
J., Le Christianisme, p. 136).

48 The canons of this synod are preserved in Synodicon Orientale, p. 55–59.
49 Christensen, A., L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 287.
of the first Yazdgard’s claim to be equal to, or greater than, the Roman emperor by
uniting Christians of both east and west under the Sasanid monarchy; and it pro-
moted division amongst the followers of Christ within the empire of Iran and
amongst her Transcaucasian clients, who were soon to reject both the formulas of
Chalcedon and those of the so-called Nestorian church of Iran. 50
TROUBLE IN THE TRANSCAUCASUS

The effects of the Vardan’s uprising and the Battle of Avarayr were yet felt as the
fifth century proceeded toward its end. By the middle of the reign of Yazdgard II, a
great part of Transcaucasia was in ruins, the Christian peoples of that region were
united in a common struggle against the empire of Iran, and companies of Huns
fought on both sides. An army of Albanians joined itself to the Armenian host and
the common army of those two nations destroyed Sasanian fortresses in Albania.
That army proceeded to seize and occupy Iran’s Caucasian defences: their garrisons
were slaughtered and a large part of them was destroyed. 51 An important fortress
guarding one of the Caucasian passes was occupied by a man of the Albanian royal
family who bore the name Vahan, and this magnate contracted an alliance with the
Huns who dwelt in the Caucasus and beyond the borders of Iran. At the behest of
Vahan those Huns began to assault the Iranian frontier with devastating effect. 52
The Armenian historian Elishe notes that these attacks were received with alarm at
the Sasanid court, and the loss of Caucasian fortifications was perceived as a very
serious humiliation.
Albanian occupation of Iran’s Caucasian defences endured until the year 463,
the fifth year of the reign of Peroz. 53 Dislodging those foreigners was attended by
reciprocal calamities. At the behest of the Albanian king Vache, successive waves of
Hunnish invaders with a numerous train of nomadic federates had inflicted great
damage upon Iranian forces. The Sasanian government employed its own Hunnish
allies against the Albanian king, and a great part of Albania was devoted to fire and
sword. 54 The details are rather vague, but when both sides had exhausted them-
50 The Synod of Dvin in the year 505 united the bishops of Armenia, Georgia, and Albania;
and the heresy of Nestorius was rigorously condemned (Thompson, R. W., “Mission, Con-
version, and Christianization: The Armenian Example,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Vol.
12/13, 1988–1989, p. 39–40).
51 Elishe, p. 77–78.
52 Elishe, p. 127–129.
53 Elishe, p. 198–199.
54 For a modern authority, see Bíró, M., “On the Presence of the Huns in the Caucasus: to
the Chronology of the ‘Ovs’ Raid Mentioned in Juanšer’s Chronicle,” Acta Orientalia Academ-
iae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Vol. 50, No. 1/3, 1997, p. 55–56.
selves, a settlement was reached; and Vache relinquished the Caucasian fortress
which he had seized and returned to his own country. 55
Amidst these convulsions, Lazar (who was an Armenian Christian) accuses the
Iranian king of cultivating a disdain for his countrymen. ‘Of all the peoples under
my power’, said Peroz, ‘the least useful and the worst brigade is the Syrian, but the
Armenian is even worse than the Syrian’. But this arraignment of Armenians and
their martial prowess was balanced by a policy of respectful conciliation. In the first
year of Peroz’ reign, peace with Yazdgard’s Armenian captives was assured by free-
dom from bondage and by the allocation of stipends. 56 In Peroz’ sixth regnal year,
the Sasanian court sent those Armenians back to their ancestral lands. 57 It may be
possible to see in these details the beginning of an Iranian policy of toleration for
the Christians of Armenia and the Caucasus which achieved its final form in the
reign of Balash. 58
But that policy was slow to change and the calamitous state of the Transcauca-
sus endured to the end of Peroz’ reign. The most obvious sign of trouble was a di-
rect attack upon Sasanian loyalists in Armenia in the year 482, two years before the
death of Peroz. The Iberian king Vakhtang killed Vazgen, a governor of the Arme-
nian province of Gugark. Vazgen had embraced the Zoroastrian religion, and his
position of favour with the House of Sasan was intolerable to his Christian antago-
nist. 59 It was Vakhtang’s solemn promise to unite all Caucasian Christians in com-
mon cause against Iran, and to set loose so great a multitude of Huns that the ar-
mies of Iran could not possibly resist them. 60 Violence ensued with renewed enthu-
siasm, and Peroz ordered his general stationed in the Caucasus to kill, capture, or
expel king Vakhtang. That general was a man by the name of Zarmihr whose lineage
was of the House of Karen, and his orders were dispatched immediately before
Peroz’ departure for war against the Hephthalite Huns in the year 484. 61
55 The Armenian writer seems to say that the Persian king’s sister and niece had been cap-
tured by the Albanian king and converted to Christianity. Their liberty is the only condition
mentioned by Elishe (Elishe, p. 198). It was said that Vahan relinquished the monarchy of
Albania and became a monk.
56 Lazar, p. 108; Elishe, p.199.
57 Lazar, p. 110.
58 The writer Lazar also includes an anecdote about a dialogue between Peroz’ minister Ash-
tad Mihran and the Armenian catholicos Giwt (Lazar, p. 113–116).

59 To this day, king Vakhtang is commemorated as a saint of the Georgian church.
60 Lazar, p. 118. For a brief analysis see Thomson, R. W., The History of Łazar Pʻarpecʻi, p. 171
with note 6. In the event, however, it appears that a mere three hundred Huns were assem-
bled (Lazar, 126.
61 Lazar, p. 126.
WAR WITH THE HEPHTHALITE HUNS

Peroz made war upon the Hephthalite Huns three times. The Syriac chronicle at-
tributed to Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite is the most important source for these con-
flicts. 62 This chronicle has reduced the wars of Peroz to mere statements of fact:
little of the attendant circumstances are revealed, and no convincing reason for con-
stant warfare is presented. But Joshua’s attestation of three battles may be corrobo-
rated by the three issues of Peroz’ coins, each of which displays a different crown
probably signifying his first accession and his two restorations after defeat and cap-
ture by the Hephthalite Huns. 63 Some important details are added by Procopius,
whose narration of the wars of Peroz and Kavad form a lengthy introduction in his
history of the age of Justinian.
Although the exiguous consensus of the Stylite and Procopius is trustworthy,
their narratives are disfigured by imperfections and omissions. Procopius has re-
duced the number of confrontations with the Huns to only two 64 – and it is only the
last battle, in which Peroz himself perished, that bears an obvious resemblance to
the same conflict as described by Joshua. Moreover the chronology of Peroz’ battles
is difficult to infer from those texts alone, and so we must turn to the evidence of
numismatics for a more secure dating. 65 But it is perhaps the absence of a clear mo-
tive or purpose for warfare that is most troubling to a modern historian. Joshua ap-
pears to suggest that the original reason for warfare was connected with an Iranian
policy of keeping Huns out of Iranian and Roman territory, and Procopius accuses
an interminable dispute over borders. 66 Arguments touching the Hephthalite and
Iranian frontier in Bactria may well have been the origin of this problem, but neither
Procopius nor Joshua provide clarity or detail. The precise circumstances which
transformed the Huns into the enemy of Peroz are likewise obscure, and the reitera-
tion of hostility after two humiliating reverses demands some explanation. It may be
that Peroz’ rule was never secure, and that he desired an important military victory
to establish his fitness to occupy the Sasanid throne. Hephthalite intervention had
delivered the Iranian Empire to Peroz, and rival noble houses may have looked up-
on him as a Hephthalite stooge. To make war upon his former benefactors was per-
haps the only convincing proof that Peroz was an independent king. But the Heph-

63 I am drawing an inference from evidence presented in Schindel, N., Sylloge Nummorum Sas-
anidarum, Band III/1, p. 402–410. Schindel himself, in a personal communication, disagrees
with my inference.
64 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.iii–iv.
65 Heidemann, S., “The Hephthalite Drachms Minted in Balkh: A Hoard, A Sequence and a
New Reading,” Coin Hoards 2015, p. 331–332.

66 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, VIII. The Hephthalites (says Procopius) dwelt to the north of
Iran, οὗ δὴ πόλις Γοργὼ ὄνομα πρὸς αὐταῖς που ταῖς Περσῶν ἐσχατιαῖς ἐστιν, ἐνταῦθα δὲ
περὶ γῆς ὁρίων διαμάχεσθαι πρὸς ἀλλήλους εἰώθασιν (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.iii.3).
thalite reaction ensured that Iranian aristocratic opinion would remain divided: cap-
turing and releasing Peroz would provoke further doubts about his loyalty and invite
further warfare in which the Huns expected to be victorious.
The first invasion of Peroz involved the recovery of certain lands from Hun-
nish possession, but in the end Peroz was taken prisoner. Zeno, the Roman emper-
or, ransomed the Iranian king in the year 474, and reconciled the House of Sasan
with the Hephthalite Huns. 67 A formal treaty (says Joshua the Stylite) stipulated that
Peroz should never again bring war into the land of the Hephthalites. Roman inter-
ests were perhaps best served by maintaining a weakened Sasanid state, but not by
allowing it to be destroyed altogether. This may explain the involvement of the Ro-
man emperor in rescuing Peroz.
Procopius has recorded what appears to be an accurate account of Peroz’ first
Hepthalite war. The Greek historian writes that a Roman ambassador by the name
of Eusebius had been sent to the court of Peroz by the emperor Zeno, and that he
had accompanied the Sasanian king on a second expedition against the Huns. The
Roman eye-witness transmitted to Procopius the Hephthalite use of the feigned re-
treat which induced Iranian forces to pursue a flying enemy into a circle of moun-
tains beyond the frontier at Gurgan. 68 Soon an ambush was suspected, Iranian forc-
es became sensible of their peril, but Peroz continued pursuit. Iranian troops pre-
vailed upon the Roman ambassador to explain the present danger to the Sasanian
king. The words of Eusebius achieved their intended effect, the Iranian army halted,
and the king of the Huns dispatched an embassy to Peroz. Hunnish diplomats vitu-
perated the Iranian king for his foolhardiness, but promised to release him on the
condition that he prostrate himself before the Hephthalite king and solemnly swear
never again to attack the Huns. In the deliberations which ensued, clerics of the Ma-
gian religion advised the Sasanian king to obviate the enemy’s demand by guile. Fol-
lowing the counsel of the Magi, Peroz met the Hephthalite ruler at dawn and per-
formed a prostration before the rising sun, thereby escaping the shame of adoring a
foreign potentate. We can only speculate as to what effect this strange display would
have had upon the Hephthalite Huns, if indeed it occurred at all. But the enemies of
Iran were perhaps more greatly concerned with creating the appearance of a weak
and foolish Sasanian monarch than the extraction of real obeisance.
An Iranian embassy to the court of the Northern Wei of the year 476 is noticed
in Chinese annals. 69 After the capture and ransom of Peroz, the Sasanid government
may have assured the Chinese court that the Iranian monarchy had not collapsed
and that the trade which passed through Iran from China would not be interrupted.

68 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.iii.8–22. It is not obvious how this information was transmit-
ted.
in Chinese Courts (5th–6th Centuries A. D.),” p. 229.

But this is speculative, since only the mere fact of the embassy, and not its purpose,
has been preserved.
The next conflict arose in the late 470s or early 480s when the Sasanid mon-
arch broke the treaty to which he had agreed, and invaded a second time. Like Zed-
ekiah (says the Stylite) who was installed by, and who revolted against, the king of
Babylon, Peroz was taken into Hephthalite captivity again. The Iranian king offered
to purchase his freedom with thirty mules laden with silver coin: an offer which he
was unable to fulfil. A depleted treasury could yield a mere twenty mule loads of
silver; and in place of the other ten which had been promised, Peroz dispatched his
son, the future king Kavad I, as a pledge and hostage to the Hephthalite monarch
until what remained of the money should be paid. A second treaty was signed, Peroz
vowed yet again never to renew his attack upon the Huns, and he returned to Iran. 70
The imposition of a poll-tax amassed the ten mule loads of silver which had previ-
ously been omitted, the young Kavad was ransomed, an army was collected, and for
the third and final time Peroz assailed the Hephthalite Huns.
The war of the year 484 that ended Peroz’ life and reign is narrated in circum-
stantial detail by Procopius. 71 The humiliation which the Huns had inflicted upon
the Sasanian king urged him to recover the honour of his nation, and he proceeded
to battle with a vast retinue of followers and allies, including apparently thirty of his
sons. But Kavad, the youngest son of Peroz, remained in Iran. Peroz advanced into
the land of the Hephthalites without opposition, and the two antagonists confront-
ed one another in a broad plain in which the Hepthalites had dug a prodigious
trench of great depth. The trench proceeded across the plain in a straight line, but a
small portion in the middle of it was left intact, enough for the passage of ten horses
as Procopius says. Reeds and earth disguised the Hephthalite stratagem. A small
detachment of Huns lured the Iranian host into the plain, and feigned a retreat while
the forces of Peroz charged at full speed toward the large Hunnish army which
waited in formation behind the trench. Every man, says Procopius, plunged into the
trench and perished; and Peroz, his army, and his thirty sons were involved in a
common ruin. 72
70 The second armistice noticed by Joshua is corroborated by another writer. The Armenian
historian Lazar writes that the survivors of the Hephthalite war reported a curious detail
(Lazar, p. 155). On the eve of Peroz’ last campaign, the Hephthalite king sent a letter to
Peroz which portrayed Iranian aggression as unjust and perfidious. According to this letter,
Peroz’ previous Hephthalite war had ended in his capture, and the Hunnish king had de-
manded a written oath to the effect that the Iranian king should never again fight against
him. A boundary between the two states had been established, and dire warnings were in-
voked against future treachery.
71 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.iv.1–35. Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite is far too vague to be useful
in this connexion.
72 Dinawari claims that the Hunnish king occupied Peroz’ camp, and captured all his posses-
sions, the chief mobad, and the daught of Peroz also (Dinawari, p. 61). The death of Peroz
AFTERMATH OF DEFEAT
News of Peroz’ defeat was received with horror in Iran. Procopius alleges that a law
was established forbidding an Iranian army from pursuing a retreating enemy. 73
When Mihran Shapuh (says the writer Lazar) was acquainted with the disaster by a
messenger, he sank into a state of dismayed terror, lost his powers of speech, and
fell into a swoon for many hours. 74 Recovering himself, Mihran demanded to know
the reason of the defeat; and the messenger accused the rashness of a king who de-
manded, without warning, that his troops face an enemy that was certain to annihi-
late them. Zarmihr Karen, who yet remained in Iberia, was stricken with horror and
wracked by doubt when he received the ill news: without delay Zarmihr abandoned
operations in the region of the Caucasus and returned to Iran. The surviving rem-
nants of the nobility joined Mihran Shapuh and Zarmihr Karen at the Sasanian
court, where they consulted amongst themselves for the purpose of choosing the
successor to the dead monarch. 75 This was the beginning of nearly fifty years of
confusion and disorder in the Empire of Iran.
THE REIGN OF BALASH

Zarmihr Karen and Mihran Shapuh presided over a conclave which chose a certain
Balash as the next Sasanian king of Iran. This unfortunate man was not the son, but
the brother of Peroz. 76 This election was contested by a third brother, who bore the
name of Zareh, and the energies of the House of Sasan were again wasted in civil
war. The outcome of this fratricidal contest was decided by the intervention of Ar-
menian troops. The partisans of Balash dispatched the Iranian general Nikhor
Gushnaspdad, who solicited the help of the Armenian rebel movement led by Va-
was the occasion for Procopius to insert into his narrative a tale which he dismisses as un-
trustworthy. A pearl of extraordinary size depended from the right ear of Peroz; and as he
plunged into the Hephthalite trench, Peroz seized this adornment and flung it from him
(Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.iv.14). The Roman Emperor Zeno exerted himself to buy the
pearl, but a laborious search failed to recover that treasure until the reign of Kavad who pur-
chased it from the Hephthalite Huns. This incredible tale gives way to a legendary account of
the origin of the pearl. A fabulous monster guarded that gem which was the largest and most
beautiful of its kind in the world: Peroz greatly desired to possess it and which a fisherman
retrieved it for him. The lineaments of the story recall the Syriac Hymn of the Pearl which is a
work of Manichaean or Gnostic allegory, as well as Christ’s parable of the Pearl of Great
Price (Jackson Bonner, M. R., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 56; Ferreira, J., The
Syriac Hymn of the Pearl, 2002, p. 2–5; Matthew 13:45–46). The account of Procopius must
have been influenced by a source which had been shaped by the mystical opinions of Syriac
Christianity.
73 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.iv.33.
74 Lazar, p. 154.
75 Lazar, p. 157–158.
76 Contra Dinawari, p. 62.
han Mamikonean. 77 According to Zarmihr (as Lazar records), it was vitally im-
portant to bring the Armenian rebellion to an end, to pacify the Caucasus, and to re-
integrate that region within the Empire of Iran. 78 The involvement of Armenia on
the side of Balash came at a price; and Vahan required the destruction of every tem-
ple of fire in Armenia, and he demanded the official tolerance of the Christian reli-
gion. 79 A grateful Balash granted these conditions and appointed Vahan governor of
Armenia. This was the beginning of a new Iranian policy of respect for Caucasian
Christianity, but official endorsement of the Nestorian doctrine assured that the
Iranian and Caucasian churches would in time be permanently estranged.
The chronicle of Joshua the Stylite allows us a small glimpse at the disorders
that afflicted Iran at the end of the fifth century. 80 The reign of Balash was disgraced
by financial embarrassment. The expenses of warfare, and tribute paid in defeat, had
exhausted the Iranian treasury. The eastern possessions of Iran had been wasted by
the Huns, and their populations had been carried off or driven away. This was the
opportunity for the Roman emperor Zeno to withhold the subsidy which he had
renewed in the reign of Peroz; and that emperor instructed Balash to content him-
self with the taxes of Nisibis. A spirit of mutiny spread throughout the Iranian army,
which Balash had failed to pay, and the soldiers began to look upon the monarch
with contempt. The Iranian clergy likewise accused Balash of seeking to abolish
their customs; and their wrath (says the Stylite) was peculiarly aroused by that king’s
project of adorning the cities of Iran with Roman baths – a symbol, perhaps, of oth-
er more annoying innovations. It was a mere four years before Balash was deposed,
blinded, and replaced in the year 488 by his nephew and Peroz’ son Kavad.
A part of the Iranian aristocracy may have hated Balash because it was his gov-
ernment that proclaimed full tolerance of Armenian Christianity. The Stylite’s refer-
ence to the abolition of Zoroastrian customs most probably refers to the destruction
of fire shrines in Armenia – another cause of hatred and resentment. But the histo-
rians Dinawari and Tabari offer surprisingly laudatory descriptions of Balash whose
reign hardly filled a page of their respective works. 81 We may infer that those brief
descriptions of Balash repose upon Christian opinions, and that the Stylite was in-
formed by the hostile accusations of the Persian court.
77 Lazar, p. 171–172.
78 Lazar, p. 158.
79 Lazar, p. 161; 174. The narrative of Lazar suggests that the intervention of Vahan and his
troops preceded the pacification of Armenia, but the participation of Armenian forces in the
Iranian civil war must have been a condition upon which the toleration of Christianity re-
posed (Jackson Bonner, M. R., “Six Problèmes d’interprétation dans les règnes de Pērōz,
Balāš, Jāmāsp et Kavād,” Historia i Swiat, nr 4, 2015, p. 106–107).
80 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XVIII–XIX.
81 Dinawari, p. 61; Tabari, v. 2, p. 90. Dinawari allocates a single sentence; Tabari a short
paragraph.
THE END OF THE FIFTH CENTURY AND THE RISE OF KAVAD

Kavad was the only man of the Sasanid line to occupy the throne for two periods of
rule which were not consecutive. The first reign of Kavad proceeded from the year
488 and lasted nine years; and his second reign began in the year 498 and filled the
following thirty-four years until his death in the year 531. In the interval of three
years between those two periods, the empire of Iran was ruled by Jamasp, the
younger brother of Kavad. The figure of a king who was deprived of his throne,
who survived that ordeal, and who returned to power, exhibits a strange paradox of
royal infirmity, power, and endurance. Kavad mounted the throne as a young man
under the influence of noble power, and a faction of the Iranian aristocracy deposed
the young king because he had favoured a strange religion. A contest between noble
parties diminished the power and prestige of the House of Sasan, and might have
extinguished them forever. But Kavad’s return to power began a series of military
and administrative reforms which restored the might of the monarchy and estab-
lished a new era of warfare with Rome. But our sources form a great mass of con-
tradiction, fantasy, and exaggeration; and large gaps and omissions mean that an
harmonious narrative cannot be written. I must therefore organise that imperfect
material in the form of four themes: I. the ascendancy and decline of noble power;
II. the royal patronage of heresy; III. the removal of Kavad and his return to the
throne; and IV. the reform of the Iranian state.
THE ASCENDANCY AND DECLINE OF NOBLE POWER

I. Kavad ascended the Sasanid throne at a young age, and the influence of the
House of Karen overshadowed his early reign. The writer Procopius reports that
Kavad was a boy at the moment of his father’s disastrous Hephthalite war, 82 and
Dinawari asserts that his reign began when he had attained fifteen years. 83 Other
circumstantial details corroborate the young accession of Kavad. Balash, the brother
of Peroz, reigned in place of the young son of the former king, and the face of a
youth with short whiskers appears upon most coins struck in the first reign of Ka-
vad. 84 If Kavad was aged fifteen years in the year 488 when his first reign began, the
year 473 must have been the moment of his birth. The year 531 was the time of Ka-
vad’s death; and so that king’s life filled only fifty-eight years. The certainty of
arithmetic makes nonsense of the claims of John Malalas and Ferdowsi who allege
that Kavad died at about the age of eighty years. 85 We may infer that this fable was
disseminated by the Iranian court in order to excuse or expunge the weakness of
82 Τηνικαῦτα…ἡβεκὼς ἔτυχε (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.iv.2).

83 Dinawari, p. 66.
84 See the examples in Schindel, N., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum III/1, p. 461.
85 John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 471; Ferdowsi, Qubad, l. 368. Malalas gives Kavad 82, and
Ferdowsi 80, years at the time of his death.

Kavad’s first reign, for it was the nobleman Zarmihr of the House of Karen who
was then the power behind the throne.
I must pause here and describe one of the worst defects in the sources of Ka-
vad’s reign. The stream of Lazar’s history begins to run dry after the introduction of
the figure of Zarmihr, and so we must follow his career elsewhere. Though the Per-
sian royal tradition agrees that a man of the House of Karen elected Balash and Ka-
vad, those texts invoke that aristocrat under the name, or a variant of the name, of
Sukhra. 86 There can be no doubt that Sukhra is the same man whom Lazar Parpetsi
calls Zarmihr, 87 but it is impossible to explain the discrepancy of names. Our confu-
sion is worsened because Dinawari and Tabari claim that the son of Sukhra was a
man by the name of Zarmihr who also exerted influence over the Sasanid throne. 88
No resolution to this problem may be considered wholly satisfactory, but hereafter I
shall refer to the elder and to the younger, as well as to the first and to the second,
Zarmihr.
According to Dinawari, the empire of Iran was entrusted to Zarmihr the elder
when Peroz fought the Hephthalites, and that aristocrat prosecuted a war of revenge
against the Huns who had slain his sovereign. The elder Zarmihr went forth with an
immense host into the land of the Hephthalites; and at the sight of the Iranian army,
the Hunnish king relinquished all prisoners and booty which had been captured
from the forces of Peroz. 89 No contemporary source records such a war of revenge
upon the Hephthalites after the death of Peroz, and we must assume that this tradi-
tion was invented to compensate for the embarrassment of defeat and the humilia-
tion of tribute. An army so imposing as to frighten the Hephthalites at the mere
sight of it could not have been raised as swiftly as the royal tradition implies; nor
may we believe that the victorious Huns were persuaded to negotiate so easily.
The other deeds of the first Zarmihr are less entertaining but more important
and more probable. Having appointed Balash, the elder Zarmihr instantly involved
himself in a feud with the rival house of Mihran, which issued in the affirmation of
Sasanian power and the abasement of the House of Karen. 90 It was the first Zarmihr
who persuaded Balash to send his rival Mihran Shapuh away from the Persian court
and into Armenia for the pacification of Vahan’s rebellion – a mission attended by
86 Dinawari calls him Shukhar (Dinawari, p. 62); Tabari spells the name Sukhra (Tabari, v. 2,
p. 82), and Ferdowsi renders it Sufra (Peroz, l. 46). It is the Middle Persian form of the name
Suhrab.
87 Jackson Bonner, M. R., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 81; Bosworth, C. E., The
History of al-Tabari, p. 127 with note 325; Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 289–290
with note 5; Nöldeke, Die Geschichte der Perser, p. 134 with note 1.
88 Dinawari, p. 67; Tabari, v. 2, p. 86.
89 Dinawari claims that this included the daughter of Peroz and a mobad of high rank (Dina-
wari, p. 63).
90 Dinawari, p. 62–67; Tabari, v. 2, p. 85–90.
many dangers. 91 The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi alleges, without clarity or detail, the
outbreak of domestic warfare between the noble houses of Mihran and Karen. 92
Toward the end of Kavad’s first reign, came the triumph of the House of Mihran.
Mihran Shapuh, whom Persian tradition identifies as Shapur of Rey, plotted with
Kavad who commanded the murder of the elder Zarmihr, and humiliated the House
of Karen.
THE ROYAL PATRONAGE OF HERESY

II. A bizarre heresy reasserted itself in the reign of Kavad, and that king favoured its
return and propagation. The doctrine, which in time was associated with a certain
Mazdak, was founded upon the opinions of a priest of the Zoroastrian religion
called Zaradusht, son of Khurrag. Zaradusht was perhaps a contemporary of the
prophet Mani who flourished in the reign of Shapur I and who was executed in the
reign of Bahram I, but nothing certain is known of him. 93 The followers of Zara-
dusht believed that all strife arose from an unequal distribution of wealth and wom-
en. Community of all possessions and the sharing of wives were therefore the most
celebrated teachings of what came to be called Mazdakism, 94 and these doctrines
have inspired the obsessional interest of modern communists. 95 But Joshua the Sty-
lite notices only what he found most troubling: Kavad ‘reestablished an abominable
91 Lazar, p. 158–159.
92 Ferdowsi, Qubad, l. 51–60.
93 The evidence for this is in the History of Karkha de Beth Slokh which was composed in the
sixth century. That text clearly makes Zaradusht a contemporary of Mani. For the primary
evidence, see Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum Syriace, v. II, p. 517, and for a modern analysis, see
de Blois, F., “Mazdak the Ancient and Mazdak the Last: Further Remarks on the History
and Religious Typology of Mazdakism,” in Jullien, C., Husraw Ier: Reconstructions d’un règne,
sources et documents, 2015, p. 143–144.
94 de Blois, F., “Mazdak the Ancient and Mazdak the Last,” p. 147–149.
95 Here are some of the more prominent treatments of Mazdakism: Jackson Bonner, M. R.,
Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 86–90; de Blois, F., “A New Look at Mazdak,” in
Bernheimer, T. / Silverstein, A (eds), Late Antiquity: Eastern Perspectives, 2012, p. 1–24;
Wiesehöfer, J., “Kawad, Khusro I and the Mazdakites: A New Proposal,” in Gignoux, P. /
Jullien, C. / Jullien, F. (eds), Trésor d’Orient: Mélanges offerts à Rika Gyselen, 2009, p. 391–409;
Crone, P., “Kavad’s Heresy and Mazdak’s Revolt,” Iran, v. 29, 1991, p. 21–42; Gaube, H.,
“Mazdak: Historical Reality or Invention,” Studia Iranica 11, 1982, p. 111–122; Klíma, O.,
Beiträge zur Geschichte des Mazdakismus, 1977; Pigulevskaja, N. V., Les Villes de l’état iranien aux
époques parthe et sassanide: contribution à l’histoire sociale de la basse antiquité, 1964, p. 105, 206;
Klíma, O., Mazdak: Geschichte einer sozialen Bewegung im sasanidischen Persien, 1957; Altheim, F. /
Stiehl, R., Ein Asiatischer Staat: Feudalismus unter den Sasanidischen und ihren Nachbarn, 1954, p.
189 et seqq.; Christensen, A., Le Règne du roi Kawadh I et le communisme mazdakite, 1925. Mazda-
kism has attracted to itself perhaps more attention than any other individual aspect of Sasa-
nian history.
Magian sect called the Zaradushtaqan,’ which advocated wife-sharing and communal
sex, 96 but he neglects the doctrine of holding property in common. Kavad’s en-
dorsement of these ideas provoked a severe reaction from his nobility. 97 Kavad was
removed from the throne and replaced by his brother Jamasp, and an aristocratic
conclave hesitated to recommend either execution or imprisonment. The latter
opinion prevailed and was suggested to the new king, and Kavad was immured
within the Castle of Oblivion, as it was called, whence he escaped and sought refuge
at the court of the Hephthalite Huns. 98 This was Kavad’s punishment for endorsing
the heresy of Mazdakism.
But who was Mazdak? According to Iranian legend, Mazdak was the man who
expounded the heresy which Kavad endorsed, and which continued to afflict the
Iranian state into the reign of Khusro I. Zoroastrian holy writ blames Mazdak with-
out hesitation or ambiguity for leading Kavad into error:
During the reign of Kavad, Mazdak, son of Bamdad, appeared and laid down the
law of Mazdakism. Kavad was deceived and led astray. He ordered that wives,
children, and property be held in common and be shared. He discontinued the
Mazdayasnian tradition until the blessed Khusro, son of Kavad, came of age,
killed Mazdak, and re-established the Mazdayasnian tradition… 99
But, despite the sanction of Zoroastrian orthodoxy, this account is not wholly truth-
ful. No contemporary sources notice Mazdak, and his very existence may fairly be
doubted. 100 Overwhelming unrest is attributed to the votaries of that heresiarch –
but only upon the pages of the Persian royal tradition. 101 The troubles rehearsed by
Dinawari and Tabari have been construed as consequences of a policy calculated to
undermine the power of the nobility and to overthrow the Sasanian class system. 102
But when Kavad was returned to power he made war on Rome almost immediately,
and this successful campaign cannot have been sustained if the heretic king had al-
ienated his nobles and destroyed the hierarchies of aristocratic privilege. 103 In the
reign of Kavad’s successor Khusro, orphans and widows were easily reintegrated
96 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XIII.

97 Dinawari, p. 66–67; Tabari, v. 2, p. 92–93; Procopius, I.v.1; Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite,
XXIII.
98 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XXIV; Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.vi.1–10.
99 Bundahisn, XXXIII.19. The quotation is modified from Skjærvø’s modern translation
(Skjærvø, P. D. (ed. / trans.), The Spirit of Zoroastrianism, 2011, p. 121).

100 Gaube, H., “Mazdak,” p. 116–180.
101 Tabari, v. 2, p. 99:
.��‫�مل الناس ب��ء عظ‬

Wiesehöfer, J., “Kawad, Khusro I and the Mazdakites,” p. 395–397.
102 Crone, P., “Kavad’s Heresy,” p. 30.
103 Wiesehöfer, J., “Kawad, Khusro I and the Mazdakites,” p. 401–402.
into a robust system of social class, 104 and the evidence of aristocratic seals proves
that the same noble houses held the same positions before and after the Mazdakite
troubles. 105
Royal endorsement of Mazdakism seems to have been confined to Kavad’s
first reign. Joshua the Stylite and the Persian royal tradition agree that Kavad was
removed from power because of his patronage of that heresy, and his return to the
throne was founded upon a declaration that he had renounced the doctrines of
Mazdak. 106 But the end of royal patronage was not the extinction of Mazdakism, and
its votaries lingered amongst the Iranian clergy and aristocracy and were gradually
purged by Kavad and his son Khusro. That Mazdak survived the first reign of Ka-
vad is an important problem which historians have struggled to explain. Ibn Nadim,
the bibliophilic writer of the tenth century, opined that there were two men called
Mazdak who afflicted the respective reigns of Kavad and Khusro. They were called
Mazdak the Ancient and Mazdak the Last, 107 and the first of these men may be the
same as Zaradusht son of Khurrag. 108 This hypothesis may be difficult to credit, but
the potency of Mazdakism was so great that it informed the social and metaphysical
opinions of Iranian spiritual movements even in the age of Islam, and so we must
believe that Mazdakism and its exponents survived the first reign of Kavad. 109 The
continuance of Mazdakite teaching has not hindered a modern writer from suggest-
ing that Mazdakism was expunged in two waves of suppression: one which de-
stroyed the Mazdakite leadership, and another which terminated the popular expres-
sion of those doctrines. 110 But speculation on the activities of Mazdak and his opin-
ions could be protracted without end, and I may go no deeper into the strange mo-
rass of Mazdakism without abandoning hope of emerging.
THE REMOVAL OF KAVAD AND HIS RETURN TO THE THRONE

III. When Kavad was removed from the throne, Iran was afflicted by many calami-
ties. Joshua the Stylite alleges a new uprising in Armenia which devastated temples
of fire, and which attempted to make common cause with the empire of Rome. 111
104 Tabari, v. 2, p. 101–102; Jackson Bonner, M. R., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p.
88–89.
105 Gyselen, R., “The Great Families in the Sasanian Empire: Some Sigillographic Evidence,”
in Kennet, D. / Luft, P. (eds.), Current Research in Sasanian Archeology, Art and History. Proceed-
ings of a Conference Held at Durham University, November 3rd and 5th, 2008, p. 109.
106 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XIII; Dinawari, p. 66–68.
107 Ibn Nadim, p. 342. Ibn Nadim implies that his source is an investigation published by the
theologian Abu’l-Qasim Al-Balkhi al-Kaʿbi.

108 De Blois, F., “Mazdak the Ancient and Mazdak the Last,” p. 142–143.
109 Crone, P., Nativist Prophets, 2012.
110 Wiesehöfer, J., “Kawad, Khusro I and the Mazdakites.”
111 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XX–XXI.
No intervention came from Iran or Rome. But two subject peoples, the Qadishaye
and Tamurayye, revolted against the authority of the Sasanid king. They assaulted
the city of Nisibis and pillaged the countryside, and a series of raids perpetrated by
Arabs spread disorder along the Roman frontier and deep into Iran also. 112 Amidst
these disorders, the Iranian nobility declared their hatred of Kavad’s corrupt morals
and perverse customs, which had encouraged aristocratic wives to commit adul-
tery, 113 and the young king failed to win the respect of a part of his nobility. Kavad
demanded from the emperor of the Romans the subsidy which had been cancelled
in the reign of Peroz, but Anastasius refused to provide anything but a loan. His
failure to extract money from the Roman emperor humiliated the Persian king, a
party of nobles plotted to slay him, and Kavad relinquished his kingdom and fled to
the Hephthalite Huns. 114
The writer Procopius records that the innovations which Kavad had intro-
duced were intolerable, and the Iranian people condemned a law which required
communal intercourse with women. 115 But that Roman historian avers that Kavad’s
flight to the Hephthalites was not instantaneous. A portion of the nobility deposed
Kavad, bound him in chains, and kept him under guard. The royal successor 116 to
Kavad presided over a council which decided the fate of the deposed monarch. In
the narrative of Procopius, our attention is drawn to the advice of one Persian no-
bleman. Nikhor Gushnaspdad 117 had earlier persuaded the Armenian rebel Vahan
Mamikonean to participate in the Iranian civil war which followed the death of
Peroz. With the help of Armenian troops, it was Nikhor who had collaborated with
Zarmihr the elder to install Balash upon the Sasanid throne. Nikhor must have re-
mained an ally of Zarmihr when Kavad was elected, but he now recommended the
murder of his sovereign. ‘Look upon this knife,’ he said, ‘though it be small, at the
present moment it may accomplish a deed which, a little later, two myriads of armed
men could not achieve’. 118 But the advice of Nikhor Gushnaspdad failed to sway the
opinion of the conclave. Noble sentiment was divided, but the council resolved to
confine the Sasanid monarch within the Castle of Oblivion. 119 This punishment im-
112 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XXII.

113 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XXIII:
‫ܪܘܪܒܢܐ ܕܝܢ ܕܦܪܣܝܐ ܐܬܚܫܒ ܗܘܘ ܒܟܣܝܐ ܕܢܩܛܠܘ ܢܝܗܝ ܠܩܘܕ ܡܛܠ ܕܘܒܪܘܗܝ ܛܡܐܐ ܘܢܡܘܣܘܗ ܝܗܦܝܟܐ‬
114 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XXIII.
115 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.v.1.
116 Procopius wrongly identifies the successor to Kavad as Balash (Procopius, Bellum Persicum,
I.v.3), but his name was Jamasp.

117 Procopius uses the garbled name Γουσαναστάδης, but it is obvious to whom he refers
(Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.v.4).

118 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.v.5.
119 ἐν φρουρίῳ…ὅπερ τῆς Λήθης καλεῖν νενομίκασιν (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.v.7).
plied that the prisoner should never be spoken of again, and that death awaited
whoever dared to pronounce the name of Kavad.
The narrative of Procopius now begins to remind us of another improbable se-
ries of events. The prince Hurmazd, who had attempted to deprive Shapur II of the
Sasanian throne, had escaped confinement with the help of his mother and sister
who had drugged the keepers of his prison. The tale of Kavad’s escape is yet more
fabulous. That Kavad’s wife seduced the jailer, that she exchanged clothing with her
husband, and that the Persian king departed the Castle of Oblivion in the garb of a
woman are impossible to believe. 120 The historian Agathias refused to credit the nar-
rative of Procopius, 121 but the tale was so widely diffused throughout Iran that it was
embellished and recorded in the Persian royal tradition. 122 But this fable betrays the
influence and involvement of a nobleman who assisted Kavad’s escape from prison,
and who accompanied him on his flight to the Huns. In the narrative of Procopius,
this mysterious man is called Seoses; but Zarmihr is his name in the Persian royal
tradition.
The figure whom Procopius calls Seoses may perhaps be identified with
Zarmihr the younger. Like the second Zarmihr, Seoses delivered Kavad from prison
and was unexpectedly executed in later life. 123 It was Seoses who had kept watch
near the Castle of Oblivion with men and horses at the ready, and when Kavad
emerged from confinement this band departed in secret for the land of the Heph-
thalites. Seoses and Kavad negotiated an alliance with those Huns, a royal daughter,
who had remained amongst the Huns since the days of Peroz, was promised to the
Hephthalite king, and a great army of Huns conducted Kavad into Iran. 124 Kavad’s
first act was to revenge himself upon the man who had advocated the murder of the
Persian king. Nikhor Gushnaspdad was immediately executed and replaced by his
relative Adurgundbad, 125 who received the rank of Margrave of the Eastern
Marches, or kanarang as it was called in the Persian language. 126 Jamasp, the king
who had ruled in place of Kavad, was deposed and made blind; or perhaps he will-
ingly abdicated as Agathias alleges. 127 The gratitude of Kavad improved the rank and
dignity of Seoses who had assisted both the flight and the return of the Persian king.
Chief of the Warriors was the new title of Kavad’s benefactor, but Procopius is
120 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.vi.1–9.

121 Agathias, Historiae, IV.28.3.
122 Dinawari, p. 67; Tabari, v. 2, p. 93–94. But in the Persian royal tradition, the woman in
question is not the wife, but the sister, of Kavad.

123 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I. vi.3; Dinawari, p. 67; Tabari, v. 2, p. 93.
124 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.vi.10–11; Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XXIV.
125 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.vi.18.
126 Frye, R. N., “Adergoudounbades,” Encyclopædia Iranica, vol. I, fasc. 5, 1983, p. 456
127 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xi.17; Agathias, Historiae, IV.28.7.
wrong to assert that Seoses was the first and last man to occupy that exalted and
ancient position. 128
The beginning of Kavad’s second reign was believed to be auspicious. ‘Kavad
ruled the empire and guarded it with steadfastness; for no one was more sagacious
or vigorous’. 129 Those words of Procopius signal that Kavad’s return to the throne
inaugurated an era of confidence and activity, and Joshua the Stylite adds that the
troubles afflicting Iran were swiftly resolved. 130 These notices must imply that Ka-
vad, and the noble faction which supported him, had gained the advantage over
their opponents. Violent purges and executions, which are attested later, may have
begun with the destruction of Nikhor Gushnaspdad.
THE REFORM OF THE IRANIAN STATE

IV. The contemporary testimony of Procopius and Agathias acknowledges no pro-
ject of reform in the reigns of Kavad and his successor. Only the Persian royal tradi-
tion alleges that a thorough reformation of the Iranian state began in the reign of
Kavad and proceeded into that of his son. Agrarian, fiscal, and military improve-
ments are believed to have led to a monetised system of taxation and to the estab-
lishment of the first standing army in the history of the Sasanian dynasty. 131 Such
claims are almost certainly wrong. 132 To insist on a barter economy before the re-
forms of Kavad and Khusro is to render nearly all Sasanian achievements, especially
international trade, incomprehensible; and it is to deny the copious evidence of nu-
mismatics. To deprive the successors of Ardashir of a standing army is to make in-
explicable the military performance of Iran which equalled, and often surpassed, the
power of Rome. But a candid discussion of these reforms must begin amidst ex-
treme doubt. 133 It is not even possible to determine when all elements of the sup-
posed reforms were begun and when they were completed. Although Kavad is said
to have begun the cadastral survey which was the foundation of the reform of the
land tax, later tradition requires us to believe that all innovations were achieved un-
128 Ἀδρασταδάραν σαλάνης (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.vi.18; Ι.xi.38). The title was in fact
quite old (Sunderman, W., “Artēštārān sālār,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. II, fasc. 6, 1986, p.
662). See also Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 126–127.
129 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.vi.19.
130 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XXIV.
131 This erroneous view is expounded in Rubin, Z., “The Sasanid Monarchy,” in Cameron A.
(ed.), The Cambridge Ancient History 14, Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425–600,
2000, p. 655 and Rubin, Z., “The Reforms of Khusro Anoshirvan,” in Cameron, A. (ed.),
The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East III: States, Resources and Armies, 1995, p. 227–292.
132 Howard-Johnston, J., “The Two Great Powers in Late Antiquity,” p. 211–212.
133 All my doubts are disclosed and discussed in Jackson Bonner, M. R., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab
al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 91–98. Adams refers to ‘the vague, remote, and generally unsatisfactory
picture of the agricultural regime’ which emerges from literary sources (Adams, R. McC.,
Heartland of Cities, p. 202).
der the reign of Khusro I. 134 But this may mean nothing more than that Khusro
claimed the credit for everything.
Dinawari notes that a poll tax was levied on four classes, and the nobility,
knights, scribes, and anyone in the service of the king were exempt. 135 No one (says
Dinawari) was compelled to pay if he had not attained twenty, or if he had passed
fifty, years. Tabari includes those details, and adds that this tax had previously been
a fixed sum, 136 and that the new tax was set at twelve, eight, six, and four drachms,
in accordance with status. 137 Though this tax may well have been fair, as it was
probably proportional to wealth, its payment amounted to an acknowledgement of
inferiority, and this new method of taxation may have reinforced the Iranian class
system, which the Mazdakite trouble had perhaps disturbed but not destroyed. Di-
nawari, Tabari, and Ferdowsi also describe the imposition of a land tax. 138 Taxes
which had formerly been paid in kind, were to be paid in money. Each jarib 139 of
land planted with trefoil and clover was taxed at seven drachms, every four Persian
date palms in a jarib were taxed at one drachm, and the same amount was levied on
every six foreign date palms, and on every six olive trees in a jarib. Dinawari adds the
important point that taxation also varied with the degree of cultivation and proximi-
ty to cities.
We can assess the effect of this new system of taxation only in the most gen-
eral manner. The agricultural production of Iran had always been formidable, and
the taxes levied upon it would always have yielded vast revenues. But the reforms of
Kavad and Khusro would have made the collection of taxes more orderly and sys-
tematic, and a fixed sum paid to the government regardless of yield may have en-
couraged farmers to increase their rates of return by means of more intense cultiva-
tion. 140 But it is possible that, in some instances, the cultivation of land became
more costly than before. This is perhaps why, in the opinion of Ferdowsi, Khusro I
promised to inflict a very severe penalty upon anyone who refused to farm his land:
‘If fields within my land be desolate,
And flourish not under the shadow of my glory,
Whoever be in charge of them,
If he find the work contemptible,
134 Masʿudi, Kitab al-Tanbih w’al-ishraf, p. 101–102.

135 Dinawari, p. 73. I assume that this means the civil administration.
136 Tabari, v. 2, p. 150.
137 Tabari, v. 2, p. 152.
138 Dinawari, p. 72–73; Tabari, v. 2, p. 150–152; Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 70–179.
139 A jarib might have varied from time to time and place to place, and may have been a little
less than half an acre in this era.

140 Adams, R. McC., Heartland of Cities, p. 201.
Him I shall hang alive from the gibbet right where he is,
Be he high or be he lowly!’ 141
Other elements of the reform also required royal attention. No policy implemented
by any government is immune from abuse and corruption, and there is reason to
believe that the new tax system had deteriorated by the reign of Khusro I. A pur-
ported fragment of the autobiography of Khusro alleges that corrupt officials em-
bezzled tax revenues and that the head tax was improperly levied upon young chil-
dren and upon persons who had died. 142 The Iranian bureaucracy attempted to rem-
edy this problem by appointing judges to oversee the payment of taxes and to issue
official receipts – a novel practice, apparently.
The reform of the tax system was followed by a renovation of the Iranian ar-
my. Whereas there had been one supreme commander of the army, called the
spahbad, this office and rank was divided among four men. 143 Each general oversaw a
region of the empire, which was, as our sources agree, divided into four parts. No
sources agree on the areas included within the quarters, and Dinawari, Tabari, and
Ferdowsi give them different names. 144 But the worst defect of these sources is an
141 Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 151–153:

‫نتا�� سايه ى ف ّر من‬ ‫�� و��ان بود بوم در � ّ� من‬
‫ا�� گ��د ا�ن ك�ر د��وار خوار‬ ‫ك�� را �� باشد ��ن پايك�ر‬
.‫ا�� فراز ست و �� ز��دست‬ ‫ك�� ز��ه �� دار �اى �� هست‬
142 Ibn Miskawayh, Tajarib al-Umam, v. 1, p. 133.
143 Tabari, v. 2, p. 99:
. ‫فر ّق ك��ى هذه الو��ية و ا��رتبة ب�ن أربعة اص��بذ�ن‬
‫ اص��بذة‬is an Arabicised form of the Middle Persian word spah-pat, which means literally ‘over-
seer of the army,” but ‘general’ is the usual translation (Nyberg, H. S., A Manual of Pahlavi,
Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1964, p. 177). This is how Tabari defines it (Tabari, v. 2, p. 99):
ٔ ‫ك�ن ي�� ا��ص��بذة و�ي‬
.‫ا��اسة �� ا��نوب‬
144Only the four-fold division is common to our sources. Dinawari gives each quarter an
ordinal number, and then describes its contents (Dinawari, p. 69). The first quarter was
Khurasan, Sakastan, and Kirman; the second was Ispahan, Qum, Jabal, Azarbaijan, and Ar-
menia; the third was Persia, Khuzestan down to Bahrain; the fourth was Iraq unto the bor-
der with the kingdom of Rome. Tabari and Ferdowsi name the quarters after the points of
must have included the territories bordering on the Roman Empire, though Tabari does not
the compass. The east (says Tabari) included Khurasan and its adjoining regions. The west
say so. That there was an ‫ اص��بذ ا��غرب‬is all that we are told (Tabari, v. 2, p. 99). The south, or
Nimroz as Tabari calls it in Persian, was the land of Yemen. The north was Azarbaijan and its
surrounding regions, which Tabari calls ‘the land of the Khazars. Ferdowsi retains the four-
fold division (Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 70), but the territories listed are not the same. Qum
and Ispahan are confounded with Azarbaijan and Armenia, which are much further north
(Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 72–74). Persia and Khuzestan are grouped with the ‘marches of
the Khazars’, but the two regions are not near one another, and Ferdowsi seems also include
Bactria here (Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 75). Ferdowsi makes no mention of Yemen, and Iraq
alarming disagreement over whether this was a military measure at all. Neither Di-
nawari, nor Ferdowsi uses the term spahbad, and Dinawari claims that Khusro ap-
pointed over each quarter of the empire not a general, but rather ‘a trustworthy
man’. 145
Coins issued by the government of Kavad seem to suggest that the quartering
of the empire began in one of his reigns, perhaps originally as an administrative re-
form when Kavad had returned to the throne. Mint signatures stamped upon Ka-
vad’s coins may indicate the four-fold division of the southwest, the region of the
capital, the northwest, and the northeast, 146 and the quartering of the empire of Iran
is established alike by the evidence of sigillography and Armenian and Persian geo-
graphical works. Seals whose inscriptions include a personal name followed by one
of the cardinal points and title spahbad attest the reality of the quadripartition, and
they establish that it was a military development. 147 The Armenian Geography of
Ananias of Shirak is the earliest textual evidence for the quadripartition, as it was
composed in the middle decades of the seventh century. 148 In this important book,
the four quarters are named after the directions of the compass. Similar testimony is
offered by the Shahrestaniha-yi Eranshahr which was completed in the eighth centu-
ry. 149 But even these sources disagree upon the contents of each division of the Ira-
nian empire, nor do they specify in whose reign the quadripartition occurred.
The purpose of dividing the military power amongst four generals was most
probably to make it easier to fight on more than one front at once. To discourage
competition and internal feuds, those four commands must have been associated
with specific and clearly defined territories. Each general would have been attended
by his own civilian and military staff, and each must have received his orders, and
his budget, from a central war office answerable to the Sasanian king. It is possible
that this office was the Chief of the Warriors which had lately been awarded to
Seoses.
and ‘the land of Rome’ are his final quarter (Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 76). We must dismiss
the recurrence of the land of the Khazars, as it is an anachronism. Ferdowsi and Tabari
probably mean nothing more than the Caucasus, but Ferdowsi’s claim that Rome was in-
cluded in these military is obviously wrong.
145 Dinawari, p. 69:
.‫� ر ُبع ر�� من ثقا‬

ّ ‫و�ّى ك‬
146 The mint signatures are discussed in Schindel, N., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum III/1, p.
477–478 (and Schindel has some doubts about what they really mean); Daryaee, T., Sasanian
Persia, p. 124–125; Gurnet, F., “Deux notes à propos du monnayage de Xosro II,” Revue belge
de Numismatique, tome CXL, 1994, p. 36–37.
147 Gyselen, R., “The Great Families in the Sasanian Empire”; Gyselen, R., The Four Generals
of the Sasanian Empire: Some Sigillographic Evidence, 2001.

148 Ananias of Shirak / Hewsen, H. R., The Geography of Ananias of Shirak: Ashxarhacoyc, the
Long and the Short Recension, 1992, p. 72.

149 Shahrestaniha-yi Eranshar, passim.
THE WAR WITH ROME OF 502

Peace along the Roman frontier endured from the reign of Yazdgard II until the
return of Kavad. Sasanian distraction in the east might have afforded an opportunity
to afflict Iran with new torments, and the Iranian state might have been crushed
between the power of Rome and that of the Hephthalite Huns. But even amidst the
diplomatic tensions in the reign of Peroz and the supposed disorders of Mazdakism,
the peace was not disturbed until the year 502.
The Iranian motive for war is obscure. The Sasanian monarchy remained tribu-
tary to the Hephthalite Huns, and that nation provided a small army to assist the
Iranian war effort. 150 It is therefore possible to conjecture that the Huns had ap-
proved, endorsed, and perhaps inspired the war, and their purpose was to preoccupy
Iranian arms in the west. 151 The military aristocracy of Kavad’s court may have
sought only to vindicate Sasanian honour after the defeat of Peroz with a swift vic-
tory against an ill-prepared adversary; 152 or Kavad may have wished to assert his au-
thority by uniting a fractious nobility in a military adventure. But our sources speak
mostly of the need to collect money with which to pay tribute to the Hephthalite
Huns.
A curious notice in the ecclesiastical history doubtfully attributed to Zachariah
the Rhetor asserts that a portion of Kavad’s nobility blamed Rome for tensions be-
tween Iran and the Huns. In the reign of Peroz, says Zachariah, the Roman gov-
ernment had promised to give the Hephthalites twice as much money as Kavad was
accustomed to pay. This had induced the Huns to demand ever greater sums from
Iran, and had aroused a vehement hatred of the Romans and a desire for revenge. 153
The Stylite also adduces pecuniary troubles. Balash had failed to pay his troops, and
the Roman subsidy of Iran’s Caucasian defences had been cancelled. Kavad inherit-
ed these troubles, and had hoped that an embassy and the gift of a large elephant
would persuade the emperor Zeno to renew the subsidy. 154 But Zeno died while
Kavad’s embassy lingered at Antioch, Anastasius succeeded him as emperor, and an
ambassador returned to Iran to inform the court of the change of government. If
the Stylite is to be believed, Kavad’s response was neither a greeting nor a congratu-
latory word, but rather a more strident demand for money and a threat of war. 155
Anastasius, who was disgusted by the flagitious maxims of Mazdaksim, sent a per-
150 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.vii.8–11; I.viii.13.

151 Jackson Bonner, M. R., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 84–86.
152 The Roman frontier defences had fallen into disrepair (Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at
War, 502–532, 1998, p. 40–42).

153 Pseudo-Zachariah of Mytilene, Historia Ecclesiastica, v. 2, p. 25–26. On the confusing iden-
tity of the author and the origins of this useful source, see Greatrex, G. et al., The Chronicle of
Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor: Church and War in Late Antiquity, 2011, p. 3–65.
154 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XIX.
155 The fate of Kavad’s elephant is unknown, alas.
sonal letter to the Persian king. ‘As Zeno who was emperor before me sent no
money’, wrote Anastasius, ‘so I will not send it, until you restore Nisibis to me’ 156 –
a condition which Kavad would obviously refuse.
When Kavad later reiterated his demand for money, the Roman emperor
agreed to provide a loan, but shortly thereafter Kavad was deprived of power. 157
The matter of the loan reasserted itself when Kavad was restored to the monarchy
of Iran. Procopius avers that the ministers of Anastasius forbade that emperor from
lending the money. 158 It was wrong (the advisers argued) to strengthen the friend-
ship between Iran and the Huns, for whatever disturbed that relationship was
deemed advantageous to Rome; and so Roman policy was to deprive Kavad of the
promised loan and to prevent him from paying tribute to the Hephthalites. Procopi-
us, who struggled to explain the sudden outbreak of war, adduces this as its only
cause. 159 Sasanian numismatics reveals that no gold coins were issued in the reigns
of Balash and Jamasp, and this signals perhaps an absence or shortage of that metal,
and may corroborate our sources’ emphasis on an empty Iranian treasury. 160
But the war was not a frivolous undertaking. Raids carried out by Iranian Arab
clients at the turn of the fifth century were missions of reconnaissance which gath-
ered intelligence of the ruinous state of Roman defences. 161 It is also likely that Ira-
nian spies played on the fears of Christians who expected the imminent end of the
world at the opening of the sixth millennium since the creation. 162 The outbreak of
warfare coincided with the diffusion of a frightening prophecy originating from an
oracle at Heliopolis: ‘the Persians shall arise in the times of Anastasius; with the
sword they shall overturn the cities of the east together with the multitude of Ro-
man soldiers’. 163 The Stylite reports that celestial portents, earthquakes, disease, crop
failure, and the rising price of food preceded the arrival of Kavad, and seemed to
announce a universal calamity. 164
The testimony of the Stylite shows that the policy of Kavad’s government was
to unite within a single army all the rebellious peoples who had afflicted his first
156 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XX:

.‫ܐܝܟ ܕ� ܙܝܢܘܢ ܗܘ ܕܡܡܠܟ ܗܘܐ ܩܕܡܝ ܫܕܪ ܘ� ܐܢܐ ܕܪܡܫ ܐܢܐ ܝܕܡܐ ܕܬܦܢܐ ܠܝ ܢܨܒܝܢ‬
157 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XXIII.
158 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.vii.1–2.
159 Διὸ δὴ Καβάδης ἐξ αἰτίας οὐδεμιᾶς ἔγνω ἐπὶ Ῥωμαίους στρατεύεσθαι (Procopius, I.vii.3).
160 Göbl, R., Sasanian Numismatics, 1971, p. 49–51.
161 Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 78 with notes 20–22.
162 Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 5–7.
163 Καὶ ἀναστήσονται ἐν τοῖς καιροῖς αὐτοῦ Περσαι καὶ καταστρέψουσι τὰς πόλεις τῆς
Ἀνατολῆς μετὰ τοῦ πλήθους τῶν στρατιωτῶν τῆς Ῥωμανίας μαχαίρᾳ (Oracle of Baalbek, l.
170–172 in Alexander, P. J., The Oracle of Baalbek: the Tiburtine Sibyl in Greek Dress, 1967, p.
28). Mine is a very loose translation. Heliopolis is the modern city of Baalbek.
164 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XXV–XLVII; XLIX.
reign – a considerable military and political effort. 165 To the tribes of the Tamurayye
and the Qadishaye Kavad promised total destruction if they failed to submit them-
selves and plunder if they joined his expeditionary army. The Arabs, who had lately
ravaged south-western Mesopotamia, were attracted by the prospect of fighting with
Rome. Persian Armenia at first resisted the Sasanian king’s call to arms, and an Ira-
nian force invaded and fought an Armenian army to the brink of annihilation. Ka-
vad swiftly promised to terminate that brief war, and to guarantee tolerance of
Christianity, on condition that Armenian troops participate in his Roman invasion.
THE OPENING OF THE WAR

In the year 359, the Sasanian king Shapur II had taken the city of Amida after a siege
of seventy-three days, 166 and this victory led to an astonishing reversal of Iranian
fortune after a period of abasement. That campaign occurred one hundred and for-
ty-three years before Kavad and his ministers executed another invasion of Roman
territory and a second capture of Amida. It is possible that Kavad’s attack was in-
spired in part by an institutional memory of that earlier war. But Iranian strategy was
not the same, and it is noteworthy that both powers employed their Arabian clients
to greater effect than ever before. 167
Kavad’s plan was to cross the frontier in the north, and so the Iranian army in-
vaded Roman Armenia and swiftly captured its capital Theodosiopolis. That city was
weakly defended, and Constantine (who was governor of that city) threw off his
allegiance to the Roman emperor and surrendered the city to Kavad. The host of
Iran plundered the city, ravaged the surrounding area, and carried off a great num-
ber of captives. Kavad bestowed upon Constantine the rank of general and left him
with a small garrison in his ruined capital. 168 The invasion proceeded, and terror at
the Iranian advance into Mesopotamia filled the Roman people.
Kavad and his army proceeded to the city of Martyropolis in the country of
Sophanene – a day’s journey from Amida. 169 Theodore, the governor of Sophanene,
purchased the freedom of his country by paying Kavad the public taxes of two
years. 170 The governor remained in his position, and the emperor Anastasius
acknowledged the prudence of Theodore, for the city of Martyropolis was poorly
defended and could not have withstood a siege. But the Roman emperor immediate-
ly dispatched his minister Rufinus with a large sum of gold. His instructions were to
pay Kavad and to urge his immediate withdrawal. But the interview between Rufi-
165 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XXIV.

166 Ammianus, XIX.ix.9.
167 The best modern analysis of Kavad’s war of 502 is Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p.
79–118.
168 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XLVIII; Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 79–80.
169 Procopius, Aedificia, III.ii.4.
170 Procopius, Aedificia, III.ii.5–6.
nus and the Persian king failed to achieve what Anastasius had desired. That Roman
minister had deposited the gold at Caesarea, and he urged Kavad to claim it there.
The Persian king refused and Rufinus was seized and kept under guard. 171 Kavad’s
refusal to retrieve the gold from Caesarea may be proof that money was not the only
aim of the war, but the distance between Martyropolis and Caesarea meant that it
could be retrieved neither swiftly nor easily. 172
THE SIEGE OF AMIDA

A vivid account of the siege of Amida is embedded within the chronicle attributed
to Zachariah the Rhetor: a monk who dwelt in that city and who witnessed the ca-
lamity. 173 The shorter account of Joshua the Stylite is similar, and we may rely on his
accurate dates. The account of Procopius appears to repose upon the same infor-
mation employed by those churchmen, but the Greek is less informative than those
Syrian writers, and he rarely contributes anything of substance. 174
It was a hard and painful siege which began in the month of October and pro-
ceeded for ninety-seven days into the winter. When the assaults of arrows and bat-
tering-rams had failed to shatter the wall of Amida, the armies of Iran heaped up a
great pile of earth against it. But the tactic of the defenders was to pierce the wall
where it met the pile of earth, and to burrow through it. Earth was extracted from
within the mound, and the resultant cavity was reinforced by beams supporting the
weight of the artificial hill and the men who stood upon it. Amidene forces flung
oxhides soaked in resin upon the mound so as to make it slippery, and they filled the
cavity with combustible materials and set fire to them. 175 The beams which support-
ed the cavity were consumed by the flames, the mound collapsed, and the Iranian
host withdrew for a moment in shame and grief. 176 According to Procopius, as the
Iranian army prepared to abandon Amida, the inhabitants of that city began to heap
the most scurrilous abuse upon Kavad and his soldiers. Some prostitutes mounted
the rampart of Amida and, hoisting their garments, displayed to Kavad the parts of
171 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, L.

172 The distance between Martyropolis and Caesarea is about 700 miles.
173 This text, its high worth, its sources, its transmission, and the identity of its author are
discussed in detail in Greatrex, G., “Le Pseudo-Zacharie de Mylitène et l’historiographie

syriaque au sixième siècle” in Debié (ed.), L’Historiographie syriaque, 2009, p. 33–55.
174 Greatrex, G., “Procopius and Pseudo-Zachariah on the Siege of Amida and its Aftermath
(502–506),” in Börm, H. / Wiesehöfer, J. (eds.) Commutatio et Contentio: Studies on the Late Ro-
man, Sasanian, and Early Islamic Near East in Memory of Zeev Ruben, 2010, p. 227–251.
175 Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, Historia Ecclesiastica, v. 2, p. 23–24.
176 Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, Historia Ecclesiastica, v. 2, p. 24:
.‫ܘܗܦܟ ܡܠܟܐ ܒܒܗܬܬܐ ܘܒܟܪܝܘܬܐ‬

the female body which (in the opinion of Procopius) men should not see naked. 177
This insult may have added to the perception of disgrace. But the hierophants, who
had accompanied the Persian king, interpreted this display as a sign that people of
Amida would soon discover to Kavad all their secret and hidden things.
At about this moment, Kavad attempted to divert Roman attention from his
siege, and harass the enemy deep within his own territory. Kavad ordered his Lakh-
mid allies to proceed to Carrhae and Constantina, where they ravaged the surround-
ing countryside. Nuʿman who commanded the Lakhmid horsemen encountered
vigorous resistance from the Roman commander Olympius, but the Arabs were
victorious, took many prisoners, and penetrated as far as Edessa. The Romans,
however, achieved an important victory when Eugenius (who was commander in
Armenia) attacked and recovered the city of Theodosiopolis. 178
Iranian embarrassment and the victory of Eugenius almost induced Kavad to
abandon his war. The Sasanian king announced to the defenders of Amida that he
was prepared to withdraw on condition that he receive from them a small gift of
silver. The insolent reply of the Amidene governor and his ministers was to demand
payment for the foodstuffs that the Iranian army had plundered from the country-
side. After the construction of a second mound had failed, the Iranian host prepared
to relinquish the siege of Amida. But upon the evening of the tenth day of Janu-
ary, 179 an Iranian general pursued a thief who was accustomed to sneaking out of
Amida and stealing from Kavad’s army, and he came and went through the opening
of an old drain 180 below the part of the walls called the Tripyrgion, or triple tower.
Some monks were accustomed to keeping watch in that tower; but having drunk
wine and fallen asleep, they failed to notice the Iranian general and his men entering
Amida in pursuit of the thief. The monks were slain, the Tripyrgion and its adjoin-
ing ramparts were invested, and word of that occupation was sent to Kavad. The
bold defenders of Amida discharged a torrent of missiles as the soldiers of Iran
scaled the walls of the city. The Amidenes attempted to loosen and to dislodge the
keystone of the Tripyrgion, thereby to destroy the invaders’ point of entry, but one
tower after another was taken and held by the Iranian army until they possessed the
full circuit of the walls.
177 Καί τινες ἑταῖραι ἀνελκύσασαι κόσμῳ οὐδενὶ τὴν ἐσθῆτα Καβάδῃ ἅγχιστά που ἑστηκότι
ἐδείκνυον ὅσα τῶν γυναικῶν γυμνὰ φανῆναι ἀνδράσιν οὐ θέμις (Procopius, Bellum Persicum,
I.vii.17–18).
178 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LI–LII.
179 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LIII.
180 Procopius mentions ἐκβολὴν ὑπονόμου παλαιοῦ (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.vii.20),
which was hidden only by some stones. Zacharias does not describe the way into the Tripyr-
gion.
The gates of Amida were at last thrown open after three days and nights of ob-
stinate fighting. 181 Zachariah dwells on the treasures and captives seized by Kavad,
and the promiscuous slaughter of eighty thousand Amidenes without distinction of
age or sex. 182 But the rhetorical churchman reports an interesting legend connected
with the fall of Amida. The drunken monks, whose slumber had relinquished the
city to the Persian king, were merely the instruments of divine chastisement. A vi-
sion of Christ had appeared to Kavad in a dream, and the Son of God promised to
deliver Amida to the Sasanid monarch as punishment for the sins of its inhabitants.
That vision, and the entreaties of a Christian suppliant, prompted Kavad to preserve
from destruction the Church of the Forty Martyrs. Entering the sanctuary of that
temple, the Persian king beheld an image of Jesus, at whose familiar likeness Kavad
bowed his head and declared: ‘it was he that said to me, “stay and receive from me
the city and its inhabitants who sinned against me”.’ 183 Asserting a divine sanction to
the Persian king’s seizure of Amida, and preserving its church, may have pacified a
humiliated population of Christians. But it may be that Kavad attempted to exploit
the fear of imminent doom and the anticipation of the end of the world which were
vividly described by Joshua the Stylite, and which were diffused throughout the
Roman orient.
THE AFTERMATH OF THE SIEGE AND THE ROMAN RESPONSE

A small navy of rafts carried the booty of Amida down the Tigris river into Iran.
Two Roman dignitaries, the chief councillor Leontius and Cyrus, who was governor
of Amida, were clothed in rags, forced to carry swine, and were exposed to public
ridicule throughout the city. Survivors of the siege were assembled and led away into
captivity. A city founded in south-eastern Khuzestan bore the name Kavad’s Better
Amida, and became the new abode of those unhappy Romans. 184 At Amida Kavad
installed one of his generals by the name of Glon, two marzbans, and three-
thousand troops to rule and to defend the city. 185 Rufinus, the Roman envoy whom
Kavad had detained, was released, and he transmitted to his countrymen news of
the fall of Amida. 186 The immediate reaction of Anastasius was to dispatch a large
181 Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, Historia Ecclesiastica, v. 2, p. 25–28.

182 Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, Historia Ecclesiastica, v. 2, p. 29–30; the Stylite repeats a
similar number of slain Amidenes (Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LIII). See Greatrex, G., Rome
and Persia at War, p. 92–93.
183 Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, Historia Ecclesiastica, v. 2, p. 28:
̈
.‫ܘܥܡܘܪܝܗ ܕܚܛܘ ܠܝ‬ ‫ܗܢܐ ܐܡܪ ܠܝ ܕܟܬܪ ܘܣܝܒ ܡܢܝ ܡܕܝܢܬܐ‬
The Stylite was unaware of this story, but it reappears in the Chronicle of Seert (Chronicle of Seert,
I(2), p. 132–133) which was composed in Arabic no later than the year 1020.
184 Dinawari, p. 68; Tabari, v.2, p. 94. The Persian name of the city was Weh-az-Amid-Kawad.
185 Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, Historia Ecclesiastica, v. 2, p. 30.
186 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LIV.
number of soldiers to fortify the cities in the Roman east. When winter had passed,
the Persian king renewed his demand for money, but the Roman government re-
fused and began to prosecute a war of revenge. 187
The Roman force was the largest army put into the field since the disastrous
expedition of Julian. 188 But command was divided amongst Areobindus, Patricius,
and Hypatius, and these three generals failed to coordinate their movements. In the
month of July, the army of Kavad, despite an early reverse, repelled the troops of
Areobindus near Nisibis and plundered the Roman camp. 189 Roman forces com-
manded by Patricius and Hypatius, who had attempted to retake Amida, raised the
siege of that city, but could not intercept the Iranian army. The Roman effort to
capture Amida by guile failed, but the commander in Osrhoene routed Iran’s Arab
clients; and the Ghassanid Saracens, 190 who were loyal to Rome, raided as far as the
Lakhmid capital at Hira. 191 In the month of August, another muster of the Roman
armies miscarried, and Kavad led another attack from Nisibis which scattered the
forces of Patricius and Hypatius. Kavad then proceeded south-westward toward
Constantina. A population of Jews had been persuaded to betray that city to the
Persian king, but a Roman prisoner leaked intelligence of the plot, and the bishop
Bar-Hadad induced the Iranian army to spare Constantina with blandishments and
gifts of provisions. 192 In September, Iran’s Arabian clients ravaged the countryside
of Osrhoene, and the Edessenes destroyed whatever was in the immediate vicinity
of their walls, and prepared for an obstinate siege. Areobindus refused to yield to
Kavad’s demand for ten thousand pounds of gold, and the army of the Persian king
surrounded the city of Edessa. 193
THE END OF KAVAD’S FIRST ROMAN WAR

Kavad perhaps expected the Edessenes to surrender without a fight, for an attack
was not immediate. 194 But when the onslaught came, Edessa resisted, and its survival
was credited to the special protection of Christ who had promised that no enemy
should ever take that city. 195 Prisoners were exchanged, demands for gold were is-
sued and refused, and the Iranian army withdrew as the winter of the year 503 ap-
proached. The city of Batnae fell to a division of Iranian horsemen, and a retreat
187 This was in the month of April (Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LIII).
188 Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 96.
189 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LV.
190 Joshua calls them the Thaʿalibite Saracens, but the Ghassanids are meant (Greatrex, G.,
Rome and Persia at War, p. 99).

191 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LVI–LVII.
192 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LVIII; Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xiii.8–15.
193 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LIX–LX.
195 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xii.7–30.
along the river Euphrates brought the Sasanid host to Callinicum. The Roman gen-
eral Celer failed to intercept the Iranian army before Timostratus, commander at
Callinicum, surrendered that city to the Persian king. 196 Skirmishes and punitive
raids filled the months of March and April, and the general Celer spread destruction
across the Iranian border.
In May the Romans renewed the effort to retake Amida by starvation, and they
formed a blockade which proceeded into the year 504. 197 Want of supplies and fam-
ine oppressed that city, and a portion of the Amidenes, who had turned to killing,
roasting, and eating their fellow citizens, were punished with death. 198 Hostages were
returned, and an armistice of seven years was proposed and negotiated over the fol-
lowing year by the Roman commander Celer and an Iranian general by the name of
Bawi. 199 Negotiations were interrupted by mutual suspicion and the death of Bawi,
and his successor was appointed after a delay of five months. The two conditions of
the armistice, of which we may be certain, were that Amida return to Rome and that
Kavad receive one thousand pounds of gold, 200 and it is likely that Kavad demand-
ed, and received, the renewal of the Roman subsidy of Iran’s Caucasian defences. 201
The writer Procopius justly blames Roman negligence for the appalling state in
Amida was found. 202 The hardship which the Iranian garrison had endured, and
famine amongst the Roman inhabitants, had perhaps persuaded Kavad to relinquish
his chief prize of the war. But the principle motive for concluding the truce was,
says Procopius, a renewal of warfare between Iran and the Huns.
RENEWED CONFLICT WITH THE HUNS

The details of this supposed war are obscure and confused. The ‘long war’, as Pro-
copius calls it, was supposed to have begun with an invasion of the year 503 in the
north of Iran. 203 But Procopius discusses only a later conflict in the Caucasus. A
certain elderly Hun was a friend to the emperor Anastasius. Ambazuk (that was the
196 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LI–LV.

197 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.ix.1.
198 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LVI–LXXXI.
199 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.ix.24; Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 115–117.
200 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.ix.4.
201 John the Lydian mentions that the negotiation touched on the Iberian fortress of Vi-
rapakh: ὁ Πέρσης λόγους ἐκίνησε πρὸς Κέλερα…περὶ Βιριπαράχ…καὶ τῆς κατὰ μόνας ὑπὸ
Περσῶν γενομένης περὶ αὐτοῦ δαπάνης (John Lydus, de Magistratibus, III.53). Contra Greatrex,
G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 118.
202 Procopius, Bellum Persicum I.ix.20. The writer John the Lydian accuses the weakness of
Areobindus and the cowardice of Hypatius and Patricius (John Lydus, De Magistratibus,
III.53).
203 ἔπειτα δὲ Καβάδης, Οὕννων πολεμίων ἐς γῆν τὴν αὐτοῦ ἐσβεβληκότων, παντὶ τῷ
στρατῷ ἐπ᾽ οἴκου ἀνεχώρησε, πόλεμόν τε μακρὸν πρὸς τὸ ἔθνος τοῦτο ἐς τῆς χώρας τὰ πρὸς
ἄρκτον διέφερεν (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.viii.19).
name of the Hun) was on the point of death, and he asked the Roman government
to pay him in exchange for ceding to Rome some Caucasian fortresses and the Cas-
pian Gates. 204 It would have been impossible for the Romans to support a garrison
in such a distant country, surrounded on all sides by enemies, and destitute of re-
sources; moreover, so brazen an irritant to Iran was perhaps best avoided. Anasta-
sius refused, Ambazuk died, his sons inherited what had been promised to Rome,
and Kavad fought the progeny of Ambazuk, defeated them, and took possession of
their inheritance. A legendary recollection of this is preserved within the Georgian
Royal Annals, which divide the figure of Ambazuk into two gigantic brothers called
Bazuk and Abazuk. They were kings of the Ossetes, and their names recall the na-
tions of Gog and Magog: allies of Satan in the final war against Christ and his saints.
Those two brothers spread destruction throughout the region of the Caucasus and
were slain by the Armenian prince Smbat Bagratuni. 205 This notice in the Georgian
Royal Annals adds nothing to our understanding of the historical facts; but from it
we can sense that the occupation of Ambazuk was perceived as a serious calamity,
which reminded a Georgian writer of the end of the world.
The testimony of Procopius seems to suggest that this was the moment at
which Iran delivered itself of the Hephthalite yoke. But this is not entirely true. Iran
continued to pay tribute to the Hephthalites into the middle of the sixth century,
when those Huns were vanquished altogether in the reign of Khusro I. Moreover,
the people to whom Procopius refers must have had a weak connection, if any, with
the Hephthalites, and the so-called Caucasian Huns are properly known as Sabirs
who may be the western relics of the people whom the Chinese called Xianbei. They
had left their ancient abode in the region of the Middle Volga and crossed into the
northern Caucasus in the decade of the 460s. 206 So fearsome was the memory of the
Huns, that our historians preserved that name and applied it to the Sabirs; but a vic-
tory over them would not have overpowered the Hephthalites. Nevertheless, in the
year 512, the eastern mints of Khurasan (those at Abarshahr, Herat, and Marv) re-
sumed production of Sasanian coins for the first time since the death of Peroz, and
so we may infer that those lands were recovered from Hephthalite dominion at that
moment. 207 Procopius was perhaps aware of this recovery, but wrongly attributed
the cause to operations in the Caucasus.
204 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.x.1–12.

205The History of the Kings of K’art’li, p. 53. Cf. Rapp, S. H., The Sasanian World through Georgian
Eyes, p. 226.
206 Sinor, D., “The Hun Period,” in Sinor D. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Inner Asia, Cam-
bridge, 1990, p. 200; Golden, P. B., “The Peoples of the south Russian steppe,” in Sinor, D.
(ed.), The Cambridge History of Inner Asia, 1990, p. 258–259.
207 Schindel, N., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum, Band III/1, p. 489–490.
THE APPEARANCE OF THE ROURAN

AND THE DECLINE OF THE HEPHTHALITE HUNS
The restoration of Khurasan, however it was achieved, was assisted by Hephthalite
distraction. If Kavad had recovered his eastern provinces by force, Hephthalite re-
sistance may have been weak; if by diplomacy, the masters of Central Asia may have
been grateful for a peaceable frontier while their armies were engaged elsewhere.
Some interesting scraps of evidence in Chinese sources support either possibility.
Two impressive military expansions drew Hephthalite arms far from the Iranian
frontier. Chinese dynastic annals record that, by the last decade of the fifth century,
Hephthalite power had penetrated Kashmir, Kashgar, Khotan, Karashahr, Kucha,
and the surrounding region of the Taklamakan desert; and in the early sixth century
the Hephthalites undertook the conquest of India. 208 Toramana, a Hephthalite vassal
king, destroyed the Gupta empire, and subdued a large portion of the Indian sub-
continent. 209 But there is evidence that the insecurity of the Hephthalites’ northern
frontier was a problem of increasing importance.
In the fourth century of our era, the threat of the Huns had vanished alike
from the Asiatic Steppe, and from within China. The nomadic confederacy of the
Xianbei had filled the territory vacated by the Huns, and they soon bestrode Inner
Asia. One of the largest clans within the confederacy of than Xianbei was the
Tabgatch, whom Chinese writers called Tuoba. These nomads assimilated them-
selves and their allies to the customs and language of their sedentary neighbour, and
the conquests of their chieftain Toba Gui extended his power throughout northern
China. 210 With time Toba Gui gave himself the name of Wei, and this was the be-
ginning of the dynasty of the same name which ruled northern China between the
years 386 and 585. The new dynasty, known to posterity as the Northern Wei, was
assailed by new barbarians. The contempt of Chinese annalists called the new steppe
power ‘wriggling insects’, or Rouran in their native tongue. 211 They had emerged
from within the old Xianbei confederacy, or perhaps their ancient homeland had
been deeper within the Inner Asian steppe. It was among the Rouran that the titles
of khan and khaghan emerged, and they were applied to the rulers of that confedera-
cy. It is possible that the ruling clan of the Rouran was none other the Avars who
208 I am referring to the Liang Shu, and the relevant portion of it is quoted and translated in
de la Vaissière, É., “Is there a Nationality of the Hephthalites?,” p. 125.
209 Kim, J., The Huns, p. 59–60.
210 Holcombe, C., “The Xianbei Chinese History,” Early Medieval China 19, 2013, p. 15–22;
Barfield, T. J., The Perilous Frontier, p. 118–127.

211 For a discussion of the Rouran state and society, see Kradin, N. N., “From Tribal Con-
federation to Empire: the Evolution of the Rouran Society,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scien-
tiarum Hungaricae, vol. 58 (2), 2005, p. 149–169.
were to be noticed in Roman sources of the sixth century, but the name which the
Rouran called themselves is not known. 212
Over the course of the fifth century, the Northern Wei emperors conducted a
series of successful campaigns in the west which saw the extension of Tuoba rule
over other nomadic peoples to the embarrassment of the Rouran. The collapse of
that confederacy was slow but inexorable. Though the Rouran had seized the north-
ern possessions of the Hephthalites, they could not long resist the might of the Wei.
Repeated assaults upon the Chinese frontier achieved little success throughout the
fifth century, and such failures perhaps accelerated the collapse of the Rouran. This
surely produced a state of anxiety and instability along the Hephthalites’ northern
frontier in the early sixth century. 213 Fear of Inner Asian disorder, and the troubles
that attended it, compelled the Hephthalites to strengthen their ties with the North-
ern Wei dynasty, to whom thirteen Hephthalite embassies were dispatched between
the years 507 and 531. 214 Kavad must have profited from this period of fear and
distraction also.
KAVAD’S FOREIGN POLICY

In the time of peace which followed the Roman war, a policy of diplomatic en-
gagement with other world powers took hold at the Persian court. The evidence is
scant, but we can reconstruct two important initiatives: I. diplomatic contact with
the court of the Northern Wei; and II. the establishment of a trading monopoly in
the Indian Ocean.
I. War with the Huns and strife within the Iranian nobility explain the interval be-
tween the years 476 and 507 during which no Iranian embassy was dispatched to the
Northern Wei. But this changed suddenly, and the Iranian government renewed
contact with China immediately after the Roman armistice. The renewal of embas-
sies to China attests an Iranian interest the political life of Inner Asia; and it may
suggest that Iran sought some advantage over the Hephthalites at the court of the
Northern Wei. Chinese annals note the mere fact of Iranian embassies in the years
507, 517, 521, and 522. 215 But the notice of an embassy of the year 518 records sur-
212 Golden, P. B., “Some Notes on the Avars and Rouran” in Curta, F. / Bogdan-Petru, M.
(eds), The Steppe Lands and the World Beyond Them: Studies in Honour of Victor Spinei on his 70th
Birthday, 2013, p. 43–66; Golden, P. B., Central Asia in World History, 2011, p. 36.
213 Kim, H. J., The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe, p. 39–41; Barfield, T. J., The Perilous
Frontier, p. 120–127; Sinor, D., “The Establishment and Dissolution of the Türk Empire,”
Sinor, D. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, 1990, p. 291–301. The name Rouran
is sometimes transliterated Jou-jan, Jou-juan or Juan-juan.
214 Enoki, K., “The Nationality of the Ephthalites,” Memoirs of the Research Department of the
Toyo Bunko (The Oriental Library), No. 18, 1959, p. 27.

215 Ecsedy, I., “Early Persian Envoys in Chinese Courts (5th-6th Centuries A. D.),” p. 229–
230.
prising details. Iran sent presents, which were portrayed as tribute; and a letter from
the Persian king addressed the Wei emperor in the most flattering language. The
introduction to that document has survived:
‘May the Son of Heaven of the Most Magnificent Country in existence continue
to reign when the sun comes out, as the Son of Heaven of the Central Han. The
king of Persia, Kavad, makes ten thousand times his respectful obeisance.’ 216
How grateful we would be if the whole letter had been preserved! We shall never
know the full import of that communication, and it is hard to discern why the em-
bassy of the year 518 received special emphasis in the annals of China. Could it be
that the epithet ‘very peaceful’ implies that a period of warfare with the Huns had
come to an end? Alas, the slim notices which I have rehearsed point to no definite
conclusions.
II. The diplomacy of Kavad established a monopoly on Indian maritime trade. 217 An
appendix to the strange text known as the Christian Topography is the evidence for
this. 218 Its author was a merchant by the name of Cosmas who wrote in about the
year 550, and he refers to the activities of his friend Sopatrus thirty-five years earlier.
In about the year 515 Sopatrus was in Taprobane 219 where he participated in a nego-
tiation between the king of that island, some Roman merchants, and an Iranian em-
bassy – surely one of the many which the Sasanid court had dispatched to negotiate
preferential trading agreements. When the monarch of Taprobane asked his guests
about their countries and their respective rulers, the Iranian answer came first. ‘Our
king,’ said Kavad’s ambassador, ‘is the more powerful, the greater, and the richer,
and he is the king of kings; and if he wants a thing he can do it’. 220 When the king of
Taprobane demanded a Roman response, Sopatrus produced the coins of the rival
powers: the gold solidus of the Romans (as Sopatrus said) was better than the silver
drachm of Iran. This response pleased the Taprobanian king, and annoyed the rep-
resentative of Kavad, but the purpose of the Iranian embassy was achieved. 221 This
maritime monopoly could not have succeeded without firm control over the Arabi-
in Chinese Courts (5th–6th Centuries A. D.),” p. 235 with note 34. I have quoted the transla-
tion by Tashakori.
217 Howard-Johnston, J., “The India Trade in Late Antiquity,” in Sauer, E. (ed.), Sasanian
Persia: Between Rome and the Steppes of Eurasia, 2017, p. 294–295; Howard-Johnston, J., “State
and Society in Late Antique Iran,” p. 127.
218 Cosmas Indicopleustes, XI.13–19.
219 Now called Sri Lanka.
220 Ὁ ἡμέτερος, καὶ δυνατώτερος καὶ μειζότερος, καὶ πλουσιώτερος, καὶ βασιλεὺς βασιλέων
ἐστίν. Καὶ εἴ τι θέλει, δύναται (Cosmas Indicopleustes, XI.12).

221 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xx.9–13. This evidence is examined in detail in the following
chapter.
an shore of the Persian Gulf. The Iranian alliance with the Lakhmid kingdom of
Hira was essential to maintaining that control, and so Kavad must have been grate-
ful for the foresight of his ancestor Shapur II. 222
THE ROMAN ERECTION OF A FORTRESS AT DARA

AND THE IRANIAN REACTION
While the armistice between Iran and Rome was negotiated, and while Kavad was
engaged in warfare or diplomacy with the Huns, the Roman government began to
refurbish the ruined fortresses which guarded the Iranian frontier. Fortifications
were improved at Edessa, Batnae, Amida, and Theodosiopolis. 223 But the most im-
portant Roman project at that time was the construction of an imposing fortress about
twelve miles 224 across the frontier from Nisibis. Dara, when it was finished, sat upon
three hills, and the highest of these supported the citadel; and two walls, separated
by an interval of fifty feet, enclosed the fortress and connected its towers. The inner
wall contained every amenity necessary for resisting a siege including barracks, store
houses, cisterns, and two public baths. 225 The establishment of this fortification sig-
nalled that the Roman government had relinquished its claim to Nisibis, and Dara
strengthened the eastern frontier considerably. But, as even Procopius admitted, the
treaty of 422 had forbidden either power from erecting new fortresses along their
mutual frontier. 226 Amidst the distractions of distant warfare, Kavad might only pro-
test at the construction of Dara, and Iranian efforts to destroy the foundation of
that fortress failed. 227 The gentle diplomacy of the emperor Anastasius and a liberal
gift of money were calculated to appease Iranian anger, but the construction pro-
ceeded, and Dara remained an irritating stimulus for war.
AN INTERVAL OF PEACE
Many of the reforms attributed to Kavad and to his son Khusro must have been
enacted, or resumed, after the defeat of the Huns. We may ascribe to this period the
limestone casing added to the wall at Ghilghilchay and its new name of Abzud Ka-
wad. 228 A project such as the refurbishment of a large defensive work bespeaks a
222 Morley, C., “The Arabian Frontier: A Keystone of the Sasanian Empire,” p. 272–273.
223 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, LXXXI; LXXXIX; XCI; Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.x.18–19.
224 ἀπέχει δὲ [Δάρας] πόλεως μὲν Νισίβιδος σταδίους ἑκατὸν δυοῖν δέχοντας (Procopius,
Bellum Persicum, I.x.13). A stade is about one eighth of a mile. Ninety-eight stades should
make a little more than twelve miles.
225 The early fortifications are described in Marcellinus Comes, a.c. 518, and the final form of
Dara is delineated in Procopius, Aedificia, II.i–ii.

226 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.x.16.
227 Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, XCII.
228 Gadjiev, M., “Apzut Kawad Wall,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2017, online edition. The name
of the wall is attested in the Geography of Ananias of Shirak, p. 57, and Moses Chorenatsi,
stable central government. But, if the writer Procopius can be believed, factional
strife amongst the nobility continued.
The principle sign of this problem was Kavad’s apprehension of a noble plot to
subvert the rule of his family. 229 The royal succession would not normally have
passed to Kavad’s youngest son Khusro. Kawus, the eldest son of Kavad, was
somehow displeasing to his father, and the accession of the middle son Jam was
forbidden by law because he was blind in one eye. 230 We may infer that one noble
faction favoured the appointment of Kawus and another supported Khusro. The
noblemen whom Procopius calls Aspebed 231 was the uncle of young Khusro, whom
Kavad had begotten by the sister of that aristocrat, 232 and here we may behold the
lineaments of an alliance between the family of Sasan and another noble house. This
faction reasoned that an adoption by the Roman emperor Justin 233 would strengthen
the position of Khusro and assure his passage to the throne. The example of
Yazdgard I, who became guardian to the young emperor Arcadius, may have in-
spired this proposal. 234 But the man whom Procopius calls Seoses objected to the
adoption, frustrated the negotiation of it, and attempted to arouse discord between
Justin and Kavad. If it is possible to identify Seoses with Zarmihr the younger, we
may infer that the House of Karen led the opposition to Kavad’s adoption and was
the principle object of Kavad’s fear.
But, whoever Seoses was, he was accused and condemned for undermining the
Iranian position when the adoption was on the point of approval. The emperor Jus-
tin was eager to perform the adoption of Khusro, despite the objections of a certain
Proclus who argued speciously that the young Persian would stand to inherit the
Roman empire. 235 The Roman government settled upon a form of adoption that
would preclude such inheritance; 236 and, in the middle of the 520s, 237 an embassy
was dispatched to the frontier to ratify an agreement with representatives of Kavad.
XXVII.9. See also Aliev, A. A., et al., “The Ghilghilchay Defensive Long Wall: New Investi-
gations,” p. 145.
229 He feared μὴ τι Πέρσαι νεωτερίσωσιν ἐς τὸν αὑτοῦ οἶκον (Procopius, Bellum Persicum,
I.xi.2). The ‘house’ of Kavad must refer to the Sasanid line itself, not to the immediate prog-
eny of that king.
230 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xi.3–4.
231 Procopius seems to have mistaken a title for a name. Aspebed must be the rank of spahbad
(Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 117 with note 126).
232 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xi.5.
233 The emperor Anastasius had lately died.
234 Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 350.
235 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xi.11–19. Proclus was a quaestor, an official having charge
over public revenue and expenditure.

236 Procopius calls it adoption not by virtue of a legal document but by arms and armour as
befits a barbarian (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xi.22–23).

The Iranian negotiators were Seoses and Mahbod. 238 Seoses, as it was later alleged,
infuriated the Romans with accusations of improper meddling in the Caucasus, and
Mahbod reported to his sovereign that Seoses had colluded with a Roman envoy by
the name of Hypatius who likewise rejected the planned adoption. 239 Other oppo-
nents of Seoses brought other charges, and that aristocrat was arrested and put on
trial.
Seoses, as it was said, was an extraordinarily arrogant man whose self-
importance could be compared with that of no other person. He refused to abide by
established custom, he worshiped strange gods, and he had buried the body of his
dead wife in contravention of orthodox Zoroastrian practice. 240 The heretical beliefs
of Seoses permit the inference that he was a Mazdakite, or at least that he was ac-
cused of belonging to that sect, and that he favoured the succession of Kawus. An
interesting notice in the Chronography of Theophanes appears to support this infer-
ence. In a single day, says the chronographer, Kavad destroyed thousands of here-
tics, together with their preceptor, and all the Iranian grandees who espoused the
same heresy. 241 The reason for this slaughter was that the sect aimed to enthrone
one of Kavad’s sons who had promised to perpetuate their heresy. Theophanes calls
the son by his royal title Padashkhwarshah, and from this we may infer that the Greek
chronographer was referring to the eldest son Kawus. 242 Kavad pretended to sup-
port the position of the heretics, feigned acquiescence in the promotion of Kawus,
summoned the heretics to a council, and commanded his soldiers to slaughter them
all. 243 It is tempting to infer that Seoses was caught up in a purge of aristocrats who
still clung to the Mazdakite creed and who had manipulated the eldest son of Kavad.
But I am inclined to doubt that Mazdak himself was destroyed in that purge, as
Theophanes seems to imply. But this must remain one of the great enigmas of Ira-
nian history. The date of the purge, and the putative end of Mazdakite influence, is
similarly mysterious. Procopius places the fall of Seoses at some point after the ac-
cession of the emperor Justin I and at an unspecified time after the failed adoption
of Khusro. The incident described by Theophanes supposedly occurred two years
238 Procopius calls him Μεβόδης (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xi.25).

241 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 261–262. Theophanes calls these heretics ‘manichaeans’,
and their ‘bishop’ he names Ἰνδάζαρος. Indazar must be the Persian word andarzgar or ‘teach-
er’ (Nöldeke, Die Geschichte der Perser, p. 462 with note 3).
242 Theophanes spells the title defectively as Φθασουαρσάν (Theophanes, Chronographia, p.
261). See for a learned discussion of what Theophanes meant, see Crone, P., “Kavad’s Here-
sy and Mazdak’s Revolt,” p. 41–42. Cf. Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 354–355.
243 Καβάδης ἐκέλευσε κομβέντα γενέσθαι διὰ τὸ, φησίν, ποιῆσαι τὸν υἱὸν Φθασουαρσὰν
βασιλέα…ὁ δὲ Καβάδης ἐπιτρέψας τῷ στρατεύματι εἰσελθεῖν πάντας κατέκοψεν ξίφεσι σὺν

τῷ ἐπισκόπῶ αὐτῶν (Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 262). The hierarchs of the Magi and
Christian prelates attended and observed the slaughter also.
before the death of Kavad – a dating supported by the writer John Malalas who rec-
orded the same information as Theophanes. 244 But the destruction of Seoses and his
heretical beliefs was not the end of Kawus who laid claim to the throne, without
success, at the moment of his father’s death. 245
KAVAD’S SECOND ROMAN WAR

The seven-year armistice of the year 506 was never renewed, and the two powers
lapsed into a state of war when it expired. The failed adoption of Khusro produced
new tensions between Iran and Rome, and aggressive raids conducted by Iran’s
Lakhmid clients spread destruction throughout Mesopotamia. 246 But a direct con-
frontation between the two powers was not immediate. The pretext for war was the
Roman meddling in the Caucasus which Seoses had accused and condemned in the
midst of negotiations with Rome. By the middle of the 520s, the respective kings of
Lazica and Iberia had thrown off their allegiance to Iran, and they had demanded
Roman protection. Iranian efforts to ensure the loyalty of Transcaucasia involved
the forcible conversion of Christians to Zoroastrianism and a military intervention –
policies which seemed intolerable to many inhabitants of that region. 247 A Roman
force was also stationed in Lazica; and Tzath, the king of the Lazi, fled, and was
welcomed at Constantinople where he was baptised, took a Roman wife, and re-
ceived regalia befitting his rank. 248 The Iberian king Vakhtang 249 made a similar ap-
peal to Rome, and Iranian forces expelled him and Roman troops from Iberia. The
government of Iran greatly resented Roman encroachment into its proper sphere of
influence, and Kavad responded by forming an alliance with a Hunnish or Sabir
king who had formerly been loyal to the emperor Justin, and who menaced Lazica
and Iberia from the northern Caucasus. But Zilgibis (that was the king’s name) con-
tinued to receive Roman money: Justin warned of the perfidy of Zilgibis, and Kavad
destroyed that king together with his entire army. 250 But this failed to avoid further
conflict in the region of the Caucasus, and fighting inflicted heavy losses upon both
powers, and a Roman army penetrated and pillaged Iranian Armenia. 251
244 But these two others disagree on the date of Kavad’s death (Theophanes, Chronographia, p.
261–262; Malalas, p. 444). See Crone, P., “Kavad’s Heresy and Mazdak’s Revolt,” p. 42.
245 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxi.20.
246 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xvii.40–45.
247 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xii.3–13.
248 John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 413–414; Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 139–147;
Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 276–277.

249 Procopius calls him Γουργένης, perhaps a misunderstanding of the name Vakhtang Gor-
gasali, and the identification is necessitated by chronology (Rapp, S. H., The Sasanian World
through Georgian Eyes, p. 84). See also Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 282–287.
251 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xii.20.
A sudden Roman invasion of Iranian territory in Mesopotamia occurred in the

year 528. 252 The new emperor Justinian may have aimed to prevent further Iranian
attempts to halt construction at Dara, 253 but the Roman force was defeated and their
plan to build a new fortress at a place called Minduos failed. The chronicle of John
Malalas indicates that the onset of a severe winter and domestic disturbances 254 pre-
vented the renewal of warfare, and the two powers agreed to a short truce. 255 But
Mundhir, chief of the Lakhmid Arabs, spread destruction throughout Syria and pil-
laged the vicinity of Antioch. 256
The Roman ambassador Hermogenes was dispatched to the Iranian court at
Ctesiphon in the year 529. The accession of the emperor Justinian, which had oc-
curred two years earlier, was formally announced to the Sasanid monarch, and Her-
mogenes received a letter prepared by the Iranian chancery addressed to the Roman
emperor. John Malalas has recorded the words of Kavad:
‘Kavad, king of kings, of the rising sun, to Flavius Justinian Caesar, of the setting
moon. We have found written in our ancient records that we are brothers of one
another; and if one of us should need men or money, that the other should pro-
vide them. From that time to the present, we have remained constant in fulfilling
that duty. When nations have risen against us, some we have been compelled to
resist, and others we have induced to submit themselves to us with gifts of mon-
ey, so that it is obvious that all that was in our treasuries has been exhausted. We
had written of this to the emperors Anastasius and Justin and yet we achieved
nothing. Wherefore we are compelled to prepare ourselves for war; and because
we are neighbours of the Romans, we have been compelled to destroy those who
dwell between us, although they are blameless, because of Roman disobedi-
ence. 257 But as Christian and pious men, spare lives and bodies, and give us some
of your gold. If you do not do this, ready yourselves for war. You have a whole
year for this, lest we be thought to have stolen the victory and to have won the
war by guile.’ 258
But the demand for money went unanswered. Roman and Iranian troops massed at
the frontier, and the two powers prepared for the outbreak of war. Iranian policy
252 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xii.23.

254 The Roman empire was afflicted by earthquakes, a revolt of the Samaritans, and Sacaren
raids, and (according to Malalas) Kavad undertook the purge of heretics whom we may iden-
tify as Mazdakites (John, Malalas, p. 442; Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 160).
257 There is some ambiguity to the phrase τῆς ἐκείνων ἀπεθείας (John Malalas, p. 450). But
ἐκείνων should resume τῶν Ῥωμαϊκῶν above. Contra the translation in Jeffrey, E. and M. /
Scott, R., The Chronicle of John Malalas: A Translation, 1986, p. 263–264.
258 John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 449–450 (my translation).
procured the defection of fifty-thousand Samaritans, and Kavad’s spies (as it seems)
had enflamed discontent amongst that people into an obnoxious uprising. 259 Kavad
had hoped at least to force Justinian to return to negotiation, and he succeeded de-
spite some signal defeats.
Kavad reopened the war on two fronts: one in Mesopotamia and one in Ar-
menia. To the south, the Iranian force was divided into three armies of fifty-
thousand men commanded by the generals whom Procopius calls Peroz Mihran,
Pityaxes, and Baresman, but the latter two of these names are really titles. 260 A
memorable battle at Dara, which Procopius witnessed and described at some length,
ended in a victory for the Romans and the famous general Belisarius. The armies of
Iran failed to take that fortress, were routed, and they fled across the border. 261 Simi-
lar misfortune afflicted Kavad’s forces in the north. The Iranian general Mihr-Meroe
aimed, as it seems, to secure Iranian influence in Iberia; but the motley army of local
allies, which he led, was thrown into confusion near Satala in Roman Armenia. 262
Mihr-Meroe’s standard was captured, and the Iranian army retreated. Three Iranian
brothers defected to Rome and contrived to cede to that power the two Iranian for-
tresses of Bolum and Pharangium. 263 The latter of these was an especially grievous
loss as it was the centre of an important gold-mining operation, and it proved to be
a great irritant in later negotiations. 264
Despite two Roman victories, the ambassador Rufinus blamed Iran for the
outbreak of war, and attempted to sue for peace. 265 In an audience in August of the
year 530, Kavad reiterated his claim that the war had been provoked by Roman re-
fusal to pay for the maintenance of the Caucasian defences, despite an earlier obliga-
tion; he accused the illegal construction of the castle at Dara, and explained that so
threatening a fortress had obliged him to maintain two armies. One force was to re-
pel invasions from the steppe, and the other as a defence against the Romans. 266
‘Never,’ said Kavad, ‘never shall the Persians put down their arms, until the Romans
either help us to guard the Caucasian gates, as is just and right, or destroy the city of
259 John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 455–456; Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 191–192.
260 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xiii.16–21; Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 176 with
note 22. The titles are bidakhsh and marzban which signify respectively governor of a prov-
ince, and margrave.
261 Procopius, I.xiii.10–55. A thorough, modern analysis of the battle of Dara, and the tactics
deployed there, is found in Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 169–185.
262 Again the best modern treatment of this battle is Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p.
185–190.
263 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xv.17–19; 26–33.
264 John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 455–456.
265 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xvi.1–3.
266 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xvi.4–8. It is interesting to speculate whether, or how, this
claim is related to the quadripartition of the Iranian army.

Dara!’ 267 The ambassador was dismissed, and war was renewed in the following
spring.
THE BATTLES OF CALLINICUM AND MARTYROPOLIS

In the work of Procopius, the Battle of Callinicum is distinguished by the quarrels
and insubordination that afflicted the Roman army. An ignominious flight from the
scene of battle is attributed to the general Belisarius, and the eye-witness account of
Procopius is deformed by the writer’s attempt to retrieve the honour of his master.
The events of the battle are therefore a matter of some doubt. 268 Procopius has also
mistaken the title of hazaraft, or Commander of One Thousand Men, for the name
of the Iranian general who led the invasion, 269 but that writer understood and rec-
orded the Iranian war aims. A division of Hunnish, or more probably Sabir, auxilia-
ries, who fought on the Roman side, captured some Iranian horsemen who revealed
that Kavad’s strategy was to penetrate Syria and plunder the city of Antioch. Lakh-
mid clients, under the leadership of Mundhir, were to guide Iranian forces north-
ward along the Euphrates from Callinicum to Barbalissus, thence to Gabbula near
Chalcis, and thence to Antioch. But Roman forces repulsed the Iranian host from
Gabbula to Callinicum where, despite reciprocal damage, the Romans were defeated
in a pitched battle.
The Roman government was prepared to come to terms with Iran. But the
Persian king wished to achieve further strategic advantage over Rome before reo-
pening negotiations, and military operations moved northward. Every method was
employed to capture Martyropolis, but without success. The use of mines, a mound,
scaling ladders, and a siege tower failed to subdue that city, and the Roman com-
mander Dorotheus outflanked his antagonists and captured some important for-
tresses in Iranian Armenia. 270 The war could no longer be continued without ex-
hausting the belligerents, and the end of Kavad’s life was near. Despite the victory at
Callinicum, Iranian forces had captured neither Antioch, nor Martyropolis, nor any
other Roman fortress, and the hazaraft (according to the vague opinion of Procopi-
us) was rebuked and dishonoured. 271
267 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xvi.8.

268 The best modern analysis is Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 193–207.
269 Procopius calls him Ἀζαρέθης (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xvii.1).
270 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxi.7–8; John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 469; Greatrex, G.,
Rome and Persia at War, p. 207–212.

271 ὠνείδιζέ τε τῷ Ἀζαρέθῃ ὁ βασιλεὺς τὴν νίκην καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀτιμοτάτοις τὸ λοιπὸν εἶχε (Pro-
copius, Bellum Persicum, I.xviii.56).

THE SUDDEN DEATH OF KAVAD

On the eighth day of September of the year 531, Kavad suffered a paralysis of the
right side of his body and died five days later. 272 The monarchy of Kavad’s favourite
son was assured by a written declaration entrusted to the nobleman Mahbod who
read the text aloud before the assembled grandees of Iran, 273 and the legal challenge
raised by Kavus, and perhaps an armed uprising, failed. 274 Upon the accession of
Khusro, the anxiety of war was relaxed, and the two powers began to negotiate a
treaty of peace.

273 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxi.17–23.
274 Procopius says vaguely that Kavus ‘usurped the honour’ (ἐπεβάτευε τῆς τιμῆς), but this
could conceal a rebellion of some sort (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxi.20).

VI. THE IRANIAN RECOVERY
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REIGN OF KHUSRO I AND ITS SOURCES

To understand the reign of Khusro I is to comprehend many of the most important
moments in the history of the world. 1 The Roman recovery of Italy and the prov-
inces of the west, the great reform of the Roman legal system, the construction of
the Church of the Holy Wisdom at Constantinople, and the Justinianic plague –
these memorable events of European history all coincide with the reign of Khusro I.
The rise of the Turks and their inexorable progress towards mastery of Eurasia be-
gan when Khusro sat upon the Iranian throne, and their annihilation of the Heph-
thalite empire received the assistance of the Sasanid government. The birth of Mu-
hammad, the founder of the religion of Islam, occurred in the final years of
Khusro’s reign; and the successors of that Arabian prophet, who ruled over the
lands of the defunct Sasanian monarchy, adopted the system of taxation perfected
by Khusro I. Long after his empire had perished, and long after the triumph of Is-
lam upon the ruins of the Zoroastrian religion, the name of Khusro of the Immoral
Soul, or Anusharwan, never ceased to be celebrated in Persian poetry and philoso-
phy. Khusro is remembered as the restorer of Iranian power after the grim reverses
of the fifth century. The Persian royal tradition commemorates him as a friend to
science and learning, and the epithet ‘the Just’ is always attached to his name. 2
The notices of the Persian royal tradition swell to a gigantic size for the reign
of Khusro I, and the historian is tempted to believe that much of the great bulk of
the Shahnameh reposes upon a chronicle composed at the instigation of Khusro him-
self. There may be some truth to that belief, for Khusro is the only Sasanian king
whose purported autobiography has survived, or rather large fragments of it. Ibn
Miskawayh, 3 who served within the chancery of the Buyid state in the tenth century,
composed a universal history called The Experience of Nations, and this interesting text
1 Jackson Bonner, M. R., Three Neglected Sources, p. 18.

2 Jackson Bonner, M. R., “Sasanian Propaganda in the Reign of Husraw Anushirvan” in Jul-
lien, C. (ed.), Husraw Ier reconstructions d’un règne: sources et documents, 2015, p. 258.
3 For more on this man, consult Bosworth, E. C., “Meskawayh, Abu ‘Ali Ahmad,” Ency-
clopædia Iranica, online edition, 2002.
171
claims to transcribe, in Arabic translation, a portion of the narrative of Khusro’s life

which that king himself composed. 4 An historian may struggle to believe that those
paragraphs of Ibn Miskawayh are really direct translations excerpted from the full
autobiography of a Sasanid monarch; but it is equally difficult to dismiss them as
forgeries. 5 Nevertheless, the huge mass of indigenous anecdotes concerning the son
of Kavad announces rather the fanciful or mendacious embellishment of the reign
of an important king than a prodigious series of historical facts. 6 But external
sources, which had reduced the history of the late fifth century to an inchoate series
of notices, give way to the elegant and harmonious narratives of Procopius and Aga-
thias, to the surviving fragments of a diplomatic history composed by Menander the
Guardsman, and to the rough and demotic works of Theophanes and John Malalas.
Without relaxing his scepticism or yielding to credulity, a modern historian may be
grateful for the abundance of such material.

At the death of Kavad, his son and successor Khusro exerted himself to terminate
the war which he had inherited. The need for peace in the west was great. It is im-
probable that the Iranian state could have sustained the war effort long beyond the
thirty years of intermittent fighting which had already elapsed, and the position of
Khusro was insecure. Domestic strife and the threat of civil war oppressed the early
reign of the new king, and amidst those calamities the Iranian government requested
a truce and began the negotiation of an indefinite treaty of peace. 7
According to the writer John Malalas, the first act of Khusro was to invite Ro-
man ambassadors into Iran. But those dignitaries refused to obey the request of the
Sasanid king without an order from the emperor Justinian. A personal letter, com-
posed at the behest of Khusro, was addressed to his Roman counterpart, but this
document failed to induce the emperor to empower his diplomats to negotiate. Jus-
tinian was undoubtedly aware that the rule of his Persian rival was insecure, and the
emperor refused at first even to recognise the legitimacy of Khusro’s monarchy.
Malalas describes the domestic strife which disrupted the reign of Khusro. Sec-
taries, whom he calls Manichaeans, had requested and received the tolerance of the
new monarch; but Zoroastrian hierophants could not abide the liberal spirit of the
4 Ibn Miskawayh, Tajarib al-Umam, v. 1, p. 132–139.

5 On the merits of the biography of Khusro I as an historical source, see Jackson Bonner, M.
R., Three Neglected Sources, 2011, p. 41–46 and Grignaschi, M. “Quelques spécimens de la litté-
rature sassanide conserves dans les bibliothéques d’Istanbul,” Journal Asiatique, vol. 254,
1966, p. 19–21.
6 For a long treatment of the supposed splendours of Khusro I’s reign to the neglect of poli-
tics and military affairs, see Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 419–435.
7 The best study of this treaty is Williams, M., Roman-Sasanian Relations (532 to 545 CE), Un-
published MPhil Thesis, Oxford, 2010, p. 5–23.

VI. THE IRANIAN RECOVERY 173
son of Kavad, and a noble and hieratic plot was formed to depose Khusro and to
install one of his brothers upon the throne. 8 The chronicler omits the name of the
rebel, but Procopius’ reference to the challenge raised by Khusro’s brother Kawus
appears to allude to the same events related by Malalas. 9 The involvement of here-
tics recalls the uprising and massacre described in the Chronography of Theophanes
and in an earlier portion of Malalas’ own work. 10 Those events are dated to the final
years of the reign of Kavad amidst the supposed turmoil of Mazdakism – an indica-
tion, as it seems, of two revolts led by Kawus and his heretical supporters. The no-
tices of Malalas, Procopius, and Theophanes, may all repose upon different misin-
terpretations of Roman intelligence concerning an irregular and disorderly royal suc-
cession and the effects of a foreign heresy which was but dimly comprehended. But
it is highly improbable that strife erupted at the Persian court because Khusro
agreed to tolerate an obnoxious heresy. Although Theophanes and Malalas describe
considerable slaughter after the first insurrection of Khusro’s brother, it may be that
the rebel himself was granted an amnesty only to lead a second revolt which issued
in his death.
Justinian’s refusal to recognise the legitimacy of Khusro may suggest that the
Roman government favoured the rule of a different son of Kavad, or at least that
Roman interests were best served by an Iranian court paralysed by an irregular suc-
cession and a contest for the throne. But the Persian king either destroyed the con-
spirators who assailed the beginning of his reign, or at least very considerably re-
duced their power; and when his rule was secure, Khusro again asked for a truce of
three months in which to perform the negotiation of an indefinite peace.
But diplomatic contact was not immediate. Roman suspicions were aroused by
the sudden penetration of the Sabirs through the Caspian Gates and the devastation
which they wrought throughout Roman Mesopotamia, and their predations reached
as far as Antioch. 11 The chronicle of Zachariah the Rhetor states plainly what Pro-
copius merely insinuates: the incursion of those nomads was prompted by the Sasa-
nian government. 12 The force of Procopius’ words is that the Sabir and Iranian ar-
mies were to coordinate an attack upon their mutual enemy, but the nomads per-

9 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xviii.56.
10 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 261–262; John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 444.
11 Malalas claims that Roman Armenia, Euphratesia, Cilicia Secunda, and Cyrrhestica were
overrun and pillaged (John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 472). Zachariah the Rhetor mentions
the raids reached Antioch (Zachariah, Historia Ecclesiastica, IX.vi, p. 98).
12 Zachariah, Historia Ecclesiastica, IX.vi, p. 98:
̈
…‫ܗܘܢܝܐ ܕܐܓܝܪܢ ܗܘܘ ܠܦ�ܣܝܐ‬
Οἵ τε Οὖννοι οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον ἐσβαλλόντες εἰς γῆν τὴν Ῥωμαίων, ἐπεὶ τὸν Περσῶν
στρατὸν ἐνταῦθα οὐχ εὗρον, δι’ ὀλίγου τὴν ἐπιδρομὴν ποιησάμενοι ἐπ’ οἴκου ἀπεκομίσθησαν
ἅπαντες (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxi.28).
formed their raids alone. The influence of Iran upon the Sabirs must have suggested
revenge for the Roman failure to recognise the legitimacy of Khusro, and may have
been a tactic to impel Roman diplomats to the negotiating table. Rufinus, a Roman
ambassador, was sent to investigate the origin of the invasion, and Roman anxieties
were countered by Iranian denial. Malalas draws a veil over the demonstration of
Iranian innocence, and the duplicitous ambassador received and transmitted the
disavowal of the Sasanid government without examination or criticism. 13
The diplomatic conferences and exchanges which followed are described by
the writer Procopius. A Roman embassy met Khusro and his ministers somewhere
upon the river Tigris. Eleven thousand pounds of gold was the price of peace with
Iran, and Khusro also demanded the removal of the Roman general from Dara and
the return of the Armenian fortresses at Pharangium and Bolum. 14 Granting the
cession of those places was beyond the power of the Roman ambassadors who dis-
patched one of their number to Constantinople where he consulted the emperor.
Justinian at first agreed to Iranian terms, but Khusro’s refusal to cede Iranian for-
tresses in Lazica compelled the Roman government to reject the proposed settle-
ment, and negotiations failed. 15
The principal Iranian diplomat was a nobleman by the name of Zabergan, 16
about whom very little is known. The most influential figure on the Roman side was
the ambassador Rufinus. It was that Roman patrician who had at first convinced the
emperor Justinian to accept the terms offered by Khusro. He had persuaded the
emperor to give up the forts in Lazica, and he had transmitted the false intelligence
which had exonerated the Iranian government of instigating the Sabir invasion. We
may behold in Rufinus the character of a diplomat whom the court of Khusro had
induced to favour the interests of Iran. But Justinian sought to gain the advantage
by exploiting Khusro’s relationship with Rufinus also; and when Rufinus had re-
turned to Constantinople, the Roman government immediately diffused the false
report that Rufinus had been executed. 17 Khusro, who was greatly troubled by the
apparent death of the ambassador, is said to have begun an invasion of Roman terri-
13 John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 472–473. When his perfunctory investigation was complete,
Rufinus instructed Dorotheus, the Roman general in Armenia, to take up arms against the
Sabir Huns and to expel them from Roman lands. Hearing of this, the Huns retreated
through the Caspian Gates, and Dorotheus recovered the booty that they had seized. For
very brief discussion of these events from the Roman perspective, see Greatrex, G. / Lieu,
S. N. C., The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, p. 96.
14 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxii.1–2.
16 This is known from two small notices in The History of Grigor, p. 360 and Procopius, Anec-
dota, II.xxxiii.
17 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxii.9. Greatrex believes that the origin of this rumour was a
belief that Rufinus had been slain in a purge connected with the aftermath of the so-called
Nika Riot (Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at War, p. 214), but this is doubtful.
tory. But Rufinus, who had returned to Iran bearing the large payment of gold
which Khusro had demanded, entreated the Sasanian king to abandon his project of
warfare and to return the money. A cloud of suspicion hung over the Roman am-
bassador: his fellow envoys regarded him with extreme distrust, and they denounced
him to the emperor, insinuating, as it seems, that Rufinus was a creature of the Per-
sian king. 18 Nevertheless, a new embassy, led by Rufinus and his colleagues, suggest-
ed an amended treaty which was approved and ratified by both powers. 19
Five terms of that treaty may be reconstructed with certainty on the warrant of
notices in works of Procopius and John Malalas. 20 First, all lands and persons cap-
tured in the course of the last war were to be returned to the power from which
they were taken. The Armenian fortresses of Pharangium and Bolum were accord-
ingly retroceded to Iran, and that power returned to Rome the Lazian castles of
Sarapanis and Scanda. Second, the country of Iberia was left free to decide its alle-
giance to either great power. Third, the headquarters of the Roman general of the
east was to be removed from the fortress of Dara. Fourth, the Roman empire
agreed to pay to Iran eleven thousand pounds of gold for the defence of the Caspi-
an Gates. Fifth, the rulers of the two sedentary empires saluted one another as
‘brother’, and they promised to send money or men whenever they were needed.
All but two of those terms aimed to restore the condition of the two powers
before the war. 21 The construction of the castle at Dara had violated the peace treaty
of the year 422, 22 and the late king Kavad had been justly enraged by it. But the gov-
ernment of Khusro agreed to tolerate its presence on condition that it pose no seri-
ous military threat, and the office of the Roman general of the east was therefore
removed to the city of Constantina. Earlier treaties had stipulated an annual pay-
ment of money, which the Iranian government portrayed as a tribute, but the Treaty
of 532 foresaw no similar, regular payment. Eleven thousand pounds of gold was
the largest sum ever disbursed by the Roman Empire to a foreign power, 23 but it
was a single, not an annual, payment.
The Persian royal tradition presents only one paltry notice of the treaty until
warfare again erupted between the two great powers in the year 540. 24 The attitude

19 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxii.16; John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 477.
20 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxii.16–18; John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 477. For modern
authorities see Williams, M., Roman-Sasanian Relations, p. 5–23, and Greatrex, G., Rome and
Persia at War, p. 215–218.
21 Jones, A. H. M., The Later Roman Empire 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative
Survey, v. I, 1964, p. 272.

22 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.x.16.
23 Iluk, J., “The export of gold from the Roman Empire to barbarian countries from the 4th
to the 6th centuries,” Münstersche Beiträge zur antiken Handelsgeschichte 4, 1985, p. 91.
24 Tabari, v. 2, p. 148–149:
.‫ مواد�ة وهدنة‬،‫وك�ن — فيما ذ�� — ب�ن ك��ى انو��وان وب�ن ��طيانوس مل� ا��وم‬
of the Iranian government to the treaty which terminated thirty years of fighting is
accordingly obscure. Roman opinion held that the peace was to last indefinitely. 25
The words of Procopius may imply that it was meant to be an endless or an eternal
peace, as it is sometimes translated by modern writers, but indefinite is perhaps a bet-
ter construal. 26 The more modest opinion of the chronicler John Malalas was that
the treaty was to hold for the duration of the two rulers’ lives. 27 But it was a mere
eight years before the peace was violated and war was resumed.
THE INTERVAL OF PEACE BETWEEN 532 AND 540

The peace of the year 532 left the Roman emperor free to begin the reconquest of
Italy and North Africa, and to reform the system of Roman law which had fallen
into disorder. Roman building projects filled the 530s, the Church of the Holy Wis-
dom was completed in the year 537, and the administration of Roman Armenia was
thoroughly reorganised. 28 The preoccupations of Khusro were similarly ambitious.
The reformation of Iranian fiscal and military policy, which the late king Kavad had
begun, were completed before the renewal of warfare in the year 540, and the frag-
ments of Sasanian legal opinions which have survived attest Khusro’s interest in the
codification of Iranian law.
The appearance of a complementary pair of great men may be more than a
conceit which satisfies the historian’s desire for symmetry and balance. 29 The image
of the two rulers was always before the eye of Procopius, and he accuses Khusro
and Justinian alike of loving innovation, fickleness, mendacity, dissimulation, perfi-
dy, false piety, and avarice, 30 and so we may discern that the era of mutual reform
was alike a period of mutual influence, imitation, and rivalry.
In the year 528, which coincides with the early reign of Justinian and the twi-
light days of Kavad, Roman military policy established an Armenian field command
25 For a modern discussion of this, see Williams, M., Roman-Sasanian Relations, p. 16–17.
26 Procopius calls it both τὴν εἰρήνην πέρας οὐκ ἔχουσαν and τὴν ἀπέραντον καλουμένην
εἰρήνην (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxii.3; I.xxii.17). For the meaning of those phrases, see
Higgins, M. J., “International relations at the close of the 6th century,” The Catholic Historical
Review 27.3, 1941, p. 286 with note 22. But it must be admitted that the Codex Justinianus
notes that the emperor confirmed pacem cum Persis in aeternum (Codex Justinianus, I.xxvii.2).
27 πάκτα εἰρήνης τῶν δύο πολιτεῶν Ρωμαίων τε καὶ Περσῶν…μέχρι τῆς τῶν ἀμφοτέρων
ζωῆς (John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 477).

28 Pazdernik, C., “Justinianic Ideology and the Power of the Past” in Mass, M. (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, Cambridge, 2005, p. 198–202; Evans, J. A. S., The
Age of Justinian: The Circumstances of Imperial Power, 1996, p. 126–150; and Moorhead, J. Justini-
an, 1994, p. 35; 52–60; 92–93.
29 Clark, K., Civilisation, 1969, p. 229.
30 Kaldellis, A., Procopius of Caesarea: Tyranny, History, and Philosophy at the End of Antiquity, Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania Press, 2004, p. 199–128. For representative passages see Procopius,
Bellum Persicum, I.xxiii.1; II.ix.8; Anecdota, VI.38; VIII.22; 13.10; 22.31–32; 29.1; 29.12.
independent of the general of the east and his administration. 31 It is difficult to de-
termine whether the quadripartition of the Iranian army inspired or imitated that
important development, 32 but it is highly improbable that the military innovations of
both powers were unconnected. Some modern writers have beheld in the tax policy
of Kavad and Khusro the influence of the Roman empire, and a superficial compar-
ison may be made to the fiscal reforms introduced by Diocletian. 33 Justinian’s codi-
fication of Roman law may perhaps be compared to the Iranian literary and intellec-
tual revival patronised by Khusro, for this may have included both the writing of the
Avesta and an official dynastic history which informed later Persian and Arabic
writers. 34 It was a version of this chronicle which inspired the Christian informant of
the Greek historian Agathias who composed a strange excursus on Sasanian dynas-
tic history in the late sixth century. 35 Justinian’s attempt to extirpate the pagan reli-
gion led to the closure of the neo-Platonist School of Athens in the year 529. 36 But
Khusro interested himself in Greek philosophy, and seven Greek philosophers mi-
grated to the Sasanid court in order to escape the bigotry of Justinian. 37
Some relics of Sasanian legal texts attest Khusro’s double zeal for reform of the
state and the purity of Iranian religion. The so-called Book of A Thousand Judgements
attests that Khusro limited the numbers of judges and scribes in the province of
Adashir-Khwarra, perhaps in order to halt the growth of the administrative state;
and it was commanded that documents arising from interrogations and trials be
sealed by eyewitnesses, so as to bring order, we may assume, to a disorganised
31 John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 429–430.

32 Cf. Howard-Johnston, J., “The Late Sasanian Army,” p. 116.
33 Altheim, F. / Stiehl, R., Finanzgeschichte der Spätantike, 1957, p. 41. But the ingenious com-
parison of Altheim and Stiehl has not attracted many followers (Howard-Johnston, J., “The
Two Great Powers,” p. 215 with note 127).
34 Howard-Johnston, J., “The Late Sasanian Army,” p. 116; Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sas-
sanides, p. 415–429.
35 On the writing of the Avesta, see Boyce, M., Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices,
p. 135; and Corcoran, S., “Observations on the Sasanian Law-Book in the light of Roman
legal writing,” in Rio, A. (ed)., Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Proceedings of the 2008
Byzantine Colloquium, 2011, p. 95. For the Persian royal annals, see Jackson Bonner, M. R.,
“Sasanian Propaganda in the Reign of Husraw Anushirvan,” p. 261; and Agathias, Historiae,
II.27; and IV.30.
36 Agathias, Historiae, II.31.
37 Agathias alleges that these seven philosophers were mentioned by name in the treaty of
532, and that Khusro allowed them to live in Iran without fear of persecution. The Persian
king refused to ratify the treaty without such stipulations (Agathias, Historiae, II.31.4). I am
inclined to doubt that the philosophers were really mentioned in the treaty, but Nechaeva
argues that they were (Nachaeva, E., “Seven Hellenes and One Christian in the Endless
Peace Treaty of 532, Studies in Late Antiquity, Vol.1, Number 4, 2017, p. 359–380).
method of filing and storage. 38 The government of Khusro likewise enjoined upon
judges the use of administrative seals issued by a central authority. 39 The legal
judgements which survive the reign of Khusro pertain to trusteeship of a fire tem-
ple, 40 the inheritance of land, 41 the rights and duties of knights, 42 and the seizure of
property belonging to sorcerers and heretics. 43 These announce an emphasis upon
property and inheritance, and it is noteworthy that many important posts in the civil
administration seem to have been held by Zoroastrian clerics. These small glimpses
exhaust our knowledge of the legal reforms of Khusro I, but they must have formed
part of a larger project which could, without great exaggeration, be compared to the
legal work of Justinian. 44
But no Roman parallel may be found for the augmentation of the Iranian irri-
gation system in the eastern hinterland of Ctesiphon. This project improved hydrau-
lic infrastructure originally installed in the age of the Arsacids, and was surely begun
in the interval of peace before the year 540. 45 A large canal, known to posterity as
the Cut of Khusro, proceeded from the eastern bank of the river Tigris, near the site
of Samarra, and joined the river Diyala below the village of Baʿquba. Twenty miles
downstream, a branch canal was drawn from the Cut of Khusro down to the right
bank of the Tigris. The stream of the great canal continued south-east, past Ctesi-
phon, and rejoined the Tigris near the site of Nahr Sabus. This the lower part of the
Cut of Khusro passed through a village called Nahrawan, and came to be known as
the Nahrawan Canal. 46 Many settlements flanked its sides, and many a bridge and
weir connected the two banks. A highway departed from Ctesiphon, traversed this
canal over a pontoon bridge at the village of Nahrawan, and proceeded to the royal
residence at Dastgard and the further settlements of Jalula and Hulwan to the north-
east, and onward through Media towards Rey and then eastwards through Gurgan
towards Nishapur. Innumerable smaller canals diverged from the main channel and
38 The Book of A Thousand Judgements, 72.2–11.

39 The Book of A Thousand Judgements, 93.6. See also Corcoran, S., “Observations on the Sasa-
nian Law-Book in the light of Roman legal writing,” in Rio, A. (ed)., Late Antiquity and the
Early Middle Ages: Proceedings of the 2008 Byzantine Colloquium, Centre for Hellenic Studies Oc-
casional Publications, 2011, p. 99.
40 The Book of A Thousand Judgements, A37.1–15.
42 The Book of A Thousand Judgements, A16.11–A17.1; A19.2–6. See also Corcoran, S., “Obser-
vations on the Sasanian Law-Book,” p. 87.

44 Cf. Daryaee, T., Sasanian Persia, p. 30. But Daryaee is surely wrong to insist that The Book of
A Thousand Judgements was originally commissioned and redacted under the leadership of
Khusro I (Macuch, M., “Madayan i Hazar Dadestan,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition,
2017).
45 Howard-Johnston, J., “The Late Sasanian Army,” p. 106.
46 Adams, R. McC., The Land Behind Baghdad, p. 76–79.
watered the lands east of Ctesiphon – a great boon to Iranian agriculture and human
settlement. But this irrigation system was also a formidable barrier to any invader
bold or foolish enough to approach Ctesiphon from the north, and we may credit
the government of Khusro with an extraordinary feat of engineering which re-
mained in operation until its neglect and deterioration under new masters in the
twelfth century. 47
The mood of competition and emulation between the great powers suggests a
period of mutual suspicion and envy. But the peace was respected, and the two em-
pires almost revived the spirit of cooperation inaugurated by Yazdgard I. The life of
a monophysite bishop and martyr, composed in Syriac, attests alike the tranquillity
of the times and the willingness of both powers to cooperate. The bishop John of
Tella, who was a vehement opponent of the Chalcedonian synod and its doctrines,
had fled Roman territory into the bosom of Iran. Ephraem, the bishop of Antioch,
eagerly sought the arrest and destruction of his monophysite antagonist, and he de-
manded and received the help of the governor of Nisibis, who apprehended John of
Tella in the winter of the year 537. An interrogation ensued at Nisibis, and the fugi-
tive bishop was asked to explain his three illegal crossings of the border. ‘Today there
is such profound peace’, he answered, ‘that I knew not one state from the other’. 48
To that surprising explanation the bishop added that ‘the two kings are brothers in
love’ – an interesting appeal to the propaganda of the time.
Only twice was the peace threatened before the year 540. A severe winter of
the year 535 gave way to a summer of extraordinary warmth, and a vehement
drought expelled from the desert a host of fifteen-thousand Saracens. Mundhir, the
Lakhmid king subject to the Sasanid monarch, denied them pasturage within the
empire of Iran, and those fugitives penetrated the Roman territory of Euphratesia,
perhaps in the region of Zenobia and Sergiopolis. But Batzas, the Roman general in
Mesopotamia, pacified the invaders without the use of arms, and conflict was avert-
ed. 49 In the year 537, the Roman field army at Dara rose in revolt. 50 The principle
grievances may have been despondency occasioned by the immense diversion of
soldiers from the East to serve in Justinian’s Italian and African wars, as well as in-
frequent payments to soldiers along the Iranian frontier. 51 A certain John Cottistis 52
led an abortive rebellion which involved even the bodyguard to the commandant at
47 Morony, M., “al-Nahrawān”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2012, online edition; see also the vivid
description of the Nahrawan canal and its environs, as well as a short survey of its history, in
Le Strange, G., The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, 1966, p. 57–62.
48 The whole incident is found in the biography of John of Tella in Vitae Virorum apud
Monophysitas celeberrimorum, p. 65–73.

49 Marcellinus Comes, a.c. 536. For modern authorities, see Greatrex, G., Rome and Persia at
War, p. 219, and Shahid, I., Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, 1995, p. 194–195.
50 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxvi.5–12.
52 Marcellinus Comes, a.c. 537.
Dara, but the inhabitants of that city resisted and defeated the uprising. ‘Had the
Persians not kept the peace, incurable evils would have befallen the Romans; but the
treaty, which I have already mentioned, prevented this’. 53 From that remark by Pro-
copius we may judge both the Roman apprehension of danger and the Iranian re-
spect for the peace.
THE CONCLUSION OF THE REFORMS OF KAVAD AND KHUSRO

The principal aim of the reforms, which Khusro completed, was to increase the re-
sources available to the state and to enlarge the power of the army. A regular and
predictable income would be the result of a fixed rate of taxation – an innovation
which began with the cadastral survey of Kavad. But change may be feared and re-
jected even if it be for the better, and those reforms failed to please all subjects.
The writer Tabari alludes to the criticism which emerged from the Iranian ad-
ministrative state. According to a somewhat fanciful narrative, Khusro presided over
a conference of Iranian officials whose task was to implement the new tax policy.
The king’s demand to know the opinions of his officials touching the reform, and
the bold reply of a secretary, adumbrate a serious defect which must have been per-
ceived by many a courtier and bureaucrat. ‘O king’, said the secretary, ‘is it your will
to establish this land tax upon shifting foundations? A vine may die, land sown with
corn may wither, a water channel may dry up, and the water source of a spring or
canal may be cut off!’ 54 Whatever the yield of a harvest (as the secretary implies), the
farmer would be liable for the same annual fixed sum. In a time of plenty, competi-
tion amongst farmers would compel them to sell their harvests at a loss, and eco-
nomic necessity might drive them to the bank or to the moneylender. 55 But the Sas-
anid government proceeded with the new policy, despite the astute criticism of the
secretary; and, if we may believe the account of Tabari, Khusro commanded that his
refractory bureaucrat be bludgeoned to death with inkwells. 56
Discontent with Khusro’s reforms is suggested by the writer Procopius also.
‘Khusro…was a man of disorderly mentality and with a perverse love of innovation,
wherefore he was full of confusion and clamours and he became the cause of such
things in everyone else’. 57 We cannot know what strange circumstances lie behind
912F
53 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxvi.7.

54 This is a paraphrase of Tabari, v. 2, p. 150.
55 Cf. Scott, J. C., The Moral Economy of the Peasant, 1976, which is the foundation of the argu-
ment in Crone, P., “Kavad’s Heresy and Mazdak’s Revolt,” p. 33–334; See also Løkkegaard,
F., Islamic Taxation in the Classic Period, with Special Reference to Circumstances in Iraq, 1950, p. 110,
117, 119, and Dennett, D. C., Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam, 1950, p. 14–15.
56 Tabari, v. 2, p. 151:
.‫ ا��بوه با��وّى ح�ى با��وت‬:‫فقال ك��ى‬

57 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxiii.1.
these emphatic words, but Procopius assures us that the monarchy of Khusro was
assailed by men who were greatly annoyed at the new ruler’s policies.
A party of nobles remained loyal to Kavad’s son Jam, whose succession was
forbidden by reason of his blindness in one eye. This faction vowed to install upon
the Sasanid throne the son of Jam, who bore the same name as his royal grandfa-
ther. The younger Kavad, who was yet a boy, was to become king of Iran, and his
father Jam was to administer the affairs of state. The substance of this noble plot
was discovered to Khusro who slew Jam together with all his other brothers and
their male progeny and every man who had participated in the conspiracy. Amongst
the dead was Khusro’s maternal uncle, whom Procopius calls Aspebed. But the
young prince Kavad escaped death. Adurgundbad, upon whom the elder Kavad had
bestowed the rank of Margrave of the Eastern Marches, 58 had adopted the son of
Jam whom he raised as his own child. The royal command to slay the child Kavad
was ignored, the Margrave merely pretended to have carried out the murder, and the
young boy was concealed within the house of Adurgundbad. The secret was known
only to the adoptive parents, to young Kavad’s nurse, and to Bahram the son of the
Margrave. When the younger Kavad came of age, he fled to Constantinople where
he was received by the emperor Justinian – a fact which Bahram is said to have re-
vealed to Khusro nine years later. 59 If Procopius may be trusted, Khusro and Bah-
ram then plotted to kill Adurgundbad, and the son received the title and office of
his slain father.
A similar fate awaited others at the court of Khusro. Procopius reports that a
high-ranking Persian by the name of Mebodes came into conflict with Zabergan,
who had performed the negotiation of the peace of the year 532. 60 Khusro is said to
have ordered Zabergan to summon Mebodes to the Persian court. Finding Mebodes
marshalling his army, Zabergan returned to Khusro to report that his antagonist was
unwilling to present himself before the king. A fear of civil war or rebellion was
aroused, and Khusro commanded the execution of Mebodes. The poet Ferdowsi
has transformed this story into the strange tale of Mahbod and Zarvan, who were
respectively minister and door-keeper to the Sasanian king. 61 A Jew imparted to
Zarvan the magic to turn milk into poison merely by gazing upon it; and when that
drink was set upon the royal table, the sons of Mahbod who drank of it perished.
Mahbod was blamed and executed, and Zarvan was exalted and honoured by
Khusro. But rumours of witchery came to the king, who repented of his wrath with
Mahbod. Zarvan revealed what he had done, and he and the Jew were put to death.
58 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.vi.18; Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 508.
59 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxiii.10–28. Procopius entertains the possibility that the Ka-
vad who appeared in Constantinople may have been an imposter, and he draws a veil over
his fate.
60 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xxiii.25–29.
61 Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 1573–1716.
Whatever noble strife may be concealed behind the curtain of fable, it was suffi-
ciently interesting and important to be remembered in the lore of Iran, but its con-
nection with the reformation of the Iranian state is obscure. It is possible that Me-
bodes, and a faction which supported him, had sought to terminate the peace be-
tween Iran and Rome and thereby disrupt the project of reform – but this may be
wild speculation.
But discontent was not universal, for some social classes attained new privileg-
es by reason of Khusro’s reforms. The ancient landed gentry, or dihqans as they are
called in Persian, rose to prominence in the reign of Khusro I, when management of
small estates and the taxation of peasants became their hereditary duties. 62 The es-
tates of the dihqans were surely smaller, and their wealth more modest, than the vast
domains and the copious riches of the ancient aristocracy; but the power and influ-
ence of the dihqans proved to be greater. The Iranian nobility and the House of Sa-
san were buried in a common grave, and the dihqans survived the ruin of the Iranian
empire. 63 In the centuries that followed the Arab conquest of Iran, they preserved
and transmitted the relics of Iranian lore upon which reposes the Persian royal tradi-
tion. Ferdowsi, the writer of the Shahnameh, claimed descent from that class of gen-
try, and the epic that he composed often invokes the authority of the dihqans and the
traditions which they recited.
THE COLLAPSE OF THE PEACE TREATY OF 532

AND THE OUTBREAK OF WAR
In the year 539 two embassies appeared at the Sasanian court. A deputation of Ligu-
rian priests represented Vittigis, king of the Goths who had overrun the Roman
west; and a party of Armenian aristocrats brought the interests of their nation be-
fore the Persian king. 64 The words of those ambassadors, reported only by Procopi-
us, describe the Roman government as their oppressors. Both nations disclose what
Procopius attempts to conceal: the ambitions of the emperor Justinian to impose his
authority everywhere. The speeches reported by Procopius are a mixture of invec-
tive and hyperbole; but, although the Roman historian probably invented them, they
must represent real grievances.
The complaints of the Armenians are the most realistic and informative. They
demonstrate that the Roman government had intruded into the Iranian sphere of
influence, and had begun to encroach upon every sensitive part of the mutual fron-
tier of the two powers. The peace treaty of 532 is accused and blamed as a source of
62 Kennedy, H., “Survival of Iranianness,” in Curtis, V. / Stewart, S., The Rise of Islam: The
Idea of Iran, v. IV, I. B. Tauris, London, 2009, p. 17–21; Tafazzoli, A., “Dehqan,” Encyclopae-
dia Iranica, Vol. VII, Fasc. 2, p. 223–224; Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 107;
Nöldeke, Die Geschicher der Perser, p. 440.
63 Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 411; 508.
64 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.ii.1; II.iii.31.
‘common destruction’ 65 which was connected with a fundamental reorganisation of

Roman Armenia and its administration, and the invidious imposition of Roman
law. 66 A new and oppressive tax was levied upon Armenia; the Tzani, once an au-
tonomous people, were now slaves to the Romans; a Roman magistrate now lorded
himself over the neighbouring Lazi; and Roman generals had been sent to Bosporus
in order to detach that region from the nomads who held it, and thereby outflank
Iran in the Caucasus. 67 Even Iranian supremacy in the area of the Red Sea was chal-
lenged, and those Armenian noblemen denounced the alliances between the Roman
state and the kingdoms of Ethiopia and Himyar. 68 The emperor Justinian was fur-
ther accused of a double treachery: he had attempted to bribe Mundhir, king of the
Lakhmid Arabs and vassal to Khusro, and thereby to terminate his loyalty to Iran;
and he had tried to induce the Sabirs to assail the empire of Khusro. 69 Such, at least,
was the opinion of Procopius. We may corroborate only one element of that opin-
ion. The Persian royal tradition clearly blamed the Roman emperor for the outbreak
of war, and the histories of Dinawari and Tabari, and the Shahnameh claim that the
Ghassanid Saracens, who were loyal to Rome, had attacked Khusro’s Lakhmid vas-
sal without provocation. 70
But it is a surprising fact that the account of Procopius also presents the oppo-
site claim. The opinion of the Roman government was that Mundhir, the Lakhmid
king, had been instructed to invent a pretext for war, and a conflict over boundary
lines between the Lakhm and Ghassan was the result. 71 Although it was surely a dip-
lomatic irritant between the two powers, even if Khusro had instigated it, the con-
flict between Saracens was hardly a reason for warfare; and that feeble justification
for Roman hostility could not counterbalance the unfriendly encroachment of Jus-
tinian. ‘They break the peace,’ the Armenian envoys averred, ‘not they who first put
on armour, but they who are caught plotting against their neighbours when a treaty
is in force’. 72 The Persian king and his ministers considered the arguments which
they had heard, and resolved upon a preemptive strike. 73
65 κοινόν τινα ὄλεθρον (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.iii.36).

66 Williams, M., Roman-Sasanian Relations, p. 36–43.
67 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.iii.39–40.
68 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.iii.41.
70 Dinawari, p. 70; Tabari, v. 2, p. 149; Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 436–440. Khusro’s pur-
ported autobiography makes no mention of Saracen affairs, but ascribes the outbreak of war
to the perfidy of Justinian (Ibn Miskawayh, Tajarib al-Umam, v. 1, p. 133; Grignaschi, M.
“Quelques spécimens,” p. 189), and we may well construe that as an implication that the
Armenian and Gothic embassies had spoken the truth.
71 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.i.1–3.
73 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.iii.55–56.
The aim of the Iranian government was to assert control over the Transcauca-
sus, and to hold the kingdoms of Iberia, Suania, and Lazica. The last of these was
the most important, for possession of Lazica would, in theory, give Iran a port on
the Euxine from which to menace Constantinople by sea. 74 But the war opened with
a sudden invasion further south: Khusro extracted tribute from the Roman cities
which he besieged, and his most memorable achievements were the storming of
Antioch, the capture of its population, and their resettlement in the vicinity of Ctes-
iphon. But those activities were designed to abase Roman prestige and to divide the
Roman military power, which was already dangerously preoccupied in the West. 75
Although operations proceeded with astonishing success to the great frustration of
the emperor Justinian, the Iranian victory in Lazica was brief. Problems of supply
led to the failure of this northern campaign, that country was abandoned when an
enemy more dangerous than the Romans appeared in the East, and all memory of
warfare in the region of the Caucasus was wiped from the page of indigenous Per-
sian history. The fate of Khusro’s Levantine campaign was different. The Persian
royal tradition commemorated, embellished, and exaggerated the assaults upon Sura,
Hierapolis, Callinicum, and Antioch, to such a degree that it would be impossible to
believe that the war had even occurred without the testimony of Procopius. 76
THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR

The poet Ferdowsi provides a surprising description of the beginning of Khusro’s
invasion. Lavish rites were performed within the great temple of Adur-Gushnasp at
Ganzak in Azarbaijan. Khusro recited prayers for victory, Zoroastrian hierophants
chanted the words of the Avesta, priests tore their shirts, noblemen muttered divine
praises as they cast jewels into the air, and others wallowed in the dust upon the
floor. 77 This pious beginning to the war must have its origin within Khusro’s own
propaganda; for it advertised the right belief of the Sasanid government, and em-
phasised that the war was just.
The first assault came in the spring of the year 540. Avoiding the fortress of
Circesium, Khusro and a division of the Iranian army had advanced up the river
Euphrates, and fell upon the city of Sura. 78 A vigorous defence of a single day saw
the death of the garrison commander. A disingenuous negotiation between the local
74 Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 273–274.

75 Sarris, P., Empires of Faith: The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam, 500–700, 2011, p. 155; How-
ard-Johnston, J., “The Destruction of the Late Antique World Order’ in Kennet, D. & Luft,
P. (eds), Recent Research in Sasanian Archaeology, Art and History, 2008, p. 80.
76 Jackson Bonner, M. R., “Sasanian Propaganda in the Reign of Husraw Anushirvan,” p.
276.
77 Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 528–530. It is noteworthy that Ferdowsi refers to a written Aves-
ta.
78 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.v.8.
bishop and the Iranian king was interrupted by an effort to force open the gate of
the city, and Sura was put to fire and sword. 79 That bishop, whose see was the city
of Sergiopolis had purchased the freedom of the Surene captives by means of a
promissory note. The unhappy city of Sura was emptied of all its treasures, and its
people were killed or enslaved. Justinian had dispatched Megas, the bishop of
Beroea, to pay Khusro one thousand pounds of gold and to entreat him to withdraw
across the Euphrates. The Persian king agreed to accept the money, but refused to
depart; and, proceeding to Hierapolis, Khusro extracted two thousand pounds of
silver in return for stopping an assault upon that city. The Iranian army then pro-
ceeded to Beroea from which Khusro demanded double the sum which had been
extorted from Hierapolis. The treasury of Beroea failed to satisfy the demand in full,
and Khusro reduced that city to ashes – but not before a large portion of the disaf-
fected and unpaid garrison defected to Iran. 80
THE FALL OF ANTIOCH

The city of Antioch was the next object of Khusro’s wrath. The circuit wall of that
city was weak, and six thousand troops sent by the generals of Palmyra and Damas-
cus augmented by a small measure the meagre defences of Antioch. A fearful popu-
lation was heartened to behold those reinforcements, but some of the inhabitants
fled with as much money as they could carry. The Iranian host encamped before the
river Orontes, and an emissary by the name of Paulus was dispatched to demand
one thousand pounds of gold. Night passed, and the immediate threat of total de-
struction failed to persuade the Antiochenes to purchase the departure of Khusro;
and, from the safety of the battlements of their city, they taunted the Persian king
and assailed his emissary with arrows. 81 On the morrow, Khusro’s forces attacked
the wall at a vulnerable spot where the Roman defenders had attempted to widen
the area between two towers by means of large timbers. The collapse of this struc-
ture left that weak position undefended, and the application of ladders carried the
Iranian host over the wall. The battlements of Antioch, and its circuit wall covered a
rocky height above the city, and below those steep rocks was an expanse of unin-
habited land which the Iranian host was obliged to cross before reaching the houses
of the city. In that interval, much of the Roman forces fled in anticipation of its de-
spoliation and ruin. Only the rival factions of the hippodrome, who were accus-
tomed to fighting, remained, and they resisted the entry of Khusro’s soldiers. 82
79 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.v.13–15. Promises were also made, but without fulfilment, to
ransom the persons whom Khusro had captured.
80 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.vii. The soldiers’ payment had been in arrears for a long time
(Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.vii.37).

81 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.viii.1–7.
82 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.viii.8–31.
If Procopius can be believed, Khusro summoned his advisers, and appeared to

contemplate a settlement with the citizens of Antioch. Such was the interpretation
of Zabergan, who protested vehemently against any show of mercy or humanity.
Procopius draws a veil over the origin of his knowledge of that grim conference,
and it is probable that the capacities of the rhetor have overpowered those of the
historian. But the plan upon which Khusro resolved was one of extraordinary vio-
lence and rapacity. A numerous band of the best Iranian troops was sent into Anti-
och. The slaughter which ensued was savage, and Antioch was plundered and
burned; gold, silver, and great slabs of marble were removed from the city and
transported to Iran, and the surviving population of Antioch was carried off into
captivity. Those unhappy persons were settled in a new city in the vicinity of Ctesi-
phon which bore the name Khusro’s Better Antioch. 83 But this was not the end of
Khusro’s activities in the Levant.
NEGOTIATIONS WITH ROME

AND THE AFTERMATH OF THE SACKING OF ANTIOCH
A Roman embassy appeared before Khusro offering a settlement. Five thousand
pounds of gold were paid immediately, and those emissaries promised a yearly sub-
sidy of five hundred pounds of gold also. That annual payment was a renewal of the
support which Rome had promised for the defence of the Caucasian passes. 84
Procopius has recorded an interesting description of that diplomatic exchange.
The Roman embassy vituperated the king of Iran for his claim that Justinian had
violated the peace treaty of 532. The reply of Khusro was to accuse his Roman an-
tagonist of inciting Arabs and Sabirs to attack Iran, and the Roman ambassadors
mounted the preposterous defence that it was not the emperor Justinian but his ad-
visers who had attempted to induce those peoples to annoy the empire of Khusro.
The Caucasian defences, and the annual subsidy, were mentioned by Khusro himself
in order to illustrate the importance of restraining the barbarians of the north, and
to counterbalance the insulting presence of the Roman fortress at Dara. A Roman
ambassador uttered the anxious protest that Khusro wished to make the Romans
tributary to the empire of Iran. ‘No’, said Khusro, ‘but the Romans shall have the
Persians as their own soldiers for the future, paying them a fixed amount for their
service; for you give an annual payment of gold to some of the Huns and to the Sar-
acens, not because you are their subjects, but in order that they may guard your land
unplundered for all time’. 85
When the negotiation had concluded, Khusro visited Seleucia, the port of An-
tioch, where he bathed in the sea, and, in the opinion of Procopius, he performed a
83 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.ix.17–24; II.xiv.1–8. The name of the city is attested in
Sebeos, p. 69 as Վեհ Անջատոք Խոսրով.
84 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.x.10–23.
85 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.x.23.
sacrifice to the sun and the other gods. 86 The town of Daphne, a suburb of Antioch,
was the next object of Khusro’s interest. He performed a sacrifice before an impres-
sive grove and some water fountains there, and set fire to the church dedicated to
Michael the Archangel – revenge, as Procopius says, for the death of a noble Persian
who had been killed nearby. The city of Apamea was forced to pay one thousand
pounds of silver, and was then emptied of all its treasures save a fragment of the
wood on which Christ had been crucified. 87 It was said that a priest by the name of
Thomas had entreated the Persian king to spare that precious relic, and Khusro
obliged. In the hippodrome of that unhappy city, the Persian king officiated at a
chariot race in mockery of the Roman emperor. Because his rival Justinian was an
avowed supporter of the blue, Khusro declared himself in favour of the green, team;
and Procopius claims that the green party was victorious only because Khusro had
demanded that their blue antagonists be artificially restrained. Khusro’s final act in
the vicinity of Apamea was to punish an Iranian soldier for violating the daughter of
a Roman citizen, and the Iranian army began to withdraw from Roman territory.
But Khusro’s extortion of money continued. Two hundred pounds of gold
were extracted from the city of Chalcis, and the Iranian force proceeded westward
across the Euphrates to Edessa. 88 That city might have resisted an obstinate siege,
and Khusro, who had fallen ill, made no attempt upon it. But the citizens of Edessa
paid two hundred pounds of gold also, and eagerly attempted to ransom many cap-
tives taken by Khusro, but without success. 89 Gold was refused from the pagans of
Carrhae on the ground that Khusro would accept money only from Christians, but
payment was offered and accepted from Constantina. 90 An attempt was then made
upon the fortress of Dara, which resisted vigorously. Neither an immense torrent of
Iranian missiles, nor the digging of a tunnel below the wall succeeded. The Roman
response to the tunnel of Khusro was a trench, dug crosswise, which intercepted
and halted the Iranian stratagem.
KHUSRO’S ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY THE FORTRESS OF DARA

While Khusro was at Edessa, word had reached him from the emperor Justinian
that the Roman government had ratified the truce negotiated after the fall of Anti-
och. But Khusro’s attack upon Dara was interpreted as a violation of that agree-
ment, and the government of Justinian immediately annulled the treaty. 91 The Ro-
man counterattack came in the spring of the year 541. Belisarius, the famous gen-
eral, had been recalled from Italy together with his officers and a contingent of
86 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xi.1–3.

87 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xi.24–31.
88 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xii.1–20.
89 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xiii.1–5.
90 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xiii.13–20.
91 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xiii.26.
Gothic mercenaries and was dispatched to Mesopotamia. Another general, Valerian,

was instructed to invade Iranian Armenia. It was at this moment that Khusro began
his penetration of Lazica – the primary aim of this war.
THE ROMAN RESPONSE

But the Roman response of the year 541 did nothing to counterbalance the
achievements of Khusro. The febrile campaign of Belisarius in Mesopotamia was
disgraced by insubordination and impaired by a distrustful emperor. An abortive
siege of Nisibis gave way to a small skirmish, 92 the Iranian fortress of Sisauranon fell
to the arms of Belisarius, and Harith, his Saracen ally, plundered the countryside. 93
That perfidious Arab failed to return to the Roman camp, and his scouts spread the
false intelligence that a large Iranian army had crossed the Euphrates to intercept the
host of Belisarius. A hasty retreat to Roman Mesopotamia was recommended, and
the Roman host was filled with alarm. Here we may discern the influence of Iranian
disinformation, and we may infer that Khusro’s Lakhmid vassals had perverted the
loyalty of Harith. Greater distresses came upon Belisarius when his soldiers fell ill in
the burning heat of the Mesopotamian summer, and the Roman host was compelled
to retire.
BELISARIUS RETURNS TO THE FRONT

In the following year, Khusro returned to Roman Mesopotamia. His purpose, so
Procopius believed, was to penetrate as far as Palestine and to pillage the riches of
Jerusalem – an ambition unrealised until the memorable reign of the second
Khusro. 94 Instead, a siege of Sergiopolis came to nothing, but the unhappy bishop
of that city, who failed to pay the ransom which he had promised two years before,
was carried off into captivity and tortured. 95 Belisarius was again dispatched to the
theatre of war, and he made camp at Dura Europus.
KHUSRO WITHDRAWS FROM MESOPOTAMIA

The account of Procopius alleges that Khusro was dissuaded from giving battle by
virtue of a preposterous charade. A Persian envoy by the name of Abandan was sent
to the Roman camp in order to take the measure of Belisarius and to reopen the
negotiation of a peace treaty. 96 Six thousand of the largest and most handsome of
the Roman soldiers set out to hunt far from the camp, and one thousand Roman
horsemen crossed the Euphrates and appeared to bar a withdrawal of the Iranian
92 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xviii.

93 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xix.
94 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xx.18.
95 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xx.1–16. Procopius claims that Khusro demanded double the
promised sum – but without success.

96 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxi.1–2.
host. A pavilion of cloth concealed the general Belisarius, and the mercenaries of
Thrace, Illyria, those of Gothic race, Heruls, Vandals, and Moors flanked that struc-
ture. Clad only in linen tunics, trousers, and girdles, that heterogeneous mob ap-
peared to walk about carelessly, ignoring the approach of the Iranian emissary. 97 An
interview followed this bizarre stunt. ‘Khusro the king is enraged that what had pre-
viously been agreed upon was not kept, insofar as Caesar had sent no ambassadors;
and because of this Khusro is compelled to come into the land of the Romans in
arms’. 98 Those words of Abandan excited the scorn of the Roman general, who
dismissed the behaviour of Khusro as unnatural.
What follows is wholly inexplicable unless we assume that Procopius was at
pains to conceal a problem of some kind. Abandan, as it is said, returned to Khusro,
and advised him to vacate the land of the Romans with all possible haste. But the
reason for the recommended departure was that the Iranian envoy had judged Beli-
sarius to surpass all other men in sagacity and manliness, and the appearance of the
Roman warriors had aroused in Abandan a great feeling of admiration. 99 Khusro,
according to the mendacious exaggerations of Procopius, was convinced that his
triumph over a general would achieve little, but the victory of Belisarius over the
Sasanian king would be a signal disgrace. A bridge was thrown over the Euphrates,
and the host of Khusro appeared to withdraw. A momentary truce held until the
Iranian army attacked and destroyed the city of Callinicum. 100
The theatre of war south of Lazica was now confined to Armenia. A Roman
force of thirty thousand troops was defeated by the guile of the Armenian general in
the service of Iran. 101 Nabed (that is what Procopius calls the general) commanded a
small force of only four thousand men, but at the village of Anglon, about fifteen
miles southwest of Dvin, his forces lured the Roman host into an ambush. Efforts
to block access to the town involved the excavation of a trench and the use of
stones and carts to obstruct the roads; and infantrymen were concealed within old
cabins. The Roman host drew near in a disorderly formation, and a feigned retreat
of some Iranian soldiers forced their antagonists to pursue a flying enemy into the
narrow streets of Anglon. A torrent of missiles descended upon them from the cita-
del of that village, Iranian soldiers emerged from the cabins in which they had con-
cealed themselves, and they slew or made captive a great portion of the Roman ar-
my.
97 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxi.3–8

98 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxi.8.
101 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxv.
KHUSRO’S RETURN TO MESOPOTAMIA

AND HIS ABORTIVE SIEGE OF EDESSA
A year passed until Khusro continued his war in Mesopotamia with an assault upon
the city of Edessa. It was the solemn promise of Khusro to enslave everyone within
that city, to transport them to Iran, and to transform Edessa into a pasture for
sheep. 102 But a brief skirmish between Khusro’s Huns and the Edessenes convinced
the Sasanid king to offer his withdrawal to the inhabitants of that city in exchange
for money. Paulus, the interpreter and emissary of Khusro, demanded a parley, and
some notables of Edessa confronted the aristocrat Zabergan in a private conference.
The advice of Zabergan was to think only of the safety of Edessa and to pay a great
sum of money; at a later meeting between those notables and Khusro himself, the
same demand was reiterated together with a dire warning lest Edessa suffer a more
terrible fate than Antioch. These discussions gave way successively to a siege, to
renewed negotiations, and to repeated demands for money. 103 An artificial hill arose
steadily before Edessa, and the fearful citizens attempted to erect another structure
to overtop it, but without success. As negotiations proceeded, and the Iranian
mound grew, Edessene diggers prepared a tunnel below the walls of the city in order
to undermine the artificial hill by setting its wooden supports on fire. Five days later,
Khusro was forced to abandon the mound, and on the sixth day scaling ladders
were applied to the wall of Edessa, and a furious assault began. But Khusro failed to
take the city and he received only five hundred pounds of gold from the citizens of
Edessa. 104
THE ARMISTICE OF 545

That was the last engagement of Khusro’s war in Mesopotamia, and a truce of five
years was negotiated in the year 545. The royal palace at Ctesiphon was the scene of
the conference, and the Roman ambassadors Sergius and Constantius opened nego-
tiations with the demand that Khusro abandon his war in Lazica, which yet pro-
ceeded, and that he return that country to the Romans. 105 Such, in the opinion of
the Roman envoys, would be the only secure foundation of a durable peace. But
Khusro and his ministers agreed only to an armistice, for in the opinion of the Iranian
government the many differences between itself and Rome could not be resolved
easily. Khusro demanded and received a payment of two thousand pounds of gold,
as well as the assistance of the Roman physician Tribunus, who had apparently
cured him before and whom he greatly missed. 106 The emperor Justinian dispatched
both the money and the physician immediately.
102 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxvi.4.

103 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxvi.5–46.
104 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxvii.
105 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxvii.1–6.
106 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxvii.7–10.
OUTBREAK OF THE PESTILENCE

Soon we must rejoin the Iranian host amidst the crags and ravines of Lazica where
war continued for nearly twenty years. But first, we must return to the strange ac-
count of Khusro’s withdrawal from Mesopotamia in the summer of the year 541.
The testimony of Procopius, designed to inflate his master Belisarius, conceals the
outbreak of the first great pandemic disease in recorded history. 107 That outbreak
was the reason why the campaign in Mesopotamia came to an abrupt end. The
spread of the pestilence throughout Mesopotamia would not have respected the
artificial frontier between the two powers, and word of it may well have reached the
Khusro’s government before its penetration of the Iranian empire. But the Persian
royal tradition includes no description of the outbreak and spread of the plague.
The pestilence, which in the opinion of Procopius nearly destroyed all man-
kind, 108 was noticed first at the port of Pelusium at the eastern extremity of the Nile
Delta. 109 But this fact gives us little insight into the origin of the disease, and we
cannot infer from it, as one writer has done, that the pestilence must have begun
further south in Africa. 110 The science of genetics has traced the origin of the pesti-
lential bacterium to the region of the Tian Shan mountains in Inner Asia; and it was
from there that the bacterium evolved and spread. 111
Literary sources suggest a progress eastward from Egypt into Iran; and so, if
we trust them, we might infer that the disease moved southward from Central Asia
into India, and that the flourishing trade routes of the Indian Ocean and the Red
Sea slowly bore the pestilence to the port of Clysma, the modern Suez, whence it
proceeded northward over land to Pelusium. 112 Its westward progress was then swift
and inexorable across the coast of North Africa; Alexandria, Sicily, Rome, southern
107 Williamson, E. D. / Oyston, P. C. F., “The Natural History and Incidence of Yersinia
Pestis, and Prospects for Vaccination,” Journal of Medical Microbiology, 61, 2012, p. 911–918.
108 Λοιμὸς…ἐξ οὗ δὴ ἅπαντα ὀλίγου ἐδέησε τὰ ἀνθρώπεια ἐξίτηλα εἶναι (Procopius, Bellum
Persicum, II.xxii.1).
109 Procopius, II.xxii.6.
110 Contra Horden, P., “Mediterranean Plague in the Age of Justinian” in Mass, M. (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, 2005, p. 135. Cf. Sussman, a writer with some med-
ical knowledge, as it seems, who argues spuriously in favour of an Indian origin (Sussman,
G., “Scientists Doing History: Central Africa and the Origins of the First Plague Pandemic”
in Journal of World History, v. 26, n. 2, 2015, p. 325–354).
111 Keller, et al., “Ancient Yersinia pestis genomes from across Western Europe reveal early
diversification during the First Pandemic (541–750),” Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 2019 116 (25), p. 12363–12372; Sariyeva, G., et al.,
“Marmots and Yersinia pestis Strains in Two Plague Endemic Areas of Tien Shan Moun-
tains,” Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2019; Monica H. Green, “Putting Africa on the Black
Death Map: Narratives from Genetics and History,” Afriques 9, 2018, p. 12–14. I owe these
references to Monica Green.
112 Harper, K., The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, 2017, p. 215–219.
Gaul, and Spain were afflicted by the year 543, and soon that divine punishment was
visited upon the peoples of Ireland and Wales. In the east, the pestilence was dif-
fused along shipping lanes, roads, and caravan routes: from Gaza and the coast of
Palestine, it spread to Antioch and its environs, and its progress into Syria and Mes-
opotamia was noticed by John of Ephesus, and other ecclesiastical writers following
him, who recorded a description of its effect upon the Roman east and its advance
through Iran into China by the early seventh century. 113 The descent of the pesti-
lence upon a town or city was swift, but it would not advance until it had run its
course in a single place; and so rumour of the disease prevented its arrival. Many
persons infected by the pestilence would collapse on a sudden and die, but those
who were not struck down instantly were afflicted by painful swellings on the groin,
the thigh, the armpit, or the neck. Fluid might fill those swellings so that they burst
asunder, revealing festering abscesses which discharged blood, pus, and water, but in
such cases the victim would survive. Beasts of many kinds, including the cattle,
dogs, and mice of Syria and Mesopotamia, exhibited the same signs of infection, and
they perished in large numbers. If we can believe the testimony of John of Ephesus,
most of the population of Egypt died, the death toll in Palestine was yet greater, and
entire villages were annihilated in Mesopotamia. 114
What caused the outbreak of the plague? It may be that the apparent spread of
the disease is an illusion created by our literary sources, and that the plague bacte-
rium had left the Tian Shan long before the sixth century of our era. The great ex-
panse of the steppe which connects all of Eurasia would have offered no impedi-
ment to the transmission of a disease which originated there. If we consider Iran’s
openness to the steppe, we may wonder whether the pestilence had rather penetrat-
ed Khusro’s empire from the east, or down through the Caucasus, than from Meso-
potamia. 115 If the peoples of India had indeed been infected, the disease may well
have been brought to them over the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean by Iranian mer-
chants. But, however we may opine on such matters, a sudden change in climate,
noticed by Procopius in the year 536, provoked by a huge volcanic explosion near
113 The account of John of Ephesus was found in the second part of his Ecclesiastical History
which is now lost, but was recycled by several later writers, such as the work attributed to
Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, and the Chronicle of Seert
(Morony, M. G., “For whom does the writer write?: the first bubonic plague pandemic ac-
cording to Syriac sources” in Little, L. K., Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–
750, 2007, p. 59–64).
114 Anecdota Syriaca, tom. I., p. 307 (the whole description of the plague is in p. 304–325); and
Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, p. 77. For analysis, see Morony, M. G., “For whom does the
writer write?,” p. 70–74.
115 I am grateful to Monica Green who inspired this idea in a personal communication.
the equator, led to cooler temperatures for several decades, and would have fa-
voured either the outbreak or the spread of the Justinianic plague. 116
The pestilence had two important effects upon the Roman state: a vast infla-
tion of wages and a great reduction in government revenue. A law of the emperor
Justinian, issued in the year 543, declared that the chastisement of God, which had
taken such a heavy toll upon Constantinople, was at an end. Wages, which had dou-
bled or trebled, were to return to their values before the plague had created a short-
age of workers. 117 According to Roman custom, taxes upon farmland, whose owners
had perished, were levied upon neighbouring landowners; and after the ravages of
the pestilence this practice became especially burdensome. 118 The population dimin-
ished, fewer taxes were collected, public salaries were curtailed, 119 and the construc-
tion of buildings at the expense of the state gave way to the erection of churches
and monasteries with the money of private persons. 120 The evidence of archaeology
is consistent with this melancholy scene. 121
In the grim opinion of modern medical writers, various strains of the pestilence
have afflicted Iran for centuries, no part of that country has been free of infection,
and rural outbreaks have lasted as long as forty years. 122 To take a single example, in
the year 1830, the plague spread through the region of the Persian Gulf, and thence
towards Tabriz which, at that time, was the capital of Iran. Thirty-thousand persons
died there, and the government was transposed to Ardabil as the disease proceeded
into northern Iran. Thousands perished in Gilan and Mazandaran in the year 1831,
and the population of Rasht was reduced by more than half. It is most unlikely that
the disease which struck in the nineteenth century was the same as that which af-
flicted Iran in the reign of Khusro I. But the vehemence of the later plague may give
us a sense of the damage wrought by a deadly bacterium before the age of antiobi-
otic drugs.
116 Procopius, Bellum Vandalicum, IV.xiv.5–6; Harper, K., The Fate of Rome, p. 249–271; Hal-
don, J., et al., “History meets palaeoscience: Consilience and collaboration in studying past
societal responses to environmental change”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America, 115(13), 2018, p. 3210–3218; Larsen, L. B., et al., “New ice core evi-
dence for a volcanic cause of the A.D. 536 dust veil,” Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 35, issue
4, 2008.
117 Novellae, CXXII.
118 Procopius, Anecdota, XXII.15–22.
119 Procopius, Anecdota, XXIV.30–33.
120 Kennedy, H. / Liebeschutz, J. H. W. G., “Antioch and the Villages of Northern Syria in
the Fifth and Sixth Centuries A.D.: Trends and Problems” in Nottingham Mediaeval Studies, 32,
1988, p. 67–71.
121 Kennedy, H., “Justinianic Plague in Syria and the Archaeological Evidence” in Little, L.
K., Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750, 2007, p. 87–95.
122 Shahraki, A. H. / Carniel, E. / Mostafavi, E., “Plague in Iran: its History and Current
Status,” Epidemiology and Health, v. 38, 2016, p. 1–12.

But it is difficult to reconstruct the effect of the Justinianic plague upon the
empire of Khusro. On the strength of the Roman example, we may reasonably as-
sume that a decline in population would have produced an inflation of wages and
would have depressed revenues to the state. The Persian royal tradition has recorded
only two exiguous notices which are necessarily connected with epidemic disease. I.
In the year 542, in the midst of warfare with Rome, Khusro himself was infected,
and he retreated to the highlands of Azarbaijan to recover his health. 123 II. When the
archbishop Joseph sat upon the patriarchal throne of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in the
550s, he exerted himself to bury the dead whose bodies lay upon the ground and
littered the streets 124 – an indication that the pestilence was a problem which the
Iranian state was obliged to manage long after Khusro’s recovery. If the sufferings
of Ctesiphon resembled those of Constantinople, work of every kind would have
ceased as the disease ran its course, and the Iranian capital may have lost nearly half
its population. 125
Within the interval between the monarch’s illness and the efforts of the patri-
arch, we may only guess at the course of events, for the activities of the Iranian gov-
ernment are obscure. But it may be possible to connect some stray notices of the
Persian royal tradition with the aftermath of a large mortality. The history of Tabari
adumbrates military action undertaken to pacify the frontiers of Iran and to recruit
foreigners within the army. We might infer that Khusro sought to augment the
strength of his armed forces whose numbers had been reduced by the pestilence. 126
Tabari asserts that a people called Bariz, who dwelt upon that frontier, were sub-
dued, displaced, and resettled throughout the empire of Iran where they became
soldiers. All but eighty warriors of a people known as Sul were slaughtered, and
those fighters were brought into the ranks of the Iranian army, and were made to
123 Dinawari, p. 71. The fact of the infection is corroborated by the account of Procopius
(Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxiv.1), although Dinawari claims that Khusro recuperated at
Homs (which is also called Aleppo). The emperor Justinian was infected also, but he re-
mained within the walls of his palace at Constantinople (Procopius, Bellum Persicum,
II.xxiii.20).
124 Chronicle of Seert II(1), p. 186:
...‫يوسف ا��لقب با��اثليق ��ف ��ته ا�ى دفن ا��و�ى ا��طرو��ن �ي ا��رض والطرقات‬
This same chronicle purports to describe an anecdote relating the effect of the disease upon
Beth Aramaye in Iranian Mesopotamia, but this anecdote (which appears to be a lesson on
the dangers of attachment to worldly goods) is also attested elsewhere and said to have taken
place in Egypt (Chronicle of Seert II(1), p. 184 with note 1).
125 See Procopius’ description of the pestilence in Constantinople (Procopius, Bellum Persicum,
II.xxiii). Sixteen thousand persons may have perished in a single day, and when the death toll
reached two hundred and thirty thousand, officials ceased counting (Evans, J. A. S., The Age
of Justinian, p. 163; Moorhead, J. Justinian, p. 99). The population of Constantinople at the
time was perhaps about five hundred thousand persons.
126 See my argument in Jackson Bonner, M. R., Three Neglected Sources, p. 85–87.
dwell in the city of Shahram-Peroz. A similar fate awaited the nomads known as
Abkhaz, the Alans, and two other peoples of doubtful name; 127 and the poet Fer-
dowsi describes the subjugation and resettlement of Alans, as well as the people of
Daylam and Gilan. 128 A more daring inference concerns the population of widows
and orphans who respectively were given in marriage or adopted by the Persian
king. 129 The writer Tabari appears to relate those measures with the doubtful conse-
quences of Mazdakism. But the deaths of husbands and parents may perhaps more
plausibly be connected with the desolation wrought by the pestilence; and Khusro’s
legislation pertaining to inheritance may have aimed to prevent the ruin of noble
families whose patriarchs had died.
THE REVOLT OF ANUSH-ZAD

The gravest consequence of the pestilence, of which we may be certain, was an in-
surrection which purposed to overthrow the rule of Khusro and which might have
subverted the established religion of the House of Sasan. The insurrection of
Anush-Zad is variously attested in the works of Procopius and the relics of the Per-
sian royal tradition diffused among the history of Dinawari, the Shahnameh, and the
Chronicle of Seert. 130 The account of the revolt which was preserved by Dinawari is the
earliest and fullest that has survived amongst the prose histories of ancient Iran. But
it is incomplete, and the poetry of Ferdowsi narrates the longest and most elaborate
account of the insurrection of Anush-Zad within the Persian royal tradition. The
anonymous Chronicle of Seert records a surprisingly different narrative of the same
story, and it is difficult to reconcile it with the consensus of Dinawari and Ferdowsi.
But let us begin with the account of Procopius. The revolt against Khusro I,
led by his son Anush-Zad, began in the year 542 in the midst of the war with Rome.
The pestilence afflicted the entire Mediterranean world, it had begun its penetration
of the Iranian army, and a rumour declared that Khusro, who had contracted the
disease, had perished. 131 Anush-Zad had been exiled by his father for many trans-
gressions, chief amongst which was philandering with the wives of his father. Be-
lieving that the king was dead, Anush-Zad emerged from exile and raised up a re-
volt, which was crushed by the general Fariburz. 132 Anush-Zad was taken captive
127 Tabari, v. 2, p. 100.

129 Tabari, v. 2, p. 102.
130 See my analysis of the rebellion in Jackson Bonner, M. R., “The Rebellion of Anosh
Azad,” Historia i Swiat, no. 5, 2016, p. 159–165. Kaldellis’ preposterous idea that the revolt of
Anush-Zad is unattested outside the works of Procopius must be dismissed (Kaldellis, A.,
The Wars of Justinian, 2014, p. 125, n. 258).
131 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxiv.8; Bellum Gothicum, VIII.x.17–22.
132 Procopius calls this man Φαβρίζος.
and, in order to disqualify him from mounting the Sasanid throne, his eyelids were
disfigured.
Indigenous Iranian tradition recorded a somewhat different story. 133 Khusro’s
son Anush-Zad was born to a Christian mother, who had refused to become a Zo-
roastrian. Dinawari says at first that Anush-Zad differed from his father in religion
and later implies that he was a Christian, but Ferdowsi clearly declares that the young
rebel was a follower of Christ. That Christian prince was immured within the prison
at Gondeshapur, but when news of the king’s illness reached him, Anush-Zad es-
caped, recruited an army of Christians, threw his father’s deputies out of Khuzestan,
and that host of Christians prepared to march on Ctesiphon. Apart from mention-
ing the capture of Anush-Zad and the restoration of Khusro’s dominions, the
stream of Dinawari’s narrative runs dry without exposition of the end of the revolt –
details provided only by the Shahnameh. In the distichs of Ferdowsi, Anush-Zad’s
insurrection begins when that Christian prince frees some madmen imprisoned at
Gondeshapur, and all Christians (even prelates and a portion of the nobility, appar-
ently) gathered under his banner. A couplet, which a modern editor cites as a variant
reading, makes the mother of Anush-Zad the financier of the rebellion. 134 News of
the insurrection reached Khusro, who declared, in a formal letter to a military of-
ficer called Ram-Barzin, his low opinion of Christians. The battle between the ar-
mies of Anush-Zad and Ram-Barzin issued in the destruction of Khusro’s son, and
Ferdowsi describes the death of a Christian martyr. The mother of the rebel led the
Christians of Iran in mourning, and she prepared the burial shroud and grave of
Anush-Zad.
The Chronicle of Seert presents an account of Anush-Zad’s rebellion which is al-
most unrecognisable. 135 We read only that one of Khusro’s unnamed sons revolted
and took over Gondeshapur; and the patriarch of Iran was accused of having
prompted the insurrection. The Sasanian king then demanded that the archbishop
terminate the revolt, and that prelate complied by threatening the dissidents with
excommunication. That was the end of the rebellion, and Khusro left his Christian
subjects unmolested.
Procopius assures us that Justinian and the Constantinopolitan court received
the intelligence of the revolt of Anush-Zad. 136 Though the pestilence assailed the
imperial capital with especial vehemence in the year 542, Procopius claims that the
emperor immediately ordered an invasion of Iran. The Roman defeat at the Arme-
nian village of Anglon was the result, and no further attempt was made to exploit
the uprising of Khusro’s son. Such an embarrassment may be the reason for Proco-
133 Dinawari, p. 71–72; Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 743–980.

134 This line appears among Khaleghi-Motlagh’s notes (Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, p. 149: n. 7):
.‫�� از شاه �� گنجش آراسته‬ ‫�� داد مادر ورا خواسته‬
135 Chronicle of Seert, II(1), p. 162–163.
136 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxiv.6–10.
pius’ seeming confusion about the year in which the revolt of Anush-Zad occurred.
That writer’s account of the Persian War clearly places the rebellion of Khusro’s son
in the year 542. But the eighth book of Procopius’ history, commonly called the
Gothic War, appears to situate the revolt amongst events of the year 550, the final
year of the truce which the two powers had ratified five years earlier. The two prin-
cipal signs that the latter dating is wrong are: I. the strength of the consensus of
Procopius’ earlier notice with indigenous Iranian tradition; and II. that Greek writ-
er’s failure to indicate that there were, in his opinion, two revolts of Anush-Zad. 137
Procopius published the eighth book of the Gothic War in the 550s, – at least a dec-
ade after the revolt of Anush-Zad. 138 Carelessness or a lapse of memory occasioned
by the passage of so many years may account for the apparent inconsistency of
chronology.
But it may be that Procopius transposed the narrative of Anush-Zad’s revolt
for a more serious reason. In the great contest that had arisen between the two
powers, the Roman emperor who had sought every advantage over his rival at every
sensitive part of their mutual frontier should not have failed to exploit the insurrec-
tion of a Christian rebel of the Sasanid line. Though the subtleties of theological
speculation divided the churches of Iran and Rome, the embarrassment of schism
would have yielded to a spirit of rivalry and to the requirements of politics. 139 The
terrible year when Totila’s Goths had just taken Rome and overrun Italy again, and
when warfare was fierce in Lazica, might have excused the failure of Justinian, and
Procopius may have concealed the religion of Anush-Zad in order to avoid embar-
rassing the Christian emperor who failed to take advantage of the rebellion of
Khusro’s son.
Was Anush-Zad really a Christian? There is enough circumstantial evidence to
permit the inference that Anush-Zad was a votary of Christ and that his insurrection
was of great interest to his coreligionists. According to Procopius, two sources dif-
fused the report of Anush-Zad’s insurrection. That Roman historian asserted that he
heard the tale from the Armenian general Valerian by way of a secret envoy who
had transmitted intelligence which had originated from the brother of the Bishop of
137 Surely that is what Procopius would have done if he had believed that there had been two
revolts of Anush-Zad (Contra Börm, H., Prokop und die Perser: Untersuchungen zu den römisch-
sasanidischen Kontaktenin der ausgehenden Spätantike, 2007, p. 127. See my arguments in Jackson
Bonner, Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Ahbar al-Tiwal, p. 105–106).
138 The chronology of Procopius’ works is subject to much controversy. Evans believes that
the Gothic War appeared in the year 557 (Evans, J. A. S., “The Dates of Procopius’ Works: A
Recapitulation of the Evidence,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 37, 1996, p. 301–313).
But Greatrex has more recently dated it to about the year 552 (Greatrex, G., “Recent Work
and the composition of Wars VIII,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 27, 2003, p. 45–67).
139 Contra Jullien, C., “La révolte des chrétiens au Hūzestān (551): modèles narratifs d’une
historiographie,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, 25, 2015, p. 109.

Dvin; 140 and Tribunus (Khusro’s Christian physician) was the other source. 141 It is
highly probable that the account of the rebellion presented by Ferdowsi originated
in a Christian hagiography. 142 The narrative of the Shahnameh is full of Christian im-
agery, and the tone of the story is generally sympathetic to Anush-Zad as a martyr
of royal birth. References to Syrian ecclesiastical vocabulary may surprise a Muslim
reader, and the only partisan of Anush-Zad who has a name is called Shammas: the
normal Syriac word for ‘deacon’, which an uninformed translator could easily have
mistaken for a personal name. 143 But the emphasis on Christian burial is perhaps the
most convincing proof that Ferdowsi’s source was an account of a martyrdom. At
the moment of his death, the son of Khusro rejects the practice of excarnation and
the trappings of a Zoroastrian funeral, he demands a burial befitting a Christian, and
his mother obliges. Such a story could not have been composed by a Zoroastrian,
especially not one close to the Sasanian court. 144 In the superficial account of the
Chronicle of Seert, our attention is drawn to a fanciful description of the intervention
by Mar Aba, patriarch of the Iranian church, who is accused and credited respective-
ly with inspiring and halting the insurrection. We may infer that the source of this
account represents an effort on the part of the leadership of the Iranian church to
disclaim involvement in the revolt and to share in the credit for having stopped it. 145
140 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxiv.8.

141 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.x.8.
142 I originated this idea first in Jackson Bonner, M. R., Three Neglected Sources, p. 59–70, and
developed it further in Jackson Bonner, Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 68–71. My

theory has lately been endorsed in Jullien, C., “La révolte des chrétiens au Hūzestān (551):
modèles narratifs d’une historiographie,” p. 107–120.
143 Shammas appears in Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 895. Other Syrian ecclesiastical terms in-
clude ‘catholicos’, ‘patriarch’, and ‘bishop’ (Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 895; 957; 963).
144 Ferdowsi must have versified his source as he found it, and there is no reason to suspect
that he invented the conclusion of the story (Contra Nöldeke, T., Geschichte der Perser, p. 473).
Nöldeke merely asserts without proof what I deny without fear of contradiction. The narrative
of Dinawari must also go back to this source also, I believe. On the subject of Christian hag-
iography in the Sasanian period, there is further circumstantial evidence to support my infer-
ence. Familial strife between mixed Zoroastrian and Christian families is a well-attested
theme in Syriac hagiography. And there was, as Walker has recently observed, a fair amount
of Syriac hagiography dealing with Persian martyrs, some of which dealt with royal and aris-
tocratic Christians, and which reflected the tropes and motifs of the Iranian epic tradition:
The History of the Heroic Deeds of Mar Qardagh is a case in point (Walker, J. T., The Legend of Mar
Qardagh: Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iran, 2006, p. 19–26). So the putative
hagiography of Anush-Zad would fit into a well-established genre.
145 If Mar Aba had intervened to stop the revolt, we should expect to find mention of this in
his biography. But the Life of Mar Aba includes no such thing. The only notice that comes
close refers to a disturbance in Khuzestan in about 550, probably related to the same schis-
matic communities in that region which Mar Aba had dealt with earlier in his career (Life of
Mar Aba, p. 264; 225–226; Jackson Bonner, M. R., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p.
But the end of the revolt and the death of Anush-Zad aroused the expectation of
Iranian Christians that a follower of Christ should one day sit upon the Sasanian
throne, and this hope was not abandoned until the fall of the House of Sasan.
THE LAZIC WAR OF 541–562

Now we must return to the Iranian war effort in Lazica. According to the writer
Procopius, in about the year 540, Lazian envoys had appeared before Khuso. 146
They complained bitterly of Roman intervention in the Transcaucasus, and that the
imposition of the Christian religion in that region had infuriated the votaries of
Zoroaster. The presence of the Roman army after the departure of king Vakhtang
was intolerable, and Procopius also accuses two unpopular generals, Peter and John
Tzibus, whose appalling conduct had eroded Lazian loyalty to Rome. The Lazian
ambassadors invited Khusro to enter and to occupy their country; military plans
were made in secret and disclosed to only a few within the narrow circle of power
which surrounded the king, and it was advertised that Khusro intended to pacify a
tribe of Huns, or more probably Sabirs, which had assailed Iberia. 147
In the year 541, Khusro and the Iranian army forced their way through the
thick forests and narrow ravines of Lazica, and received the submission of its king
Goubaz. 148 The Roman castle at Petra, at the mouth of the river Phasis, had been
fortified at the command the emperor Justinian, and its walls resisted the battering
ram of Khusro. Aniabed was the Iranian general whose operations Khusro, like
Xerxes at the Battle of Salamis, observed from a throne upon a lofty hill above the
fighting. A rapid sally from the fortress of Petra scattered the Iranian host and em-
barrassed the general Aniabed whom Khusro, in a transport of rage, impaled upon a
wooden stake. 149 An effort to storm the wall failed, and the Iranian king resolved to
besiege Petra. Volleys of arrows were discharged from either side, a stray missile
ended the life of the Roman commander, and disheartened the defenders, of Petra.
106–107) In fact, the outbreak of the disturbance is attributed to Satanic influences which
would more fairly describe a doctrinal dispute than a Christian insurrection against a Zoroas-
trian king led by that king’s own son. Pigulevskaja, the Soviet scholar from Leningrad, as-
sumed that that disturbance in Khuzestan in about 550 was the revolt of Anush-Zad, and
many scholars have followed her. But the evidence for this is very flimsy. It is easy to get the
impression that Pigulevskaja went out of her way to portray the revolt of Anush-Zad as a
form of communist revolution. She confounds Anush Zad’s rebellion with the Mazdakite
uprising (Pigulevskaya, N., Les villes de l’état Iranien, p. 288). Pigulevskaja based this argument
on a notice of Ibn Athir’s to the effect that Anush-Zad was a zindiq, or ‘heretic’ (Pig-
ulevskaya, N., Les villes de l’état Iranien, p. 225), and argues on the warrant of no evidence that
this hybrid rebel movement was a response to a process of feudalisation.
146 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xv.1–30. Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, 1994, p. 292–293.
147 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xv.35.
148 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xvii.1–2.
Burrowing underground, the Iranian host then loosened and removed the stones of
a gigantic tower which guarded the fortress; the resultant cavity was filled with wood
and set on fire, and the violent collapse of that structure delivered Petra to Khusro,
and Lazica became a protectorate of Iran. 150 Meanwhile warfare proceeded to the
south.
The empire of Iran held the fortress of Petra, and Khusro exerted his authority
over the Lazi, for eight years. But in the interval between the years 541 and 549, the
natives of Lazica found the rule of Iran increasingly intolerable. In the opinion of
Procopius, the extreme rigidity of Iranian manners and the severity of their laws
were a great burden to a Christian people, the disappearance of Roman trade was a
grievous blow the economy of Lazica, and the men of that country looked for an
opportunity to return to the bosom of Rome. 151 Roman opinion held that, in the
year 549, Lazica was on the point of rebellion, and that Khusro had commanded the
murder of king Goubaz, the expulsion of the native population of Lazica, and the
establishment of a colony of Iranians and other peoples loyal to the Sasanian king.
But Roman fears of ethnic cleansing 152 were exaggerated, or perhaps imaginary; and
Khusro never launched a naval attack upon Constantinople. 153
A feint, calculated to distract the Roman government, was employed as the
Iranian effort to hold Lazica came under strain. The Iranian occupation of that
country took a heavy toll upon the reputation of Khusro; the grumbling of Iranian
courtiers abused the Sasanian king as the destroyer of the Iranian people, 154 and an-
other noble plot was formed to murder him. 155 If Procopius may be trusted, the re-
action of Khusro was to win prestige by an attempt to seize the fortress of Dara by
stealth. 156 A diplomatic mission was dispatched to Constantinople, and its leader
Yazdgushnasp took with him his mother, his two daughters, and five hundred of the
bravest Iranian soldiers. 157 The ambassador and his retinue were to cross the border
and pass the night at Dara; and, once admitted to the city, the military entourage
intended to fire the houses and to open the gates to reinforcements from Nisibis.
But, as Procopius claims, the plot was disclosed to a Roman deserter who commu-

151 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxviii.25–28.
152 That is what Evans calls this policy (Evans, J. A. S., The Age of Justinian, p. 166).
153 Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, 1994, p. 296–298.
154 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.vii.2. …ἐς ἤθη ἐπανιόντες τὰ πάτρια Χοσρόῃ ὡς
λαθραιότατα ἐλοιδοροῦντο καὶ διαφθορέα τοῦ Περσῶν γένους αὐτὸν ἀπεκάλουν (Procopius,
Bellum Gothicum, VIII.vii.3).
155 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.vii.4.
156 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.vii.5. Although Stein dates this event to the year 447
(Stein, L’Histoire du bas empire v. 2, 1949, p. 510), it is obvious from the context that Procopi-
us considered that it had immediately preceded the outbreak of war in Lazica in 549.
157 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxviii.31–44.
nicated it to a colleague of the author. 158 Accordingly, Yazdgushnasp was admitted

to Dara with a mere twenty followers, and they proceeded to Constantinople, where
(in the opinion of Procopius) a diplomatic exchange of no importance occurred and
where the ambassador wasted ten months. 159 In later years, Iranian ambassadors
were received at Dara with much greater caution and with more attention to security
than before, 160 and so we may infer that the Roman government had apprehended a
very serious danger at the appearance of Yazdgushnasp.
But the feint did little to distract Roman attention from Lazica. 161 Though Ira-
nian policy had settled upon the murder of Lazian king, Goubaz had been warned,
and the failure of the plot gave way to a general insurrection, and the flight of that
monarch to the Roman emperor. Justinian welcomed Goubaz into his protection,
and this was the reason for the outbreak of war in the year 549. Dagisthaeus was the
Roman commander dispatched to recover Lazica, and he instantly formed the siege
of Petra with the forces of Goubaz, one thousand men of the neighbouring tribe of
the Tzani, and seven thousand Roman soldiers. The assaults of Daghisthaeus upon
the fortress of Petra filled the space of four months. 162 Despite the obstinate re-
sistance of the Iranian garrison, Khusro sent his general Mihr-Meroe with thirty
thousand troops to assail the besiegers and to augment the defence of Petra. The
advice of Goubaz recommended that the Roman force block the pass below the
river Phasis and to impede the entry of Mihr-Meroe; and the Lazian king and his
allies sealed off the passes at the frontier between Lazica and Iberia. But Dagisthae-
us had installed a mere one hundred men at the defile below the Phasis – far too
few to resist the Iranian reinforcements, who added three thousand troops to the
garrison of Petra. 163 Five thousand Iranian soldiers held the passes of the Lazian
frontier to maintain the supply route, and the balance of Mihr-Meroe’s forces,
whose numbers strained the army’s capacity to supply them, retired to Iranian Ar-
menia. In the following spring, a counterattack destroyed the Iranian camp upon the
Iberian border, and the Romans seized their provisions, and cut off the supply line.
The ensuing engagements were of varied fortune. It was the policy of Khusro
to re-establish, and that of Justinian to disrupt and destroy, the Iranian supply line to
Petra. The general, whom Procopius calls Chorian, led into Lazica a large force of
158 George was the name of that colleague who had served with Procopius on the staff of
Belisarius.
159 Ὁ βάρβαρος οὗτος ὡς πρεσβεύων ἐς Βυζάντιον ἦλθε…τῷ τε βασιλεῖ ἐς ὄψιν ἥκων ἀμφὶ
μὲν τῶν σπουδαίων τινὶ οὐ μέγα οὐ μικρὸν ἴσχυσεν εἰπεῖν, καίπερ οὐχ ἧσσον ἢ μῆνας δέκα
κατατρίψας ἐν Ῥωμαίων τῇ γῇ (Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxviii.38).
160 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Caeremoniis, I.89–90.
161 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxviii. For modern authorities see Evans, J. A. S., The Age of
Justinian, p. 166–167 and Braund, D., Georgia in Late Antiquity, 1994, p. 298–300.
162 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxix–xxx.
163 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, II.xxx.1–18.
Iranians and Alans, but that army was destroyed together with its commander. 164
Later skirmishes were indecisive. 165 Procopius insinuates that the blandishments of
Iranian spies had perverted the loyalty of Dagisthaeus, 166 whom the Lazi accused of
treason and negligence whereby Khusro consolidated his position in their country.
The Roman veteran general Bessas was dispatched to replace that perfidious com-
mander, and Dagisthaeus was cast into prison at Constantinople. 167
In the year 550, Iranian policy had attempted to detach from Roman obedience
the neighbouring tribes of the Abasgi and Apsili. A revolt of the former people was
crushed by Bessas, his subordinates were mostly successful in pacifying the Lazian
hinterland, and the treachery of a Lazic nobleman delivered an important Apsilian
fortress to Rome. 168 But more serious fighting was reserved for the following year.
A Roman attempt to undermine the wall of Petra succeeded only in lowering a
portion of it which rested upon a weak foundation; and the operations of three bat-
tering rams, employed on the advice of the Sabirs, 169 were resisted by the defenders’
projection of flaming jars of sulphur, bitumen, and naphtha upon those engines. 170
Bessas applied scaling ladders to the walls of Petra, his men ascended, a violent
struggle ensued upon the rampart, and the general himself was hurled to the
ground. 171 A torrent of missiles was aimed at the procumbent Roman general as his
men struggled to cover him, and the Iranian garrison were perhaps amused to be-
hold the Roman bodyguard dragging the aged and corpulent frame of their com-
mander to safety by his foot. 172 After a disorderly retreat, the assault was reiterated
with new vehemence, and the Iranian force, fearing that their capacity to resist
would soon be exhausted, offered to relinquish the fortress. Bessas suspected a trap,
and offered a parley without a promise to suspend hostilities. 173 But on a sudden, a
portion of the circuit wall of Petra collapsed, and an Armenian youth of the Roman
army forced his way through the breach, and his fellow soldiers followed. A great
mass of fiery projectiles was flung down upon the Romans, but a vehement wind
arose and blew the flames upon the Iranian garrison, and the wooden platform
164 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.i.3–6.

165 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.viii.1–20.
166 Or such is the claim of Procopius, (Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.ix.1–3).
167 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.11–14.
168 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.ix–x; Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 300–301.
169 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.21–26. Procopius describes the novel manner in which
the Sabir Huns constructed and used the rams (Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.27–34).
170 The Iranian garrison hurled ἀγγεῖα...θείου τε καὶ ἀσφάλτου…καὶ φαρμάκου ὅπερ Μῆδοι
μὲν νάφθαν καλοῦσιν, Ἕλληνες δὲ Μηδείας ἔλαιον (Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.36.
Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 301–302.
171 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.44.
172 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.45–51. Bessas was ἀνὴρ εὔσαρκος τε καί, ὅπερ ἐρρήθη,
ἐσχατογέρων (Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.48).

173 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.52–58
which supported them caught fire, and the valour of the defenders was broken. 174
The Roman army rushed into the fortress, occupied it, burned alive all the men who
yet resisted within the citadel, 175 and Bessas commanded the complete destruction
of Petra’s walls. 176
A TRUCE IS NEGOTIATED
As that violent contest proceeded in Lazica, the negotiation of a peace settlement
began at the same moment. The truce of five years, which began in the year 545,
was at an end, and a Roman envoy appeared at the court of Khusro to open the
negotiation, and later the Iranian ambassador appeared at Constantinople to arrange
the niceties of the treaty. 177 Yazdgushnasp was a supercilious and unspeakably pre-
tentious man, whose affectation and self-conceit were unbearable to Roman sensi-
bilities, 178 and the officials at the court of Justinian were perhaps embarrassed to
behold the huge crowd of retainers surrounding the ambassador, along with his
wife, his brothers, his daughters, and ‘two of the most famous Persians’ whose of-
fensive custom was to adorn their heads with golden diadems. 179 But the emperor
Justinian felt neither the disgust, nor the contempt, described by Procopius, and
Yazdgushnasp was received with unusual friendliness and magnificence. Roman
suspicions were aroused as the ambassador lingered at the Roman capital, and as
negotiations proceeded, into the year 551, the twenty-fifth of Justinian’s reign. The
writer Procopius derides this period as an enormous waste of time. 180
The diplomacy of Khusro aimed to protract the negotiation. The court at Ctes-
iphon reasonably expected that the Iranian position in Lazica would be strengthened
during that interval; and the retinue of Yazdgushnasp, who circulated freely and un-
observed throughout Constantinople, would have had ample time to gather se-
crets. 181 Procopius draws our attention to the vast sums of money which Yazdgush-
nasp possessed and distributed, and it possible that suspicion of bribery lurks be-
hind the words of the historian.

175 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.61–64; VIII.xii.1–16.
176 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xii.28–29.
177 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xv.1–2.
178 Ἰσδιγούσναν τε αὖθις οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον ἔπεμψεν, ὀφρυάζοντά τε καὶ ἀλαζονείᾳ τινὶ
ἀμυθήτῳ ἐχόμενον, οὗ δὴ ὅ τε τῦφος καὶ τὸ φύσημα φορητὸν εἶναι Ῥωμαίων οὐδενὶ ἔδοξεν
(Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.4). But the usual interpreter, Braducius (cf. Procopius,
Bellum Persicum, II.xxviii.41), did not participate, apparently because he had fallen under sus-
picion (Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.8–10).
180 πολύ τι χρόνου κατέτριψε μῆκος (Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xv.1).
181 This is the force of Procopius’ complaints about the embassy (Procopius, Bellum Gothicum,
VIII.xv.20–21).
As the Iranian ambassador alleged, Justinian had violated the truce of the year
545. Several accusations were presented to the Constantinopolitan court, but Pro-
copius notices only that Roman policy had encouraged Harith and his Saracens to
attack Mundhir and the Lakhmid kingdom of Hira. 182 Two thousand six hundred
pounds of gold was the price of negotiating a peace which was to exclude the lands
of the Saracens and the country of Lazica. 183 ‘Men are accustomed’, wrote Procopi-
us, ‘generally to feel shame at disgraceful appearances, not facts’, 184 and so the Ro-
man court refused to discharge the gold in repeated annual payments so as to avoid
the ignominious name of tribute. But Yazdgushnasp had achieved a settlement
which Roman opinion held to be greatly to the advantage of Iran: the armies of
Khusro, as it was believed, would inevitably extend their control over Lazica,
whence it would be impossible to dislodge them. 185
FIGHTING CONTINUES IN LAZICA

The Iranian general Mihr-Meroe had intended to relieve the fortress of Petra which
the Roman army had lately invested. But word reached him that Petra had fallen,
and Mihr-Meroe abandoned that plan. Seizing the fortresses of Sarapanis and Scan-
da upon the Iberian border, the Iranian army reestablished their supply route, and
instantly resolved to attack the city of Archaeopolis with a large body of Iranian
cavalry, a contingent of four thousand Sabirs, and eight elephants which boldly trav-
ersed the steep gorges and thick forests of Lazica. 186 But the army of Mihr-Meroes
suffered as much from want of supplies as from Roman resistance; and, despite the
use of Sabir battering rams and the valour of Daylamite mercenaries, confusion
overcame the Iranian host and a disorderly retreat ensued. Procopius blames a
wounded, or perhaps crazed, elephant which reared up, threw his riders backward,
and disrupted the Iranian line. 187 Four thousand Iranians were destroyed in that con-
fused rout, the standards of Mihr-Meroe were captured and taken to Constantino-
ple, and twenty thousand horses had perished not (as it was said) because of the
fighting but by reason of exhaustion and starvation. 188
The retreat of Mihr-Meroe ended at the fertile region of Mocherisis, a day’s
journey from Archaeopolis. The Iranian army gathered fodder there, rebuilt the for-
tresses of Cotaeum which the Lazi had earlier destroyed lest it be occupied by an
182 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xi.10. For a modern opinion on this conflict, see Shahid,
I., Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, 1995, p. 239–240.
184 τὰ γὰρ αἰσχρὰ ὀνόματα, οὐ τὰ πράγματα, εἰώθασιν ἄνθρωποι ἐκ τοῦ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον
αἰσχύνεσθαι (Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xv.7).

186 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xiii.1–30. Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 302–305.
187 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xiii.33.
188 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xiv.41–44.
enemy, and Mihr-Meroe blockaded the castle of Uthimereos. 189 The voluntary be-
trayal of that fortress to Iran represents the growing disaffection of the Lazi with
their Roman occupiers. Theophobius (that was the name of the nobleman who had
yielded the fortress of Uthimereos) assisted the Iranian government with a propa-
ganda campaign: the Iranian seizure of Lazica was inevitable, an immense host had
utterly defeated the armies of Rome, and the cause of Goubaz was lost. Khusro
himself, as Theophobius falsely maintained, had appeared at the head of an enor-
mous army, which was impossible to resist. The Sasanian monarch was said to have
offered pledges of safety on condition that the guardians of Uthimereos surrender
that fortress, they complied, and the regions of Scymnia and Suania were similarly
united to the Iranian dominion of Lazica. 190 Over the course of the winter which
proceeded into the year 552, Mihr-Meroe consolidated his hold upon that country,
he dispersed a Roman force from the mouth of the river Phasis, and drove Goubaz
into hiding atop the snowy crags of Lazica. 191 But an embassy from Mihr-Meroe to
Goubaz failed to persuade the Lazian king to relinquish his alliance with Rome. 192
The money which the ambassador Yazdgushnasp had brought to Khusro pur-
chased an alliance with the Sabirs. Those nomads, together with a large number of
elephants, accompanied Mihr-Meroe upon a new campaign in Lazica, and attempted
to capture some important fortresses – but without success. 193 The absence of mili-
tary activity in the year 553 suggests that Khusro had abandoned efforts to expand,
and had turned to consolidating, the Iranian position in Lazica. 194 At this moment
the narrative of Procopius exhausts itself, and we must turn to the writer Agathias
for the conclusion of the Lazic war.
Fighting was resumed in the year 554. Three Roman generals (Bessas, Martin,
and Buz) arrived with a large force to strengthen Justinian’s hold upon Lazica, and
the Iranian general Mihr-Meroe resolved, as it seemed, to drive the enemy from that
country. 195 The rumour was diffused that the Iranian general had died, the vigilance
of the Roman garrison at Telephis was relaxed, and that fortress was betrayed to
Iran. 196 Although the Roman commander Martin and his troops had vacated
Telephis and retreated to a fortified island at the confluence of the rivers Doconus
and Phasis, Mihr-Meroe failed to pursue them. It was impossible to convey supplies
to so large an army in the midst of enemy territory. 197 The Iranian fortress at On-
189 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xiv.50–54.

190 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xvi.1–15.
193 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xvii.11–19.
194 Greatrex, G. / Lieu, S. N. C., The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, p. 120.
195 Agathias, Historiae, II.18.6–8. Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 306–308.
196 Agathias, Historiae, II.19–20.
197 Agathias, Historiae, II.22.2.
oguris was reinforced, and Mihr-Meroe returned to Mocherisis where his health be-
gan to deteriorate. That general, whom Agathias acknowledges as a brilliant strate-
gist and superb fighter, died in Iberia in the following summer; and, in accordance
with ancestral Iranian custom, the corpse of Mihr-Meroe was exposed without the
city of Mtskheta to be devoured by dogs and carrion birds. 198 Khusro and his minis-
ters were distressed by the death of Mihr-Meroe, and his vacant post was filled by an
unnamed nobleman who bore the title Nakhwaragan, but it was some time before
he arrived in Lazica. 199
Three Roman generals had failed to expel the Iranian army, Gubaz accused his
western allies of incompetence, and his loyalty to Rome appeared to waver. Bessas
was punished by an ignominious exile, but Martin retained his post. He and a col-
league by the name of Rusticus accused the Lazian king of treason, and they pre-
sented the charge to the emperor Justinian who summoned his vassal to Constanti-
nople. But, before his departure, the Roman commanders murdered the Lazian king
toward the end of the year 555. 200 The death of Gubaz exhausted the willingness of
the Lazi to cooperate with Rome, and the commander Martin and his forces prose-
cuted the war without indigenous assistance. The Roman siege of the Iranian for-
tress an Onoguris ended in an embarrassing retreat, and Iranian soldiers from Mo-
cheresis pursued their flying enemy to the walls of Archaeopolis. 201
The noblemen of Lazica hesitated to revive their allegiance to Iran, and instead
complained loudly to Justinian of the murder of their king. 202 The Roman emperor
promised to investigate the death of Gubaz, and Athanasius, an elderly senator, ar-
rived in Lazica for that purpose. Tzath, the brother of the late king, was awarded the
insignia of rule by the emperor Justinian, and he was escorted into Lazica by the
Roman general Soterichus. At this moment, the Nakhwaragan advanced down the
Phasis with an army of sixty thousand men. 203 But he achieved no important victory,
and his abortive siege of the castle of Phasis ended in such a severe rout that the
Nakhwaragan retreated to Iberia. 204 In the brief interval of calm which followed,
Rusticus and other conspirators were arrested, tried, and beheaded in an effort to
restore Lazican confidence in Roman dominion. 205
198 Agathias, Historiae, II.22.1–6.

199 Agathias, Historiae, III.2.1–2.
200 Agathias, Historiae, III.3–11. Braund suggests that there was some truth to the charge of
treason (Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 308).

201 Agathias, Historiae, III.5.6–8.1
202 Agathias, Historiae, III.14.
203 Agathias, Historiae, III.17.4.
204 Agathias, Historiae, III.17–28.
205 Agathias, Historiae, IV.1–4; Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 308–309.
THE END OF THE LAZIC WAR

The purpose of the Roman general Soterichus was to distribute a large amount of
gold to neighbouring peoples whose loyalty had been disrupted by the murder of
Gubaz. But the tribe of the Misimians, who were subject to the Lazi, conceived of
an implacable hatred of Rome, they embraced the Iranian cause, and they slew So-
terichus. 206 Accordingly, the final campaign of the Lazic war involved efforts of ei-
ther side to restore or to exploit the loyalty of the Misimians. 207 As the winter of the
year 556 drew on, the Iranian cause in Lazica was utterly thwarted because the Na-
khwaragan and his forces withdrew from the region of Misimia, and a Roman army
invaded and occupied it. 208 This shameful defeat ended the career and life of the
Iranian general. In a transport of rage, Khusro summoned that unfortunate man
before him and inflicted a savage punishment. The skin of the Nakhwaragan was
torn downwards from his neck and removed from his body, turned inside-out, in-
flated as though it were a wineskin, and suspended from a pole – a sight which Aga-
thias calls both pitiful and disgusting. 209 With that grim image, Agathias terminates
his account of the Lazic war.

In the year 557, the ambassador Yazdgushnasp returned to Constantinople. Many a
lengthy conference with the Roman emperor and his advisers yielded to the agree-
ment of an armistice, during which embassies were to be exchanged between the
two powers, and the niceties of a treaty of peace were determined. 210 The account of
the martyrdom of Shirin, a young Iranian saint, preserves a small allusion to the de-
parture of the Roman ambassador from Ctesiphon, and the return of the Iranian
envoy from Constantinople. 211 But the diplomatic history of Menander the
Guardsman, which survives only in large fragments, has recorded a detailed descrip-
tion of that treaty and the negotiation which produced it.
The government of Iran desired a limitless 212 peace together with a large annual
payment of gold. The immediate disbursal of thirty or forty years’ worth of such
payments was the opening demand which instigated a long dispute. 213 Peter the Pa-
206 Agathias, Historiae, III.15.6–17.2. Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 310–311.

207 Agathias, Historiae, IV.13.
208 Agathias, Historiae, IV.15–20.
209 Agathias, Historiae, IV.23.2–3.
210 Agathias, Historiae, IV.30.7–10. Agathias refers to Yazdgushnasp by his family name of
Zikh.
211 See the translation of the martyrdom in Devos, P., “La jeune martyre perse saint Shirin (†
559),” Analecta Bollandiana, 112, 1994, p. 26.

212 Πέρσαι μὲν διηνεκεῖς ἠξίουν ἔσεσθαι τὰς σπονδάς, etc. (Menander Protector, frag. 6.1.134).
213 This long dispute was already preceded by a good deal of puffery from both sides (Me-
nander Protector, frag. 6.1.1–154).

trician (that was the name of the Roman ambassador) preferred a short treaty with-
out expenditure, but a compromise was achieved. Fifty years was to be the duration
of the peace; the country of Lazica was to return to Roman obedience; and five
hundred pounds of gold, denominated in thirty thousand nomismata, was the annual
price of peace. The Romans promised to provide the payment of ten years in one
large sum, seven years of which were to be paid immediately, and the remaining
three years’ worth were to be disbursed after the lapse of seven years. Thereafter
payments would be made annually. But the bulk of the treaty was intended to ensure
that the peace would be respected, and so past irritants and causes of tension were
addressed minutely in thirteen clauses. 214
I. Iran undertook to prevent Huns, Alans, and other foreigners from passing
through their Caucasian fortifications into Roman territory; and the government of
Rome promised to refrain from sending an army into Transcaucasia or through any
part of their frontier. II. The treaty would bind the Arab clients of both great pow-
ers. III. Commerce of every kind was to be conducted only at specified customs
posts in accordance with establish practice. IV. Ambassadors were to be given the
respect which they deserved, and were to be permitted to exchange whatever goods
they may have brought with them without hindrance, but they were to depart with-
out delay at the end of their diplomatic work. V. Smuggling was rigorously con-
demned and was to be punished severely. Saracen and foreign merchants were for-
bidden from using secret roads, and were accordingly bound to cross the border
only at Nisibis and Dara. VI. Defectors in wartime were to be free to return to their
native countries; but migrants or renegades in a period of peace were to be forcibly
removed to the empire from which they had fled. VII. If the accused failed to satisfy
the plaintiff, disputes between the subjects of Iran and Rome were to be settled up-
on the border of the two empires in the presence of both an Iranian and a Roman
governor. VIII. The government of Iran promised to vacate its grievance about the
fortification of Dara, and both states agreed to abandon the construction of for-
tresses along their mutual frontier. IX. Neither great power would attack any tribe
or people subject to the other. X. The Roman general of the east would not be sta-
tioned at Dara, and the garrison of that city was thenceforth to be small. XI. Ques-
tions of treachery which might threaten the peace were to be investigated by judges
along the frontier, and appeals could be made first to the master of the soldiers in
the east and second to the respective sovereign of the injured person. XII. The
blessings of God were invoked upon all who abide by the peace, and curses were
called down upon those who might alter the treaty. XIII. The peace was to last for
fifty years.
The envoys of Khusro attached to those provisions a letter addressed from the
Iranian monarch to his Roman counterpart. Menander the Guardsman claims to
214 Menander Protector, frag. 6.1.314–397.

preserve a literal Greek translation of the original document composed in Middle

Persian, and the unusual syntax of the letter suggests that the claim is true:
‘Divine, good, progenitor of peace, ancient, Khusro, king of kings, fortunate, pi-
ous, beneficent, unto whom the gods have given great fortune and great empire,
giant of giants, who is formed of the gods, to Justinian Caesar, our brother. We
give thanks to the brotherliness of Caesar for the peaceful intercourse that is be-
tween the two states. We have commanded Yazdgushnasp the divine chamberlain
and we have given him power; and to Peter, master of the Romans, the brotherli-
ness of Caesar has commanded and given power, to speak and to negotiate.
Zikh 215 and the aforementioned master amongst the Romans and Eusebius have
spoken together concerning the peace, and they have negotiated the peace of fifty
years, and all have affixed their seals. We therefore consider the provisions which
Zikh, the master of the Romans, and Eusebius have settled as a secure peace, and
we abide by them’. 216
With those words, Khusro gave his sanction to the treaty which terminated the war
in the Lazica, and which appeared to usher in a new spirit of cooperation between
the two powers. The position of Iranian Christians was the matter which the ambas-
sadors next discussed. Votaries of Christ within the empire of Iran were to be free
to build churches, to worship without fear, and to sing their hymns of praise with-
out hindrance. No one might compel them to participate in Zoroastrian worship,
nor would Christians make converts of Zoroastrians, and the Iranian government
promised to allow the rites of Christian burial and the use of graves. 217
This was the conclusion of the negotiations, and the treaty was ratified despite
a seeming omission. The two parties had failed to agree upon the fate of the territo-
ry of Suania. Both powers claimed that land as a vassal state, and its ambiguous po-
sition ensured that discussion would continue for some time. 218 But the treaty of the
year 562 held, despite the doubtful fate of Suania, and the negotiations concerning
it.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ROMAN TRIBUTE

The Roman wars of Kavad and Khusro, and the negotiations which interrupted or
terminated them, are distinguished by a mysterious, but important, feature. The de-
mand for gold, extracted by plunder or requested as a subsidy, was so frequently
reiterated that we might be tempted to infer gross fiscal mismanagement or the fail-
215 This is the family name of Yazdgushnasp (Greatrex, G. / Lieu, S. N. C., The Roman East-
ern Frontier and the Persian Wars, p. 130).
217 Menander Protector, frag. 6.1.398–407
218 Menander Protector, frag. 6.1.435–603; frag. 6.2–3. Braund, D., Georgia in Antiquity, p. 311–
314.
ure of the state to collect taxes. But the purity of the Sasanian silver drachm hardly
wavered throughout the reign of that dynasty, and gold coinage was produced rarely
and only for ceremonial purposes in quantities so small that it could not have circu-
lated as currency; 219 and so we must attempt some other explanation for the seem-
ingly insatiable demand for that metal from Rome.
In Antiquity, the merchants of the Indian subcontinent and the island of
Taprobane attained a legendary capacity to attract gold. 220 The Natural History of
Pliny the Elder remarked that half the Roman expenditure on luxury goods was to
the benefit of India, 221 and the strain of that trade upon the Roman state was no-
ticed by Tacitus in a speech which he imputes to the emperor Tiberius. 222 The opu-
lence of the Roman commerce in the east was romanticised by the poets and histo-
rians of Taprobane, for whom Roman gold was a conspicuous feature of business.
Erukkadur Thayankannanar, a Tamil poet, described the bustling port of Muchiri in
Kerala, ‘where the beautiful large ships of the Greeks, bringing gold, come splashing
upon the white foam on the waters of the river Periyar…and return laden with pep-
per’ 223 and Paranar, the first Tamil historian, noted that ‘sacks of pepper are brought
from the houses to the market; the gold received from ships, in exchange for articles
sold, is brought to shore in barges, at Muchiri, where the music of the surging sea
never ceases…’. 224
219 Schindel, N., “Sasanian Coinage,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2016. See also the
arguments in Howard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanian State,” p. 144–181. Those arguments are
based on: Alram, M. / Gyselen, R., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum, Band I, p. 76–77; 81–84;
162–167; 268–271; Alram, M. / Gyselen, R., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum, Band II, p. 88–
92; 98–102; Schindel, N., Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum, Band III/1, p. 17; 55–58; 103–11;
197–209; and Blet-Lemarquand, M. (with Gyselen, R. and Gordus, A. A.), “La question ré-
currente de la raison d’être de ’pd sur le monnayage de Khusrō II (590–628): Étude prélimi-
naire,” p. 41–58.
220 Mayhew, N. J., “How Far Can Coins Provide Evidence of Bullion Flows? A Review of
the European Evidence from c. 1000 A.D. with Methodological and Historical Implications
for India,” in Gupta, P. L. / Jha, A. K. (eds.), Numismatics and Archaeology, 1987, p. 20–26;
Chaudhuri, K.N., Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of
Islam to 1750, 1985, p. 184–185.
221 Pliny, Historia Natura, VI.xxvi.101; XII.xl.84.
222 Tacitus, Annals, III.liii.
223 Erukkadur Thayankannanar, Akam, 148 quoted in Kanakasabhai, V., The Tamils Eighteen
Hundred Years Ago, 1904, p. 16. I have modified the translation only slightly.
224 Paranar, Puram, 343 quoted in in Kanakasabhai, V., The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago,
p. 16. I found this reference and the previous one in Vickers, M., “Nabataea, India, Gaul,
and Carthage: Reflections on Hellenistic and Roman Gold Vessels and Red-Gloss Pottery,”
American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 98, no. 2, 1994, p. 231–248.
We can reasonably infer that Indian traders sought to extract gold as well from
their Iranian, as from their Roman, clients. 225 Here we have perhaps the strongest
indication of the purpose of the gold which the Sasanian government demanded
from her western antagonist. The exports of the Iranian state were considerably
smaller in value than its imports, and it is probable that most of the gold extracted
from the Roman empire was destined to offset that imbalance of trade. 226 The suc-
cessive governments of Kavad and Khusro established and maintained a monopoly
upon the maritime commerce which conducted the silk, spices, wood, and precious
stones of India through the Persian Gulf and into Mesopotamia and the province of
Persia. But carpets, cloth, glass, nuts, and dried fruit were the domestic products
exported by Iran, and the worth of these commodities was far lower than the exor-
bitant wares of India. So we may suppose that the use of gold allowed the mer-
chants of Iran to purchase those expensive imports, and thereby to correct the trade
deficit. Such an inference suggests the potent influence of those merchants upon
Iranian policy and the willingness of the government to support trade.
Though the Romans might bristle at the idea of tribute, the Constantinopolitan
court was prepared to endure the payment of subsidies. But the Iranian monopoly
upon the Indian maritime trade, established by Kavad, was intolerable to the Roman
government and Justinian resolved to dismantle it. In the year 528, Roman policy
persuaded the Christian king of Ethiopia to launch an attack upon the Jewish king-
dom of Himyar in the Yemen. 227 His purpose was to restore Christian rule upon
both shores of the Red Sea. Later, in the year 531, the emperor Justinian dispatched
an embassy to the Ethiopian capital of Aksum, where he sought and obtained an
alliance against Iran. Ethiopian merchants, acting on Rome’s behalf, were to force
their way into the silk trade across the Indian Ocean and break the Iranian monopo-
ly. A similar embassy, which arrived in Himyar, purposed to incite the Arabs of
Yemen to attack Iran upon her Mesopotamian flank. But the plans of Justinian
came to nothing: no such attack ever occurred, and the government of Justinian was
much aggrieved that Iranian importers of raw silk habitually met Indian maritime
traders at their first port of call, purchased all available merchandise, and excluded
their Roman rivals from that profitable trade. 228 But this was not the end of the
trade war between Iran and Rome.
Superior organisation and the support of a strong central government assured
the triumph of Iranian merchants in the Indian Ocean. According to Procopius,
Khusro’s invasion of Syria in the year 540 had placed a heavy strain upon the silk
225 Cf. the argument about Sasanian gold in Frye, N., “Commerce iii. In the Parthian and
Sasanian Periods,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. VI., fasc. 1, 1992, p. 61–64.
226 Howard-Johnston, J., “The India Trade in Late Antiquity,” p. 292–293.
227 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xx.1; John Malalas, Chronographia, p. 458–459; Tabari, v. 2, p.
124–125.
228 Procopius, Bellum Persicum, I.xx.9–13.
industry at Berytus and Tyre. 229 Roman manufacturers were now entirely at the mer-
cy of Iranian merchants who threatened to raise the price of silk exorbitantly; but
the state intervened to prevent this, and purchased all the available silk and sold to
private businesses all that was not required by public factories and the demands of
the palace. 230 The mandate of Justinian was that a pound of silk be bought for no
more than fifteen pieces of gold – a price which many Iranian merchants refused to
accept. The result was a great diminishment of raw silk available to factories and an
enormous rise in the price of the finished product. The instincts of a despot in-
structed Justinian to reduce the price of a pound of raw silk to eight gold pieces; and
when the garment industry of Syria was all but destroyed, the manufacture of silk
became a monopoly of the Roman state.
But the officials who administered the Roman silk industry continued to derive
the raw material from the merchants of Iran. Two monks suggested to the emperor
Justinian the famous scheme whereby the eggs of a silkworm were encased in dung,
concealed within a wooden cane, and smuggled out of China. 231 The court of Justin-
ian surely marvelled at such wonderful animals, but their appearance in Constanti-
nople, in about the year 552, could not have established a domestic silk industry
large enough to satisfy the needs of the Roman empire, nor could it have broken the
Iranian monopoly upon the silk trade. 232 In the reign of Justin II, who had succeed-
ed the emperor Justinian, the Roman state had relinquished all hope of disrupting
the commerce of the Indian Ocean. But the peculiar object of the foreign policy of
the second Justin was to dominate the terrestrial silk trade; and he formed an associa-
tion with the merchants of Sogdiana and the new masters of Central Asia – an alli-
ance which was to have dire consequences for Iran.
THE RISE OF THE TURKS

At the beginning of Khusro’s reign, the Confederacy of the Rouran held sway over
all Asia between the dying empire of the Hephthalites and the borders of China. But
the power of that confederacy had grown weak, and internal strife began to sap the
strength of the ruling house until it was overthrown by one of its subject peoples. 233
It was said that, in the early sixth century, the khaghan Chounu had been murdered
by his own mother who installed her younger son Anagui as ruler. Civil war forced
Anagui to seek refuge in China at the court of the Northern Wei whose intervention
he requested and received. But the rule of Anagui was challenged by a man with the
229 Procopius, Anecdota, XXV.13.

230 Codex Justinianus, IV.40.2
231 Procopius, Bellum Gothicum, VIII.xvii.1–10.
232 Howard-Johnston, J., “The India Trade in Late Antiquity,” p. 296.
233 I am following Kim, H. J., The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe, p. 39–41; Sinor, D.,
“The Establishment and Dissolution of the Türk Empire,” p. 291–301; and Barfield, T. J.,
The Perilous Frontier, p. 125–127; 131–133.
strange name of Brahman, who himself had sought the aid of the Wei emperor.
Chinese policy was to assist both rival khaghans, and the court of the Northern Wei
installed Anagui as ruler of the region between Turfan and Karashahr, and to Brah-
man they gave the region of Kokonor. The obvious purpose of this policy was to
keep the Rouran divided, and to increase the likelihood of warfare between the two
khaghans.
In the early 520s, Brahman attempted to form an alliance with the Hephthalite
Huns. Three royal daughters of the Hunnish king were taken in marriage, and
Brahman hoped, perhaps, that this union would assure him military support against
the Northern Wei and Anagui alike. 234 But the reaction of the Chinese court was to
arrest and detain Brahman at Luoyang until his death in the year 524. This left Ana-
gui sole ruler of the Rouran and the peoples subject to them. Anagui involved him-
self in the politics of two rival Chinese courts. Marriage alliances of the Rouran royal
house with both the Eastern and the Western Wei made Anagui a person of great
influence amongst those Chinese antagonists, but the political troubles emerging
from Inner Asia were less interesting to him. In the year 546, a hostile confederation
of nomads, known as the Töles, 235 had planned to overthrow the Rouran state; but a
man by the name of Bumin, who ruled over one of the peoples subject to the
Rouran khaghan, launched a pre-emptive attack and destroyed the Töles. Bumin
demanded a reward for his loyalty and asked for the hand of Anagui’s daughter.
The people over whom Bumin ruled derived their name, as it was said, from
the shape of a mountain near which they dwelt. The form of the mountain resem-
bled a helmet, and in their language the word for that piece of armour was türk. The
working of iron was an important industry amongst the Turks, and that mountain
was the site of their mining operations, together with their furnaces and smithies.
The khaghan conducted an annual pilgrimage to the ancient mines in which his an-
cestors had been born, and a ritual feat of iron-working was a conspicuous feature
of his investiture. In the opinion of Anagui, no ‘blacksmith slave’ could be worthy
of his daughter, and he refused the request of Bumin. 236 That Turkish king instantly
raised the standard of revolt, and in the year 552 his people had triumphed upon the
234 Cf. Kuwayama, S., “The Hephthalites in Tokharistan and Gandhara,” in Kuwayama, S.
(ed.), Across the Hindukush of the First Millennium: a Collection of the Papers by S. Kuwayama, 2002,
p. 127.
235 This people is variously known as Tölöš, Tiele, ‘Red Di’, Chile, Gaoche, and Dingling.
For more on them, see Yildirim, K., “The Twelve Families of the Töles,” Central Asiatic Jour-
nal, 60 1/2, 2017, p. 265–272.
236 For more on this memorable exchange, and the meaning of the word ‘slave’, see Moses,
L., “T’ang Tribute Relations with the Inner Asian Barbarian,” in Perry, J. C. / Smith, B. L.
(eds.), Essays on T’ang Society, 1976, p. 65.
ruins of the Rouran Confederacy – a great slaughter which was noticed in the annals
of China. 237
Khusro and the Iranian court would have observed with careful attention every
political and military development upon the Asiatic steppe. The disintegration of the
Rouran Confederacy and the rise of the Turks would have been perceived with
alarm, as that new Asiatic power advanced westward toward the region of Sogdiana,
the shore of the Aral Sea, and the frontier of Iran. 238 Competition arose amongst the
rival courts of China for a marriage alliance with the khaghan of the Turks; and this
contest, in which the Northern Qi were victorious, 239 signifies China’s acknowl-
edgement of Turkish supremacy in the world of the nomad. From this we may sense
the importance of an Iranian diplomatic mission to the Northern Wei which arrived
in the year 555. 240 The Chinese sources which mention that embassy provide neither
elaboration nor detail, but we might infer that ambassadors attempted to gather in-
telligence and to seek advice concerning the new masters of Inner Asia. Such were
the circumstances in which the Iranian government terminated the war in Lazica
and began negotiations with Rome in the year 557. 241 The menace of Turkish power
must have been the reason that the ambassador Yazdgushnasp opened negotiations
with the request for an indefinite peace, and it was surely at this moment that dip-
lomatic contact between Iran and the Turkish empire began.
THE ANNIHILATION OF THE HEPHTHALITE EMPIRE

The Hephthalite Huns, who had retreated from the page of history in the early sixth
century, were soon to be humiliated. In the midst of negotiations with Rome in the
year 557, Yazdgushnasp claimed that the Sasanian monarch had ‘overturned the
might of the Hephthalites’. 242 The real meaning of that remark must have been con-
nected with the termination of the Iranian tribute paid to those Huns, and this was
advertised as a great success of Khusro’s foreign policy. It was perhaps easy to fore-
see the proximate collapse of the moribund empire of the Hephthalites and the ab-
sorption of their lands into the expanding Turkish empire; but the announcement of
Yazdgushnasp, if understood literally, was premature.
237 Chinese Annals, p. 7; Barfield, T. J., The Perilous Frontier, p. 132.

238 Sarris, P., Empires of Faith, p. 157; de la Vaissière, É., Histoire des Marchands Sogdiens, 2002, p.
197–198; Graff, D. A., Medieval Chinese Warfare, p. 142; Barfield, T. J., The Perilous Frontier, p.
131–132.
239 Chinese Annals, p. 11.
240 Ecsedy, I., “Early Persian Envoys in Chinese Courts (5th-6th Centuries A. D.),” p. 232.
241 Howard-Johnston, J. “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,” in Börm, H. / Wiesehöfer, J.
(eds.), Commutatio et Contentio: Studies in the Late Roman, Sasanian, and Early Islamic Near East in
Memory of Zeev Rubin, 2010, p. 46–47.
242 He boasted that Khusro τὴν τῶν Ἐφθαλιτῶν κατεστρέψατο δύναμιν (Menander Protec-
tor, frag. 6.1.7–8).

The vast size of the Turkish empire meant that it could not be governed by a
single person forever. At the death of Bumin, the dominion of the Turks was divid-
ed between a son and a brother. The Turkish heartland in what is now Mongolia
passed to Muqan son of Bumin together with the title of supreme khaghan; and Is-
temi, the younger brother of Bumin, inherited the princely title of yabghu, and the
region now called Jungaria, together with the country surrounding the rivers Irtysh,
Imil, Yulduz, Ili, Chu, and Talas. Hereafter we may observe a permanent division of
the two empires of the eastern and the western Turks, ruled respectively by Muqan
and Istemi. 243
By the middle of the sixth century, the western empire of the yabghu khaghan
was the dominant power of the steppe, and Istemi appears in Roman sources as a
formidable military and political leader. The Roman historian Menander the
Guardsman has mistaken his title for the strange name Silzabul, and the Persian roy-
al tradition has produced a similar corruption in the form of Sinjibu. But this small
error hardly detracts from the clear portrait of a barbarian leader in the character of
Attila and a worthy forerunner to Genghis Khan. It was Istemi’s solemn task to
hunt down and to destroy the relics of the Rouran Confederacy which his ancestor
had overthrown and superseded. The pursuit of those nomadic fugitives, whom
Roman sources identify as the Avars, brought Istemi and the western Turks to the
steppes of what is now southern Russia and into the view of the two sedentary
powers.
It is to the late 550s that we should ascribe the strange fragment of Menander
the Guardsman which purports to record a speech of the Turkish yabghu khaghan
Istemi in which he vows to destroy the Hephthalite state:
‘When Silzabul, leader of the Turks, had heard of the flight of the Avars, and that
they had departed and devastated Turkish lands…he spoke boldly: “they are by
nature neither birds, so that they may escape by wing upon the air from the
swords of the Turks, nor indeed fish, so that going under water they might disap-
pear into the uttermost depths of the billowy sea; but they must stalk the earth
above. When my war upon the Hephthalites is thoroughly terminated, I shall at-
tack the Avars and they shall not escape my powers.” Thus it is said that Silzabul
boasted, and he continued his assault upon the Hephthalites’. 244
That bombastic utterance, encumbered by recondite vocabulary and stiff phraseolo-
gy, is obviously the declamation of a Byzantine rhetorician, and it is impossible to
imagine that the Turkish yabghu really pronounced what Menander wrote. But there
243 Barfield, T. J., The Perilous Frontier, p. 132–143; Grousset, R., The Empire of the Steppes, p. 82.
The extent of their territory is indicated on the map under the name Göktürks (‘celestial
Turks’) which is the indigenous appellation of the people of the first Turkish empire.
244 Menander Protector, frag. 4.2.1–11. My translation imitates the qualities of Menander’s
diction and syntax.

must be some truth to it: the passage was extracted from Menander’s full account of
the collapse of the Hephthalite state, and it reveals that the Turkish war upon those
Huns had already begun by the time of the armistice between Iran and Rome in the
year 557. The Chinese biography of Jinagupta appears to describe the conditions
that we would associate with warfare, for that Hindu monk passed through the
country of the Hephthalites in the year 555. His biography notices extensive but
empty fields and a sparse population which failed to produce food and drink. It was
only with supernatural aid, as it is said, that Jinagupta and his companions escaped
unharmed by the violence about them. 245
In the year 558, the fate of the Huns was sealed. The last Hephthalite embassy
appeared at the court of the Northern Zhou in that year, 246 and this must indicate
either that their empire had fallen or that it was irretrievably weakened toward the
end of the 550s. We cannot be certain of the moment at which the Hephthalite state
was finally subjugated by the Turks, but we may establish the date by which that
empire was certainly extinguished. An embassy of the yabghu khaghan Istemi ap-
peared before the Roman emperor Justin II in the year 568, and announced that
Turkish power had already humiliated the Hephthalite Huns and that they now paid
tribute to the empire of the Turks. 247
Iranian participation in the Turkish war upon the Hephthalites is very doubt-
ful. 248 The diplomatic contact between Iran and the Turks seems to have yielded an
agreement that the empire of Khusro would give political support to the Turkish
annexation of Hephthalite lands, and that the Sasanian king would connive at the
inevitable war. But there is no convincing evidence of any further involvement. An
important fragment of the History of Menander the Guardsman reports the boast-
ing of both an Iranian and a Turkish embassy before the Roman Emperor, and the
envoys announced that their respective nations had crushed the Hephthalites. 249 The
testimony of Menander is that the emperor Justin interrogated the Turkish ambas-
sador, as though he were testing the Iranian claim, which the emperor and his advis-
ers plainly disbelieved. The strength of the Turkish evidence persuaded the Con-
245 Chavannes, É., “Jinagupta (528–605 après J.-C.),” in T’oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 6,
No. 3, 1905, p. 340–341. I am following Kuwayama’s interpretation of this passage (Ku-
wayama, S., “The Hephthalites in Tokharistan and Gandhara,” p. 130).
246 Specht, M. E., “Études sur l’Asie centrale, d’après les historiens chinois,” Journal Asiatique,
octobre-novembre-décembre, 1883, p. 345. Kuwayama, S., “The Hephthalites in Tokharistan

and Gandhara,” p. 128 –130.
248 Contra Grenet, F., “Regional Interaction in Central Asia and Northwest India in the
Kidarite and Hephthalite Periods,” Proceedings of the British Academy, 116, 2002, p. 213–214;
Kuwayama, S., “The Hephthalites in Tokharistan and Gandhara,” p. 130.
249 Menander Protector, frag. 10.1.68–95. See Blockley’s note on this passage in Blockley, R.
C. (ed.), The History of Menander the Guardsman, p. 263, n. 121.

stantinopolitan court to form an alliance with that people to the great annoyance of
Iran. This was in the year 568.
The mysterious Avars, whom Istemi had sought to destroy, successfully passed
into Europe toward the end of the reign of Justinian. 250 They extended their power
from the banks of the Volga to the those of the Danube. To the north of that river
dwelt the Slavs, whom the Avars attacked and subjugated; and the westward expan-
sion of those nomads was halted and reversed by Sigebert, the grandson of Clovis,
in a memorable battle in Thuringia of the year 562. Not long thereafter the Avars
formed an alliance with the Lombards, who had settled in Pannonia, and together
they subdued the Gepids and occupied their dominions upon the Hungarian plain.
There the political heartland of the Avar khaghanate remained until Charlemagne
and his son Pepin destroyed them at the end of the eighth century. 251
But let us return to the beginning of Turkish and Iranian relations in the 550s.
The chief aim of Sasanian foreign policy must have been to ensure that Turkish
mastery of Inner Asia halted at the Iranian frontier. This implies that diplomatic
contact had yielded Turkish promises to respect the Sasanid state, but the promises
of Khusro are obscure. It is tempting to infer that Khusro had offered military assis-
tance to the Turkish khaghan. But the sources which have come down to us, and
which are not obviously mendacious or imaginary, suggest a military contribution
that was either so small as to permit the Turks to disclaim all Iranian participation,
or so large as to justify the claim of Yazdgushnasp that Khusro alone had destroyed
the empire of the Huns. This strange paradox takes shape in a great mass of im-
probable and antithetical narratives within the Persian royal tradition, most of which
announce Khusro as conqueror of the Huns. 252
The historian Dinawari is the earliest to have transmitted this tradition, and his
mendacious testimony asserts that an Iranian attack upon the Hephthalites recov-
ered the lands of Tukharistan, Zabulistan, Kabulistan, and Chaghanian. 253 At the
same moment the khaghan of the Turks invaded Sogdiana, and he annexed the terri-
tories of Chach, Firghana, Samarqand, Kash, Nasaf, and Bukhara; and the response
of Khusro was to dispatch his son Hurmazd with a large army which drove the
Turks from the border, and induced the khaghan to relinquish what he lately con-
250 Golden, P. B., “The Peoples of the south Russian steppes,” in Sinor, D., The Cambridge
History of Inner Asia, 1990, p. 260–261.
251 Schutz, H., The Carolingians in Central Europe, Their History, Arts, and Architecture: A Cultural
History of Central Europe, 750–900, 2004, p. 60–62.

252 Widengren compared the accounts of Ibn Athir, Thaʿalibi, Eutychius, Balʿami, Masʿudi,
the anonymous Nihayat al-Irab, Mirkhond, Majmal al-Tawarikh, and the Farsnama (Widengren,
G., “Xosrav Anôšurvân, les Hephthalites et les peuples turcs (Études préliminaires des
sources)” in Orientalia Suecana, I, 1952, p. 66–94). For my own position on the same evi-
dence, see M. R. Jackson Bonner, Three Neglected Sources, p. 89–101.
quered. 254 One of the narratives presented by Tabari resembles these fables. Khusro
intended, says Tabari, to punish the Hephthalites for the death of Peroz and the
Turks were invited to participate. The Sasanid monarch personally slew the Heph-
thalite king, he penetrated as far as the hinterland of Balkh, he quartered his troops
in Firghana, and returned to Iran through the region of Khurasan. 255
Another passage, also recorded by Tabari, presents a different account of the
demise of the Huns which the historian failed to reconcile with his other claims. 256
Here we read a greatly abbreviated narrative which deprives Khusro of all involve-
ment in the collapse of the Hunnish state, and there is no mention of cooperation
between Khusro and the khaghan. Tabari, however, adds the interesting claim that,
amidst the Turkish war, a body of Turks attempted to cross the Iranian frontier, but
the impressive fortifications upon the plain of Gurgan prompted them to abandon
their invasion. This account is superficially credible, and bears some resemblance to
the longer and more trustworthy testimony of Ferdowsi. The Shahnameh gives
Khusro and his court no direct involvement in the Turkish and Hephthalite war,
and the force of Ferdowsi’s narrative is that the leaders of the Hephthalite state
feared an alliance between the Turks and Iran, and those men resolved to arrest and
murder the Turkish ambassador as he passed through their territory into Iran. 257
War was the predictable consequence of that insult, and the Sogdian city of Bukhara
was the place of the battle which destroyed Hephthalite power. 258
The source of this consensus of Tabari and Ferdowsi is mysterious. But it
plainly reposes upon a tradition distinct from the propaganda informing the fabu-
lous narratives which exaggerate the involvement of Khusro in the collapse of the
Hephthalite state. 259 It is corroborated, moreover, by the testimony of Menander the
Guardsman and the annals of the Northern Zhou which ascribe the humiliation of
the Huns to the Turks alone. 260

255 Tabari, v. 2, p. 103.
256 Tabari, v. 2, p. 10–102.
‫��ازد و از دل كنند آفر�ن‬ ‫ا�� شاه ا��ان و �اقان ��ن‬

‫��ن روى و��ان شود ��ر ما‬ ‫هراس ست از�ن دوس�ى ��ر ما‬
...‫جهان از فرستاده ��دا��ن‬ ‫ببا�� ي�� تا��ن سا��ن‬
259 Grignaschi, M., “La Chute de l’empire hephthalite dans les sources byzantines et perses et
le problème des Avars,” in Harmatta, J. (ed.), From Hecataeus to Al-Ḫuwārizmī: Bactrian, Pahlavi,
Sogdian, Persian, Sanskrit, Syriac, Arabic, Chinese, Greek and Latin sources for the history of pre-Islamic
Central Asia, 1985, p. 235.
260 Menander Protector, frag. 10.1.68–95. See Blockley’s note on this passage in Blockley, R.
C. (ed.), The History of Menander the Guardsman, p. 263, n. 121. For the annals of the Northern
Zhou, see Specht, M. E., “Études sur l’Asie centrale, d’après les historiens chinois,” p. 344–
345.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL OF THE HEPHTHALITES

The appearance of the game of chess in Iran, 261 and tale of the arrival and transla-
tion of the fables of Bidpai 262 attest the penetration of Indian culture into Iran after
the fall of the Hephthalite monarchy. These romantic notices of the Persian royal
tradition are connected with a mysterious vizier Buzurg-Mihr, whose preternatural
intelligence, and whose very existence, may be imaginary. 263 But these amusing sto-
ries represent neither the most serious, nor the most interesting, consequences of
the collapse of Hunnish power in the east.
The city states of Sogdiana, which the Turks now possessed, were the great
prize of the war. Theophanes of Byzantium, an historian of the sixth century whose
work survives only in a summary prepared by the patriarch Photius, described the
history of the silk markets of Central Asia. The Turks, says Theophanes, now exert-
ed control over the silk emporia which they had wrested from the Hephthalite state,
which itself had acquired them from the Sasanian monarchy after the defeat and
death of Peroz. 264 The Turkish empire now controlled the nexus of nearly all inter-
national overland trade, and the merchants of Sogdiana now wielded greater influ-
ence than ever before upon the affairs of China. In the second half of the sixth cen-
tury, the leader of their expatriate community rose to prominence in the city of
Luoyang and with time the profitable trade in the export of horses from the Ordos
region became a monopoly of Sogdian merchants. 265 The influence of the Sogdian
people was exploited by their nomadic masters; and with the aid of those sedentary
ambassadors, the Turks began to prosecute a foreign policy more potent than that
of any former nomadic power. 266
But Khusro, as far as we are able to discern, reasserted no claim over the mar-
kets and waystations of the terrestrial silk trade, he demanded no share of any rents
derived from them, and Iran assisted the establishment of a Turkish monopoly on
all overland trade between China and Rome. Here we may behold the most signifi-

262 Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 2387–2425. These tales are commonly called Kalila and Dimna.
263 Khaleghi Motlagh, Dj., “Bozorgmehr-e Boktagan,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 4,
p. 427–429.
264 Οἱ γὰρ Τοῦρκοι τότε τά τε Σηρῶν ἐμπορία καὶ τοὺς λίμενας κατεῖχον. Ταῦτα δὲ πρὶν μὲν
Πέρσαι κατεῖχον, Ἐφθαλάνου δὲ τοῦ Ἐφθαλιτῶν βασιλέως…Περόζην καὶ Πέρσας

νικήσαντος ἀφῃρέθησαν μὲν τούτων οἱ Πέρσαι δεσπόται δὲ κατέστησαν Ἐφθαλῖται. Οὓς
μικρῷ ὕστερον μαχῇ νικήσαντες Τοῦρκοι ἀφεῖλον ἐξ αὐτῶν καὶ ταῦτα (Theophanes of By-
zantium).
265 Howard-Johnston, J. “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,” in Börm, H. / Wiesehöfer, J.
(eds.), Commutatio et Contentio: Studies in the Late Roman, Sasanian, and Early Islamic Near East in
Memory of Zeev Rubin, 2010, p. 48; De la Vaissière, É., Histoire des Marchands Sogdiens, p. 208–
212.
266 De la Vaissière, É., Histoire des Marchands Sogdiens, p. 102–153; 197–212.
cant concession which Khusro made to the Turks. The Turkish khaghan had surely
promised not to violate the border of Iran; but had he offered anything else? We
may be fairly certain that, in the reign of Khusro I, the empire of Iran reasserted
control over most of the region of Bactria, for the striking of Sasanid coins resumed
at the mints of Marv, Herat, Sakastan, Chach, Samarqand, and Balkh. 267 Possession
of those territories may be confirmed by the evidence of sealings, dated to the reign
of Khusro I, found as far as Zabulistan and Kadagistan, a region to the east of Rob
in Bactria. 268 This evidence, which is more trustworthy than the Persian royal tradi-
tion, suggests that Khusro and the khaghan had agreed to divide Hephthalite lands
between them, but the Turkish portion was by far the larger.
The relics of the Hephthalite state were now confined north of the river Oxus
and south of the Pamir mountains in Bactria, where mints continued to produce
coins in the old style. 269 That debased Hunnish remnant may have extended into the
region of Badakhshan. But the old king Ghatfar was dead. Faghanish, his successor,
wherever he pretended to rule, was nothing more than an Iranian client, 270 and that
moribund monarchy hobbled on until it vanished altogether in the eighth century.
Some high-ranking Huns attempted to serve the new masters of Central Asia in
the same duties which they had performed under their late king. One of these, per-
haps the most prominent of them, was a mysterious Hephthalite nobleman. In the
fragments of Menander’s history, we first encounter the figure of Catulph as an ad-
viser to the Hephathalite king. Only a single piece of that minister’s advice to his
monarch has survived: it was a proverb to the effect that a dog in his home ground
is stronger than ten foreigners, and by this he meant that the king should advance
no further. 271 The circumstances of this utterance are obscure, but we may fairly
assume that the fragment was lifted from Menander’s description of the war be-
267 Vondrovec, K., Coinage of the Iranian Huns and Their Successors from Bactria to Gandhara (4th to
8 century CE), p. 561–562. The mint at Balkh ceased to produce Iranian coins in the twelfth
th
regnal year of Hurmazd IV, the year 591, when that region fell to the Turks.
268 See Gyselen, R., “La reconquête de l’est iranien par l’empire sassanide au IVe siècle
d’après les sources ‘iraninnes’,” Arts asiatiques 58, 2013, p. 162–167 and Gyselen, R., Nou-
veaux matériaux sigillographiques pour la géographie administrative de l’empire sassanide, 2002, p. 152.
269 Examples of these can be seen in Vondrovec, K., Coinage of the Iranian Huns and Their Suc-
cessors from Bactria to Gandhara (4th to 8th century CE), p. 415–416.

‫��ر ��د با�� به ا��ان زم�ن‬ ‫��ار�� ما تاب �اقان ��ن‬

‫ببندد به فرمان ��رى ��ر‬ ‫�� ا��ونک فرمان ��د �اتفر‬
‫فرامش كند ��ز و گوپال را‬ ‫سپارد ��و ��ر هيتال را‬
‫��ين�� جنگ آورى ��فراز‬ ‫و��نه از ��ه ى خشنواز‬
This speech was pronounced by one of the noblemen of the Hepthalites.
271 Menander Protector, frag. 4.3.
tween the Hephthalites and the Turks. 272 But Catulph’s concern for the survival of
the Hephthalite state gave way to hostility when relations between Catulph and his
king deteriorated. ‘The man’, says Menander, ‘who has been wronged by the ruler
feels great anger against the state’, and the testimony of that historian was that the
Hunnish king had violated the wife of Catulph, and his revenge was to betray his
kingdom to the Turks. 273 But, amidst mysterious circumstances, Catulph was soon
to forsake the court of the khaghan and to reappear as an adviser to Khusro. 274
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO POWERS

AFTER THE PEACE TREATY OF 562
It is impossible to say with precision or certainty how Khusro and his court were
preoccupied in the 560s after the collapse of the Hephthalite state. But the mood
was surely grim. Repeated efforts to overturn the monarchy of Khusro and the rav-
ages of the pestilence would have promoted a spirit of heaviness at Ctesiphon. The
great push towards the Black Sea and the fitful war in Lazica had ended in failure
and retreat. A residue of that conflict remained in the form of diplomatic wrangling
over the small region of Suania, the fate of which had not been decided in the treaty
of the year 562. Debate on this subject preoccupied Iran and Rome throughout the
560s and, we may assume, promoted a feeling of tension between them.
A small infringement of the peace treaty of 562 is noticed in the Chronography of
Theophanes. Harith, the Saracen king loyal to Rome, appeared in Constantinople in
the year 563. He complained of an aggressive raid performed by the Lakhmid king
ʿAmr son of Mundhir. 275 This, as far as we can tell, was not interpreted as an act of
war on the part of Iran; the emperor Justinian appears to have pacified his vassal by
means of a generous subsidy, but tensions among the Saracens lingered. Two years
later Justinian was dead.
The poet Ferdowsi claims that, at the death of the emperor Justinian in the year
565, Khusro composed a letter and sent it to the Constantinopolitan court, and the
force of this communication was to mourn the departure of his most formidable
rival, to open relations with the new emperor Justin II, and to relieve the strain upon
the two powers:
‘… May you receive many rewards from the late Caesar, and may Christ befriend
your soul. I have heard that you sit upon his renowned throne, and that you have
272 Felföldi, S., “A Prominent Hephthalite: Katulph and the Fall of the Hephthalite Empire,”
Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Volume 54 (2–3), 2001, p. 193.
273 Menander Protector, frag. 4.1; frag. 10.1.16–18.
274 Menander Protector, frag. 4.1; frag. 10.1.19–20.
re-established its glory. Ask of us whatever you require, whether horses, armour,
treasure, or armies’. 276
The Shahnameh appears to preserve the indigenous Iranian attitude to the new em-
peror. Justin II (who is wrongly described as the foolish and inexperienced son of
Justinian) received Khusro’s envoy with great disrespect, and ignored the letter. 277
The emperor’s advisers prepared a haughty and disdainful speech which the boy
Justin pronounced before the Iranian envoy, who returned to Ctesiphon and com-
municated to Khusro the offensive bluster which he had heard at Constantinople.
Khusro’s reaction was a vow to punish the empire of Rome. 278 Such, according to
Ferdowsi, was the scene in which relations between the two great powers deteriorat-
ed into a state of war in the year 572. Although the account of the Shahnameh is not
entirely mendacious, the real cause of the war was altogether different.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHINESE SILK

To understand the failure of the peace of 562, we must return to the Asiatic steppe
and to the empire of the Turks. From the year 557 onward, the rival dynasties of
Zhou and Qi had vied for control of northern China, and each believed that the
intervention of the Turks would decide the contest. One hundred thousand rolls of
silk was the price by which each Chinese antagonist purchased first the neutrality,
and at length the assistance, of the Turks. 279 That income accumulated over the
course of a decade and by the end of the 560s it would have amounted to somewhat
more than two million rolls of silk.
A Chinese peasant might have exchanged one roll of plain silk for one hundred
and thirty-two pounds of rice, and the value of a roll of patterned silk, preferred by
the nobility, surpassed two hundred and twenty pounds of that grain. 280 But we may
form a better idea of the value of the Turkish surplus of silk with reference to Ro-
man figures, since the price of that fabric had been fixed by the emperor Justinian.

‫مسی�ا روان تو را یار باد‬ ‫ز قی�� تو را ��د ��یار باد‬
‫��س�ی بیاراس�ی ��ت اوی‬ ‫شنیدم �� نامور ��ت اوی‬
‫ز اسب و سلیح و ز گنج و سپاه‬ ‫ز ما هرچ با�� ز ن��و ��واه‬
Mine is a loose translation.
277 Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. 6169:
��‫��ان نامه پادشا نن‬ ��‫ی�� ای دورش فرود آور‬

‫��انگ��م آ�� ز آباد بوم‬ ‫ک�� ز�ن سپس روم را نام شوم‬
‫به آذر گشسب و ��ت و ک��ه‬ ‫به ��دان پاک و ��ورشید و ماه‬
‫ز گنج �هن ��کند گ�و پوست‬ ‫�� هرچ در پادشا�ی اوست‬
‫��ل جهان باد �� من ��ام‬ ‫��ا�� تیغ ما رانیام‬
279 The evidence for this is in the Zhou shu (Chinese Annals, p. 13).
280 Vainker, S. J., Chinese Silk: A Cultural History, 2004, p. 47–48.
If we assume that a roll of silk weighed about three and a half Roman pounds, and
that the price of a pound of that material remained at eight pieces of gold, then the
value of two million rolls of silk would have been about fifty-six million gold piec-
es. 281 Accordingly, the traders of Sogdiana advised their Turkish masters to seek a
new market for that expensive commodity, and they began with an embassy to the
court of Khusro in the year 568.
In the minds of the Turk’s Sogdian colleagues, that extraordinary quantity of
silk and its exorbitant value took on the form of a potent economic and diplomatic
weapon which they aimed at the heart of the Iranian economy and their Indian
competitors. 282 The scale of the threat may perhaps be judged by the reaction of
Khusro, who denied the Sogdians entry into his domestic markets. The commercial
policy of Iran was evidently to preserve at all cost the monopoly upon maritime
trade with India, and after much deliberation Khusro announced his rejection of
Turkish silk with a provocative and insulting gesture. The Sasanid king, says Menan-
der, followed the counsel of that mysterious Hephthalite refugee Catulph, who ad-
vised that all the silk which the Sogdians had offered be purchased at a fair price and
then incinerated before the eyes of the merchants who had sold it. Maniach (the
chief Sogdian envoy) and his fellow ambassadors returned to their country greatly
displeased by those events at the court of Khusro. 283 A later embassy, which in-
volved only Turks, came to a worse end: all but three or four of their envoys were
poisoned on the advice of Catulph, but official propaganda blamed their deaths up-
on the stifling aridity of Ctesiphon. 284
That narrative of Menander the Guardsman is surely founded upon the Turk-
ish account of events at the Iranian court. Khusro’s ostentatious rejection of two
embassies was the foundation of the commercial and military union of the Turkish
and the Roman empires. The lurid details of Khusro’s refusal were communicated
to the emperor Justin II in the circumstances of the embassy of the year 568, and a
part of Menander’s history was founded upon the official record of that meeting.
But the counsel of Catulph has received undue significance. We can scarcely believe
that the advice of that Hephthalite renegade prompted the collapse of peaceful rela-
tions between Iran and the Turks. We may with greater probability infer that it was
the policy of the Sogdians and Turks to antagonise Iran, to form an alliance with
Rome, and to set the two great sedentary powers at war. 285 Two important bodies of
evidence corroborate this inference.
281 One gold piece was one seventy-second of a pound, we can compute the price at just
under eight hundred thousand pounds of gold.
282 de la Vaissière, É., Histoire des Marchands Sogdiens, p. 205–207.
285 Howard-Johnston, J. “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,” p. 49.
I. It was surely obvious that Sogdian entry to the Iranian silk trade would have been
refused. Iranian treaties with Rome had always specified, or had attempted to speci-
fy, the places where trade was to occur, for the threat of espionage under the guise
of commerce was keenly felt by both great powers. The same reasoning would have
applied, but with greater force, to the alliance of the Sogdian merchants and the
Turkish khaghan. 286
II. The embassy of Maniach the Sogdian appeared in Constantinople late in the year
568 with the express purpose of forming an alliance against a mutual enemy. Justin
II received from the embassy the gift of silk, and Maniach presented a letter which
described the political order of the Turkish empire and its division into four princi-
palities, and which introduced Istemi, the junior colleague of the supreme khaghan
Muqan. This embassy, as we have already noticed, boasted of the Turkish defeat of
the Hephthalite empire, and declared their eagerness to form a commercial and mili-
tary alliance with Rome. 287 ‘We are most ready’, the ambassadors added, ‘to war
down the enemies of the Roman state who mass upon their territory’. 288 In the fol-
lowing year, the Roman general Zemarchus and Maniach departed for the court of
Istemi, where the Turkish and Roman powers formed an offensive alliance against
the empire of Iran. 289
Lavish feasting cemented that new relationship. Turkish diplomacy aimed to display
the power and opulence of their khaghan, who himself reclined ostentatiously upon
a couch of gold. An Iranian ambassador who was present at the last of the banquets
attempted to rebut in uncouth language the vehement abuse which Istemi heaped
upon his nation. 290 The Iranian embassy departed, and (we may assume) communi-
cated to Khusro what they had heard: Istemi had begun to meditate an attack upon
the empire of Iran. Khusro and his ministers resolved to forestall this assault, and to
exclude Roman participation from it, by intercepting Zemarchus and his colleagues
on their journey to Constantinople. The Kuma river flows northeast from the Cau-
casus into the Caspian Sea, and in a wooded place near a part of that river, four
thousand Iranian troops lay in wait for the Roman embassy. But with the aid of the
Ugur tribe, who were vassals of Istemi, Zemarchus avoided the Iranian ambush, and
proceeded through many lesser dangers to Constantinople. 291 The emperor Justin
286 Howard-Johnston, J., “The India Trade in Late Antiquity,” p. 297–298; de la Vaissière, É.,
Histoire des Marchands Sogdiens, p. 225–228.
288 Προστίθεσαν δὲ ὡς καὶ ἑτοιμότατα ἔχουσι καταπολεμῆσαι τῆς Ῥωμαίων ἐπικρατείας τὸ
δυναμενές, ὁπόσον ἐς τὴν κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς ἀγελάζονται ἤπειρον (Menander Protector, frag.
10.1.86–88). The strange verb ἀγελάζεσθαι must mean literally ‘to herd together’.
289 Menander Protector, frag. 10.2–3.
was delighted by the formation of the Turkish alliance, and he began to suppose
that the power of Iran would easily be destroyed. 292
TROUBLE IN ARMENIA
The Roman orient once trembled at the name of Khusro, but the destroyer of Anti-
och and the monarch who had survived the pestilence had bowed before the de-
mands of the merchants of the Indian Ocean. Now the Persian king and his court
seriously contemplated the ruin of Iran. The alliance of their great sedentary and
nomadic foes assumed an aspect more menacing than that of any former antagonist,
and the first signal of Roman aggression was an uprising in Armenia.
Votaries of Christ among the nobles of Iranian Armenia would perhaps always
claim to be aggrieved at the rule of the servants of the Sasanian king, and to be op-
pressed by the real or apparent imposition of Zoroastrianism. But in the year 571
the behaviour of the Iranian governor, whom Khusro had installed there, was espe-
cially grievous and offensive. According to the Armenian history of Stephen of Ta-
ron, the Iranian governor Chihor-Vshnasp of the House of Suren, showed no re-
spect to the noblemen of Armenia, and he was accused of philandering with their
wives. 293 Three Roman authors also attest an effort to erect a temple of fire, and this
project was interpreted as a plan to enforce Zoroastrian worship upon a Christian
people. 294 Enraged at such offenses, Vardan Mamikonean slew Chihor-Vshnasp,
fled to Constantinople where he formed an alliance with the emperor Justin. The
testimony of the ecclesiastical historian Evagrius reverses the order of those events,
but confirms the Roman assistance to Vardan and his fellow dissidents, 295 and the
writer Theophylact Simocatta implies that the Armenian uprising was prompted by
Roman interference. 296
The court of Khusro would have justly complained that the foreign policy of
Justin was illegal. Detaching the allies of either great power was repugnant to the
spirit of the treaty of 562 which rigorously prohibited defections and emigration in
time of peace. The treaty of 363, moreover, had forbidden the king of Armenia
from making common cause with Rome against an Iranian opponent; and the force
of that agreement was to confine both powers to their respective spheres of influ-
ence. But the astonishing answer of the Roman emperor was to announce the
premature expiry of the treaty of 562 and a return to a state of war. He added that it
would have been impossible for the Romans to reject the defection of fellow Chris-

293 Stephen of Taron, 84.23–86.7. This text mistakenly places the rebellion in the reign of
Justinian, but the emperor Justin II is meant.
294 John of Ephesus, Historia Ecclesiastica, II.20.81–84; Michael the Syrian, X.i; Theophanes of
Byzantium.
295 Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V.7.
296 Theophylact Simocatta, III.ix.9.
tians 297 – an indication that the government of Justin was determined to renew the
war even on a specious pretext. A Roman attack was nevertheless not immediate.
Evagrius claims that Justin made no preparation for war apparently because he was
addicted to luxurious and dainty living. But the truth is that the Romans had hoped
to use an Iranian military crackdown in Armenia as a pretext for invasion.
In this atmosphere of religious tension, it cannot be a mere coincidence that
Khusro directed a Christian ambassador to dissuade the Roman emperor from at-
tacking Iran. Sebokhth (that was the name of the envoy) was instructed to feign ig-
norance of the Armenian revolt, and to demand the payment of gold stipulated by
the treaty of 562 after the passage of ten years. 298 As the Iranian ambassador pros-
trated himself before the emperor, the cap which he wore upon his head fell to the
ground, and the emperor and his ministers were buoyed up by that apparent omen
of victory. 299 Justin probed the Iranian ambassador for a sign that Khusro had be-
gun a military intervention in Armenia. Although Sebokhth admitted that he had
heard of a small disturbance there, he begged the emperor not to disrupt the present
disposition of that country. 300 A common religion espoused alike by Rome and Ar-
menia was a weak pretext for war, and Sebokhth warned that an invasion of his
country would reveal that the religion of Christ was a matter of general belief in
Iran. 301 Should the Romans prevail in a war (the ambassador argued), killing fellow
Christians would compass their own ruin. 302 But the emperor Justin was determined
to strike at Iran with overwhelming force. ‘If the king of the Persians attempts to
move one finger, I shall move my arm’, he said; and with this strange threat, the
emperor looked forward to installing a new king upon the Iranian throne. 303
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR IN 572

The events of the war may be reconstructed from intermittent notices in the histo-
ries of Theophylact Simocatta, John of Ephesus, and Menander the Guardsman. 304
These sources describe the Armenian uprising and the events which unfolded along
the border between the empires of Iran and Rome, but Turkish campaigns in the
297 Ἐπεγκαλοῦντα τοίνυν περὶ τούτων Χοσρόην Ἰουστῖνος ἀπεπέμπετο, λέγων πεπεράσθαι
τὰ τῆς εἰρήνης, καὶ μὴ οἷόν τε εἶναι Χριστιανοὺς ἀπορίψαι ἐν καιρῷ πολέμου Χριστιανοῖς
προσρύεντας (Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V.7).
301 In fact, Menander’s assertion is that the Christian religion was believed in by everyone (Me-
nander Protector, frag 16.1.47).

303 Menander Protector, frag. 16.1.51–57. Howard-Johnston, J. “The Sasanians’ Strategic Di-
lemma,”, p. 50–51.
304 Cf. Howard-Johnston, J. “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,” p. 52–53.
east are wholly obscure. Some important details may be extracted from the Persian
royal tradition, which alleges that Saracens massed upon the southern border of Iran
and launched raids into lower Mesopotamia. 305
Iranian strategists were forced to contend with attacks on all fronts. Their
counsel was to confront the Roman army directly in northern Mesopotamia, and
then to throw the full weight of Iranian arms against the Turks in the north-east. 306
But the first priorities were to secure Armenia and the Arabian frontier.
I. Iranian foreign policy in Armenia in the 570s is obscure. But we may trust the
words of the ambassador Sebokhth when he implied that recent disturbances were
likely to be resolved. By the end of the year 572, we read of no further troubles, nor
is there evidence of a general insurrection of Christian peoples throughout the
Transcaucasus as there had been in the fifth century.
II. Sasanian diplomacy was exerted to suborn the Ghassanid allies of Rome. At that
time, they were commanded by Mundhir, who had lately carried war deep into the
territory of the rival Lakhm. At the behest of the Iranian government, the Lakhmid
king Qabus retaliated and inflicted a severe defeat upon Justin’s vassal. 307 Thereafter
Mundhir and his armies refused to fight for Rome, and the empire of Iran ceased to
fear the Ghassan. John of Ephesus, who is the source of these events, has reversed
cause and effect so as to obscure the treason of Mundhir, a fellow monophysite
Christian. An imperial order for the execution of that Arab is said to have prompted
Mundhir’s inaction, 308 but it was surely the just response of a government enraged at
his submission to Iranian influence. Mundhir is said to have asked the Roman em-
peror for gold with which to hire more troops; and when this request was denied, an
Iranian bribe may have persuaded him to allow the safe passage of the armies of
Khusro. 309 This was in the year 573.
III. Suborning the Ghassan was but one part of a larger plan of securing the Arabian
Peninsula which had begun earlier. The Iranian annexation of the Yemen should be
understood as the most important part of this policy. The circumstances of that
conquest were fortuitous. The ruler of Himyar, Sayf bin Dhu Yazan, had com-
plained to the Roman emperor Justin II of the Ethiopian occupation of his country,
but an embassy to Constantinople was rebuffed. 310 Diplomatic contact was immedi-
305 Tabari, v. 2, p. 174 with the analysis of Howard-Johnston, J. “The Sasanians’ Strategic
Dilemma,” p. 52.
306 My analysis of this war follows Howard-Johnston, J. “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,”
p. 53–57.
307 John of Ephesus, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI.3.
309 Cf. Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian: Theophylact Simocatta on Persian and
Balkan Warfare, 1988, p. 257–258.

310 Tabari, v. 2, p. 139.
ately opened with the Lakhmid court at Hira and at length Khusro’s vassal Nuʿman
brought the plea of Sayf before the court at Ctesiphon. According the legendary
account in the history of Tabari, eight hundred men were released from prison and
entrusted to the command of one Wahrez. 311 Two hundred men perished on the
voyage, but those who remained fought and defeated the Ethiopian army of king
Masruq, that monarch was slain, his people were expelled from southern Arabia,
and the banner of the Sasanid monarch was raised above the city of Sanʿa. Sayf was
made viceroy of the Yemen, and he was charged with collecting the poll and land
taxes which were to be paid to Khusro annually. 312 On the evidence of Theophanes
of Byzantium, we may situate the conquest of the Yemen in the year 570. 313
IV. The threat posed by the outer world of the nomad was felt keenly within Iran,
and for a moment it was Khusro’s greatest care to ensure that the defences of the
empire could withstand a Turkish attack. 314 Presents and the gift of rings affirmed
the loyalty of Khusro’s Caucasian vassals, a large military display announced the
monarch’s resolve to defend them, and the fortifications of the Caucasus were
strengthened. The result of this, according to a fragment preserved by Ibn
Miskawayh, was the defection of a Turkish chieftain, some of his generals, and two
thousand companions. It was their solemn duty to garrison and defend the fortress-
es of the Caucasus, and in return the Iranian state granted them provisions and, we
may assume, allowances.
V. Khusro’s attraction of Turkish defectors was surely an attempt to weaken, or to
destroy the alliance between Rome and the Turks, and the biography of Khusro
announces the success of that venture. Another fragment preserved by Ibn
Miskawayh situates what is perhaps Khusro’s greatest diplomatic triumph in the
thirty-seventh year of his reign, or the year 568. 315 Four Turkish tribes are said to
have submitted themselves to the Iranian monarch, begging his forgiveness for a
past transgression – a possible reference to previous predatory raids into Iran at the
behest of Rome. 316 Fifty-thousand Turks, including men of fighting age, their wives,
311 Tabari, v. 2, p. 140–141.

312 Tabari, v. 2, p. 141–142.
313 Theophanes of Byzantium; de la Vaissière, É., Histoire des Marchands Sogdiens, p. 224; Sha-
hid, I., Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, p. 364–366.
314 The Turks are here invoked, anachronistically, under the name of Khazar (Ibn
Miskawayh, Tajarib al-Umam, v. 1, p. 134; Grignaschi, M. “Quelques spécimens de la littéra-

ture sassanide, p. 19). For a discussion of the erroneous use of ‘khazar’, see Zuckerman, C.
“The Khazars and Byzantium – the First Encounter,” in Golden, P. B. / Ben-Shammai, H. /
Róna-Tas, A. (eds), The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives. Selected Papers from the Jerusalem
1999 International Khazar Colloquium, 2007, p. 402–403.
315 Jackson Bonner, M., Three Neglected Sources, p. 85; 106.
316 Ibn Miskawayh, Tajarib al-Umam, v. 1, p. 136–137; Grignaschi, M. “Quelques spécimens
de la littérature sassanide, p. 23–24).

their children, and their slaves, passed through the defences at Darband, and were
settled within Iran. Estates, high ranks, wages, and provisions were bestowed upon
those Turks, who were apportioned amongst the cities and fortresses of Iran,
amongst which special mention is made of the garrison city of Marv, the region of
the Alans, and Azarbaijan. Later, in about the year 570, a high-ranking Turkish
chieftain, whom Ibn Miskawayh fails to name, dispatched to the Sasanid king a letter
which asked forgiveness for a previous act of treason and which pledged future loy-
alty to the empire of Iran. 317 The response of Khusro was to upbraid that Turkish
chieftain on the ground that Roman coercion could not excuse his behaviour. It
seems, however, that a peaceful relationship was re-established between the Turks
and the empire of Iran, and Khusro endured no further aggression from Central
Asia. There is later evidence of tribute paid to the Turks in the form of money 318
and two thousand virgins taken as prisoners of war, 319 but the text preserved by Ibn
Miskawayh draws a veil over the diplomatic contact and the negotiations which
surely preceded the disintegration of the Turkish and Roman alliance.
THE WAR IN MESOPOTAMIA

When the war began, the Iranian state must have entrusted the defence of the east
to the garrisons of Marv and Nishapur and their huge detachments of cavalry. The
enormous rampart and towers of the wall at Gurgan would have seemed impregna-
ble, and there may be some truth to the legend, reported by Tabari, that the mere
sight of the wall filled the Turks with dread. It is also possible that tribute money
paid to the Turks softened the inevitable attack. 320 But Khusro’s highest objective
was to carry war into the west, and to intercept Roman forces which had already
appeared in Mesopotamia.
A small raid into Arzanane was the only Roman accomplishment of the year
572, and the general Marcian was preoccupied with matters of recruitment and sup-
ply. 321 No invasion on a large scale would be possible until the following year, and
this interval gave the Iranian government sufficient time to form their plans for war.
Early in the new year, the Roman army advanced toward Nisibis, which they at-
tempted to besiege. An Iranian force was defeated at Sargathon, eight miles to the
west of that city; but the fortress of Trebothon, thirty miles to the south-east, resist-
ed a Roman siege, and the army of Marcian retreated after ten days.
317 Ibn Miskawayh, Tajarib al-Umam, v. 1, p. 137–138; Grignaschi, M. “Quelques spécimens

de la littérature sassanide, p. 24–25.
318 Theophylact, III.6.10–11.
319 John of Ephesus, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI.7. The virgins, however, never arrived because
they threw themselves into a river.

320 Theophylact Simocatta, III.6.10–11.
321 Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V.8.
The Roman government and military command were soon to be taken utterly
by surprise. They had been deprived of reliable intelligence after the defection of
their Ghassanid ally, and Iranian disinformation had persuaded the Roman court to
believe either that Khusro was dead, or that he should soon expire. 322 But, crossing
the frontier at Circesium, Khusro advanced up the Euphrates with astonishing
speed. A small detachment of troops was entrusted to the Iranian general Adurma-
han, who began to ravage the undefended countryside of Syria. The Roman army
trembled to behold the sudden appearance of the Persian king and his army before
the walls of Nisibis. 323 The Roman host was overwhelmed by fear, and Khusro pur-
sued them to Mardin. The arms of Adurmahan put the city of Apamea to fire and
sword, and he is said to have carried off two-hundred and ninety-two thousand per-
sons into captivity. 324 Meanwhile, Khusro began the siege of Dara. Roman engines,
captured from the vicinity of Nisibis, were turned against that fortress, and after
nearly six months Dara had fallen. 325
TRUCE IN MESOPOTAMIA
Khusro had inflicted a humiliating defeat upon his Roman enemy. The loss of Dara
to a monarch who was lately believed to be dead was received with such alarm that
the emperor Justin fell into a madness from which he never recovered. 326 His wife,
the empress Sophia was made regent together with general Tiberius. Khusro opened
the negotiation of a truce. In the opinion of Menander the Guardsman, Roman hu-
miliation ensured that they should be willing to end the fighting on almost any
terms; but the government of Justin, which had begun the war, would not beg for
peace. An envoy of the Roman government agreed to an armistice of one year pur-
chased with the sum of forty-five thousand pieces of gold. 327 Khusro and his minis-
ters had wanted a longer truce; and in the following year, the Roman state agreed to
a peace of three years and to annual payments of thirty-thousand pieces of gold. 328
Amidst the negotiation, the Iranian ambassador Mahbod instructed the general
Tamkhusro to ravage Roman territory: he penetrated as far as Constantina, but
322 Rumour had reached the emperor Justin to the effect that Χοσρόην ἢ τεθνάναι ἢ πρὸς
αὐτὰς τὰς τελευταίας ἀναπνοὰς εἶναι (Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V.9).
323 Theophylact, III.10.6–7; Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V.9. For analysis, see Whitby, M.,
The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p. 257–258.

324 This was the occasion for the abduction of the two thousand virgins selected by Khusro
as a personal gift to the Turkish khaghan (John of Ephesus, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI.7).
325 Theophylact Simocatta, III.10–11.2; John of Ephesus, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI.5–6;
Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica, V.9–10.

326 Theophylact Simocatta, III.11.3.
328 Menander Protector, 18.3–4; 23.1; Theophylact Simocatta, III.12.3–4. For analysis, see
Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p. 259–260.

withdrew at the advance of the Roman general Justinian and his mercenary host. 329
As those two armies glowered at one another across the Euphrates, and even as
small skirmishing continued, the negotiations at Ctesiphon were concluded, but
Mahbod refused to receive the Roman tribute at the frontier and he compelled the
emperor Justin’s ambassadors to bring the money to Nisibis as a symbol of Roman
humiliation. 330 But the truce applied only to Mesopotamia and so fighting continued
in Armenia. This was in the year 575. 331
KHUSRO’S ARMENIAN CAMPAIGNS

The purpose of Khusro’s invasion of Armenia was to re-establish Iranian authority
in that country, and he aimed to destroy cities and towns whose allegiance lay with
his Roman antagonist. 332 The invasion began in the spring of the year 576. 333 The
city of Theodosiopolis was the first object of Khusro’s wrath, but his failure to cap-
ture it diverted him westward to Caesarea of Cappadocia. But Khusro lingered, hav-
ing dismissed Theodore, the Roman ambassador who had accompanied him, and he
demanded that the regent Tiberius send a new envoy. Thirty days elapsed and no
ambassador appeared. A Roman host, commanded by the general Justinian, thwart-
ed Khusro’s attack upon Caesarea; and the Iranian army turned northward to the
city of Sebaste which was instantly exposed to every misery and horror of war, and
left a smouldering ruin.
But that exemplary act of aggression and terror gave way to an ignominious re-
treat. The rugged crags of the Armenian mountains allowed Khusro little room to
manoeuvre, Roman forces promptly surrounded the Iranian host, and the soldiers
of the general Justinian captured the royal baggage train and acquired an immense
haul of booty. Khusro descended to the plain of Melitene and that city was put to
fire and sword. Some doubtful skirmishes ensued together with an exchange of let-
ters between Khusro and the Roman general. On a sudden, Khusro resolved to
withdraw, but the proximity of the Roman forces induced a disorderly retreat across
the Euphrates in which half the Iranian army drowned. 334 Khusro and the survivors

331 I am following the chronology in Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p.
260–262.
332 Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p. 264.
333 Menander Protector, frag. 18.6.66; Theophylact, III.14.
334 John of Ephesus, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI.8; Theophylact Simocatta, III.12.11–14.11; John
of Ephesus is perhaps the more reliable witness, and Theophylact has conflated several
events which were really separate (Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p. 265–
266).
escaped through Arzanene and the Hakkari mountains. 335 That grim reverse was
followed by Roman penetration as far as the Caspian Sea and within the vicinity of
one of the royal residences in Azarbaijan.
THE RENEWAL OF DIPLOMACY AND THE DEATH OF KHUSRO

Khusro reopened negotiations with the Romans. 336 The Iranian mission involved
two high-ranking Persians, one of whom Menander calls Nadoes, and the other was
Mahbod who bore the title of Sar-nakhwaragan. The Roman government was repre-
sented by the patricians John and Peter, by the former ambassador Theodore, and
by a physician called Zacharias. A fragment of the history of Menander the
Guardsman records that the discussion touched on the return of Dara, the matter of
the Roman tribute, Iranian Armenia, and Iberia. Conferences proceeded for more
than a year, despite an interruption when the Iranian general Tamkhusro triumphed
over a Roman army in Armenia where one hundred and twenty thousand men were
killed and thirty thousand were taken into captivity. 337 Nevertheless, it was the policy
of Khusro’s government to prolong negotiations in order to delay any retaliation
from their western antagonist. 338
In the winter of the year 578, the Roman general Justinian was dead. His suc-
cessor Maurice, the future emperor of that name, gathered an army at the fortress of
Citharizon in Roman Armenia. But forty days before the expiry of the Mesopotami-
an truce, the Iranian general Mahbod penetrated the regions of Constantina and
Theodosiopolis and captured the fortress of Thanurium in Mesopotamia. 339 Maurice
and his forces instantly departed the vicinity of Citharizon in pursuit of Mahbod. At
this moment Tamkhusro and his army rushed through Armenia and ravaged the
335 John of Ephesus, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI.9; Theophylact Simocatta, III.14.11. Roman
historians seem to think that Khusro passed a law which restricted the Persian king from
campaigning, but this is doubtful (Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p. 266–
267).
337 John of Ephesus, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI.10. Theophylact is at pains to downplay the se-
verity of this defeat (Theophylact Simocatta, III.15).

338 Menander Protector, frag. 20.1–2; John of Ephesus, Historia Ecclesiastia, VI.12. It is possible
that the Turks had again begun to threaten Iran at this moment. Throughout those diplo-
matic wranglings, a Roman prisoner held by Iran attempted to warn the Roman government
of the present weakness of the Iranian empire (Menander Protector, frag. 20.1). Asterius (that
was the prisoner’s name) may have transmitted information concerning Iran’s north-eastern
border and the operations of the Turks which threatened it (Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice
and His Historian, p. 269). But this is speculative.
339 Menander Protector, frag. 23.1.5; Theophylact Simocatta, III.15.11. There was some ques-
tion as to the precise date of its termination (Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Histori-
an, p. 269 with note 35).
environs of Amida. 340 The purpose of this raid was surely to disrupt the Roman
supply lines from their main fortresses in Upper Mesopotamia, and thereby to delay
or forestall an invasion of Iran. But the swift reaction of Maurice was to ravage Ar-
zanene, where he captured ten thousand Syrian 341 Christians, along with several im-
portant castles, chief amongst which was the fortress of Aphumon. Roman propa-
ganda held that the destruction of the countryside of Arzanene was so great that it
was visible from the windows of Khusro’s summer palace in Carduchia, and the
sight of that devastation, as it was said, hastened the death of the Persian king. 342
Early the next year, in February or March, Khusro was dead. 343 The final
months of his life had been grim. Though the general Maurice failed to take the for-
tress of Chlomaron, and the bishop of that city negotiated the Roman withdrawal,
the region of Nisibis was devastated by Roman raids, and the Iranian fortress of
Singara was lost before the onset of winter. 344 Khusro’s garrisons at Chlomaron,
Dara, and Nisibis were too weak to confront the forces of Maurice directly – a sign,
perhaps, that Turkish aggression in the north-east had distracted Iranian arms to
that distant frontier.
THE REIGN OF KHUSRO I AND THE CHRISTIANS OF IRAN

A pious historian, reflecting on the life of Khusro I, composed a surprising eulogy
for the Sasanian king.
‘He was a prudent and wise man, and all his lifetime he assiduously devoted him-
self to the perusal of philosophical works. As it was said, he took the trouble to
collect the religious texts of all creeds, and he read and studied them…He praised
the books of the Christians above all others, and he said “these are true and wise
above those of any other religion”.’ 345
Those are the words of John of Ephesus. The myth of a Christ-loving king of the
Sasanid line is also found upon the pages of the most important Armenian writer of
the sixth century. Sebeos describes Khusro’s profession of faith, his baptism by the
catholicus of Iran, his participation in the mystery of the eucharist before his death,
340 Menander Protector, frag. 23.6; John of Ephesus, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI.14; Theophylact
Simocatta, III.15.12–13.
341 The text calls them Nestorian.
342 Menander Protector, frag. 23.7; John of Ephesus, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI.15; Evagrius,
Historia Ecclesiastica, V.19; Theophylact Simocatta, III.15.13–15.

343 Theophylact composed a strange disquisition comparing Khusro and Justin who died
within about a year of one another (Theophylact Simocatta, III.16.4–13).

344 Theophylact Simocatta, III.16.1–2.
and the rites of Christian burial which attended Khusro’s sepulture within the royal
tombs. 346
The autobiography of Khusro advertises the erudition of a Sasanid monarch
who studied alike the customs of his forefathers and those of Rome and India. 347
Not only did Khusro adopt such foreign customs as might ‘adorn his power’, 348 but
he also informed the Romans and Indians which of their practices displeased him.
Despite his adherence to the law of Zoroaster, 349 Khusro vaunted his tolerance of all
religions, and announced that ‘to know and to follow science and the truth are the
greatest ornaments of kings’. 350 This portrait may be corroborated by the description
1205F
of Khusro recorded by Agathias who claims that that monarch had interested him-
self in Platonic philosophy, and had welcomed the sages who fled Justinian’s closure
of the School of Athens. 351 The claims that Khusro had become a Christian are
1206F
surely fabulous, but they can only have been invented, believed, and transmitted
because Khusro was a friend to the Christians of Iran, and they had become a nu-
merous and important population.
The appointment of the urbane and learned Mar Aba as patriarch of Seleucia-
Ctesiphon was the action of a respectful and indulgent monarch. 352 That churchman
had been educated at Nisibis, Edessa, Alexandria, and Athens where he had im-
mersed himself in the philosophy and rhetoric of the Greeks. 353 In his youth he had
been a Zoroastrian, and he was as adept in the lore and jurisprudence of the Avesta
as he was in the scripture and theology of the Christians. Mar Aba subordinated his
vast assemblage of worldly and hieratic learning to the rigours of monasticism,
which had inspired him at the School of Nisibis. But his purpose was not to sepa-
rate the Iranian church and the world of politics, but to unite them; and his vision of
an orderly and homogeneous Iranian church compelled him to purge that body of
all dissent and all lingering variation. But in Mar Aba’s attitude to the eccentricities
of Iranian Christianity, the inflexible ascetic triumphed over the pragmatic bishop.
The legal innovations of Mar Aba divided an already heterogeneous mass of
custom, practice, and organisation. He outlawed the practice of close-kin marriages
which were a Zoroastrian custom imitated by some Christians, he re-established
346 Sebeos, p. 69–70.

348 Ibn Miskawayh, Tajarib al-Umam, v. 1, p. 139:
.‫فا�ذنا من ��يع ذل� ما ز�ّن سلطانا‬

350 Ibn Miskawayh, Tajarib al-Umam, v. 1, p. 139:
...‫ من أعظم ما ��يَّنت به ا��ك‬،�� ‫ وا��تّباع‬،��‫فإ َّن ا��قرار ��عرفة ا��ق والع‬
351 Agathias, II.28–83. But Agathias rebukes those who too greatly praised the learning of
Khusro.
352 I follow Payne, R. E., A State of Mixture, p. 93–126, although I reject the author’s opinion
concerning Mar Aba and the revolt Anush-Zad.

353 Barhebraeus was greatly impressed by the learning of Mar Aba (Barhebraeus, III, p. 89).
clerical celibacy, and he forbade the participation in feasting. Such efforts of Mar
Aba had the effect of extracting Christians from the social life of their country. The
establishment of an ecclesiastical monarchy gave the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon
universal jurisdiction but failed to win general acceptance and respect. Mar Aba was
arrested and put on trial in the year 542. A brief period of confinement within his
own abode gave way to a formal exile to Azarbaijan from which he returned in year
551, the year before his death.
Mar Aba remains an influential figure and a saint of both the Assyrian Church
of the East and the Chaldaean Catholic Church, and there can be no question that
Khusro chose a great man as patriarch. But Mar Aba, as it seems, had less political
sense than the Iranian government had hoped, and Khusro’s next appointment was
Joseph – a patriarch well connected to the Iranian court, and former physician to
Khusro, but he achieved little and pleased no one. 354
354 Chronicle of Seert, II(1), p. 176–188; Barhebraeus, III, p. 95–97.

VII. TRIUMPH AND TRIBULATION
DEFECTS AND BIASES OF THE SOURCES OF HURMAZD’S REIGN

In the reign of Hurmazd IV, the empire of Iran became the dominant power of the
Near East. The Armenian insurgency, which had begun in the reign of Khusro I,
was pacified, the armies of Rome suffered several humiliations, and a victorious
campaign against the Turks drove that enemy from the Iranian frontier and recov-
ered all lands upon the western shore of the Oxus river together with the city of
Balkh. 1 The monarch Hurmazd might have been remembered as a worthy son of
Khusro, and he might have been commemorated for presiding over an astonishing
victory on two fronts against the hostile powers which had assailed Iran from the
days of his father. But the Persian royal tradition has covered Hurmazd in opprobri-
um, and the principal features of his reign have been deformed.
The son of Khusro is depicted as the model of an indolent prince, whose mo-
ments of leisure were undisturbed by the calamities that assailed his empire. 2 He
abused, imprisoned, and murdered a great portion of his nobility, 3 and the ire of the
Zoroastrian priesthood was aroused by his refusal to torment the Christians of Iran,
some of whom had risen to high station at the Sasanian court. ‘As our royal throne,’
said the son of Khusro, ‘cannot stand upon its two front legs without the two back
legs, likewise our kingdom cannot stand or endure firmly if we arouse the hostility
of the Christians and votaries of other religions, whose beliefs differ from our own’,
and the king rejected his clerics’ desire to persecute his Christian subjects. 4 The
laudatory view of Hurmazd, which we find in the Christian Chronicle of Seert, must
repose upon the opinions of grateful churchmen who escaped torment, and the high
1 Howard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,” 2010, p. 56–57.

2 Dinawari, p. 81.
3 Dinawari, p. 80–81; Tabari (v. 2, p. 172) asserts that Hurmazd murdered thirteen thousand
six hundred aristocrats and clergymen. Cf. Sebeos (p. 72) who mentions some of the king’s
noble victims by name.
4 This is a paraphrase of Tabari, v. 2, p. 173. The Chronicle of Seert confirms the benevolence
of Hurmazd towards the Christians of Iran, and the same argument is made, in nearly the
same words, in Chronicle of Seert, II(1), p. 196. For a brief, modern analysis, see Payne, R., A
State of Mixture, p. 164–168.
237
honour of the patriarch Ezechiel, and his successor Ishoʿyahb, confirms perhaps the
sincerity of a tolerant prince. 5 But such indulgence was a great irritant to the Zoroas-
trian nobility and priesthood.
Only one complaint against Hurmazd appears to be attested in both the Per-
sian royal tradition and the work of a Roman historian. The substance of the griev-
ance was that Hurmazd mistreated a portion of the Iranian military. Although the
payment of foot soldiers was apparently ample under the rule of Hurmazd, the writ-
er Tabari claims that that Persian prince deprived the officer class of resources and
aroused their profound resentment and hatred. 6 This testimony may be corroborat-
ed by the history of Theophylact which asserts that Hurmazd reduced the army’s
pay by one tenth. 7 The resultant discontent within the Iranian army, and amongst its
commanders, gave way to a rebellion which nearly overturned the rule of Hurmazd
in the year 590.
To the stinginess of Hurmazd we may add the doubtful claim that he was de-
scended on his mother’s side from the yabghu khaghan of the Turks. 8 In the Persian
royal tradition, the invocation of the king’s Turkish ethnicity became a rallying cry of
the rebels who overthrew him, and their insult reposed upon an alleged marriage
alliance between Khusro I and a daughter of the khaghan. According to the elabo-
rate account of Ferdowsi, an Iranian minister, by the name of Mihran-Sitad, com-
pleted the perilous journey to the court of the khaghan, where the marriage alliance
was ratified, and the grateful khaghan evacuated Sogdiana, Samarqand, and Chach,
and ceded those lands to Khusro. 9 Close examination demonstrates, however, that
this narrative cannot be trusted.
I. It is inconceivable that a marriage alliance, by virtue of which the khaghan gave up
his daughter to the Iranian king, could have persuaded the Turks to cede to Iran a
large portion of the territories lately wrested from the Hephthalite Huns. The ruin
of the Hephthalite empire gave way to Turkish supremacy throughout Central Asia
and along the north-eastern flank of Iran. Why would the khaghan have then trans-
formed himself into an Iranian vassal?
II. The silence of contemporary, or nearly contemporary sources, is a convincing
reason to reject claims of any sort of Persian and Turkish marriage alliance. The au-
tobiography of Khusro I, persevered by Ibn Miskawayh, suggests an association
between the Sasanid king and fifty thousand Turks who had been settled within
Iran. Those Turks were supposedly divided into seven groups, and Khusro gave
estates and wages to all their chieftains. But no marriage union is mentioned or sug-
5 Chronicle of Seert, II(1), p. 195–196. Labourt, J., Le christianisme, p. 197–207.

6 Tabari, v. 2., p. 173.
7 Theophylact, III.16.13.
8 Dinawari, p. 76; Tabari, v.2, p. 173.
9 Ferdowsi, Nushin-Ravan, l. l. 2062–2065; 2152–2252; 2282–2284.
VII. TRIUMPH AND TRIBULATION 239
gested, and the Turks who came to Iran in 568 lacked a single leader. 10 Nor is a mar-
riage union mentioned by Menander, or at least not in the fragments of his work
that have survived, nor is it included in Chinese annals, which are otherwise inter-
ested in Turkish marriage alliances, even when external powers are involved. 11 Most
astonishing of all, it is not even mentioned in the History of the Caucasian Albanians, 12
where we would have expected to find it. In this text Khusro II addresses himself to
the king of the Turks, alleging close, familial ties between his house and them, but
the Persian king fails to mention that he was the grandson of a Turkish khaghan.
III. Finally, the historian Dinawari mentions that Khusro I dispatched his son
Hurmazd at the head of a great army against the Turkish khaghan, and the Turkish
advance into Iran was thereby halted. 13 If Hurmazd had been the product of a Per-
sian and Turkish marriage alliance, he cannot have been born before that alliance was
contracted. This error is also found in the history of Tabari, and it appears that that
author recognised this problem and supplied the impossible claim that Hurmazd
had been born to Khusro and the khaghan’s daughter long before the Hephthalite
war, and before the appearance of the Turks. 14
The origin of Hurmazd’s Turkish ancestry is perhaps a misunderstanding of
the marriage between Khusro I and a daughter of the Hephthalite king. The writer
Sebeos makes Hurmazd the offspring of such a union, 15 and the claim is far from
implausible, for a Hephthalite princess was the wife of Khusro’s father Kavad, and
the Hephthalite thraldom of Iran lasted until the mid 560s when the Turks over-
threw them.
It is possible to imagine that some of the defects, which I have rehearsed, are
not mendacious distortions, but rather exaggerations, of the truth. The reign of
Hurmazd terminated in insurrection and civil war, and the Persian throne was shak-
en first by the rebellion of a general who was not of the Sasanid line and then by the
son and brothers-in-law of Hurmazd. The propaganda of two rival factions has
therefore left a deep impression upon indigenous Iranian history. If that propaganda
10 Ibn Miskawayh, Tajarib al-Umam, v. 1, p. 136–137.

11 Between 554 and 556, for instance, the Turkish chief, whom the Chinese called Sikin, is
said to have promised his daughter to Emperor Taizu of the northern Zhou; upon the un-
timely death of Taizu, another of Sikin’s daughters was promised to his successor Emperor
Gaozu, but this alliance was prevented by the Emperor of the northern Qi, who contracted a
marriage alliance with Sikin (Chinese Annals, p. 11). Sikin, whom Liu calls ‘Sse-kin’ should be
identified with Muqan khaghan.
12 Moses Daskhurantsi, II.12, p. 88.
14 Tabari, v. 2, p. 103.
15 Sebeos, p. 72–73. Contra Shahbazi who claims that there may have been a misunderstand-
ing of a union between Khusro I and a Khazar princess (Shahbazi, S., “Hormozd IV,” in
Encyclopaedia Iranica, XII, 5, 2004, p. 466–467).
was recorded, it must have been believed; if it was believed, its roots must have been
grounded in fact. But the historian must be on guard against reporting the biases of
the enemies of Hurmazd without the corroboration of foreign sources. So we may
be grateful that the opening of Hurmazd’s reign is covered in the surviving frag-
ments of Menander the Guardsman and the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus
– sources which I have already introduced. The histories of Theophylact Simocatta
and Sebeos, which cover the remainder of that reign, and those of Hurmazd’s suc-
cessors, are the principle texts which corroborate or correct the Persian royal tradi-
tion.
Theophylact was the third and last continuator of the writer Procopius. He was
an Egyptian lawyer who held high office in the reign of the emperor Heraclius.
Documentary evidence, which abounds in the work of Theophylact, came through
intermediary texts: two of these were laudatory biographies of senior generals whose
dispatches had served as primary sources. 16 Other texts exploited by Theophylact
for the Iranian part of his history were of a more literary cast, but are nevertheless
trustworthy. His chief sources in this connexion were the lost history of John of
Epiphaneia who covered the approach to war and its beginning in the year 603, and
very probably a version of Sasanian dynastic history. 17 An oral source, whom The-
ophylact calls ‘a recorder of royal memoranda’ 18 within the Iranian chancery, may
have been an ambassador to Constantinople in the reign of the emperor Heraclius.
The style of Theophylact reveals a man whose greatest care was to involve even the
simplest of meanings within the most elaborate swathings of ornate declamation and
sententious bombast. Modern criticism has pronounced Theophylact the most af-
fected and stilted of all Byzantine writers, 19 but the churchman Photius put it best:
‘…the excessive use of figurative expressions and allegorical ideas is frigid and
shows a childish lack of taste; furthermore his frequently unseasonable moralisin
reveals a fondness for excessive and superfluous conceit’. 20 Yet the work of The-
ophylact is the fullest and most circumstantial source for the reign of Hurmazd.
16 The objects of these putative encomia were the homonymous father of the emperor Hera-
clius who had served in the east in the 580s, and Priscus who had become a chief senatorial
ally of the partisans of the emperor Heraclius towards the end of reign of the usurper Pho-
cas.
17 Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p. xxi–xxv.
18 ἱερομνήμων is Theophylact’s expression (Theophylact, III.6.1), which the Whitbys con-
strue as as ‘sacred official’ (See note 87 in Whitby, M. / Whitby, M., The History of Theophylact
Simocatta: An English Translation with Introduction and Notes, Oxford, 1986, p. 101). Precisely
what Theophylact means is obscure, and I have employed Frendo’s translation (Frendo, D.,
“Theophylact Simocatta on the Revolt of Bahram Chobin and the Early Career of Khusrau
II,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series, vol. 3, 1989, p. 77–78.
19 Wilson, N. G., Scholars of Byzantium, 1983, p. 105.
20 The judgement of the patriarch should be quoted in full: Ἡ μέντοι φράσις αὐτῷ ἔχει μέν
τι χάριτος, πλήν γε δὴ ἡ τῶν τροπικῶν λέξεων καὶ τῆς ἀλληγορικῆς ἐννοίας κατακορὴς
The history attributed to Sebeos is perhaps equally veracious and its style less
pretentious. The Armenian history of Lazar Parpetsi, which terminates in about the
year 484, had given way to the strange silence of Armenian historiography through-
out the sixth century, 21 but that silence was broken by Sebeos. The author was a
churchman with access to the archives of the Patriarchate at Dvin, and his work
runs from about the year 570 down to the time of writing in the 650s, and an inter-
esting supplement was added in the year 661. There is a solid documentary founda-
tion to this history, as well as a clear chronological framework. According to Sebeos,
Khusro II is the maleficent figure responsible for the destruction of the old world
order, and the collapse of the Sasanid state. The great war of the year 603 was the
primary theme of Sebeos’ history, and the author describes it in startling, apocalyptic
tones; but a long introduction surveys the most important events of the recent past,
including the Armenian opposition to Iranian rule, the death of Khusro I, the insur-
rection of Bahram Chobin, and the events which followed after the coronation of
Khusro II. 22
THE BEGINNING OF HURMAZD’S REIGN

As the life and reign of Khusro I drew to an end, the two powers grew weary of war
and again sought peace. A spirit of clemency compelled the Roman emperor Tiberi-
us to release as a gift to Khusro the Iranian prisoners of war held in Roman captiv-
ity. Amongst them was a physician by the name of Zacharias whom the imperial
government dispatched as an envoy to the Iranian court. A former member of the
imperial bodyguard who bore the name Theodore was raised to the rank of general
and together he and Zacharias received full ambassadorial powers and were in-
structed to make peace on any possible terms. 23 Menander has preserved the sub-
stance of a letter addressed to Khusro by Tiberius who announced his natural
friendship towards his Iranian counterpart. That epistle announced the Roman gov-
ernment’s readiness to cede to Iran all Iranian Armenia and Iberia (save only such
Persarmenians and Iberians as wished to remain subject to the emperor), together
χρῆσις εἰς ψυχρολογίαν τινὰ καὶ νεανικὴν ἀπειροκαλίαν ἀποτελευτᾷ. Οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ τῆς
γνωμολογίας οὐκ ἐν καιρῷ παρενθήκη φιλοτιμίας ἐστὶ περιέργου καὶ περιττῆς (Photius, Bib-
liotheca, cod. 65).
21 Andrews, T. L., “Identity, Philosophy, and the Problem of Armenian History in the Sixth
Century,” in Wood, P., History and Identity in the Late Antique Near East, 2013, p. 29–41.
22 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in
the Seventh Century, 2010, p. 70–102; Thomson, R. W. / Howard-Johnston, J. / Greenwood,

T., The Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos, vol. 1, 1999, p. xxxiii–xxxix.
23 Τιβέριος ὁ αὐτοκράτωρ…ἐφῆκε Ζαχαρίᾳ τε καὶ Θεοδώρῳ καὶ μεγίστων πρέσβεων ἔχειν
ἰσχὺν καὶ τὴν εἰρήνην ὡς ἄν οἷοί τε ἔσοιντο διατιθέναι (Menander Protector, frag. 23.8.21–
24).
with the fortress of Aphumon and the land of Arzanene. There was but a single
condition: that the castle of Dara be returned to Rome. 24
The court of Khusro had submitted a reciprocal provision, but the government
at Ctesiphon might well have acceded to that one demand and happily received
those territories without it. The Iranian envoy Farrokhdad 25 arrived at Constantino-
ple in the winter of the year 579 bearing a letter from the Sasanid monarch, and
Menander purports to quote the text of it.
‘If you wished to do what is just, O emperor of the Romans, you would do well
to render to us the leaders who plotted the uprising of Iranian Armenia and make
them suffer penalties as they are strung up in the borderlands of the Persian and
Roman realms. You would also pay to the Persians damages for what occurred
there. But if you are opposed to these things, at least do what befits friends: let
officials of both states meet at the border and arrange, as far as they are able, a
treaty of peace; and so that these matters may move forward, let there be a
truce’. 26
That correspondence between Ctesiphon and Constantinople shows that the two
powers were prepared to grant significant concessions in exchange for peace. The
oft-repeated demand for annual payments of gold was notably omitted, Farrokhdad
and the emperor Tiberius agreed upon terms substantially similar to the original
Roman proposal, and a truce of two or three months was granted for the ratification
of that agreement. 27 But the death of Khusro intervened.
‘The Romans and the Persians would have confirmed the treaty of peace’, says
Menander, ‘had Khusro not departed from among men, and his son Hurmazd (a
truly evil man) taken up the diadem’. 28 Upon the accession of Hurmazd, the Roman
government reiterated the same terms of peace which Khusro had arranged, and a
lengthy negotiation ensued. The testimony of Theophylact compresses the interval
between the opening of negotiation and the resumption of warfare, and thereby cre-
ates the appearance that the failure of diplomacy was almost immediate. 29 But Me-
nander the Guardsman presents the more reliable and detailed portrait of confer-
ences deliberately protracted over the course of several months – a delay which al-
lowed the countryside to recover from Roman depredation, while the Iranian army
refurnished with supplies the castles and fortresses of Mesopotamia. 30 Zacharias and

25 Menander called him Φερογδάθης (Menander Protector, frag. 23.8.49).
30 Menander Protector, frag. 23.8–9. My analysis of this period follows Whitby, M., The Em-
peror Maurice and His Historian, p. 271–275.

Theodore endured a procession of irksome delays contrived by the Iranian court;

and a confinement of three months within a dark and ill-ventilated room at Ctesi-
phon amidst the burning heat of summer degraded the envoys of Rome. 31 Small
skirmishing continued in Armenia, 32 and the two powers fortified their positions
along the river Batman, 33 but the diplomatic stratagems executed at the Persian capi-
tal delayed all important military action until the year 580.
The Sasanid monarch announced his rejection of the Roman terms at a formal
audience with the ambassadors of the emperor Tiberius. Dara would never be retro-
ceded to Rome, nor would any other city which Iran had wrested from her western
antagonist. Khusro, as Hurmazd explained, might have been content to return a city
which he had acquired, but the new king refused to abandon what he had inherited
from his father. The nobleman Mahbod spoke on behalf of Hurmazd and arraigned
the arrogance of the Romans, who foolishly expected to receive Dara without a mili-
tary victory; and he reasserted the Iranian demand for annual subsidies. ‘Let the
Romans know’, he declared, ‘that I shall never consent to the peace treaty, unless
they are willing to restore the annual payments which we received from the emperor
Justinian!’ 34 That reply was followed by the abrupt dismissal of the Roman embassy.
According to the testimony of Menander, Zacharias and Theodore were provisioned
by their Iranian hosts with an inadequate supply of food, their escorts compelled
them to make long delays, and they were led by a disorientating and circuitous route
out of Iran. 35 When news of the failed embassy reached Constantinople, prepara-
tions began for war.
THE RESUMPTION OF WAR

The Roman plan was to carry war deep into Media while Romanophil Saracens har-
assed and defeated their Iranian counterparts. But no sieges are recorded, and the
writer Theophylact describes only violent ravaging throughout the year 580. 36 In the
spring of the following year, Roman forces, their Arab allies, and a small navy of
supply boats proceeded boldly down the Euphrates with the intention of laying
siege to the Iranian capital. 37 Not every error of the disastrous expedition of the em-
peror Julian was repeated, but the bulk of the Roman army had been drawn into the
plain of Babylon and the cities to the north were defenceless against every calamity
of war. Roman forces halted in the vicinity of Ctesiphon where the Iranian army had
31 Menander Protector, frag. 23.9.102–117; John of Ephesus, VI.22.

32 Sebeos, p. 71.
33 Menander Protector, frag. 23.9.18–23; John of Ephesus, VI.35.
37 The most reliable account is that of Theophylact, III.17.5–6. Other sources are John of
Ephesus, VI.16–18 and Evagrius, V.20.

severed the bridge across the river Tigris. At this moment the Iranian general
Adurmahan appeared in Upper Mesopotamia at the head of a numerous army,
which destroyed and burnt everything as far as Edessa and thence southward to
Callinicum. The Roman host was compelled to withdraw instantly, and the general
Adurmahan vacated his enemies’ line of retreat. 38 Though the writer Theophylact
alleges a Roman triumph over Iranian forces, John of Ephesus more plausibly de-
scribes an Iranian withdrawal and a contemptuous letter sent from Adurmahan to
his Roman antagonist. ‘Although I have heard that you shall fall upon me’, said the
Iranian commander, ‘do not trouble yourselves to come, for you are worn out with
the weariness of marching. But rest, and I shall come to you’. 39 The text of the letter
may be genuine, or it may be an invention calculated to excuse the behaviour of
Mundhir whom the Roman government blamed for the failure of the entire expedi-
tion. 40 But the real cause of that reverse was Roman indiscipline and the foolish plan
to deprive Upper Mesopotamia of troops. 41
The Iranian success of the year 581 compelled Rome to sue for peace a second
time in the early reign of Hurmazd. 42 When negotiations collapsed in the year 582,
the Iranian general Tamkhusro led an army across the frontier and battle was joined
in the vicinity of Constantina. A common soldier whose name is unknown, or per-
haps a Christian enthusiast by the name of Constantine, slew Tamkhusro and the
dispirited Iranian host withdrew to the Wadi Dara where they remained for three
months. 43 Leaving his troops at Constantina, the Roman field commander Maurice
returned to Constantinople and was proclaimed emperor on the fifth day of August.
Conflict in the Near East mutated into a torpid war of attrition and continued
for six years. Reciprocal devastation and sieges afflicted both sides of the Tigris,
while the Roman army attempted to rid Arzanene of Iranian influence and control.
The position of Iran should have been secured by possession of Dara and the col-
lapse of Rome’s alliance with the Ghassanid Arabs, but the soldiers of Hurmazd
failed to achieve anything beyond the defence of their own position. 44
Late in the year 582 the forces of the Iranian general, whom Theophylact calls
by his title Kardarigan, defeated a Roman army at the confluence of the rivers
Nymphius and Tigris, and that Roman historian blames this failure on exhaustion
38 John of Ephesus, VI.17.

39 John of Ephesus, VI.17.
40 John of Ephesus, III.40–41. Mundhir had achieved, however, some important success
against the Lakhmid Arabs, whose capital he attacked and burnt (John of Ephesus, VI.18).
41 Menander describes the lack of Roman discipline (Menander Protector, frag. 23.11.8–12).
43 Menander Protector (frag. 26.5) blames an anonymous soldier, and John of Ephesus
(VI.26) credits the enthusiast Constantine.

44 My analysis of this period follows Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p.
276–286.
and indiscipline. 45 The fortress of Aphumon, lately captured by Rome, was the ob-
ject of the Iranian war effort in the year 583. But the Roman army instantly formed
the siege of an Iranian castle nearby at Aqba, and the soldiers who assaulted
Aphumon were drawn away from their objective for the defence of that fortress
which Rome at length captured and destroyed. 46
DIPLOMATIC DELAYS
The events of the following year can be reconstructed only in vague outline. Chapter
headings which have survived the loss of a portion of John of Ephesus’ Ecclesiastical
History declare that the government of Hurmazd sued for peace after the fall of
Aqba. An Iranian ambassador arrived at Constantinople in the year 584, and the
court of the emperor Maurice dispatched an envoy to Ctesiphon in return. But ne-
gotiations failed, despite the arrival of a second Iranian embassy to the Roman capi-
tal. 47 At this moment, conflict among the Ghassanid Arabs, who were loyal to
Rome, shattered that federation into fifteen rival factions, and a portion of them
defected to Iran. 48 Here we may perhaps behold the influence Iranian espionage,
and the diplomatic exchange with the court at Constantinople was a tactic to delay
and distract the Roman state.
Meanwhile, the Roman encampment at Monocarton, in the vicinity of Con-
an thrust led by the general Kardarigan into the region of Tur ʿAbdin came to noth-
stantina was strengthened as a forward base from which to menace Iran. 49 An Irani-
ing when Roman forces penetrated as far as Nisibis and ravaged its environs. That
Iranian general retreated eastward in order to expel his antagonists, but the Romans
withdrew and avoided battle. 50
In the year 585, Iranian military command formed a bold plan to destroy the
Roman base at Monocarton. The general Kardarigan mounted a vigorous, but un-
successful, siege of that encampment, and then proceeded northwards to the vicinity
of Martyropolis where he destroyed the church of John the Baptist and withdrew –
most probably to Iranian Armenia. 51 The court of Hurmazd again reopened negotia-
tions for peace in the spring of the following year. Mahbod was dispatched as an
ambassador to meet the Roman general Philippicus at the city of Amida, where Ira-
nian terms were disclosed at a military conference. The speech which the writer
Theophylact attributes to the envoy Mahbod seems rather an aggressive harangue
45 Theophylact, I.8.4–11.
46 Theophylact, I.12.1–7; John of Ephesus, VI.36.
47 John of Ephesus, VI.37–39.
48 Michael the Syrian, X.xix; John of Ephesus, VI.41–42.
49 Theophylact, I.14.6.
50 Theophylact, I.13.1–12.
51 Theophylact, I.14.1–10. See note 78 in Whitby, M. / Whitby, M., The History of Theophylact
Simocatta, p. 41.
than the address of an ambassador, and it is plainly the composition of a Byzantine

rhetor. 52 But it is surely grounded in truth. Though the precise figure stipulated by
Mahbod is not mentioned, the Iranian demand for gold as the price of peace must
be genuine. This demand was communicated to the Roman government, it was re-
fused, and Roman forces again prepared to invade Iran.
THE IRANIAN REVERSE AT SOLACHON

The general Kardarigan advanced to meet his western foe. The Roman position at
the plain of Solachon required the Iranian host to traverse a waterless desert, and
Roman strategists expected the crossing to weaken the soldiers and cavalry of Iran. 53
But a prophecy of the Magi predicted victory and fortified the resolve of the
Kardarigan: a train of camels was laden with water-skins, and the Iranian host ad-
vanced upon Monocarton. Some Iranian spies were captured, and torture revealed
the plans of the general Kardarigan who intended to attack his Christian foe on
Sunday. When battle was joined, the Iranian host was thrown into confusion, the
Kardarigan fled to a hill top, and the ruins of his army were refused entry at the for-
tress of Dara whither they had fled. 54 This Roman victory was followed by an incur-
sion into Arzanene, where the Kardarigan and the remnants of his army resisted the
and thence to Amida; and his efforts to fortify Roman positions in the Tur ʿAbdin
Roman siege of Chlomaron. Philippicus, the Roman general, withdrew to Aphumon
plain gave way to an illness which required him to yield command to the general
Heraclius. 55 Roman operations of the year 586 concluded with devastating raids into
Corduene and Beth Arabaye, 56 and in the following year similar attacks achieved the
capture of three Iranian fortresses in the vicinity of Dara. 57
THE ROMAN MUTINY AND THE SUPREMACY OF IRAN

This contest in the most heavily fortified portion of the Iranian and Roman frontier
might have been protracted to the utter exhaustion of the belligerents. But tension
grew within the Roman army, and transformed itself into mutiny at the publication
52 Ἄνδρες πολέμιοι…ὁπλίσατε τὴν εἰρήνην ἀποχειροτονοῦντες τὸν πόλεμον, δόρυ καὶ ξίφος
ὡς γεγηρακότα χαιρέτωσαν, καὶ στρατεύσατε σύριγγα πρᾷον ὁμου καὶ ποιμενικὸν
περιλαλοῦσαν τερέτισμα, etc. is the preposterous beginning to the speech (Theophylact,
I.15.3–10). The Roman listeners are said to have hissed and shouted throughout the ambas-
sador’s speech, to which they might have objected, had it really been pronounced, entirely on
aesthetic grounds.
53 Theophylact, II.1.1–7.
54 Theophylact, II.3.1 to 4.14.
55 This is the father of the future emperor of the same name.
56 Theophylact, II.5.1 to II.10.5.
57 Theophylact, II.10.6 to II. 18.1–26.
of an imperial edict reducing military pay by one quarter. 58 All operations were un-
dertaken with extreme and deliberate slowness or halted altogether between the
eighteenth day of April of the year 588 and the ninth day of the same month in the
following year. 59 The government of Hurmazd made some important efforts to take
advantage of Roman paralysis, and despite a reversal at Martyropolis in the year 588,
that city fell by the subterfuge and defection of a Roman officer in the following
year. 60 Roman victories in autumn of the year 589, and their seizure of the fortress
at Aqba, could not offset Iran’s strategic advantage along her western frontier.
WARFARE IN THE EAST

The court at Ctesiphon now turned its attention to the great power which dominat-
ed Asia and Europe, and which had menaced Iran since the fall of the Hephthalite
Huns. In the decade of the 570s, the advance of the Turks upon the Iranian border
had merely been deterred, but the moment to confront them directly was come. 61
Muqan, supreme khaghan of the Turks, had been succeed by his brother Topo; but
at the death of Topo in the year 581 a sanguinary contest of succession erupted. The
late khaghan had left the throne to his nephew Daluobian – a disruption of the cus-
tomary succession from eldest to youngest brother and eldest to youngest son. As a
result of this apparent abuse, a conclave of Turkish grandees appointed Ishbara,
grandson of Bumin who had thrown off the Rouran yoke, and a civil war ensued.
The Sui dynasty of China had lately repelled and punished an attack upon its north-
ern border by the forces of Ishbara, but that sedentary power intervened in the
Turkish civil war on the side of Ishbara against his cousin and rival Daluobian. In
the year 588, Dulan (the son of Ishbara) had inherited the cause of his father against
three other rivals, but in the year 595 the final victory went to Tardu son of Istemi. 62
Iranian intervention began in the year 588 when the Turkish throne was disputed by
four pretenders.
THE RISE OF THE GENERAL BAHRAM CHOBIN

The sources which narrate the period from the accession of Hurmazd to the con-
frontation between Iran and the Turks are distinguished by the strange retreat of the
Sasanid monarch into almost total obscurity. The domineering presence of Khusro I
59 Theophylact, III.1–4. My analysis follows Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Histori-
an, p. 286–289.
61 I am following the analysis of Howard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,”
2010, p. 56–57.
62 Graff, D. A., Medieval Chinese Warfare, p. 142–143; Barfield, T. J., The Perilous Frontier, p.
133–138; Wright, A. F., The Sui Dynasty, 1978, p. 188. I owe the first two references to Mr
James Howard-Johnston.
has given way to the tenebrous figure of Hurmazd whose throne was to be assailed
by an illustrious general of the ancient family of Mihran. Bahram Mihrewandak, 63 or
Bahram Chobin 64 as he is called in the Persian royal tradition, had distinguished
himself in the armies of Khusro I and had commanded a brigade of cavalry at the
siege and capture of Dara in the year 572. 65 His hereditary estates surrounded the
city of Rey, and his lineage originated, as it was believed, among the Arsacid kings of
Iran. 66 It was Bahram who led the victorious intervention against the Turks in Cen-
tral Asia – a military exploit which, for a fleeting moment, made the empire of Iran
the foremost power of the Near East and which was long remembered in Persian
lore.
Ibn Nadim, the bibliophile who flourished in the tenth century of our era, pre-
pared a catalogue of books which mentions a work called The Book of Bahram Cho-
bin. 67 The same text is mentioned by the writer Masʿudi whose historical work,
known as The Meadows of Gold, includes a narrative of the exploits of Bahram; and all
other texts of the Persian royal tradition recount the same tale. 68 The strength of
those connections allows us to reconstruct the contents of the lost Book of Bahram
Chobin, and it is highly probable that the accounts of Dinawari, Tabari, and Ferdowsi
repose upon that vanished text. 69
Nothing whatever is known about the life of Jabala Ibn Salim who is said to
have translated the Book of Bahram Chobin from Middle Persian into Arabic. 70 Nor is
it possible to explain how or why Jabala’s translation supplanted all indigenous ac-
counts of the reign of Hurmazd; but it is obvious that the tale of Bahram Chobin
was profoundly entertaining, for it elevated the conquests and rebellion of Bahram
to the level of the legendary conflict between Iran and Turan, and it is infused with
aristocratic and chivalrous sentiment. 71 But a great mist of fable and romance sur-
63 Sebeos, p. 73.
64 Shahbazi provides an interesting discussion of the origin of that name here (Shahbazi,
S., “Bahrām VI Čōbīn,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, III/5, 1988 p. 514–522).
67 Fihrist, p. 364:
.��‫ ��ة جب�� ن سا‬،‫��اب ��رام شوس‬

As Nöldeke pointed out, ‫ شوس‬is an easy graphical corruption of ‫( شوب�ن‬Nöldeke, T., Die Ges-
chichte der Perser, p. 474).
68 Masʿudi, Muruj al-Dhahab, v. 2, p. 223:
.��‫ ا‬،‫للف ُرس ��اب م ُفرد �ي اخبار ��رام جوب�ن وما ك�ن من مك��ه بب��د ال��ك ��ن سار ال��ا‬
69 See my arguments in Jackson Bonner, M., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 62–63.
70 Fihrist, p. 305:
.‫ وك�ن ناق�� ً ا�ى العر�ى من الفرس‬،‫ وقد م�� ذ��ه‬.‫ ك�تب هشام‬،��‫جب�� ن سا‬
71Perhaps the most striking epic feature is the account of the death of the Turkish king. In
this connexion, Dinawari’s treatment is spare and we can see the result of his editing (Dina-
wari, p. 92). Tabari reports that Bahram slew the khaghan with a single arrow. This shot, says
rounds the edifice of historical truth, 72 and we may be certain only of a few details
which are corroborated by the works of Sebeos and Theophylact.
It is nevertheless possible to reconstruct the following narrative. The bold ex-
pedition of Bahram delivered Iran from the Turkish menace and won him great re-
nown. 73 Before the battle, says Dinawari, representatives of the two antagonists met
to parley. The Turkish khaghan, who was confident of an imminent victory over
Iran, promised to overturn the throne of Hormazd and to bestow the monarchy
upon Bahram. 74 But that general refused the offer on the surprising ground that he
was not of the Sasanid line. Warfare ensued, a single arrow discharged from the bow
of Bahram slew the khaghan, and the Turkish army was defeated. The son of the
khaghan, whom Dinawari calls Yaltikin, succeeded his dead father, and sued for
peace with Iran. What followed is yet more doubtful. According to Dinawari, the
armies of Bahram and Yaltikin met on either side of the river Balkh near Tirmiz,
where the Turks finally surrendered. But the writers Tabari and Ferdowsi declare
that the khaghan’s son and successor fled to a distant castle where Bahram besieged
Tabari went down in Iranian lore together with the splendid bowmanship of other famous
archers: Arash, the mighty bowman mentioned in Zoroastrian scripture (Yasht 8.IV.6), and
Sukhra, who supposedly took revenge on the Hephthalites in the wake of Peroz’ defeat (Ta-
bari, v. 2, p. 174–175). But there were other such features which Dinawari and Tabari left
out of their histories. By comparison with Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, we can see what those
prose writers omitted from the original tale. Dinawari makes no mention of Mihran Sitad’s
prophecy, uttered whilst on the point of death, that a certain Bahram Chobin would come
for the overthrow of the Turks (Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 370–383). There is no mention that
Hurmazd gives Bahram the dragon-emblazoned banner of the ancient hero Rustam (Fer-
dowsi, Hurmazd, l. 512–514). Likewise absent is Bahram’s discouraging nightmare, sent by a
malevolent Turkish sorcerer (Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 791–800). Dinawari and Tabari omit the
Turkish king Sava’s wizards’ casting terrible spells which fill the air with fire and trouble the
Iranians in battle (Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 838), nor do we find in Dinawari anything resem-
bling Firdawsi’s fanciful description of the many arrows shot in the battle between Bahram
and the Turks (Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 873). There is nothing about the astrologer who tells
Bahram to rest on Wednesday (Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 1050–1052). Nor does Dinawari nar-
rate Bahram’s garden party, held on Wednesday instead of fighting, which the Turks
promptly surrounded (Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 1052–1069). Ferdowsi makes Bahram go hunt-
ing with Izad Gushasp and Yal Sina, and the three meet a mysterious girl who prophesies
that Bahram shall be king of Iran (Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 1415–1471). The passionate speech
by Gurdiya, Bahram’s sister and probable wife, who likens Bahram to many heroes of old, is
likewise omitted (Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 1560–1606).
72 Cf. the effusive description of the Bahram romance in Altheim, F., “The First Romance of
Chivalry,” East and West, vol. 9, no. 3, 1958, p. 129–144.

74 Dinawari, p. 83:
.‫اخص الناس �ي‬

ّ �‫� ا�يّ ح�ى امل ّكك �� ا��ان ��ر واجعل‬
ّ �‫ف��ا التقوا ارسل ا�ى ��رام ان ان‬
him and received his capitulation. 75 Yaltikin and his grandees were then escorted to
Ctesiphon, where the monarch Hurmazd welcomed his submission and allowed him
to return to his own lands beyond the river Oxus. The testimony of Sebeos and
Theophylact confirm Bahram’s victory over the Turks and the conquest of the city
of Balkh, but that is all. 76
An immense haul of booty was captured from the Turks. The pompous decla-
ration of Theophylact is that the army of Bahram carried off ‘couches, tables, and
thrones of gold, equestrian accoutrements, jars, and everything else that is set forth
for the honour of a tyrant’. 77 Dinawari similarly attests to the capture and dispatch
of the golden throne of the khaghan and three hundred camel loads of treasure, 78
and Sebeos has compressed those details down to mere invocations of treasure,
plunder, and booty. 79 But here our sources begin to diverge. Texts of the Persian
royal tradition draw our attention to this great mass of treasure, and connect it with
the outbreak of revolt. The catalyst, says Sebeos, was the envy of Hurmazd, who
declared, or who had been led to believe, that Bahram had retained most of the
booty for himself. 80 Sebeos adds the plausible detail that the plunder had been dis-
tributed throughout Bahram’s army, and the attempt of Hurmazd’s forces to re-
trieve it issued in a brutal massacre. 81 This was the beginning of a rebellion which
aimed, in the words of Sebeos, to annihilate the House of Sasan and to place Bah-
ram upon the Iranian throne. The testimony of Dinawari is similar. The mistrustful
and suspicious vizier, whom Dinawari calls Yazdan Jushnas, provoked the king’s
wrath against his victorious general, and the court of Hurmazd dispatched to Bah-
ram a letter and an ostentatiously insulting gift of a spindle and the belt and necklace
of a woman. ‘Prove to me’, wrote the Sasanid monarch, ‘that you have not sent me
only a small measure of booty from a great mass of it, or else I shall conclude that it
was a mistake for me to promote you. I am sending you a necklace to put upon your
neck, and the belt of a woman. Gird yourself with it. As for the spindle, hold it in
75 Tabari, v. 2, p. 175; Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 1108–1314.

76 Sebeos, p. 73; Theophylact III.6.12–14; III.18.12.
77 λαφυραγωγοῦνται γὰρ κλῖναι καὶ τράπεζαι καὶ θρόνοι χρυσοῖ κόσμος τε ἱππικὸς ἀμφορεῖς
τε καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐς τυράννων συντεταγμένα τιμήν (Theophylact, III.6.14).

78 Dinawari, p. 84:
.��‫وو�َّه اليه ��ل� ال�� ا��هب فبلغ ما و َّ�ه اليه وِقر ثلثمائة بع‬
79 Sebeos, p. 73–74.
80 According to Sebeos, Hurmazd remarks to himself: Ընթրիքն առաւլ մեծագոյն, եւ
զնշանն ի պատռոյս ճանաչեմ. բայց յայնչափ սաստիկ գանձուցն ոչ էր արժան

այնչափ հասանել յարքունիս (Sebeos, p. 74). In the history of Dinawari, the same sen-
timent is put into the mouth of a slandering vizier (Dinawari, p. 85):
.‫ا��ا ا��ل� ما ك�ن اعظم ا��ا��ة ال�ى م��ا هذه اللقمة‬
81 Sebeos, p. 74.
your hand; for perfidy and ungratefulness are the attributes of women.’ 82 Adorned
by those offensive presents, Bahram addressed his companions, and a counsel of
war resolved instantly upon rebellion.
But the History of Theophylact and the Georgian text known as the History of
King Vakhtang Gorgasali claim that the rebellion of Bahram began after his return
from the east. An Iberian army and its allies had embarked upon an invasion of Al-
bania in the year 588, and the forces of Bahram, who had lately humiliated the
Turks, were diverted from Central Asia to confront that new threat. 83 The noblemen
of Iberia then asked the Roman state to give them a king, the emperor Maurice
complied, and a certain Guaram was installed upon the Georgian throne at
Mtskheta. In the following year, a Roman and Iberian alliance undertook a devastat-
ing raid into Azarbaijan, and the Iranian host commanded by Bahram responded
with a plundering expedition into Suania, where they defeated a Roman army. But
the Romans were subsequently victorious, and unspecified female attire was Bah-
ram’s reward for an ignominious defeat upon the shore of the river Araxes. 84 In re-
sponse, Bahram’s dispatches began to refer to Hurmazd as the daughter, rather than
the son, of Khusro I, and civil war began.
The consensus of Theophylact and The History of King Vakhtang Gorgasali may
appear more plausible than the narrative presented in the Persian royal tradition.
The Book of Bahram Chobin, upon which that tradition reposes, would surely have
concealed the real reason for the humiliation of its hero, and would have drawn a
veil over his defeat in the Transcaucasus. Sasanian legitimist propaganda, however,
would have had the opposite tendency, and it may be that all sources are true, but
that the history of Theophylact has overstated the significance of Bahram’s opera-
tions in Transcaucasia, and mistaken a small reverse for a grievous defeat. 85
THE REBELLION OF BAHRAM CHOBIN

The son and heir to Hormazd was yet a boy. Khusro, who had been named for his
illustrious grandfather, was nominal ruler of Ran and Movakan, two districts of Ibe-
ria near Albania. 86 At the outbreak of Bahram’s revolt, a party of aristocrats at Ctes-
iphon decided that they could tolerate the rule of Hurmazd no longer, but that they
might more readily support the rule of a Sasanian boy than that of an Arsacid man;
and so they instantly resolved to depose the king whom they loathed, to set his son
upon the throne of Iran, and to invite the emperor of the Romans to intervene up-
on the side of Khusro and to destroy the rebel Bahram.
82 I am paraphrasing Dinawari, p. 85. Ferdowsi reports woman’s robe, a distaff, some cotton,
and woman’s shirt (Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 1378–1381).
83 Theophylact, III.6.1 to III.7.7–19.; The History of King Vakhtang Gorgasali, p. 229–230.
85 Cf. Howard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,” 2010, p. 58.
86 The History of Vakhtang Gorgasali, p. 228.
Political and religious tensions filled this grim period. The monarch Hurmazd
and his court had sustained a war effort on two fronts for more than a decade, and
the armies of Iran had cooperated with military policy. But weariness of fighting and
a reduction in payment 87 disposed the forces of Bahram to believe that the Sasanid
monarch was enraged at the military and that he had threatened to execute the sol-
diers involved in Bahram’s defeat in the Transcaucasus; and a forged edict an-
nounced the curtailment of the customary donative from the treasury to the armed
forces. 88 A spirit of mutiny filled the loyalists of Bahram who aspired to overthrow a
monarch who was universally hated, and the prospect of the extinction of the Sasa-
nian dynasty forced some to contemplate the end of the world.
The partisans of Bahram and the legitimist Sasanian party alike circulated reli-
gious propaganda possessing the force of apocalyptic prophecy. 89 The end of the
Sasanid line, brought about by the hands of a pretender with ancient royal lineage,
was the force of Bahram’s messaging. An apocalyptic passage of the Bundahishn, a
Zoroastrian holy book, alludes to a year-long period of Roman rule over Iran, after
which ‘a man shall come from the frontiers of Kavulistan, with whom there will be
glory, also of the royal family, whom they will name Kay Bahram; and all men will
return with him, and he will rule even over India, Rome, and Turkistan, over all the
frontiers’. 90 A curious passage of the Shahnameh seems to suggest that Bahram had
declared himself to be the living embodiment of the Fire of the Exalted Mithra, and
he promised to renew the religion and customs of the ancient Arsacids, from whom
he claimed to be descended. 91 To these strange claims the Sasanian legitimists re-
sponded with their own apocalyptic prophecies, some of which are preserved in the
Middle Persian Zamasp Namak. In this text an unnamed, low-born pretender arises
from the east: he seizes power, is ousted by foreigners, and disappears mysterious-
87 Payment had been reduced by one tenth at the beginning of Hurmazd’s reign (Theophy-
lact, III.16.13).
89 Jackson Bonner, M., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 63–64; Czeglédy, K., “Bah-
rām Chūbīn and the Persian Apocalyptic Literature” in Acta Orientalia Hungarica 8, 1958, p.
21–43. But Czeglédy is surely wrong about the Bahman Yasht, III.14, for that prophecy better
fits the circumstances of the Arab rule of Iran.
90 Bundahishn, XXXIII.27.
91 Ferdowsi, Khusraw-i Parvez, l. 344–347:
!‫��ا�� ن �� بود نام �ى‬ !‫��ر�ى من از پارس آرم به رى‬

!‫ك�� تازه اي�ن مي��د را‬ !‫��افرازم ا��ر جهان داد را‬
!‫چو جنگ آورم آ�� كش‬ !��‫من از ��ه ى نامور آر‬
!��‫��ان آ�� ت�� ز�ن م‬ !��‫نب��ه جهان جوى ��گ�ن م‬
For some analysis of these lines, see Pourshariati, P., Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire, p.
402. The Fire of Exalted Mithra is my construal of the phrase adur burzen-mihr, on which see
M. Boyce, “Adur Burzen-Mihr,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/5, 1983, p. 472–473.
ly. 92 The unpopular Hurmazd IV, who had been deposed, is called a ‘deaf and blind
king’, 93 and the figure who vanquishes the rebel appears under the name Aparvez
Khwatay, 94 or Victorious Lord – an obvious reference to the epithet Aparvez, ‘victo-
rious’, which posterity has attached to the name of Khusro II.
Political propaganda was diffused by both antagonists also. Hurmazd was half
Turk, he was a foreign tyrant, whose rule was unlawful; and his loyal vizier Yazdan
Gushnasp was likewise illegitimate. ‘Hurmazd is not king, neither is Yazdan Gush-
nasp vizier!’ and ‘put your minds at ease from the son of the Turkish woman!’ were
rallying cries of the rebels. 95 The king’s heavy-handed and aggressive treatment of
his nobility and clergy was transformed into the claim that he had murdered thir-
teen-thousand six-hundred of them, and cast many others into prison, over the
course of his reign. 96 The response of the Sasanian party was to affirm that Bahram
was a person of no station, a base-born fool, and an illegitimate upstart. 97
BAHRAM’S ADVANCE UPON CTESIPHON

Bahram had taken and held the city of Rey, had advanced to Nisibis where the garri-
son had defected to him, and had begun to march toward Ctesiphon. 98 It was at
Nisibis, says Theophylact, that Bahram’s revolt claimed its first victim. The person
whom Theophylact calls Chubriadanes 99 held a high rank within what we might call
Hurmazd’s ministry of war; and when the partisans of Bahram encountered him at
Nisibis, they cut off his limbs and severed his head and sent them to the court at
Ctesiphon as tokens of irreconcilable revolt. 100 The response of Hurmazd was to
dispatch an embassy to Nisibis with the instruction to mollify Bahram, 101 and prepa-
rations were made to gather the royal treasure, sever the bridge across the Tigris,
and take refuge among the Lakhmid Arabs at their capital of Hira. 102 The rebel sta-
92 ‘Then will arise in the land of Khorasan an insignificant and obscure man who will go
forth in great power, and with him many men and horses, and sharp lances, and the land will
be made his own by violence and dominion. He himself in the midst of his dominion will fail
and pass out of sight’ (Zamasp Namak, §58–59).
93 Zamasp Namak, §90; Czeglédy, K., “Bahrām Chūbīn and the Persian Apocalyptic Litera-
ture,” p. 34.
94 Zamasp Namak, §64.
95 Dinawari, p. 85.
96 Tabari, v. 2, p. 172; Cf. Dinawari, p. 87.
97 Dinawari, p. 83. An old woman refers to Bahram as (Dinawari, p. 98–99):
.��‫�اهل ا��ق ��ّ�ى ا��ل� وليس من اهل بيت ا��مل‬

98 My analysis follows Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p. 292–293.
99 It is not at all clear to me what Iranian name this may represent.
100 Theophylact, IV.1.4.
101 Theophylact, IV.1.
102 Sebeos, p. 74.
tioned himself at the crossing of the Greater Zab river along the road running from
Mosul to Arbela, and there he received the emissaries of Hurmazd. 103
The general Farrukhan had been instructed to confront the usurper and his
faction, but before his departure he made a strange request of the Sasanid monarch.
The release of a noble prisoner by the name of Zadspram was considered essential
to the success of Farrukhan’s mission, and Hurmazd accordingly permitted it. 104 The
writer Theophylact draws our attention to this interesting detail, but fails to explain
that Zadspram must have had some important connexion with Bahram. Perhaps
Zadspram, by reason of some friendly association with the usurper, could be ex-
pected to play an important role in negotiations with him, or it may be that Far-
rukhan wanted Zadspram to feign defection to an old friend, and to act as a spy. 105
But the influence of Zadspram, whoever he was, failed to dissuade Bahram from his
bold enterprise, and contact with that usurper convinced him to abandon Farrukhan
and to join the rebellion. 106 A subsequent parley between the forces of Bahram and
the soldiers of Farrukhan convinced a portion of loyalist troops to murder their
commander and submit themselves to Bahram, and the assassins were members of
Farrukhan’s own bodyguard. 107
Let us pause here and note a strange feature of the Persian royal tradition. Nei-
ther Dinawari, nor Ferdowsi, mentions a person answering to the name of
Zadspram, but they have alike transmitted a curious variation of the narrative of
Theophylact. Dinawari reports that at the height of Bahram’s rebellion Hurmazd
dispatched his vizier Yazdan Gushnasp to mollify Bahram, and the vizier took with
him an unnamed cousin. Tensions between the two men led the vizier to suspect
that his cousin was an assassin, and he wrote a letter to this effect addressed to
Hurmazd. Discovering and reading that epistle, the cousin instantly slew Yazdan
Gushnasp, but when the head of Yazdan was presented before Bahram, the enraged
usurper slew the vizier’s murderer, and resolved to place upon the Sasanid throne
Khusro, the young son of Hurmazd. 108 Ferdowsi, who had drawn upon the same
account, includes the same information, but renames the vizier Ayin Gushasp, and
adds the detail that the anonymous man, whom he calls ‘the fellow citizen’, and who
accompanied the vizier, had been released from prison for that purpose. 109 The Book
of Bahram Chobin, upon which the accounts of Dinawari and Ferdowsi repose, has
103 Theophylact, IV.1.6–8.

104 ὁ μὲν ὀυν Φεροχάνης ἠξίου τὸν βασιλέα Ζαδέσπραν, ὃν ἐν εἱρκτῇ δεδεμένον Ὁρμίσδας
ἀπέθετο, τῶν δεσμῶν ἀφαιρεθῆναι καὶ συστρατεύειν ἀυτῷ (Theophylact, IV.2.3–4).
105 Jackson Bonner, M., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 122–123.
106 Theophylact, IV.2.5–7. This, of course, may have been his intention from the beginning.
107 Theophylact, IV.2.8–11; IV.3.1–3. Their names were Zoarab and Shahram.
108 Dinawari, p. 86–87.
109 Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 1791–1857.
distorted the truth so as to salvage the reputation of Bahram. 110 After the defection
of Zadspram, as Theophylact says, Bahram may have suspected that man of treach-
ery and killed him. To justify the murder of a friend or relative of the usurper, the
story that we find in the Persian royal tradition was invented by partisans of Bah-
ram. The anonymous prisoner betrayed and killed Hurmazd’s vizier, and in revenge
Bahram slew him. This, more honourable, cover-up story was then blended with the
killing of Farrukhan by his bodyguard – which itself was most probably a counter-
operation by Bahram.
But what of the remark that Bahram had intended to make young Khusro
king? The indigenous historical tradition of Iran avers that Bahram’s original inten-
tion was to replace Hurmazd with his son Khusro, and that it was only after the
deposition of the father that Bahram resolved to murder the son and to restore
Hurmazd to his throne. 111 The testimony of Dinawari and Ferdowsi include the
mendacious detail that Bahram began to mint coins bearing the likeness of young
Khusro, and that these were distributed throughout the Iranian capital. 112 These
claims, which surely repose upon the fables of the Book of Bahram Chobin, were per-
haps invented to explain the early specimens of Khusro’s coins which depict a ra-
ther simple crown without adornment. 113
The coins of Khusro II were struck because the faction that supported him
took power at Ctesiphon before the arrival of Bahram. But the youth of Khurso
ensured that the serious business of government would be entrusted to others. Ac-
cordingly, it was the uncles of Khusro who exerted every effort to place the son of
Hurmazd upon the throne and to rule through him. Binduya and Bistam were de-
scended from the ancient noble family with the name or title of Ispahbuda, and
their sister had married Hurmazd. That monarch had imprisoned Binduya, along
with other noblemen, for real or imaginary crimes which our sources have omitted.
Bistam and his sister achieved the release of his brother and other aristocratic pris-
oners, and their first task was to depose Hurmazd and to prevent his escape from
Ctesiphon. 114 A portion of the late Farrukhan’s troops had fled in confusion; and,
reaching the royal capital, they declared all that had transpired in the vicinity of Nis-
ibis, announced the imminent arrival of the usurper, and instantly joined the move-
ment to place Khusro upon the throne of his father. 115
110 Jackson Bonner, M., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 123

111 Dinawari, p. 89. I am following Jackson Bonner, M., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-
Tiwal, p. 117–118.
112 Dinawari, p. 86; Ferdowsi, Hurmazd, l. 1713.
113 Tyler-Smith, S., “Calendars and Coronations: The Literary and Numismatic Evidence for
the Accession of Khusrau II” in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 28, 2004, p. 43–44.
114 Sebeos, p. 75; Theophylact, IV.3.5.
THE DEPOSITION OF HURMAZD AND THE ACCESSION OF KHUSRO II

If the writer Theophylact may be believed, Hurmazd had bedecked himself in all the
trappings of monarchy and seated himself upon the royal throne. Binduya and an
escort of soldiers burst in upon the melancholy king, who attempted to address
himself to his antagonists. 116 Theophylact fails to record the words uttered by
Hurmazd, and, with equal vagueness, Binduya is said to have upbraided the king in
aggressive and uncouth language. The attendant soldiers jeered at the Sasanid mon-
arch, and Binduya grasped him by the hand, pulled him from the throne, removed
the diadem from his head, and entrusted him to the soldiers for immediate impris-
onment. 117 On the following day, Hurmazd declared his intention to address an as-
sembly of the most senior ranks of government. The speech, which Theophylact
pretends to record, is plainly the turgid production of a Byzantine lawyer; but it is
perhaps plausible that Hurmazd defended his achievements in war against the Turks
and against Rome, and promised to abdicate and enthrone one of his sons. 118 The
response of Binduya is an imaginary refutation of the remarks of Hurmazd; and at
his order, an anonymous son of the king and his mother were slain before the Per-
sian monarch who was forcibly blinded and cast into prison. 119
Such was the grim prelude to the coronation of Khusro II. Theophylact makes
the doubtful claim that fear of his own murder had compelled Khusro to flee to
Azarbaijan as soon as Hurmazd had been deposed, and that only a binding guaran-
tee of good faith recalled Khusro to the capital for his coronation. 120 Royal homage
and acclamations filled the hall of the palace even as Bahram advanced upon Ctesi-
phon. 121 But here the writer Theophylact takes leave of the truth and implicates
Khusro in the death of his father. For a brief moment, says Theophylact, the captive
Hurmazd was treated with kindness and Khusro regularly sent his father a share of
the royal table. The former king, however, rejected the generosity of his son, em-
ploying boorish insults against his servants, and was accordingly beaten to death
with clubs. 122 The Persian royal tradition is perhaps more trustworthy and corrects
two important errors of Theophylact. 123
I. Dinawari’s text, following The Book of Bahram Chobin, exculpates Khusro II from
his father’s murder. The invaluable testimony of Sebeos (who took every opportuni-

118 Theophylact, IV.4.1–18; Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p. 294. The
speech prepared by Theophylact seems to be a reminiscence of Herodotus III.80–82.

123 Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p. 294–295.
ty to blacken Khusro’s character) makes no accusation of patricide, 124 and so we

must suspect the account of Theophylact. The murderers of Hurmazd, says Dina-
wari, were Binduya and Bistam, who strangled the king with his own turban. 125 The
propaganda of Bahram, however, blamed Khusro for the murder of his father. 126
II. According to Dinawari, the royal accoutrements, which had been removed from
Hurmazd, were sent to Khusro who had already fled to Azarbaijan at the outbreak of
Bahram’s revolt. 127 Khusro is then made to arrive at Ctesiphon almost immediately
after Hurmazd’s destitution. Though it is superficially plausible, Theophylact’s ac-
count presents a strange chronological problem. If Khusro had fled when Hurmazd
was deposed and returned a mere nine days later, as Theophylact implies, Khusro
could not have reached Azarbaijan and returned to Ctesiphon in the allotted time. 128
Dinawari’s earlier placement of Khusro’s flight is more credible. Khusro’s absence
from the capital would have served three purposes: it would have kept him out of
danger; it would have allowed him to deny all involvement in the deposition and
murder of his father; and it would have set the stage for a triumphant return to the
capital – a spectacle intended to overshadow the chaos and confusion that had gone
before.
THE TRIUMPH OF BAHRAM VI

The contest between the partisans of Khusro II and Bahram Chobin, which issued
in the coronation of a usurper and the flight of the Sasanid monarch, is narrated in
great detail upon the pages of Theophylact. 129 Fanciful notices within the Persian
royal tradition and those derived from the Book of Bahram Chobin may supplement
that minute account, but without external corroboration.
The coronation of Khusro II had occurred immediately after the deposition of
his father Hurmazd, and the passage of only a few days brought the usurper Bahram
to the vicinity of Ctesiphon. On the left bank of the river Tigris, at the crossing of
the Nahrawan canal, the rebel army halted and began preparations for an obstinate
siege of the royal city. 130 Costly gifts and a royal epistle composed by the partisans
of Khusro were dispatched to Bahram, and the double force of the letter was to
demand a peaceable end to the present insurrection and to promise the rebel the
124 Dinawari, p. 91; Sebeos, p. 75.

125 Dinawari p. 91.
127 Dinawari, p. 86. Hurmazd suspected the involvement of Binduya and Bistam, and com-
manded their imprisonment.

128 Whitby, M. / Whitby, M., The History of Theophylact Simocatta, p. 106–107 with notes 13 and
14.
129 Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and his Historian, p. 292.
130 Dinawari specifically mentions the digging of a trench and construction of a bridge (Di-
nawari, p. 89).
second rank in the Empire of Iran. 131 An epistolary exchange ensued, and Theophy-
lact claims to transcribe the haughty reply of Bahram who disdained the offer of the
Sasanid, whom he derided as an ignorant patricide; Bahram refused to abandon his
claim to the throne, and upbraided the son of Hurmazd for releasing his uncles
from prison, but he promised to make the young man a regional governor, provided
that he lay aside the crown and vacate the royal palace. It was perhaps the aim of
Khusro’s partisans to delay the advance of Bahram, and to postpone a military con-
frontation; and so the reply of that party expressed a mood of conciliation and flat-
tery:
‘Khusro, king of kings, master of dynasts, lord of nations, ruler of peace, saviour
of men, noble and immortal man among the gods and a most manifest god
among men, very glorious, victorious, rising with the sun and bestowing eyes up-
on the night, of distinguished ancestry, a king who hates war, generous, who
praises the Bounteous Immortals, 132 and who protects the empire of the Persians,
to Bahram general of the Persians and our friend. We have received a reminder of
your much talked of bravery; and we rejoiced, knowing that you are well. 133 In
your letter you set forth certain expressions which did not come from your heart,
but perhaps the secretary (drunk on much wine and encompassed by unmeasured
sleep) composed frivolous and monstrous dreams. Yet, since the trees at this time
have put off their apparel, and dreams have no power, we are therefore not trou-
bled. We received the royal throne properly, nor have we subverted Persian cus-
toms. Those who have been rescued from confinement, we shall not return them
thither; 134 for it is not right that a king’s gift be bereft of power. We have taken
courage to such a degree that we shall not put off the diadem, so that, if there are
other worlds, we expect to rule over them also. We shall approach you who are
very like a king, either persuading with words or subduing with arms. If you wish
to prosper, give thought to what is needful. Be well, for you shall be our finest al-
ly’. 135
As Bahram pondered this strange letter, forces loyal to the House of Sasan were
assembled from the wreckage of Farrukhan’s army and the soldiers whom Khusro
had collected on his flight to Azarbaijan. Shahram, Zamerd, and Binduya were en-

132 The text says ὁ τοὺς Ἄσωνας μισθούμενος (Theophylact, IV.4.5) which is most obscure, or
perhaps unintelligible. The two Whitbys could not make sense of this phrase (Whitby, M. /
Whitby, M., The History of Theophylact Simocatta, p. 114 with note 28), and I am only guessing.
133 ὑγιαίνετε, which is plural, is grammatically impossible in Greek, but perfectly acceptable
in Persian…
134 The text is defective, but the sense is clear (cf. Whitby, M. / Whitby, M., The History of
Theophylact Simocatta, p. 114 with note 29.

trusted with the command of that motley army which defended a position behind
the Nahrawan canal, and the forces of the usurper were arrayed upon the other side.
Skirmishes and sallies followed, as messages were transmitted between the two an-
tagonists. 136 We cannot be surprised that the Persian royal tradition ascribes to
Khusro an important role in the fighting, but we can scarcely believe the claim that
an arrow discharged from the young king’s bow was refracted by the hauberk of
Bahram, and that a second missile laid low the rebel’s horse. 137
KHUSRO RESOLVES TO FLEE

The ragged crew of soldiers, which Khusro had assembled in haste, could not have
held Ctesiphon against the onslaught a veteran army buoyed up by the confidence
of recent victories, and the morale of the loyalist force began to fail. Khusro and his
partisans 138 contemplated the ruin of their enterprise and meditated flight. Theophy-
lact’s Iranian informant was perhaps at pains to excuse the behaviour of his coun-
trymen, for he claimed that Bahram refused to induce defections, neither did he
employ any form of deceit; but he resolved upon a surprise attack by night, even as
Khusro was attempting escape from Ctesiphon. An indiscriminate massacre of the
baggage animals and the soldiers of Khusro compelled the survivors to relinquish
their obedience to the Sasanid monarch, and to join the rebel. It was at this mo-
ment, says Theophylact, that Khusro and his advisers resolved to flee across the
Euphrates into the bosom of Rome. 139
But the testimony of Dinawari is different. That writer alleges that Bahram had
invited the partisans and soldiers of Khusro to defect to him, on the ground that he
would restore the rule of Hurmazd. 140 The deposed monarch yet languished in prison,
and it was the inexorable advance of Bahram that compelled Binduya and Bistam to
murder him – but only after young Khusro had taken his father’s counsel to seek
asylum with the Roman emperor. We may fairly assume that this was the sequence
of events presented in the Book of Bahram Chobin, and it must repose upon an offi-
cial, but mendacious, account disseminated by the court of Khusro II. An entertain-
ing chase takes shape upon the pages of the Persian royal tradition: the young king
and his retinue flee to a monastery at Hit upon the Euphrates as a thousand men
commanded by a certain Bahram son of Siyavushan pursued them; and Binduya,
clad in the garments of the young king, posed as a decoy upon the battlement of the

138 Dinawari names the principal loyalists: Binduya and Bistam, Hurmazd Jurabzin, the Na-
khoragan, Shapur son of Abarkan, Yazdak, scribe of the army, Bad son of Peroz, Sharvin
son of Kamgar, and Gurdi son of Bahram Gushnasp (Dinawari, p. 90).
139 Theophylact, IV.9.6. I am following the excellent analyses of Frendo, D., “Theophylact
Simocatta,” p. 84–85, and Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and his Historian, p. 292–297.
monastery while Khusro and small band of followers escaped unnoticed. 141 The
strange conclusion of this account is that Binduya was arrested, taken back to Ctesi-
phon, and cast into prison along with his captor Bahram son of Siyavushan who had
failed to apprehend the fugitive Khusro.
A more veracious account of Khusro’s flight can be reconstructed on the au-
thority of Theophylact and the testimony of two Syriac texts. The first of these is
the lost Ecclesiastical History of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre recycled in an anonymous
Syriac chronicle composed in the twelfth century; 142 the second is the anonymous
Chronicle of Khuzestan, 143 which credibly traces Khusro’s route from Ctesiphon to
Peroz-Shapur, and thence to Anat, Hit, and Circesium. 144 The future necessity of
flight had perhaps been contemplated for some time, for overtures had been made
to an Arab general loyal to Rome by the name of Nuʿman, who was (in the opinion
of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre) a zealous votary of Christ. 145 Though it is most unlikely
that Nuʿman personally conveyed a letter from Khusro to the emperor Maurice, it is
probable that the Arab general facilitated the young king’s passage between Hit and
the Roman fortress of Circesium. 146
Khusro and his thirty companions made camp ten miles from Circesium,
where Roman authorities were surely prepared for the king’s arrival. A messenger
brought word to the commandant of that fortress that the king of Iran sought asy-
lum. Probus (that was the commandant’s name) welcomed an embassy from the
Persian king, and invited him and his retinue into the fortress. After the passage of
two days, Khusro and his staff composed a message to his Roman imperial col-
league, and the commandant arranged its delivery to the court at Constantinople and
a copy was dispatched to Comentiolus, the Roman general stationed at Hierapolis.
Theophylact purports to transcribe the letter precisely.
In the negotiations which framed the Treaty of Nisibis, the Iranian ambassador
Afarban had described the two great sedentary powers as two lamps or eyes. In the
fifth century, the ambassadors of Iran had invoked the common danger of the
northern barbarian, and in his present distress the Persian king employed the same
imagery and similar arguments. God had ordained that the whole world should be
illumined by the two great powers, whose solemn task was to guide and regulate the
141 Dinawari, p. 91–93.

142 Chronicle to 1234, p. 215. For a brief discussion of this Syriac source see Howard-Johnston,
J., Witness to World Crisis, p. 194–195.
143 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 15–39. On this source see Howard-Johnston, J., Witness to World
Crisis, 2010, p. 128–134.

144 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 15. Contra Sebeos, who claims that Khusro arrived in Antioch
(Sebeos, p. 75), Dinawari, who terminates the journey at Yarmuk (Dinawari, p. 95), and the
Chronicle to 1234, which places Khusro in Edessa (Chronicle to 1234, p. 215, l. 5–6).
145 Chronicle to 1234, p. 215: l. 24–26.
affairs of civilised men by controlling their nomadic antagonists. But the empire of
Iran had lately been assailed by demons who had subverted the natural relationship
between master and slave. The rule of a usurper would entail the destruction of the
established order of the two sedentary states, for the ferocious and malevolent na-
tions dwelling beyond the confines of the civilised world would overrun the empires
of Iran and Rome. ‘It is then right for your peaceable providence to offer a saving
hand to an empire weighed down and overpowered by tyrants; to uphold a state that
is on the edge of destruction; to establish within the Roman empire the cause of
salvation, as though it were a universal trophy; and to proclaim yourselves founders,
saviours, and physicians of the empire of Iran’. The young king then proclaimed
himself the suppliant and the son of Maurice, and he invoked the protection of
God’s holy angels over the emperor and his dominions. 147
The letter was dispatched, and the emperor and his advisers contemplated the
plight of the young Persian king who had placed the fortunes of his House into the
hands of his ancestors’ most formidable opponent. From this moment onward, each
great power was to become permanently involved in the affairs of the other, and the
arbitrary distinction between the history of Rome, and that of Iran, ceases to have
further utility. 148
THE PROBLEM OF CHRONOLOGY

The narrative, which I have rehearsed, may seem disorderly and confused, for we
can establish only with great difficulty the sequence of those momentous events.
Only one event may be dated with certainty. 149 The testimony of Theophylact and
numismatic evidence allow us to fix the date of Khusro’s accession upon the twen-
ty-seventh day of the month of June in the year 590. The end of the melancholy life
and reign of Hurmazd must have occurred a matter of days before that, and the
coronation of Bahram was coincident with the festival of Maidhyoi-zaremaya in early
August of the same year. 150 The confrontation at the Nahrawan canal can have last-
ed only a few days, and the flight of Khusro must have begun soon before the cor-
onation of Bahram. But beyond these conclusions, which have the appearance of
certainty, the sequence of events is quite speculative. Tabari enrols among the fol-
lowers of Bahram three relatives of the Turkish khaghan 151 – a claim which suggests

148 Howard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,” 2010, p. 59; Frendo, D.,
“Theophylact Simocatta,” p. 77–88.
149 Jackson Bonner, M., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 118; Howard-Johnston, J.
“Kosrow II,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2010 online edition.

150 Theophylact, IV.12.6; Tyler-Smith, S., “Calendars and Coronations,” p. 33–65. The chro-
nology presented in Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and His Historian, p. 294–295 has been
shown to be false.
151 Tabari, v. 2, p. 175–176; 178; 179. I owe these references to Mr James Howard-Johnston.
that the usurper had endeavoured over the course of the year 589 to secure the east-
ern borders of Iran before he made his bid for the throne. But the public declaration
of rebellion was reserved for the following year in which Hurmazd’s humiliating
presents constituted merely the occasion, and not the cause, of the insurrection
which seated an Arsacid upon the Sasanian throne.
THE REIGN OF BAHRAM CHOBIN

The ephemeral reign of Bahram Chobin began at about the same moment as
Khusro’s supplication to the emperor Maurice. Loyalty to the House of Sasan, en-
sured that every effort was exerted by the lingering partisans of Khusro to overturn
the unsteady throne of the usurper. Presents and favours had failed to win the loyal-
ty of Iranian noblemen, who refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the new Ar-
sacid ruler, and when neither aristocrats nor clergy could be found to perform the
coronation, Bahram seized the accoutrements of monarchy and placed the diadem
upon his own head. 152
The rule of Bahram was justified upon a surprising pretext. Ardashir, the up-
start son of the shepherd Sasan, had wrested the sceptre from the last Arsacid by
fraud; and the highest purpose of Bahram was to re-establish the House of Arshak.
Hieratic speculation had computed a mere five hundred years between the appear-
ance of the prophet Zoroaster and the reign of Ardashir, and the rule of the Sasanid
House was to fill another five centuries until the millennium of Zoroaster would
descend into anarchy and warfare. But the appearance of a saviour would deliver the
empire of Iran from those troubles and inaugurate a new millennium under the or-
derly rule of a new dynasty. 153 The usurper and his partisans advertised a divine
sanction to their rebellion, they announced that Bahram was the saviour foretold by
ancient prophecy, and the apocalyptic tensions, which had begun at the outbreak of
civil war, attained new vehemence. Such at least is the portrayal of Bahram’s rebel-
lion which we find in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh.
But Bahram ruled with too heavy a hand, and failed to conciliate the party of
loyalists which yet remained at Ctesiphon. At the command of the usurper, all who
maintained their allegiance to Khusro were instructed to depart from the capital
within ten days. The writer Dinawari notes the abrupt departure of Mushel Ma-
mikonean, the Christian governor of Armenia, at the head of a numerous host; and
Azarbaijan, a loyalist stronghold, was the destination of that army and its command-
er. 154 The Persian royal tradition notices a strange and fanciful attempt to end the
reign of the usurper. Bahram Siyawushan who had failed to apprehend young

153 These ideas are expounded in a florid dialogue between young Khusro and Bahram (Fer-
dowsi, Khusraw-i Parviz, l. 273–430).
154 Dinawari, p. 94. Dinawari computes the number of men at twenty thousand.
Khusro watched over the prisoner Binduya, 155 who persuaded his jailer to partici-
pate in a plot to murder the rebel. Bahram son of Siyawushan let Binduya out of
confinement, gave him a horse and some weapons, and agreed to assassinate the
tyrant Bahram Chobin. For this grim purpose, he concealed a sword beneath the
shirt; but, as he was dressing, he was seen by his wife, who happened to be the
daughter of Bahram Chobin’s sister. The wife then warned the usurper, whose men
were commanded to strike the assassin with polo mallets as he approached the royal
presence. This bizarre episode revealed the hidden sword and secret guilt of the son
of Siyawushan who was killed instantly. The uncle of Khusro wrongly assumed that
his royal antagonist had been slain; and, when he discovered the truth, he disguised
himself and fled to Azarbaijan where he joined the forces commanded by Mushel. 156
So runs Dinawari’s account of the brief reign of Bahram Chobin, and it is our only
glimpse of the rebel’s failure to secure his hold upon Ctesiphon. Without detail or
elaboration the writer Theophylact has also noticed an attempt to end the life and
reign of Bahram. The conspiracy was discovered, Bahram’s assailants were defeated
in a nocturnal battle, and the usurper maintained his authority by dismembering the
conspirators whose dying bodies were crushed by elephants. 157
THE SASANIAN RESTORATION

Hope in an Arsacid saviour had never been widely felt, nor would it ever be fulfilled.
The young Sasanian king was soon to return to Iran at the head of a large army
comprising forty thousand Roman troops under the generals John the Patrician and
Narses, who had replaced Comentiolus at the behest of Khusro. This large host was
accompanied by twelve thousand Armenians led by Mushel Mamikonean, and eight
thousand Iranians commanded by the uncles of Khusro. The son of Hurmazd could
never have returned to the Sasanid throne without the aid of Rome, and the conces-
sions to the emperor Maurice were generous. The strategic advances achieved in the
reigns of Khusro’s father and grandfather were reversed in an instant. 158 Martyropo-
lis and Dara were given up, and the balance of power in the Transcaucasus was
swung towards Rome to which nearly all Armenia and Iberia were ceded. In those
troublesome countries, Khusro would retain only the provincial capitals of Dvin and
Tiflis – possessions intended to offset the acknowledgement of political subordina-
tion to Rome, and to avoid the appearance of humiliation. 159
155 Theophylact confirms that Binduya had been imprisoned, but that is all (Theophylact,
IV.12.2).
156 Dinawari, p. 94–95. See my analysis of this episode in Jackson Bonner, M., Al-Dinawari’s
Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 120.

159 Sebeos, p. 75. See Howard-Johnston, J., The Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos: Part II, p.
171.
The writer Theophylact suggests that Bahram tried and failed to match the
terms which Khusro had offered. The rebel promised to yield the city of Nisibis and
all lands as far as the river Tigris on condition that the Roman emperor offer no
assistance to the young Sasanid and his uncles. 160 If Bahram had known of Khusro’s
terms, as Theophylact says, he cannot have expected his offer to succeed; and we
may perhaps infer that the Arsacid usurper had approached the Roman emperor
first. Be this as it may, the history of Sebeos offers a small glimpse into the Roman
deliberations on the fate of Khusro, and we find no mention of the terms offered by
Bahram.
The unanimous voice of the Roman Senate had urged the emperor Maurice to
refuse aid to the young Sasanid. ‘It is not right to agree, for the Persians are a lawless
people and utterly deceitful. They make promises in distress, but in calmer times
renege. Great evil has come upon us from them. Let them slaughter themselves, and
we shall have relief’. 161 The eye of Sebeos cannot have penetrated the secret deliber-
ations of the Roman government, but it is unsurprising that a cautious Senate might
have recommended neutrality before the prospect of an Iranian civil war. But the
emperor surely beheld danger in the instability and possible collapse of the empire
of Iran, and the threat of Turkish power instructed him to maintain the parity of the
two great sedentary states. Maurice rejected the advice of the Senate, and the nu-
merous forces of John the Patrician and the general Narses were dispatched. News
of Khusro’s alliance with Rome persuaded the garrisons at Nisibis and Martyropolis
to shift their allegiance to the young king, 162 and at the beginning of spring in the
year 591 loyalist troops were massing on both sides of the Taurus mountains in Ar-
menia under the supervision of John Mystacon, the Roman regional commander.
The strategic aims of the Sasanid party were to draw Bahram out of the Iranian
capital, to occupy it, and to defeat the rebel with overwhelming force. For these
purposes, loyalist soldiers were separated into three divisions commanded respec-
tively by Narses, a supporter of Khusro by the name of Mahbod, and John Mysta-
con and Binduya. 163 In a slow progress toward the river Tigris, Narses took and held
Mardin and Dara; after a momentary pause, the forces of Narses crossed the great

161 Sebeos, p. 76.
162 Theophylact, IV.1–17; Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and his Historian, p. 298–300. Sit-
tas, who had betrayed Martyopolis to Iran in the reign of Hurmazd was duly executed. The
restoration of Martyropolis to Roman control was commemorated in an inscription, which
survived in mutilated form down to the nineteenth century. It refers to Khusro as ‘the god,
king of kings’ (Mango, C., “Deux Études sur Byzance et la Perse sassanide,” Travaux et mé-
moires, 9, 1985, p. 91–104).
163 I am following, and compressing, Theophylact V.1–6, as well as the learned analysis of
Howard-Johnston, J., “Kosrow II,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, online edition, and Howard-
Johnston, J., “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,” p. 59–60.
river and advanced toward the Lesser Zab where a contingent of rebel forces were
defeated. 164 The manoeuvres of Narses were intended to distract the rebel Bahram
and to confine his forces to Mesopotamia, while the large army commanded by
John Mystacon and Binduya moved north-east into Armenia. As the usurper’s forc-
es advanced to meet that imposing army in the north, Mahbod and a small force
departed swiftly from the fortress of Singara, advanced down the Euphrates, entered
the metropolitan region of Ctesiphon, and occupied the Iranian capital. 165 Rebel
forces and those commanded by John Mystacon and Binduya narrowly avoided
combat near Lake Urmia, and the loyalist force pursued their flying opponent deep
into Azarbaijan. 166
The rebel Bahram recognised that his plight was desperate. A letter composed
by the usurper was addressed and dispatched to Mushel Mamikonean and the entire
Armenian nobility. The force of the epistle was to warn of the treachery of the
House of Sasan, which the rebel called a ‘universal calamity’ 167 which the people of
Armenia had always resisted. The rebel besought their loyalty and assistance against
a mutual foe; and in a solemn invocation of Ahura Mazda, the sun, the moon, fire,
and water, and an oath by Mithra and all the gods, he promised to restore the an-
cient kingdom of Armenia to its original independence and to its original size. 168
This letter received no reply, and a second epistle, of a more menacing character,
was dispatched to Mushel. Bahram was astonished that his promise had failed to
please Mushel, and the usurper mingled a tone of regret with the most threatening
language. ‘Tomorrow morning’, wrote Bahram, ‘I shall show you armoured ele-
phants, and upon them shall be a host of armed warriors who shall rain down upon
you iron arrows, lances of tempered steel, together with darts, from their powerful
bows, strong young men fully armed to repel you, swift Arabian horses, axes and
swords of tempered steel, and as many blows as may be necessary for you and for
Khusro’. 169 That letter elicited a response from Mushel, who dismissed the threats of
his antagonist.
Battle was joined in the vicinity of Ganjak in Azarbaijan. The conflict described
upon the pages of Theophylact is a mixture of a few interesting, but doubtful, tacti-
cal details and much bombast. 170 We may, however, trust that victory seemed to in-
cline now to one side and then to another, and that the battle was violent and san-
guinary. So vehement was the fighting that, in the opinion of Sebeos, blood flowed
copiously and irrigated all the surrounding countryside, and the shattered host of
164 Theophylact, V.5.1–6.

165 Theophyact, V.6.1–9.
166 Sebeos, p. 77.
167 զտիեզերական պատուհասն, զտունն Սասանակայ (Sebeos, p. 77).
168 Sebeos, p. 77–78.
169 Sebeos, p. 78.
170 Theophylact, V.9.5–15.1
Bahram barely escaped a promiscuous massacre. Corpses were strewn over fields
and roads, many a warrior, and many an elephant, were presented before Khusro
who commanded that his enemy captives be trampled beneath the feet of those an-
imals. 171 But after four days of fighting, the outcome was more probably decided by
an embassy of Binduya which induced the defection of all but four thousand of
Bahram’s troops, 172 and the fugitive usurper fled to the city of Balkh, 173 where he
sought and received the protection of the Turks. Khusro II would now be king of
Iran.
171 Sebeos, p. 79–80. The Book of Bahram Chobin seems also to have described a sanguinary
and ridiculous battle in which the usurper cut a Roman soldier in half with a single blow of
his sword, and he summoned Khusro to single combat (Dinawari, p. 97).
172 Dinawari, p. 98. See Jackson Bonner, M., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 122.
173 Sebeos, p. 80; Dinawari, p. 98–104.
VIII. THE LAST WAR OF ANTIQUITY
THE REIGN OF KHUSRO II

The writer who described the collapse of the Iranian empire, and its conquest by the
victorious Arabs, accused and blamed Khusro for the ruin of the old order. Sebeos
wrote of the ‘Sasanian brigand, Aparwez Khusro, who consumed with fire the
whole inner land…and brought destruction upon the entire world’. With the pen of
a churchman and the words of a prophet, Sebeos recounted a calamitous tale of
‘wrath evoked from on high and the anger flaming up below, torrents of fire and
blood, deadly attacks, the cry of demons, and the roar of dragons’, for the destruc-
tive, ruinous, and accursed Sasanid monarch had fulfilled the commandment of the
Lord’s wrath against the whole world. 1 Though its beginning was perhaps inauspi-
cious, the reign of the second Khusro was the last period of Sasanian greatness; and
his military conquests reclaimed the patrimony of Cambyses and Darius and nearly
achieved the total humiliation of Roman power. But it was only a brief moment of
supremacy. The king who had ascended the throne amidst a noble plot, and the
murder of his own father, was to perish in the same manner; and, only a short while
after his death, the empire of Iran was shaken to its foundation and buried in the
dust, but no one forgot the name of Khusro II, whose arrogance and pride were
blamed for the collapse of the House of Sasan. 2
When Khusro returned to the throne, a cloud of suspicion and doubt hung
over him. The patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon had refused to accompany the Sasa-
nid king into Roman territory, 3 and Khusro grew to hate him. Ishoʿyahb (that was
the patriarch’s name) had offered public prayers for the health and life of the rebel
Bahram, and he had refused to meet Khusro upon his return to Ctesiphon. 4 These
reports surely conceal divided loyalties and great tensions at the Sasanid court,
1 I am paraphrasing Sebeos, p. 72.

2 See, for example, Tabari’s introduction to the reign of Khusro II (Tabari, v. 2, p. 174), and
Daryaee, T., Sasanian Persia, p. 32–24 and Christensen, A., L’Iran sous les sassanides, p. 440–
490.
3 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 15:
‫ܦܫ ܡܪܝ ܝܫܘܥܝܗܒ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܐ ܡܢ ܗܝ ܖܢܚܙܘܡ ܥܡܗ‬

4 Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 440–441. See also Payne, R., A State of Mixture, p. 173.
267
which Bahram had attempted to exploit, for many among the nobles and clergy
must have looked upon Khusro as a weakling beholden alike to his powerful uncles
and to the emperor of Rome. But the worst charge against the young king was that
he was complicit in the death of his father Hurmazd. The flight and death of Bah-
ram Chobin had deprived Khusro I of a rival, and a dissident army of a leader. But
the party which had opposed the House of Sasan had returned to Iran, and might
have fought under the banner of any prince strong enough to command their alle-
giance. When Khusro resolved to assert his independence and to execute the men
who had murdered his father and achieved his return to the throne, he created a
new cause for aristocratic and military resentment; and it was his uncle Bistam who
raised the standard of revolt.
THE DESTRUCTION OF BAHRAM CHOBIN AND THE REVOLT OF

BISTAM
At the beginning of Khusro’s restoration, Bahram the usurper yet lived and had tak-
en shelter at the court of the Turkish khaghan. It was perhaps Khusro’s first goal to
destroy that rebel, and for this purpose an Iranian embassy appeared before the
khaghan. 5 Every argument designed to persuade the ruler to slay the Iranian fugitive
was deployed, but the khaghan was unmoved. Dinawari, who narrates this strange
episode in detail, draws a veil over a private conference between the ambassador
and the khaghan’s wife, who agreed to dispatch a slave to the abode of Bahram, and
a concealed dagger was plunged into the breast of the rebel. As he expired, the last
breath of Bahram pronounced his brother Mardan Sina his successor. The khaghan
grieved the death of his friend, and in a transport of rage he meditated the death of
the Turkish queen. To the partisans of Bahram the khaghan granted leave to depart
the land of the Turks, and they withdrew to the region of Tabaristan. A Turkish
escort accompanied them as far as the river Oxus; and Gurdiya, the sister of Bah-
ram, who was the most beautiful woman, of the most perfect character, and the
greatest equestrian of her age, sat upon Bahram’s horse and led his men into Iran. 6
Meanwhile, Khusro began to strengthen his position, and he surely looked for
and rewarded allies. The history of Sebeos draws our attention to the career of
Smbat Bagratuni, and the honour in which he was held is surely but one example of
Khusro’s generosity and political manoeuvring. Gifts of gold, silver, and costly gar-
ments were lavished upon Smbat, together with the very belt and sword which had
belonged to Hurmazd IV. Successive titles were attached to the name of that Arme-
nian prince, and in time he became a junior minister of finance and governor of the
5 Dinawari calls the ambassador Hurmazd Jurabzin. Tabari omits his surname (Tabari, v. 2,
p. 181).
6 Dinawari, p. 103–105. Tabari adds the interesting detail that Bahram’s brother Gurdi had
interceded with Khusro on behalf of Gurdiya, and secured safe passage for her (Tabari, v. 2,
p. 181).
VIII. THE LAST WAR OF ANTIQUITY 269
province of Gurgan in the year 595. 7 But all who participated in, or could be associ-
ated with, the insurrection of Bahram and the murder of Hurmazd were put to
death. The writer Theophylact credibly suggests that Khusro resolved instantly upon
the murder of his uncles, but we may doubt that a Zoroastrian king polluted the
element of water by casting Binduya into the depths of the river Tigris. 8 The inde-
pendent testimonies of Sebeos and Dinawari confirm that Khusro sought to elimi-
nate Bistam and Binduya immediately after his restoration, but Khusro’s early at-
tempt to kill his uncles succeeded only in removing Binduya, and in transforming
Bistam into an implacable rebel whose insurrection lasted ten years. A narrative of
that revolt can be reconstructed on the warrant of the Chronicle of Khuzestan, the tes-
timonies of Sebeos and Dinawari, and numismatic evidence.
The testimony of Dinawari, which reposes upon the lost Book of Bahram Chobin,
is that Binduya had been instructed to pay four thousand drachms to a certain Shir-
zad son of Bahbudan on account of his splendid performance on the field of polo.
But the instruction of Khusro was ignored and Binduya declared that the royal
treasure had not been established for such an extravagant waste. This was Khusro’s
scarcely credible justification for destroying his uncle – a pretext which may never-
theless conceal an accusation of financial impropriety on the part of Binduya. But
the most serious charge against Khusro’s uncles was surely that they had killed his
father Hurmazd. A severe punishment was meted out to Binduya, whose limbs were
removed from his body, and his expiring trunk was abandoned within a square at
Hulwan. But as he perished, Binduya loudly cursed the House of Sasan and the per-
fidy of Khusro II, who then commanded that his uncle be pelted with stones until
dead. 9
A similar death had perhaps been prepared for Bistam, whom Khusro attempt-
ed to lure to court. 10 A letter was dispatched to his uncle announcing his immediate
dismissal from his command as general of the east, and Bistam instantly resolved to
confront his young nephew. But another nobleman, by the name of Mardan Bih
Qahraman, informed Bistam of the fate that awaited him, and the uncle fled the
vengeance of his nephew and escaped to the land of Gilan and thence to Daylam.
The approach of Bistam heartened the partisans of Bahram Chobin who yet lin-
gered in that mountainous region, and the rebel’s successor, Mardan Sina, urged
Bistam to take command of Bahram’s troops and overturn the throne of Khusro. 11
7 Sebeos, p. 96; Garsoian, N., “Smbat Bagratuni” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2005.

8 Theophylact, V.15.1.
9 Dinawari, p. 105–106. Cf. Sebeos, p. 94–95 who is aware of the execution of Binduya on
some pretext or other, and the attempt to lure Bistam to court; and the Chronicle of Khuzestan
rather states that Binduya was crucified (Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 16).
10 Sebeos, p. 95; Dinawari, p. 106.
The sister of Bahram was given in marriage to Bistam, and the large rebel army de-
clared its allegiance to a new leader.
Bistam established a forward base at Dastaba in the vicinity of Rey and began
to pillage the country of Media. 12 An epistolary exchange between Khusro and
Bistam preceded a military confrontation. Bistam announced his superior claim to
the throne and repeated an ancient insult to the House of Sasan. ‘Know’, wrote
Bistam, ‘know that you are not more worthy of this power than I, but rather I am
more worthy of it than you, for I am the son of Dara son of Dara, who fought Al-
exander, but you (O son of Sasan) took what was rightfully ours by force and craft.
Your father Sasan was only a shepherd, and if his father had known better he would
not have kept the kingdom from him and given it to his daughter Khumana’. 13
From this strange paragraph of Dinawari’s history we may judge the force of
Bistam’s own propaganda which appears to have portrayed him as the avenger of
Darius III and the true heir to the Achaemenid monarchy. 14
The battle that followed induced Bistam first to retreat to the mountains of Gi-
lan and then to flee to the northeast. The writer Sebeos asserts that Bistam’s pur-
pose was to fortify himself in the land of his Parthian ancestors, 15 to bring under his
control the troops of that region, and to return to Iran at the head of a vast host. A
garrison of Armenian troops in the city of Isfahan threw off their allegiance to the
House of Sasan and joined the army of Bistam, and a series of uprisings throughout
northern Iran may perhaps be connected with the revolt of Bistam also. 16 Shawg
and Pariovk, two kings of Hunnish extraction, supplicated themselves to the power
of Bistam, and in the year 595 a large and heterogeneous host began the long march
upon the metropolitan region of Ctesiphon. 17 The army of Bistam confronted the
forces of Khusro at Hamadan, and in the opinion of Dinawari the slaughter was
immense but without decisive outcome. 18
12 Sebeos, p. 95.
14 Jackson Bonner, M. R., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 125.
15 Երթայր ի կողմանս Պարթեւաց (Sebeos, p. 95). This means the region surrounding
the city of Balkh.

16 Sebeos, p. 96. Principalities in Amal, Royean, Zrechan, Tabaristan, and Gurgan all rose in
revolt and were pacified by Smbat Bagratuni. For further interpretation, see Jackson Bonner,
M. R., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 126.
17 Եւ գումարալ զամենայն գաւրսն կողմանց Արեւելից դիմեաց գնաց
յԱսորեստան զաւրու մեծաւ եւ հզաւր յոյժ, զի սպանցէ զԽոսրով եւ առցէ յինքն
զթագաւորութիւն նորա (Sebeos, p. 97). Sebeos appears to claim that the attack upon
Ctesiphon really occurred, but this cannot be right, and he seems to have misinterpreted
mere planning for action (Jackson Bonner, M. R., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p.
127–128).
After the passage of five years, Bistam could no longer retain the loyalty of his
allies and his subordinate forces. It was perhaps at the instigation of Khusro that the
Hunnish king Pariovk planned an ambush, and sought a private conference with
Bistam. An insincere display of obeisance gave way to slaughter; Pariovk seized the
treasures, the baggage train, and the wife, of Bistam, and retired to Central Asia. 19
The bonds which had united the troops of Bistam were dissolved, and each man
threw down his arms and began to withdraw to his own land. The dying flames of
rebellion were finally extinguished by Smbat Bagratuni who, in the valleys of
Tabaristan, destroyed the Armenian forces who had supported the rebel. So runs
Sebeos’ account of the end of Bistam’s rebellion. A strange tradition, which Dina-
wari found in the Book of Bahram Chobin, records a different end to the rebellion of
Bistam. Gurdiya, sister to Bahram and wife to Bistam, had received a secret message
from Khusro II, who persuaded her to make Bistam drunk and to murder him in his
sleep 20 – a sign, as it seems, that Khusro himself had brought about the death of his
uncle. This was in the year 600, the seventh and final year of the issues of Bistam’s
coins, 21 and the tenth regnal year of Khusro II. 22
At Ctesiphon the court of Khusro marked the end of the rebellions of Bahram
and Bistam with a grim display of royal supremacy. The lifeless head of Bistam was
suspended from the neck of Bahram Chobin’s son Shapur; and seated upon a camel,
the son was exposed to the ridicule which the father had merited, while that animal
circumambulated the palace of Khusro. 23
KHUSRO, THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND PEACE WITH ROME

The return of the rightful Sasanid monarch was commemorated in Khusro’s second
regnal year by an issue of coins bearing the image of the young king wearing a
crown surmounted by two great wings – the symbol of Verethragna, the hypostasis
of victory. 24 The young Sasanid was a zealous exponent of the Zoroastrian religion,
and he caused himself to be portrayed in a relief at Taq-i Bostan flanked by the gods
Ahura Mazda and Anahita. But religion was an important tool as well of foreign as
of domestic policy, and Khusro allowed himself to be portrayed as a Christian pros-
19 Sebeos, p. 97–98. The Chronicle of Khuzestan preserves a vague reminiscence that Bistam
was slain by a ‘Turk’ (Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 16).
20 Dinawari, p. 109–110.
21 Göbl, R., Sasanian Numismatics, pl. XV and p. 53; contra Paruck, F. D. J., Sasanian Coins,
1976, p. 112–113; Christensen, A., L’Iran sous les sassanides, p. 446, who extends the coins of
Bistam over ten years. I followed this error in Jackson Bonner, M., Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-
Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 127–128.
23 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 16.
24 Tyler-Smith, S., “Calendars and Coronations,” p. 45.
elyte and perhaps as a convert. 25 The leadership of the Iranian church had assisted,
and probably prepared, Khusro’s escape and asylum amongst the Romans, and his
interest in Christianity was a plausible pretext for such support. The writer The-
ophylact includes a rumour of conversion under a heavy cloak of bombast, 26 and
prayer and the offering of a jewel-encrusted cross of gold are said to have persuaded
St Sergius to grant Khusro victory over the usurper Bahram. 27 The hope of the em-
peror Maurice, and that of the Roman government, was that the Sasanid king would
be regenerated in the waters of baptism at the hand of Domitianus, the metropolitan
bishop of Melitene. 28 But the king refused, and a contemporary writer of high re-
nown commiserated with his ecclesiastical colleague. ‘Although,’ wrote Pope Grego-
ry the Great, ‘although I lament that the emperor of the Persians has not been con-
verted, I rejoice that you nevertheless made every effort to introduce him to the
Christian faith’. 29 But so fascinating was the rumour of Khusro’s embrace of the
Christian religion that a chronicler of the seventh century in the distant kingdom of
Francia recorded his conversion. 30
Though he remained a Zoroastrian, Khusro advertised his respect for Christi-
anity. He granted permission to build churches, and he permitted anyone but Zoro-
astrians to embrace the faith of Christ 31 – unambiguous signs that the government
of Iran wished to remain at peace with Rome in the last decade of the sixth century.
The young king’s renewed patronage of the shrine of St Sergius honoured that saint
with a large gold paten at the moment of his Christian wife’s pregnancy. 32 That lady,
whose Persian name was Shirin, was a Christian of Khuzestan, and she was repre-
25 Payne, R. E., A State of Mixture, p. 164–165.

26 Theophylact IV.10.1.
27 Theophylact V.13.4–5; Payne, R., A State of Mixture, p. 172–173; Flusin, B., Saint Anastase le
Perse et l’histoire de la Palestine au début du VIIe siècle, tom. II, Commentaire, 1992, p. 99–100.
28 The emperor Maurice had dispatched the bishop to Khusro at Hierapolis (Theophylact,
IV.14.1–6; Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI.18).

29 Imperatorem vero Persarum etsi non fuisse conversum doleo, vos tamen ei Christianam fidem praedicasse
omnimodo exulto (Gregorii I Papae, Registrum Epistolarum, tom. I., III.62).

30 …Mauricius imperator infinitissimum adparatum Anciocam fieri fieri iussit, ubi imperator Persarum
cum sexaginta milia Persus baptizatus est (Chronicle of Fredegar, §9). The writer’s language is ‘irre-
trievably barbaric’ (Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar, 1960, p.
xxviii). The story reached the chronicler in a rather garbled form. The Persian king is called
Anaulf and the name of Shirin has been corrupted into Caesara. But we can be certain that
Khusro II and Shirin are meant because the chronicler makes them contemporaries of the
emperor Maurice. A foolish note by the editor (Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., The Chronicle of
Fredegar, p. 7, n. 3) alleges that the king in question is Khusro I, but this is wrong.
31 Tabari, v. 2, p. 180.
32 Theophylact, V.xiv.1–12.
sented as the most influential of Khusro’s wives. 33 At her behest royal favour flowed
to the Christians of Mesopotamia, and churches and convents arose even in the vi-
cinity of the royal palace at Ctesiphon. 34 Christian officials of high rank participated
in the political and social life of the royal court. 35 The ruling house of the Lakhmid
Arabs, who had long adhered to their ancestral paganism, embraced the religion of
Christ, and the dyophysite, so-called Nestorian creed, without opposition from the
government of Khusro. 36 Monophysite Christians of Armenia alike found protec-
tion and patronage under the Sasanid monarchy and the patriarch at Dvin, and a
Roman bishop who adhered to the formula of Chalcedon was allowed to reside at
Theodosiopolis – a sign of Khusro’s benign indifference to Christian theological
division. 37
All the powers of a Zoroastrian and a Christian heaven looked with equal ap-
proval upon the reign of Khusro, or so it was publicly advertised. Divine and mysti-
cal interventions, which appealed to votaries of either faith, had assisted Khusro’s
victory over Bahram at a moment when defeat seemed imminent. It was said that
the holy man Sabrishoʿ had appeared beside Khusro in a vision; he grasped the bri-
dle of the king’s horse, and directed it forcibly into battle; and the intercession of
the saint assured the triumph of the Sasanid army. 38 But a Zoroastrian nobility re-
33 Khusro II may have made many Christians wives, of course. Shirin is first mentioned by
Theophylact (Theophylact, V.xiv.3–4). But ‘Mary the Roman’, who appears in some oriental
sources, could not have been a daughter of the emperor Maurice as Dinawari, Tabari, and
the Chronicle of Khuzestan claim (Flusin, B., Saint Anastase le Perse, II, p. 102–103). The ro-
mance between Khusro and his wife Shirin was an object of fascination to the Christians of
Iran. It may be that the poetry which we associate with courtly love, and which is such a
conspicuous feature of the High Middle Ages, found some of its inspiration in that tale. Fer-
dowsi used it, amongst other whimsical anecdotes, to fill the void left by his omission of the
last was of Antiquity; and Nizami, the great poet of the twelfth century, found a Georgian
rendition of that tale and versified the great love story in New Persian (Orsatti, P., “Kosrow
o Shirin,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2006, online edition).
34 Sebeos, p. 85; Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 466–467; Flusin, B., Saint Anastase le Perse, II, p.
100–103.
35 The Chronicle of Seert includes a list of the high-ranking Christian officials who sur-
rounded Khusro (Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 551). The physician Mar Aba of Kashkar, John
Sendori and Gabriel of Singara, Yazdin who is called ‘the generous’, John of Kashkar, are
some of the most important names. In the haughty opinion of the chronicler, ‘Khusro em-
ployed many more Christians within his service, in order to advertise his disdain for the en-
vious Magi: may God curse them and be merciful to Khusro!’ (Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 525).
36 Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 468–469; 478–481.
37 Sebeos describes this as a division of the catholicosate (Sebeos, p. 91). On Khusro’s clem-
ency to monophysites in general, see Flusin, B., Saint Anastase le Perse, II, p. 106–118.
38 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 16; Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 481. But the Chronicle of Seert mistaken-
ly claims that the circumstance of the apparition was the conflict with Bistam. This vision
quired a different explanation for Khusro’s victory. Sorush, one of the Bounteous
Immortals, appeared before the king, clad in a green mantle and astride a white
horse. The divine messenger grasped Khusro by the hand and brought him to safety
in the midst of a furious mellay. ‘My name is Sorush’, he said, ‘make no cry, for you
are safe; hereafter you shall be ruler of the world…’ 39 Scepticism, or embarrassment,
compelled the writer Tabari to reduce this strange story to the mere mention of
Khusro’s deliverance when ‘a thing which cannot be comprehended’ took him up
into a mountain. 40
The real or imaginary assistance of Sabrishoʿ was the pretext for his elevation
to the patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. There is perhaps no greater sign of
Khusro’s royal favour to the Christian religion than the magnificent ceremonies
which attended the installation of Sabrishoʿ. 41 A synod was convened upon the third
Friday of Lent in the year 596, and despite some resistance, the Persian king en-
forced his will upon the assembled bishops. Sabrishoʿ was chosen and made patri-
arch. The Magi beheld with astonishment the vast crowd which gathered to observe
the installation of the new patriarch. Sabrishoʿ struggled to emerge from the church,
and a band of foot soldiers was dispatched with the king’s own horse to carry the
new bishop out of the vicinity of the church and away from the immesnse throng.
The saint refused so obvious a symbol of aristocratic status and royal favour, prof-
fering the excuse that he was a poor horseman, but the obedient soldiers ignored his
protests, seated him upon the animal by force, and began to direct it by pulling on
the bridle. 42 But the words of the saint forbade the advance of Khusro’s horse, and
so the soldiers drove away the huge crowd of spectators by means of cudgels, and
they escorted Sabrishoʿ into the royal court, where he was met by servants from the
household of Shirin, bearing lighted tapers and vaporous thuribles. The anonymous
writer of the Chronicle of Khuzestan noted the high honour in which Sabrishoʿ was
was the pretext on which Khusro promoted Sabr-Isho’ to the patriarchal throne, apparently.
See also Payne, R., A State of Mixture, p. 173.
39 The poet is somewhat more verbose (Ferdowsi, Khusraw-i Parviz, l. 1902–1908):
‫�� آمد از راه فرخ ��وش‬ ‫هم آن�� چو از کوه ��شد ��وش‬
��‫ز د��ار او گشت خ��و دل‬ ��‫��ه �امهاش س�� و خن�� به ز‬
‫ز ��دان پاک ا�ن نباشد شگفت‬ ‫چو ��دیک شد دست خ��و ��فت‬
‫به آسا�ی آورد و ب��اشتش‬ ‫چواز پیش ��خواه ��داشتش‬
‫��یگفت چندی و چندی ��ت‬ ‫��و گفت خ��و �� نام تو �یست‬
‫چو ا��ن شدی دور باش از ��وش‬ ‫فرشته ��و گفت نامم ��وش‬
‫نبا�� با�� از پارسا‬ ‫��ن �� شوی �� جهان پادشا‬
40 Tabari, v. 2, p. 180:
.‫رفعه ا�ى ا��بل ��ء �� يوقف �ليه‬
41 Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 484–491; Wood, P., The Chronicle of Seert, 2013, p. 194–196; Flusin,
B., Saint Anastase le Perse, II, p. 104–105.
42 For some analysis of this incident, which may be mostly imaginary, see Payne, R., A State
of Mixture, p. 2–5.
held throughout his life, and that of the Chronicle of Seert imputes to the Persian king
a startling speech which was addressed to the ecclesiastical favourite: ‘your predeces-
sors were the slaves of my forefathers; but I am your son and this lady is your
daughter’. 43 If the Chronicle of Seert may be believed, the Roman government looked
with approval upon the elevation of Sabrishoʿ and Khusro’s patronage of the Chris-
tian religion. Maurice dispatched a painter to execute a portrait of Khusro, and glad-
ly received the bones of certain Iranian saints together with the cap of the new bish-
op. A small fragment of the True Cross was sent to Sabrishoʿ and bestowed, at
Khusro’s behest, upon his wife Shirin – a strange portent of future events. 44
A new age of cooperation between Christian and Zoroastrian had begun, and
the two religions appeared, or were made to appear, closer than ever before. Con-
temporary churchmen rejoiced that Christ had worked through the person of
Khusro and had pacified the two great empires. 45 The bishops of either power put
aside their ancient hostility. In the year 596 Probus, the bishop of Chalcedon, ar-
rived in Ctesiphon where he attended the Divine Liturgy in the presence of the Per-
sian king, and in return Khusro dispatched to Constantinople Milas, bishop of Sen-
na. 46 The patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon began a diplomatic correspondence with
the emperor Maurice which issued in a mutual exchange of captives who had been
held since the days of Hurmazd IV. 47 Toward the end of the sixth century, an out-
break of the pestilence afflicted the region of Kashkar in southern Mesopotamia,
and an assembly of Zoroastrian priests gathered before the walls of the theological
school to solicit the intercession of a holy man within, and the disease was dispersed
by the force of his prayers. 48
The visitation of the Magi, who had adored the infant Son of God, was an ob-
vious pretext for assimilating the religion of Christ to that of Zoroaster, and the
court of Khusro promoted a practice of identifying figures of the Christian with
those of the Zoroastrian religion. The heroes of the deep past were integrated with-
in the heritage of Christianity, and the patriarchs, prophets, and kings of Israel were
written into the lore of Iran. This tendency, which surely developed from popular
superstition, outlived the Sasanid state. In the opinion of Dinawari, the loremasters
of Iran identified the Iranian culture hero Jamshid with Arphaxad, son of Shem and
grandson of Noah, 49 but some said that he was the biblical king Solomon; 50 and
43 Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 491.

44 Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 492–493.
45 Eustratius, Vita Martyris Golinduch, p. 23.
46 Theophylact, V.15.8–11; Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 493; Flusin, B., Saint Anastase le Perse, II,
p. 106.
50 Dinawari, p. 9.
Faredun, who slew the demon king Azdahag, was believed to be the same as Nim-
rod. 51 In the reign of Khusro II, it was said that the body of the prophet Daniel re-
posed in a bronze container within the royal treasury at Susa; but when the Roman
government requested that it be given to them, Khusro refused on that ground that
it was dear to his wife Shirin and her fellow Christians. But the writer Sebeos, who is
the only source of this tale, notices the important detail that pious Zoroastrians con-
sidered the body within the bronze vessel to be that of Kay Khusro: the legendary
ruler familiar from Zoroastrian scripture. 52
Perhaps the most astonishing piece of propaganda was the claim that the
founder of the Sasanid dynasty himself had been a Christian. Avestan legend held
that the conversion of king Gushtasp to the religion of Zoroaster was actuated by
the prophet’s healing of the king’s horse, whose legs had been mysteriously ab-
sorbed into its belly. According to a strange legend, the apostle of Jesus who ap-
peared at the court of Ardashir, studied and chanted the gospel at night; and when
the king’s favourite horse was found dead, that holy man restored it to life. 53 He
befriended the king’s vizier Abarsam, and his influence prompted the conversion
and baptism of the first Sasanid monarch – an historical and chronological impossi-
bility. But the triple force of this myth was that the Christian faith could be under-
stood as a source of royal legitimacy and power, that the Christians of Iran could be
loyal to the House of Sasan, and that the mythical history of Iranian Christianity
could be made comprehensible to a Zoroastrian nobility. These are the strongest
indications that the myth of Ardashir’s conversion originated in the reign of Khusro
II.
But the privileges of Iranian Christians may have exaggerated the severity of
their disputes over doctrine and ecclesiology. Toward the end of the sixth century,
the patriarch Sabrishoʿ endorsed Henana of Nisibis in a bid to replace the current
occupant of that see. Gregory of Kashgar (that was the name of the incumbent)
fled, the people of Nisibis rose in revolt in the year 599, and the Nakhwaragan was
dispatched with a great army and elephants to put down the insurrection. The Irani-
an general swore to protect the inhabitants of the city; but when the gates of Nisibis
were thrown open to him, he refused to abide by his oath. Nobles were seized and
tortured, their houses were emptied of their treasures and burnt, and an indiscrimi-
51 Dinawari, p. 9. Notably, Moses Chorenatsi also associates Azhdahak and Faredun with the
age of Nimrod (Moses, Chorenatsi, I.32).
52 Sebeos, 85–86; Skjærvø, P. O., “Kayanian vii. Kauui Haosrauuah, Kay Husrōy, Kay
Ḵosrow” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2013, online edition.

53 Dinawari, p. 46–47; Nihaya, p. 185–186. For analysis see Jackson Bonner, Al-Dinawari’s
Kitab Al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, p. 67–68, Payne, R., A State of Mixture, p. 164–165, and Schilling,
A., “L’apôtre du Christ,” p. 89–112.
nate slaughter ensued. 54 The Zoroastrian king of Iran respected the religion of
Christ, but he would not tolerate the violence of his sectaries.
THE ROAD TO WAR

Even amidst the calamities of civil war and the contest with Bistam the Roman gov-
ernment had respected the monarchy of Khusro. In the decade of the 590s, Roman
arms were preoccupied in the Balkan peninsula where every effort was made to re-
assert the emperor’s authority over Slavic tribes who had migrated below the river
Danube. 55 In the year 591 the emperor Maurice had appeared at the head of a large
host and carried war deep into territories held by the Slavs and Avars. It was a hard
campaign that was to end in mutiny; but that military distraction, and the revolt of
Bistam, assured peaceable relations between the great powers in the last decade of
the sixth century. 56 But when civil war afflicted the empire of Rome, and the em-
peror Maurice was slain, Khusro revived a policy of aggressive warfare in the west.
In the month of November in the year 602, trouble began with the emperor’s
instruction that the Balkan field army pass the winter north of the Danube, and the
soldiers’ refusal gave way to an implacable mutiny. But the enraged soldiers had
failed to convince their general Peter to disobey the command of the emperor, and
the army appointed the centurion Phocas as their leader. This disgruntled force re-
solved instantly to march upon Constantinople with the intention of overthrowing
Maurice. The emperor, his wife Constantina, and their nine children 57 escaped from
Constantinople only a day before the rebel received the crown from the hand of the
Patriarch in the church of St John the Baptist in a suburb of the city. 58 This was on
Friday, the twenty-third day of November. Two days later, Phocas entered Constan-
tinople without opposition. Maurice and his family were captured near Praenetus
and taken to Chalcedon where all but the eldest son were slain on the twenty-
seventh day of November. 59 In the Camp of the Tribunal at Constantinople, the
grim display of the lifeless heads of Maurice and his family announced the triumph
of the usurper; but the citizens of Constantinople noted the absence of the head of
Theodosius, who had escaped the slaughter and fled to the court of Khusro. 60 It
was perhaps at the behest of Maurice that Theodosius sought refuge with his fa-
54 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 18–19; Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 514.

55 Whitby, M., The Emperor Maurice and his Historian, p. 24–27; 157–169.
56 Whittow, M., The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, p. 69.
57 They were six boys, Theodosius, Tiberius, Peter, Paul, Justin, and Justinian, and three girls,
Anastasia, Theoctiste, and Cleopatra (Chronicon Paschale, p. 693).

58 Theophylact, VIII.vi.2–10; Chronicon Paschale, p. 693.
59 Chronicon Paschale, p. 694.
60 Theophylact, VIII.15.11; Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 20; Sebeos, p. 106; Theophanes, Chrono-
graphia, p. 290–291; Dinawari, p. 110.

ther’s ally and his own brother by adoption, but Roman propaganda portrayed the
fugitive as an upstart and impostor.
Khusro, who himself had fled the rebellion of a usurper, was moved, or pre-
tended to be moved, by the plight of the young Theodosius, and the successor to
Augustus and Constantine was afforded an honourable reception by the heir of Cy-
rus and Ardashir. The patriarch Sabrishoʿ performed a coronation according to the
Roman custom; and in the royal church at Ctesiphon, at the behest of the Persian
king, the rightful Orthodox emperor of Rome received his title, and his crown, from
the hand of a Nestorian priest. 61 Royal acclamations would scarcely have ceased to
reverberate at the Iranian capital when preparations for an invasion began, but the
open declaration of war coincided with the later reception of a Roman embassy.
THE DECLARATION OF WAR

Five months after the coronation of Phocas, the ambassador Lilius had been dis-
patched to announce the new reign, but Khusro refused to acknowledge the man
who had murdered his benefactor, and the Roman envoy was cast into prison. 62 The
rebellion of Phocas had provoked a general disorder throughout the Roman world.
Hostility between the factions of the circus afflicted every city of the empire.
Narses, the Roman commander in the east, disdained the authority of the new em-
peror and he rose in revolt and occupied the city of Edessa. The son of the exarch
of Carthage, who bore the name Heraclius, would soon lead a rebellion, and over-
throw the usurper. But for the moment the eye of Phocas was turned to the east,
and he instructed Germanus, the commandant at the fortress of Dara, to besiege
Edessa and to dislodge its occupier. 63 Narses implored the aid of the Persian king,
and Khusro resolved to exploit what he rightly saw as an incipient civil war, and (in
the language of Theophylact) ‘he mobilised that world-destroying trumpet, for this
tyranny of Phocas became the undoing of harmonious relations between Romans
and Persians; for Khusro resolved to pretend to uphold the hallowed memory of the
emperor Maurice, and thus the Persian war was allotted its origin’. 64 With that final
volley of bombast, Theophylact terminates his history, and we leave behind the old
world of classicising historiography, and we pass suddenly into a new and different
age.

‫ ܘܗܝܕܝܢ ܢܬܬܤܝܡ ܒܪܫܗ ܐܝܟ ܜܟܣܐ ܕ�ܗܘܡܝܐ‬.‫ܘܢܬܬܤܝܡ ܬܓܐ ܕܡܠܟܘܬܐ ܥܠ ܡܕܒܚܐ‬
The reception and coronation of Theodosius is repeated by Tabari, v. 2, p. 181:
.‫تو ّ�ه ومل�ّ�� ا��وم‬
62 Theophylact, VIII.15.2–7.
63 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 291–292.
64 Theophylact, VIII.15.7.
THE MOOD OF THE TIME AND THE SOURCES FOR THE WAR
We are now very remote from the confident, polished, and self-conscious prose of
Ammianus, Procopius, Agathias, Menander, and Theophylact. Religious enthusiasm
and supernatural speculation begin to take on ever greater significance in an age of
eschatological fervour and self-doubt; prophecies of the imminent end of the world
predominate, and we may yet sense the spirit of the time in three roughly contem-
poraneous sources. The first of these is the Armenian writer Sebeos, whose work is
imbued with an apocalyptic urgency, and it affords a reliable narrative of the tumul-
tuous seventh century. George of Pisidia, a prominent churchman connected with
the court of the emperor Heraclius, is the second. George was a poet who com-
memorated the Persian wars of Heraclius, and his poetry (which the emperor him-
self commissioned) reposes upon official reports sent from the field to Constanti-
nople. 65 We may detect in his poetry a melancholy loss of confidence in man’s pow-
er over the world in which he lives, as George contemplates the vanity of ambition
and the brute reality of God’s infinite sway over all creation. 66 The arresting decla-
mations of the prophet of a new religion are the third source. The earliest portions
of the Quran, pronounced amidst the last great war of Antiquity, are vivid evoca-
tions of the end of the world and the imminent day of judgement, and the prophet
exhorts all mankind to repentance in preparation for the Last Day. 67
The writing of Theophylact gives way to two Roman chronicles and one
abridgement from which we may derive only a sparse outline of the Roman account
of the last war of Antiquity. 68 I. The Pascal Chronicle purports to list all the important
events of human history down to the compiler’s own day, and it terminates at the
year 628: the final year of the war. Its last section, which covers the conquests of
65 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, 2010, p. 16–35.

66 For example, see these lines of George’s Hexaemeron (George of Pisidia, Hexaemeron, l.
369–378):
Τίς τὸν μέγιστον οὐρανὸν τοῦτον βλέπων,
Καὶ τὴν ἀεικίνητον, ἣν ἔχει βίαν,
Τῶν ἀστέρων τε τοῦς συνεκτικωτάτους,
Νῦν μὲν βορείας, νῦν δὲ κινήσεις νότου
Ἐν ἐκδρομῇ ποιοῦντας, ἢ μεταστάσει·
Ἢ τὴν ἄβυσσον τοῦ χυθέντος ἀέρος,
Ψυχρουμένην νῦν καὶ πάλιν πυρουμένην,
Καὶ προσβολὰς πάσχουσαν ἠναγκασμένας,
Οὐ τὴν ἄτρεπτον ἐννοήσας οὐσίαν,
Δούλην νομίζει τὴν ἀείτρεπτον κτίσιν;
For other examples, see Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, 2010, p. 29; 35.
67 Quran 54:1; 81:1–6; 82:4; 99; Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, p. 355–358;
449.
68 On the principal sources of the period see Greatrex, G. / Lieu, S. N. C., The Roman Eastern
Front and the Persian Wars, p. 182–183.

Khusro and the counterattack of Heraclius, is not a narrative, but rather a rich fund
of chronology and documentary evidence covering the Roman efforts to sue for
peace with Iran, the siege of Constantinople, and a dispatch from the field announc-
ing the victory of Heraclius and the fall of Khusro. 69 II. The Chronography of The-
ophanes is a compilation of a later date, for it terminates in the year 813. But a por-
tion of this source reposes upon an official account of Heraclius’ campaigns, full of
lucid and plausible detail, and probably composed by the poet George of Pisidia. 70
III. The Short History composed by the patriarch Nicephorus is a composition of the
late eighth century, covering the period between the years 602 and 769. The writer
of this text was not an eyewitness to the events which he describes, but his work
reposes upon documentary sources of the seventh century which are now lost. 71
These three sources may be supplemented by important notices in Syrian
chronicles, such as the Chronicle of Khuzestan, and the sources of the Persian royal
tradition, of which the best examples are the works of Dinawari and Tabari, for the
poet Ferdowsi has transmitted no account of the last war of Antiquity. 72
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR AND ITS FIRST PHASE 603–615

The invasion began in the spring of the year 603. 73 Iranian troops had gathered on
the northern and southern flanks of the Taurus mountains, and Khusro himself
took command of his southern forces and led them into Mesopotamia. 74 It was
Khusro’s first aim to form the siege of Dara. He then divided his forces, and leaving
an army outside the walls of that castle, Khusro and a smaller cohort proceeded to
Edessa. A dawn assault threw the defenders of that city into a panic; many flung
themselves into the Daisan river, 75 others fled ignominiously, and the gates of Edes-
sa were thrown open to the Persian king. Theodosius, who had accompanied
Khusro, was presented to the citizens of Edessa as the rightful emperor of Rome.
Khusro then withdrew to Dara where the siege of that fortress continued for a year
and a half. In the summer of the year 604, mines destroyed the walls of Dara, and
69 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, p. 37–59. The author of the chronicle was
perhaps Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople.
70 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, 2010, p. 268–295, in which the author ex-
pounds the intricate argument in favour of the source composed by George of Pisidia.
71 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, p. 237–256.
72 Howard-Johnston, J., “Al-Tabari on the Last Great War of Antiquity” in Howard-
Johnston, J. (ed.), East Rome, Sasanian Persia and the End of Antiquity: Historiographical and Histor-
ical Studies, 2006, p. 1–22.
73 My division of the war into four phases follows Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius Emperor of Byzanti-
um, 2003, p. 58–191.

74 Sebeos, p. 107; Whittow, M., The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, p. 72–73.
75 This stream is a tributary of the Euphrates, which is surely what Sebeos means (Sebeos, p.
107 with note 364 in the second volume, p. 58).

the Iranian host rushed into the city and put every inhabitant to the sword; and the
writer Sebeos was impressed by the rich haul of booty extracted from that fortress
and brought to Ctesiphon. 76 As those events unfolded, a Roman army had been
dispatched to recover Edessa, and Narses took flight and was captured at Hier-
apolis. He was taken to Constantinople and burnt alive at the behest of the usurper
Phocas. 77
In the year that followed the reduction of Dara, Iran’s northwestern border
was gradually extended westward of the old frontier along the watershed of the
Araxes and Euphrates rivers. Successive Iranian generals fought a series of hard
campaigns and faced greater resistance than Khusro had encountered to the south. 78
An early failure near Elevard gave way to a victory upon the plain of Akanich in the
district of Shirak and then a withdrawal to Azarbaijan. The Iranian general, whom
Sebeos calls Senitam Khosrov, defeated Roman forces in the districts of Basean and
Taron, but operations were halted in the year 606. Over the course of that year the
Iranian army undertook a campaign of recruitment in order to ensure numerical
superiority. 79 Khusro now retired to his capital, and commanded his general Kho-
ream, who is better known by his title Shahr-Baraz, 80 to carry war deep into Roman
Mesopotamia and Syria. The general whom Sebeos calls Ashtat Yeztayar was like-
wise dispatched to Armenia along with young Theodosius. ‘Receive those who
submit in a spirit of friendship’, Khusro instructed, ‘and keep them in peace and
prosperity; but those who resist put them to the sword, and make war!’ 81 The
presentation of the rightful Roman emperor assured the capitulation of Theodosi-
opolis in about the year 608, and the victorious general pressed on into Roman Ar-
menia and seized the forts at Citharizon, Satala, and Nicopolis.
To the south, in the years which passed between 607 and 615, all Roman cities
east of the river Euphrates were captured and held. Though the order is uncertain
and the chronology doubtful, the cities of Amida, Carrhae, Resaina, Edessa, Hier-
apolis, Qenneshrin, and Callinicum fell successively to the arms of Iran; and, as the
Roman defences gave way, there began a large migration of persons westward. 82
The inner defences along the river Euphrates were broken; and in the year 611 the
Iranian host captured Caesarea of Cappadocia, the most important military base in
Anatolia. Antioch fell in the following year, 83 and the whole of Asia Minor was now
76 Sebeos, p. 107; This is also noticed in Chronicle to 724, p. 145.

78 Sebeos, p. 107–109. For analysis, see Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 67.
79 Sebeos, p. 110.
80 Sebeos, p. 110; 125 (See Thomson, R. W. / Howard-Johnston, J., The Armenian History
Attributed to Sebeos, p. 62 with note 391).

81 Sebeos, p. 110.
82 Chronicle 724, p. 146.
83 Sebeos, p. 111.
exposed to the predations of Khusro’s soldiers. The Roman emperor had attempted
and failed to sue for peace, and a counterattack was planned. A Roman siege of
Caesarea in the year 612 threatened to expose the Iranian garrison to the calamities
of famine, but that army forced its way through the Roman blockade, shattered the
host of Heraclius, and left the city in flames. Again in the year 613 an expeditionary
force was dispatched to resist the advance of Iran, but the Roman host was cut in
pieces; and in the following year the government of Khusro began to project power
throughout Syria and Palestine. 84
In the opinion of the writer Theophanes, the ravages of the Iranian army were
destructive and frightening, but the behaviour of the tyrant Phocas was worse. 85
There may be a hint of irony in the words of Theophanes, but the command which
Khusro is said to have issued to his generals suggests a will to rule, but not to de-
stroy the people of Rome; and, despite the bloody conquest of Dara, the image of
the peaceable annexation of Roman cities starts to the historian’s mind. The balance
of the archaeological evidence suggests a far less violent and destructive portrait
than that which takes shape upon the pages of written sources. 86 Nevertheless,
though the forces of Khusro may have threatened, but sought to avoid, destruction
and bloodshed, the capture of Jerusalem in the year 614 was attended by astonishing
violence and religious enthusiasm.
THE SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM

When the House of Sasan emerged victorious from its most severe trials in the sixth
century, the empire of Iran had changed. The militant Zoroastrianism of the age of
Shapur I and his high priest Kerdir, the tolerance of the first, and the religious con-
formity of the second Yazdgard, and the strange doctrines espoused by Kavad gave
way to the reign of a king who appeared to acknowledge the equal truth, or equal
utility, of every religion of his empire. The early reign of Khusro II compels the his-
torian to contemplate the monarchy of Cyrus: the great Achaemenid king who con-
quered and ruled with the sanction of Ahura Mazda, the approval of all the gods of
Sumer and Akkad, and Marduk, the supreme god of Babylon. 87 But the Iranian gov-
84 Whittow, M., The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, p. 75–76.

86 Greatrex, G., “The Impact on Asia Minor of the Persian Invasions in the Early Seventh
Century,” in Şimşek, C. / Kaçar, T., The Lykos Valley and Neighbourhood in Late Antiquity,
2018, p. 13–26; Foss, C., “The Persians in the Roman Near East,” p. 149–170.
87 ‘…the gods of the land of Sumer and Akkad which Nabonidus – to the fury of the lord of
the gods – had brought into Shuana, at the command of Marduk, the great lord, I returned
them unharmed to their cells, in the sanctuaries that made them happy. May all the gods that
I returned to their sanctuaries, every day before Bel and Nabu, ask for long life for me, and
mention my good deeds…’ (Cyrus Cylinder, p. 43); ‘Marduk the great lord rejoiced at [my
good] deeds’ (Cyrus Cylinder, p. 43).
ernment had also taught the stubborn monotheism of the Jews to look upon Cyrus
as God’s Messiah:
‘Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden,
to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before
him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee,
and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and
cut in sunder the bars of iron: and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and
hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which
call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.’ 88
A special relationship between the Jews and the Achaemenid kings took root, and
was commemorated in the Hebrew scriptures. Khusro and his advisers cannot have
been unaware of the high repute in which the Jews held his Achaemenid forerun-
ners who had, successively, been anointed by God, restored the Jews to the Land of
Promise, and commanded the reconstruction of the Temple which had been de-
stroyed by the king of Babylon in the late sixth century before our era. 89
When the armies of Khusro penetrated Palestine and captured Jerusalem, the
invasion was welcomed and encouraged by Jews who expected the opening of a new
age, and who believed that the empire of Rome, which had destroyed their second
temple, was the last of the earthly powers described by the prophet Daniel. 90 It is
perhaps unsurprising that the Jews who beheld the apparent collapse of Rome’s
Christian empire would recall the words of a prophet, and meditate upon the arrival
of the Messiah and the moment when worldly power would pass to them. 91 But,
when we contemplate the events that followed, a startling inference suggests itself:
that Khusro encouraged the Messianic and eschatological expectations of Roman
Jews.
88 Isaiah, 45:1–3. For some interpretations of this passage, see Fried, L. S., “Cyrus the Messi-
ah? The Historical Background to Isaiah 45:1” The Harvard Theological Review, vol. 95, no. 4,
2002, p. 373–393, and Westermann, C., Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary, 1969, p. 4–5; 154.
89 2 Chronicles 36:22–23; Ezra 2:1–2; 3:8; 6:15; Nehemiah 7:6–7; Heilo, O., Eastern Rome and
the Rise of Islam: History and Prophecy, 2016, p. 20.

90 Daniel 7:23–27. Van Bekkum, W. J., “Jewish Messianic Expectations in the Age of Hera-
clius” in Reinink, G. J. / Stolte, B. H. (eds.), The Reign of Heraclius (610 – 641): Crisis and Con-
frontation, Groningen Studies in Cultural Change (Book 2), 2002, p. 95–112; Wheeler, B. M.,
“Imagining the Sasanian Capture of Jerusalem: The Prophecy and Dream of Zerubbabel and
Antiochus Strategios’ Capture of Jerusalem,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 57, 1991, p. 69–85;
Levi, I., “L’Apocalypse de Zorobabel et le roi de Perse Siroès,” Revue des études juives, 68,
1914, p. 129–160. On the prophecy of Daniel, see Heilo, O., Eastern Rome and the Rise of Islam,
p. 2–4.
91 Cf. Shoemaker, S. J., The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early
Islam, 2018, p. 92–100.

That inference would explain why the conquests of Khusro coincided with a
Jewish insurrection throughout the Roman world. The Jews of Antioch revolted in
the year 610, and according to the testimony of Theophanes, some of them castrat-
ed the patriarch Anastasius, threw the severed organs into his face, and dragged the
expiring corpse through the streets of their city. Many other Christians were slain,
and an army dispatched by the emperor Phocas failed to arrest that furious rebel-
lion. 92 A band of Samaritans and Jews from Tiberias, the Galilean mountains, and
Nazareth is said to have joined itself to the Iranian host on is progress to Jerusa-
lem. 93 As the Iranian army advanced upon Acre, the Jews of that city are said to
have risen in revolt. 94 The Jews of Caesarea had willingly submitted themselves to
the general Shahin, after the departure of the city’s Christian population; 95 and the
capitulation of Palestine was achieved by certain Jews who had allied themselves
with the general Shahr-Baraz. When the war had concluded, in a personal interview
with the emperor Heraclius, a Jew by the name of Benjamin justified the insurrec-
tion on the ground that the Christians of Rome were the enemies of his people. 96
Intense feelings of Messianic expectation inspired Jewish liturgical poetry and
apocalyptic literature of the early seventh century, and the city of the Jerusalem was
at the centre of those hopes. ‘Assyria shall go forth against Edom…and Assyria will
destroy all her tents’, ‘the king of the west will wage a mortal war with the king of
the east’, and ‘Gog and Magog will then mightily clash inspiring fear in the hearts of
the nations, and Israel will be cleansed of her sins’. 97 Such are the apocalyptic allu-
sions to the war which promised to inaugurate ‘the day when the Messiah son of
David will come to a downtrodden people’, and the Jews shall no longer be ‘kept
away from the house of prayer’. 98 And after a brief respite ‘Assyria shall allow them
to found a temple of holiness; and they will build there an altar of holiness and they
will sacrifice offerings of holiness’. 99 Here we have an unmistakable sign that the
Jews expected the purification of Jerusalem and the revival of their ancient rites un-
der the rule of the Persian king. One Jewish liturgical poem suggests that an altar had
indeed been erected upon the Temple Mount, and that sacrifice had resumed, but
92 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 296. For the general uprising, see Neusner, J., A History of the
Jews in Babylonia, vol. 5, p. 122–124.
93 Annals of Eutychius, v. 2, p. 216:
.‫فاجتمع اليه ال��ود من ط�� ية وجبل ا��ليل والنا��ة وما حو�� و�اوؤا ا�ى بيت ا��قس‬
94 Doctrina Jacobi, 5:12; Sharf, A., Byzantine Jewry from Justinian to the Fourth Crusade, 1971, p. 49.
95 Sebeos, p. 112.
97 Sivan, H., “From Byzantine to Persian Jerusalem: Jewish Perspectives and Jewish-Christian
Polemics,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 41, 2000, p. 295; 288–289. I have modified Si-
van’s translations slightly, to suit my diction and sentence structure. I owe this reference to
Mr Tom Holland.
98 Sivan, H., “From Byzantine to Persian Jerusalem,” p. 295; 288–289.
99 Sivan, H., “From Byzantine to Persian Jerusalem,” p. 289.
the mysterious leader of these developments, who called himself Nehemiah ben
Hushiel, was executed by Iranian authorities, and the hope of the Jews gave way to
disillusionment and anger. 100 We may fairly suspect that this was the cause of unrest
and violence.
Amidst the tumult of a Jewish uprising and Christian retaliation, Iranian forces
were asked to intervene and to pacify Jerusalem. The flames of enthusiasm abated,
but after the passage of a few months some Christian youths arose and slew the of-
ficers of the Persian king, and strife erupted again between Jewish and Christian citi-
zens. Those Jews who had escaped death at the hands of their Christian antagonists
sent word to the Iranian army at Caesarea, Shahr-Baraz resolved to punish the
Christian population of Jerusalem, and the Iranian army began a siege of nineteen
days. Mines shattered a part of the walls of Jerusalem, and for three days that city
was devoted to fire and sword. The patriarch Zachariah, and many of the clergy,
were arrested and tortured, until they revealed the hiding place of Christendom’s
holiest relic. The wood of the cross, to which Jesus had been nailed, had been
placed in a reliquary and buried in a vegetable garden. 101 The Iranian host extracted
that relic from the ground and dispatched it to Ctesiphon as a trophy of war and a
gift for Khusro’s Christian wife Shirin. 102 All the gold and silver which had accumu-
lated within the Holy City over the past three centuries was melted down and sent
to Ctesiphon. Seventeen thousand persons had been slain, and thirty-five thousand
were taken prisoner. The forces of Shahr-Baraz occupied Jerusalem for twenty-one
days, and supposedly burnt it to the ground. 103
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE IRANIAN CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM

Archaeological work has revealed seven mass graves around the circumference of
the Old City of Jerusalem. These graves indicate indiscriminate slaughter and hasty
burial, and we may confidently associate them with the calamity of the year 614. 104
100 Stemberger, G., Judaica Minora II: Geschichte und Literatur des rabbinischen Judentums, Mohr
Siebeck, 2010, p. 169–170; Sivan, H., “From Byzantine to Persian Jerusalem,” p. 291–292;
Malamat, A., A History of the Jewish People, 1976, p. 362; Levi, I., “L’Apocalypse de Zoroba-
bel,” p. 151–153. The date of these important events cannot be inferred precisely from the
texts which allude to them. I have preferred the opinion of Sivan who situates them very
early in the Persian occupation of Jerusalem. The later dating (between 629 and 634) sug-
gested by Stemberger founded on the older opinion of Fleischer (Fleischer, E., “Solving the
Qilliri Riddle,” Tarbiz 54, 1984–1985, p. 383–427).
101 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 25; Tabari, v. 2, p. 181. Curiously, Dinawari (p. 111) has wrongly
transferred the seizure of the cross to the city of Alexandria, and the vegetable garden is
transformed into a place where basil grows.
102 Antiochus Strategus, p. 507.
103 Sebeos, p. 116.
104 Avni, G., “The Persian Conquest of Jerusalem (614 c.e.) – An Archaeological Assess-
ment,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 357, 2010, p. 35–48.
The most instructive of these is a cave at the site of Mamilla near the Jaffa Gate.
Hundreds of human bones, mostly those of women and children, are mingled with
cruciform pendants, lamps, and coins issued in the reign of the emperor Phocas;
and a Greek inscription of four lines adorns the entrance to the cave: ‘for the re-
demption and salvation of those whose names God knows’. 105 This evidence
strengthens our confidence in the mysterious writer Antiochus Strategus who claims
that the soldiers of Shahr-Baraz had massacred Christians at the site of Mamilla
where the faithful had buried the corpses in a grotto. 106
But the account of Antiochus is otherwise doubtful. The incineration and
demolition of all churches, the destruction of altars, crosses trodden under foot,
icons spat upon, 107 the systematic violation of four hundred nuns, 108 and the burning
of the Church of the Resurrection 109 cannot be corroborated by the evidence of ar-
chaeology; nor would they reflect the behaviour of a conqueror who intended to
rule over a population of Christians. Evidence of extensive burning is attested only
on the northern portion of the old wall. 110 We may fairly suspect that the damage of a
popular uprising and the intervention of a military power has been exaggerated into
a vast scene of destruction. At the conclusion of this massacre, it is said that the gen-
eral Shahr-Baraz sent forth criers who urged the survivors to emerge from the plac-
es in which they had hidden: artisans and builders were carried off to Iran and the
others were imprisoned within a cistern. Certain Jews are said to have offered to
purchase the freedom of any captives who would deny Christ; and, when this plan
failed, they ransomed prisoners for the singular, and unbelievable, purpose of mur-
dering them. 111 But the Christians ‘rejoiced because they were being slain for
Christ’s sake and shed their blood for his blood, and took on themselves death in
return for his death,’ 112 and the number of the slain was more than sixty-six thou-
sand. 113 The work of Antiochus may perhaps best be understood as propaganda,
composed amidst the great war, so as to justify the Roman view of a contest be-
tween the religion of Jesus and that of Zoroaster. 114
105 Reich, R., “God Knows Their Names” – Mass Christian Grave Revealed in Jerusalem,”
Biblical Archaeology Review 22/2. 1996, p. 29–33.
106 Antiochus Strategus, p. 508; 514.
109 Antiochus Strategus, p. 509–510; cf. the Chronicle of Khuzestan which includes an especially
lurid account of the destruction of the Church of the Resurrection (Chronicle of Khuzestan, p.
26–27).
110 Magness, J., “Archaeological Evidence for the Sasanian Persian Invasion of Jerusalem,” in
Holum, K. / Laim, H. (eds.), 400–800 C.E., 2011, p. 85–89.

111 Antiochus Strategus, p. 507–508.
114 Cf. Wood, P., The Chronicle of Seert, p. 215; Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 79–80.
But the real experience of the fall of Jerusalem was never forgotten, and its
greatest force was upon the minds and feelings of men. The God in whose name the
Roman emperor had claimed to rule had turned against his people, and ascetics of
the Palestinian desert accused, and sought to purify, a sinful people who had an-
gered the deity. 115 We may perhaps compare the annexation of Palestine and the
capture of Jerusalem with the fall of Rome in the year 410, which had shocked the
Roman world and which had given rise to the utopian visions of St Augustine’s City
of God. 116 An obscure citizen of Mecca similarly consoled himself at the prospect of
Roman humiliation:
‘Rome has been vanquished in a land nearby. But after their defeat, they shall be
victorious again in a few years. God is master of the past and the future; and on
that day the believers shall rejoice in his help. He helps whom he wishes: he is
mighty and compassionate.’ 117
PREPARATIONS FOR CONQUEST

The success of Khusro’s invasion of the Roman empire unfolded amidst the disor-
der of Roman political strife and civil war. The reign of Phocas was savage and in-
competent; and though the Roman government called young Theodosius an impos-
tor, he was received as the rightful emperor of Rome wherever he appeared. San-
guinary repression at Constantinople, the successive rebellions of Narses and Hera-
clius, and war in the Balkans forbade the massive military intervention which might
have halted the advance of Iran. 118 Massive concessions of territory were surely de-
manded from, and granted by, Theodosius; and in the mind of Khusro there took
shape the double prospect of revenge upon the killer of Maurice and the recovery of
territory which had been ceded in the year 591.
By the turn of the sixth century, the hostile outer world of the nomad had tak-
en on a less menacing aspect, and Khusro could safely deploy a large military force
in the west. In the year 601 it was the bold project of the khaghan Tardu to reunite
the western and the eastern halves of the Turkish empire. His failure gave way to a
war upon the northern Chinese dynasty of the Sui – an exercise in which he may
have hoped to win honour and prestige. But problems of an impossibly long supply
line afflicted that campaign in a distant country, and the Töles, a tribe subject to the
Turks, rose in revolt. The Chinese war was terminated abruptly, Tardu himself per-
115 Booth, P., Crisis of Empire: Doctrine and Dissent at the End of Late Antiquity, 2014, 94–100.
116 Heilo, O., Eastern Rome and the Rise of Islam, p. 21.
117 Quran 30:2–5. On the tradition which connects these lines with the Iranian conquest of
Palestine, see Ali’s preamble to his translation of Surah 30 (Ali, A., The Meaning of the Noble
Qur’an, 2002, p. 1006–1007), and Nöldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, p. 41.
118 Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 65; Whittow, M., The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, p. 73–75.
ished in about the year 602, and in the following year the disintegrating Turkish
khaghanate was engulfed by civil war. 119
Such conditions left the government of Iran free to continue the policy of war-
fare inaugurated by Ardashir and the two Shapurs, and revived by Kavad and
Khusro I. But two important historical facts announce that the conquests of Shahin
and Shahr-Baraz were to be permanent.
I. When the issue of the war seemed certain, Khusro terminated the privileged posi-
tion of his Lakhmid vassal. 120 Nearly four hundred years of cooperation between the
kings of Hira and the House of Sasan came to a sudden end in a single moment in
the first decade of the seventh century. Khusro’s vision of an enlarged Iranian em-
pire could not have included a policy of managing the Bedouins of northern Arabia
through a single client; and centuries of antagonism between the Arabs of the
Lakhm and Ghassan forbade a prominent role for the former allies of Iran, and a
multilateral system of alliances extending across the Arabian frontier was to be the
new policy. The Chronicle of Seert notes that relations between Hira and Ctesiphon
disintegrated and issued in the ignominious execution of the king Nuʿman III. 121 But
Qabisa, a client king of the Banu ʿIjl arose in place of his Lakhmid predecessor, and
these troubles were a consequence, and not the cause, of Iran’s new policy. Iya ibn
the new dynasty was established at Hira. It is possible that this change of policy was
implemented in the year 606 when the penetration of Roman territory had been
halted. 122
The Arabian reaction was fierce. Ties of loyalty to the Lakhmid monarchy
compelled an alliance of tribes to attack Hira and to attempt to dislodge its new rul-
er. 123 That effort failed, but a deeper incursion of that Bedouin force issued in the
rout of a small contingent of the Iranian army at the site of Dhu Qar. This small
skirmish was but a slight reverse for the empire of Iran, but an Arabian merchant
acclaimed it as a great victory, and announced that it had come about through his
intercession. 124 Evidence for the Iranian consolidation of the desert frontier at this
moment is meagre, but instructive. The government of Iran seems to have patron-
the Banu ʿIjl at Hira. 125 There were surely others rooted in different portions of the
ised the Ghassanid Arabs also, and they were surely a second important client beside
119 Barfield, T., The Perilous Frontier, p. 136–138; Wright, A. F., The Sui Dynasty, p. 188.
120 I am following the analysis of Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, p. 437–439.
121 Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 468–469; 478–481; 539–540; 546.
122 No more precise dating is possible (Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, p.
437).
123 Tabari, v. 2, p. 193–194; 214–215.
124 Tabari, v. 2, p. 193:
.‫هذا اوّل يوم انتصف العرب من العجم ؛ و�ي نُ��وا‬

125The principal evidence for this is that the Ghassan are identified as the core of the Roman
and allied force defeated at the Battle of Yarmuk in the year 636 (Baladhuri, p. 135–137.
Arabian frontier. But, whatever the composition of this multilateral system of alli-
ances, it successfully guarded the southern flank of the Iranian empire throughout
the reign of Khusro II, for we hear of no trouble in this sensitive region after the
skirmish at Dhu Qar. 126
II. In the year 605, Gregory of Prat succeeded to the patriarchate of Seleucia-
Ctesiphon, and he occupied that office for four years. 127 Sabrishoʿ, his predecessor,
had endorsed a dyophysite, non-Chalcedonian Christology; but the sympathies of
Gregory were with the monophysites. 128 This was the moment at which the Iranian
government shifted its support from the so-called Nestorian to the monophysite
party, in anticipation of annexing Roman territory where Christians of that opinion
were especially numerous. 129 The Chalcedonian policies of the emperor Maurice
were swiftly reversed, monophysite priests were returned to their former churches,
and Syrian churchmen received these developments favourably. 130 This was an ob-
vious, but effective, policy to attract Christians who hated the Roman government
and to alienate the Orthodox party. At the death of Gregory, the patriarchal throne
was left vacant for the duration of Khusro’s war – a sign, perhaps, that Khusro had
planned to abandon the patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and all its Nestorian
associations, forever.
THE SECOND PHASE OF THE WAR 615–622

When the new emperor Heraclius had overthrown the usurper Phocas in the year
610, he dispatched an embassy to the Persian court and offered terms of peace.
These were refused, the Roman ambassadors were slain, and by the year 615 an Ira-
nian army under the command of the general Shahin had advanced through Asia
Minor and appeared upon the Asiatic shore of the Bosporus within sight of Con-
stantinople. 131 At this moment a second embassy was dispatched with the purpose
of suing for peace without conditions. The emperor Heraclius had opened negotia-
tions in person with Shahin, 132 and two senior ministers and a representative of the
126 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, 2010, p. 441.

127 Chronicle of Seert, II(2), p. 521–522. It was said that the intrigues of Shirin had achieved the
elevation of that churchman over his rival Gregory of Nisibis, whom Khusro had originally
preferred.
128 Flusin, B., Saint Anastase le Perse, II, p. 107–109.
129 Wood, P., The Chronicle of Seert, p. 200–201.
130 Flusin, B., Saint Anastase le Perse, II, p. 114–118.
131 Sebeos, p. 112–116; Chronicon Paschale, p. 706; Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 296. But the
writer Nicephorus claims that Shahin besieged Chalcedon for a long time (Nicephorus, Brev-
iarium, 9).
132 Sebeos, p. 122; the patriarch Nicephorus has transmitted a much-embellished account of
this embassy (Nicephorus, Breviarium, 6). For a somewhat credulous analysis, see Kaegi, W.
E., Heraclius, p. 83–86.
patriarch of Constantinople bore gifts and a letter to the court at Ctesiphon. 133 The
force of their epistle was a grovelling request on the part of the senate that the em-
pire of Iran appoint a Roman client king, and that the war be brought to an immedi-
ate end. 134
At this moment, Khusro might have halted and consolidated the conquests
which he had lately won. He refused to acknowledge the authority of the emperor
of Rome; the representatives of the Roman senate were abject suppliants to the king
of Iran, and the people of Constantinople trembled to behold the watchfires of
Shahin at Chalcedon. Khusro could have installed young Theodosius as emperor,
and reclaimed the lands which had been ceded in the year 591 together with other,
more impressive conquests. But the request of the embassy was refused, the ambas-
sadors were cast into prison, and Khusro commanded his general to prepare a naval
assault upon the Roman capital. 135 Khusro’s change of policy, which required the
abandonment and probable murder of young Theodosius and the deployment of
additional military resources, cannot have been taken without careful deliberations.
Many of the king’s advisers must have opposed so bold and dangerous a plan, but
we have no direct insight into the discussions which shaped Khusro’s thought. All
the Roman Orient, save the land of Egypt, had been subdued: the measure of
Khusro’s ambition was surely equal to the size of the conquest, and this may have
been enough to impel the Sasanid monarch to annex the entire Roman empire.
But the threat of the outer world of the nomad must have shaped Iranian poli-
cy. In the year 615, the Iranian government received an arresting reminder of the
power of the riders of the north. At the instigation of some Hephthalite kings, a vast
Turkish force, which Sebeos computes at three hundred thousand men, traversed
the river Oxus, destroyed an Armenian army sent to oppose them, and penetrated as
far as Rey and Isfahan. 136 That formidable host spread devastation as they plun-
dered, and returned to Central Asia with an immense haul of booty. The Turkish
khaghan may have looked for a propitious moment to attack the sedentary power to
the south, and the distraction of warfare in the west furnished the opportunity that
he had awaited. But the sudden retreat of the Turks is difficult to explain. The evi-
dence of Chinese sources informs us that the death of the old, and the succession of
a new, khaghan provoked a change of policy in the year 615; and the empire of the
Turks directed all military strength against the crumbling Sui dynasty. A surprise
133 The ambassadors were Olympius (former consul, patrician, and pretorian prefect), Leon-
tius (former consul, patrician, and city prefect), and Anastasius (presbyter and syncellus)
(Chronicon Paschale, p. 707).
134 The letter has been reproduced in full in Chronicon Paschale, p. 706–709.
135 Sebeos, p. 122–123.
136 Sebeos, 101–102. Sebeos calls these kings ‘Kushans’ by which he must mean ‘Heph-
thalite’. For analysis see Thomson, R. W. / Howard-Johnston, J., The Armenian History At-
tributed to Sebeos, part 2: Historical Commentary, p. 186.
attack upon the Sui emperor in the midst of an inspection of his army issued in an
embarrassing rout and a siege of the city of Yanmen, a strategic chokepoint between
the valleys of Shanxi and the steppe. 137 Though the emperor Yang survived and es-
caped, this humiliation precipitated the fall of the Sui and inaugurated many years of
Turkish involvement in the affairs of China.
But nothing could ensure the permanent quiescence of nomadic power, and
the government of Iran surely expected further aggression from the steppe. The
Roman state, however diminished or humiliated, would have afforded a constant
distraction to the empire of Iran, and a potential ally to her Asiatic foes, and the
government of Khusro must have determined that the political union of all seden-
tary peoples would be required to resist the might of the Turks. 138
We have already noted that the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi offers no mention of
the last war of Antiquity. But that poem includes a surprising allusion to an appraisal
of the finances of the Iranian empire in that king’s twenty-sixth regnal year, or the
year 615. 139 The distichs in question form part of a long speech put into the mouth
of Khusro II amidst his self-justification and defence after his eventual destitution
and arrest. Although we cannot expect Ferdowsi’s brief description to allow us a
perfect idea of the contents of Khusro’s treasury, the financial assessment, to which
he refers, may be grounded in fact. The resolution to prolong the war surely entailed
financial deliberations also, and such a reckoning well fits the circumstances of the
year 615 when the decision to annex the Roman empire was taken. 140
THE FALL OF ALEXANDRIA AND THE REDUCTION OF EGYPT

While the Armenian general Smbat Bagratuni pacified the Iranian frontier in Bactria,
the full occupation of Palestine was achieved in the year 616. 141 Razzias into Anato-
lia filled the following year, and were perhaps intended to distract Roman attention
from the main target of the war. Under the command of the general Shahr-Baraz,
Iranian troops massed in southern Palestine over the course of the year 618, and
137 Xiong, V. C., Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty: His Life, Times, and Legacy, 2006, p. 63–66;
Wright, A. F., The Sui Dynasty, p. 195.
138 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, p. 440
139 Ferdowsi, Khusraw-i Parviz, l. 234–238:
‫ز هر گوهرى گنج ما ما�� گشت‬ ‫چو د�� ما بيست و شش سا�� گشت‬

��‫سوى شادى و فر ّ�ى تاخت‬ ��‫درم را ي�� ميخ نو ساخت‬
‫چو صد بار دينار �ُ� صد هزار‬ ‫��ان سال چون بازجس�� مار‬
��‫مه ��م پنداو�� پار‬ ��‫� ُ� آگنده افگنده پنداو‬
!‫� ُ� آگنده دينار �ُ� شاهوار‬ ‫به هر ��ره يى در ده دو هزار‬
The word spelt ��‫ پنداو‬should perhaps be ��‫پيداو‬.
140 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, p. 352.
141 Flusin, B., Saint Anastase le Perse II, p. 177–180.
every preparation was made for an overwhelming attack upon the richest province
of the Roman Orient. 142
In the year 619, Alexandria fell after an obstinate siege. A Christian Arab of the
Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf 143 had been at Alexandria to study philosophy,
and his sympathies with the empire of Iran compelled him to betray the Egyptian
capital. On the advice of Peter (that was the Arab’s name), a band of Iranian soldiers
seized a small navy of fishing boats; and, in the darkness of the early morning, they
entered the city upon its western side opposite the sea. The guards of the western
side were slain, the gates were thrown open, the city was invested, and the triumph
of Khusro was proclaimed upon the battlements of Alexandria. The treasures of the
church and the nobility, which had been loaded onto boats, were wafted by a gust of
wind to the shore of the Iranian camp, and the spoil and keys of Alexandria were
sent to Yazdin, the minister of finance at the court of Khusro. 144 It was not long
thereafter that the cooperation of the two generals Shahin and Shahr-Baraz began to
extend Iranian power up the river Nile, and they achieved the total submission of
Egypt by the year 621. 145
IRANIAN RULE IN PALESTINE AND EGYPT

Though the Iranian army had inflicted great damage upon Jerusalem, Khusro com-
manded that it be repaired, that its Christian population be re-established, that the
Jews be expelled, and that donations be gathered for the restoration of churches. 146
The eschatological fervour, which Khusro had perhaps inspired, could never be sat-
isfied, nor could it be controlled; and, once released, such enthusiasm could only
produce hostility within a heterogeneous population. The moment is uncertain, but
the favour of the Iranian government swiftly abandoned the Jews and settled upon
the Christians of Jerusalem. The appointment of the bishop Modestos as overseer
of the city signifies the return of Jerusalem to Christian control, and in a letter to his
Armenian colleague Komitas, Modestos alludes to the change of Persian favour, and
the alacrity with which money was raised and churches were reconstructed. 147 It was
about the year 620 that a renegade Iranian cavalryman by the name of Magundad
embraced the faith of Christ and was baptised at Jerusalem, and then established
142 Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 83.

̈
‫ܩܛܪܝܐ‬ ‫ܓܒܪܐ ܕܫܡܗ ܦܜܪܘܣ ܕܢܚܬ ܡܢ ܒܝܬ‬
144 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 25–26. Tabari also mentions the keys to Alexandria (Tabari, v. 2,
p. 182).
145 Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 91–92. The date is established in Altheim-Stiehl, R., “The Sasa-
nians in Egypt – Some Evidence of Historical Interest,” Bulletin de la societé d'archéologie copte
31, 1992, p. 87–96.
146 Sebeos, p. 116.
147 Sebeoes, p. 116–118.
himself at Caesarea in the midst of the Iranian occupation of Palestine. The biog-
raphy of St Anastasius the Persian, as he was called, affords a reliable portrait of life
in Palestine in the aftermath of the Iranian invasion, and it demands that the calami-
ties of a siege and the image of an oppressive occupation yield to the portrait of the
orderly administration of the Iranian empire. 148 The rites of the Zoroastrian religion
were conducted discreetly within private houses, religious tolerance prevailed as
Christians held high ranks in the civil service, and an efficient public administration
maintained normal relations among a population of Jews and Christians, whose
conventicles continued their customary operations. A signal punishment for the Ira-
nian apostate was to carry stones – an activity which we would properly connect
with the erection, or the repair, of a building at Caesarea.
The advance of Iranian forces upon Alexandria produced a general panic. An
exodus of refugees from the countryside fled to the city, but then many took flight
including John III, patriarch of the Orthodox Church, and the Roman governor
Nicetas. 149 The record of archaeology confirms a scene of destruction to the west of
Alexandria: the monastery of St Menas, and the town surrounding it, were destroyed
by fire and abandoned. 150 The progress of Shahr-Baraz southward into Upper Egypt
was likewise attended by devastation, and seven hundred monks who had hidden
themselves in the caves and mountains of Niciu were discovered and slain. 151 When
news of the massacre reached the Thebaid, the bishop of Coptos blamed the Iranian
conquest upon the sins of his flock, distributed his possessions amongst the poor
and hid himself in Mt Shama. 152 Pisentius (that was the name of the bishop) discov-
ered a subterranean passage which led to a large tomb hewn into the mountain:
some mummies had lain there undisturbed for many centuries, and the sight of their
coffins and the strong odour of funerary spices provoked a meditation on the vanity
of earthly life and the various punishments prepared for the souls of the wicked. 153
A loyal disciple who ministered to Pisentius observed the saint in his new abode
engaged in a nocturnal dialogue with a mummy concerning the idolatry of his ances-
tors and the torments of hell. 154 Such an existence was apparently preferable to the
Iranian occupation of Egypt.
148 I am following Flusin, B., Saint Anastase le Perse, I, p. 57–75; II, p. 231–243; and Foss, C.,
“The Persians in the Roman Near East,” p. 159–160.
149 Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 93; Maspero, J. / Fortescue, A. / Wiet, G., Histoire des patriarches
d’Alexandrie depuis la mort de l’empereur Anastase jusqu’à la réconciliation des églises jacobites (518–
616), 1923, p. 328.
150 Foss, C., “The Persians in the Roman Near East,” p. 165 with note 89a.
151 Severus ibn al-Muqaffa’, p. 486. This narrative is preceded by a mendacious account of
the fall of Alexandria.

152 The Arabic Life of St Pisentius, p. 378–384.
153 The Arabic Life of St Pisentius, p. 421–422.
154 The Arabic Life of St Pisentius, p. 423–429:
��‫ ا‬،‫اما انا ��لست �ي الظ��م �متا ا�ى ا�ي وا��يت ا��ي يك��ه )ا��ي ا�� عنه ��نه ك�ن من دا�ل الباب( ��دث معه‬
The subjugation of Egypt was indeed bloody and tumultuous. One of its im-
mediate consequences was the cessation of the Egyptian grain dole at Constantino-
ple in the year 619. 155 Ostraca and fragments of letters complain of abductions and
torture, and beg for advice concerning the advance of the Iranian army. 156 But the
calamities of a military conquest gave way to the peaceable administration of a new
province of the empire of Iran. The evidence of papyrology suggests that the period
of violence came to a swift end, that the collection of taxes continued, and that the
public administration carried on its normal functions. The commands of new politi-
cal masters, who only rarely employed their native language in official documents,
imposed themselves lightly upon a Roman civil service. But even the requisitions for
foodstuffs, levies of troops, and tax registers, which survive in Middle Persian, an-
nounce the undiminished activity of the Egyptian bureaucracy amidst a peaceable,
military occupation. 157 Khusro issued a series of copper coins minted at Alexandria.
They bear the image of the king and crescent moon on the obverse; and on the re-
verse is an image of the cross – a sign of the Iranian government’s desire to concili-
ate local opinion. 158
THE THIRD PHASE OF THE WAR 622–626

The third phase of the war was to be devoted to holding the Iranian position in Asia
Minor, its total conquest, and the siege and capture of Constantinople. George of
Pisidia, who lived through this grim time, has left us some verbose and bewildering
poetry from which the main features of these years may nevertheless be recon-
structed. 159 But it is difficult to produce a harmonious narrative from all available
sources.
An Iranian army had entered Anatolia from the northwest, and had passed the
winter in the region of Pontus. 160 This army had been dispatched, as it seems, to
I have supplied the punctuation.

155 Chronicon Paschale, p. 711; Nicephorus, Breviarium, 13; Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 88.
156 These are summarised in Altheim-Stiehl, R., “Egypt iv. Relations in the Sasanian peri-
od,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. VIII, fasc. 3, 1998, p. 252–254 and Altheim-Stiehl, R., “The
Sasanians in Egypt,” p. 87–96.
157 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, p. 440–441; Foss, C., “The Persians in the
Roman Near East,” p. 167–169; MacCoull, L., “Coptic Egypt During the Persian Occupa-
tion: the Papyrological Evidence,” Studi Classici e Orientali, vol. 36, 1987, 307–313. Contra
Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 94–99, who claims that Persian rule was onerous and ‘unpopular’,
and that the new Iranian administration ‘offered the Byzantines nothing’.
158 Grierson, P., Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and the Whitte-
more Collection, vol. 2, 1968, p. 233 – 234; 336–338 with plate 18.
159 Howard-Johnston, J., Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns, p. 3.
160 ἐπεὶ γὰρ εἰς χειμῶνα πρὸς τὸ πόντιον
κλίμα διατρίψας συντόμως ὁ βάρβαρος

τὰς εἰσβολὰς κατέσχε τῆς ὁδοῦ φθάσας (George of Pisidia, Expeditio Persica II.256–258).
intercept and to surround a small army commanded by the emperor Heraclius in

Bithynia. The emperor and his troops forced their way out of this trap, and succeed-
ed in winning a victory of small military importance. 161 Though the defeat of an Ira-
nian army was a great boost to Roman morale, the threat to Constantinople was
now so great that it required the emperor’s immediate attention in his capital. 162 The
verses of George of Pisidia conceal the nature of the calamity, but Roman intelli-
gence had surely recognised the imminent approach of a formidable enemy: the city
of Thessalonica had lately suffered the horrors of a siege of thirty-three days, 163 and
a similar fate awaited the first city of the Roman empire.
If Khusro had meditated a naval assault upon Constantinople, as Sebeos al-
ludes, his plans were never executed. But the Iranian navy, which dominated the
waters of the Indian Ocean would not have shrunk from an attack upon the Roman
capital, 164 and it is therefore likely that the policy of Khusro had decided against Ira-
nian participation in the siege. The assault upon the City of Constantine would be
entrusted to an ally. ‘Dividing, so to speak, the Thracian Bosporus between them,
the Persians destroyed the Asiatic portion and the Avars ravaged the Thracian side;
and the barbarians made a mutual agreement to capture Byzantium’. 165 The brief
history composed by the patriarch Nicephorus in the ninth century is the source of
that interesting notice, and it is the clearest indication that an alliance had been
formed between the khaghan and Khusro. The writer Theophanes vaguely implies
some form of ‘conspiracy’ between Iran and the Avars, 166 whose nomadic and sed-
entary subjects had already attacked Thessalonica. It was they who were to assault
Constantinople from the north with a gigantic host of eighty-thousand men, and
they were to employ the most fearsome engines of siege warfare including towers,
mobile armoured shelters, and the mangonel. 167 We may infer, perhaps, that Khusro
161 ὁ δὲ στρατός σου δυσχερεῖς τὰς εἰσβάσεις

ἁπαξ προληφθεὶς εἶχε τὰς πρὸς ἥλιον (George of Pisidia, Expeditio Persica II.259–260), etc.
162 Expeditio Persica III.305–340.
163 The evidence for the siege of Thessalonica is in Lemerle, P., Les plus anciens recueils des mira-
cles de Saint Démétrius, 2 vols, 1979–1981, I, p. 180–184, II, p. 94–103. For analysis and the
date, see Howard-Johnston, J., Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns, p. 14–15.
164 Howard-Johnston, J., “The Siege of Constantinople,” in Mango, C. / Dagron, G., Con-
stantinople and its Hinterland, 1995, p. 133 with note 7.

165 Nicephorus, Breviarium, 13.
167 Καὶ πρὸς τὰ τείχη τῆς φιλοξένου πύλης
πλήθη προσῆλθεν, ὥσπερ ἦν εἰκασμένα,

ὀκτὼ συναθροίζοντα μυριαρχίας (George of Pisidia, Bellum Avaricum, l. 217–219); Cf. Chronicon
Pascale, p. 717 which states that the vanguard numbered thirty thousand men before the arrival
of the main force commanded by the Avar khaghan (Howard-Johnston, J., “The Siege of
Constantinople,” p. 137). The engines are mentioned in Nicephorus, Breviarium, 13. The
mangonel, or the so-called traction trebuchet was invented in China in about the 4th century
and the khaghan had agreed to divide the Roman empire between them, on condi-
tion that the Avar host prosecute the landward siege of Constantinople alone.
When the emperor Heraclius returned to his capital in late summer of the year
622, the siege of Constantinople was imminent, and the Roman field army yet lin-
gered in the east. At that moment, many within the city surely expected the defeat
and partition of the Roman state. The force of diplomacy, and the inducement of
money, were the only weapons that might compel the lord of the Avars to negotiate,
or to pretend to negotiate, a treaty of peace. 168 A conference between emperor and
khaghan was arranged for the summer of the year 623; and Heraclea, outside the
Long Wall of Constantinople, was to be the place of that meeting in early June. But
an ambush had been prepared for the emperor, his staff, and the other Roman dele-
gates; and here we may behold the influence of the Persian king. Heraclius barely
escaped alive as the Avars burst through the Long Wall and plundered suburban
Constantinople. 169 These distractions accelerated the Iranian occupation of Asia Mi-
nor and other conquests also. Though the evidence is meagre, we may be certain that
the mint at Nicomedia, the last Roman mint in operation in Asia Minor, had ceased to
produce coins in the year 619, and by the year 623 the city of Ancyra had fallen, and the
Iranian navy had subdued Rhodes, and other islands, at the same moment. 170
But negotiations were resumed between emperor and khaghan, and the Ro-
mans agreed to humiliating terms, including a huge tribute of two hundred thousand
solidi and the surrender of hostages. 171 In the year 624 Heraclius returned to Asia
Minor, and a Roman expeditionary army was mobilised and encamped at Caesarea
of Cappadocia. At this moment, a letter arrived greeting the emperor Heraclius as
the ‘vile and foolish slave’ of Khusro, the ‘lord and king of all the earth and off-
spring of Ahura Mazda’. In this haughty epistle, which Sebeos purports to preserve,
the Persian king urged his counterpart to accept the inevitable destruction of the
Roman state; and, in language reminiscent of the Bible, Khusro offered to the em-
peror fields, vineyards, and olive trees for him to tend in the vicinity of Ctesiphon.
The Roman empire had been abandoned by God, and no assistance would come
B.C., and evolved over time into the counter-weight trebuchet – ‘one of the greatest prod-
ucts of multiculturalism in the field of technology,’ apparently (Chevedden, P. E., “The In-
vention of the Counterweight Trebuchet: A Study in Cultural Diffusion,” Dumbarton Oaks
Papers, vol. 54, 2000, p. 71–116).
168 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 302–303. Theophanes’ dates are all wrong for this period.
169 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 301–303; Chronicon Paschale, p. 712–713.
170 Theophanes, Chronography, p. 302; Chronicle to 1234, p. 133; Agapius, Kitab al-‘Unvan (ed.
and trans. Vasiliev), Patrologia Orientalis 8, 1912, p. 458; Hendy, M. F., Studies in the Byzantine
Monetary Economy, c. 300–1450, 1985, p. 416; Greatrex, G. / Lieu, S. N. C., The Roman Eastern
Front and the Persian Wars, p. 197.
171 Nicephorus, Breviarium, 13. The hostages were the illegitimate son of Heraclius and his
nephew, as well as the illegitimate son of Bonus, who was regent while the emperor was on
campaign.
from Christ who had failed to save himself from the Jews. ‘For if you descend into
the depths of the sea,’ the king continued, ‘I shall stretch out my hand and seize you,
and then you shall see me in a manner which you shall not desire’. 172 With that grim
threat, the letter comes to an end. It is possible that this epistle is a piece of Roman
propaganda, advertising a contest between antithetical religions, but it rightly dis-
closes the Iranian war aims, as well as the customary Zoroastrian polemic against the
Christian religion. 173
Meanwhile, Khusro was encamped at Ganzak in Azarbaijan at the head of a
host of forty thousand men. 174 Roman disinformation had perhaps misled Iranian
intelligence to expect an advance from Caesarea of Cappadocia into Syria or Cilicia;
and the northern route from Anatolia through Armenia was left open. The Roman
emperor and his troops proceeded without opposition up the Euphrates river past
Theodosiopolis, along the swift stream of the Araxes, and they appeared in Iranian
Armenia. 175 The Roman host left behind them a vast scene of devastation, and Dvin
and Nakhchevan had been put to fire and sword. Heraclius now resolved to strike
directly at Khusro at Ganzak, and he prepared to march into Azarbaijan. 176 If The-
ophanes may be believed, a Roman offer of peace was dispatched and rejected, and
the host of Heraclius entered Azarbaijan on the twentieth day of April of the year
624. A band of Roman Saracens went ahead as scouts; and when they came upon an
advance guard of Iranian soldiers, they slew some and others they carried off to
Heraclius. Word of this came to Khusro, and he instantly resolved to abandon his
camp and to move southward across the Zagros mountains. 177 The arrival of the
Roman emperor scattered the dispirited Iranian army, and those troops began an
ignominious and disorderly flight.
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE OF ADUR-GUSHNASP

A singular act of pious destruction inflicted a deadly blow to the religion and to the
empire of Iran. The great fire shrine of Adur-Gushnasp, at the modern site of
Takht-i Suleiman, was surrounded by a wall of fifty feet in height and ten feet in
breadth, and thirty-eight lofty towers marched around it in a grim procession, and
172 Sebeos, p. 123.

173 Howard-Johnston, J., Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns, p. 16; Whittow, M., The Making of Or-
thodox Byzantium, p. 76.
175 George of Pisidia, Heraclias II, l. 160–165; Moses Daskhurantsi, II.10, p. 78–79. The ef-
forts of Shahr-Baraz to intercept and halt the Roman host had failed (Theophanes, Chrono-
graphia, p. 305–306).
176 Sebeos, p. 124.
the precinct of the temple was guarded by a second inner wall. 178 This was one of
the holiest shrines of the Zoroastrian religion: here it was said that a sacred fire had
burned since the days of the mythical king Kay Khusro, and a holy lake was en-
closed within the walls of the temple. Heraclius smashed through the defences of
that shrine, the fire of Adur-Gushnasp was extinguished, the waters of the lake were
polluted with the corpses of men and animals, 179 and this violent desecration was
the Roman revenge for the sacking of Jerusalem and the capture of the True
Cross. 180 Khusro fled to the security of the palace of Dastgard between Ctesiphon
and Hamadan, and the emperor Heraclius ravaged the countryside of Azarbaijan.
THE ROMAN AND TURKISH ALLIANCE

The Roman strategy was to march into Caucasian Albania and to pass the winter
near the regional capital of Partaw. 181 There, Heraclius summoned the Christian
princes of Caucasia to participate in his struggle against Iran, and an embassy was
dispatched to the Western Turks to invite that nomadic power to intervene on the
side of Rome. 182 It was late in the year 624, or perhaps very early in the following
year, that Heraclius dispatched his ambassador Andrew to the yabghu khaghan with
a promise of immense wealth and countless treasures if he would add his forces to
the Roman war effort. 183 One thousand Turkish troops escorted the return embassy
through the Caspian Gates, up the valley of the river Kura, and through Iberia to
the coast of the Black Sea. A ship bore those Turks to Constantinople, where their
hearty agreement with the emperor’s proposal was announced to the Roman gov-
ernment. Meanwhile, some Iranian forces had assailed the Roman army on its pro-
gress into Albania, but a pitched battle was, for the moment, avoided. 184
In the spring of the year 625, Khusro sent three armies to encircle Heraclius in
Albania. Shahr-Baraz had been recalled from Egypt in the previous year, and that
general and his men had passed the winter at Nisibis. 185 It was now the task of
Shahr-Baraz to block the Roman line of retreat westward into Iberia. 186 A second
178 Huff, D., “Takht-e Solayman,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2000 online edition; Boyce, M., “Adur
Gushnasp,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. I, fascicle 5, 1985, p. 475–476; Yamamoto, Y., “The
Zoroastrian Temple Cult in Archaeology and Literature II,” Orient, vol. XVII, 1981, p. 75.
179 George of Pisidia, Heraclias II, l. 167–230; Sebeos, p. 124; Theophanes, Chronographia, p.
308.
180 Maksymiuk, K. I., “Destruction of the Ādur Gušnasp temple in Ādurbādagān as a re-
venge for abduction of the Holy Cross from Jerusalem in the context of the letters of Hera-
clius,” Метаморфозы истории, no. 9, 2017, p. 109–125.
181 Sebeos, p. 125.
182 Moses Daskhurantsi, II.10, p. 79–81; II.11, p. 86–87.
183 Moses Daskhurantsi, II.11, p. 86–87.
general, whom the Armenian writer Moses Daskhurantsi calls Shahraplakan, 187 was
instructed to forestall a Roman return to Azarbaijan; and the third commander was
Shahin whose task was to occupy the Bitlis Pass and block the southern route
through Armenia. 188 These three armies were to advance upon the Roman emperor,
to unite their forces, and to destroy the invader. Sensible of the danger posed by
three veteran armies, some of Heraclius’ new Caucasian allies defected to Iran. 189
But a complex series of manoeuvres, which are poorly described in the Chronography
of Theophanes, and the use of false intelligence, delivered the Roman army from
danger. Roman harassment of the army of Sharaplakan compelled the host of
Shahr-Baraz to join it, but a feigned retreat issued in a direct confrontation and a
Roman victory. The forces of Shahin arrived shortly thereafter and were defeated. 190
Iranian troops reunited under Shahin and Shahr-Baraz and renewed the assault
upon Heraclius who had moved northwest toward the coast of the Black Sea. To
the delight of the Iranian generals, and perhaps under their influence, the Lazian and
Abazgian allies of Heraclius forsook their agreement with the emperor and returned
to their own countries. 191 The forces of Iran then pursued Heraclius as he penetrat-
ed and marched throughout what was once the Iranian portion of Armenia, but an-
other direct confrontation was avoided until the coming of winter. It was a mistake
for Shahr-Baraz to dismiss many of his soldiers for that season, and a small force
commanded by the emperor suddenly come upon the Iranian camp and slew nearly
everyone within it. The general Shahr-Baraz was one of the few to survive, and in
the opinion of Theophanes, he had climbed upon his horse naked and barefoot, and
was borne away to safety. 192 The chronicler dwells with relish upon the general’s
arms, his golden shield, his belt, and his sandals which had been encrusted with jew-
els, for these accoutrements were seized and carried off as trophies of war.
THE SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Those defeats must have been seen as but small reverses. The empire of Iran yet
commanded enormous military and financial resources with which to carry on the
destruction of the Roman empire, and the final blow was to fall upon the Roman
capital itself. Heraclius had persuaded the khaghan to withdraw in the year 624, but
the emperor’s diplomacy had served rather to postpone than to thwart the Avar
siege; and the influence of Khusro’s envoys had restored the alliance between Iran
187 Theophanes calls him Σαραβλαγγᾶς (Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 309) and he is

Շահրապղական in Armenian (Moses Daskhurantsi, II.10, p. 85).
188 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 310. For analysis, see Howard-Johnston, J., “Heraclius’
Persian Campaigns,” p. 17.

190 Sebeos, p. 125; Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 310–312; Moses Daskhurantsi, II.11, p. 81.
192 Sebeos, p. 126; Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 311.
and the Avars. Many would have begun to contemplate the end of nearly eight hun-
dred years of Roman rule in the eastern Mediterranean.
But Iranian strategists were surely surprised that the emperor Heraclius did not
proceed immediately to the Roman capital. Despite the pursuit and harassment of
Shahr-Baraz, Roman forces were mobilised swiftly, they penetrated Anatolia
through the Cicilian Gates, and near the city of Sebasteia they awaited the army of
Shahin which had been sent to intercept them. 193 Some Roman reinforcements were
immediately dispatched to Constantinople from Sebasteia across the Bosporus be-
fore Shahr-Baraz could occupy Chalcedon; and the invading force of Shahin was cut
in pieces. So complete was the humiliation that Shahin fell ill and died; and, when
word of this defeat reached Khusro, he commanded (says Theophanes) that the
general’s body be preserved in salt and sent to the Persian court where the corpse
was subjected to many indignities. 194
Heraclius now endeavoured to force Shahr-Baraz out of Asia Minor. Though
he had not left the region of the Black Sea coast, the emperor spread the false in-
formation that he had returned to the Transcaucasus and begun to ravage Iran
again. 195 But he continued to apply pressure upon the army of Shahr-Baraz which
was encamped at Chalcedon. 196 Here the Iranian host awaited the descent of the
Avars upon the northward side of Constantinople. The Avar vanguard was comput-
ed at thirty thousand men, and that host appeared before the Long Wall on the
twenty-ninth day of June. 197 They crossed that fortification without opposition and
advanced upon the Roman capital. The rest of the Avar host was encamped at Adri-
anople where they completed preparations for the siege. Fire signals were to com-
municate messages between the Iranian army at Chalcedon and Avar forces across
the Bosporus, and these were established by the middle of July. 198 The ruler of the
Avars dispatched an embassy, promising peace in exchange, we may presume, for an
adequate payment of money. The Avar lord himself may have begun to suspect that
the ramparts of the Roman capital might not be easily thrown down. But the citi-
zens of Constantinople refused to come to terms with the khaghan.
Despite popular confidence in the fortifications of the Roman capital, the im-
posing presence of two hostile armies glowering upon the imperial city must have
produced a mood of alarm. Upon the twenty-ninth day of July, twelve thousand
193 Sebeos, p. 126; Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 312–314.

194 Τούτου δὲ τὸ σῶμα κελεύει Χοσρόης ἅλατι ταριχευθὲν πρὸς αὐτὸν κομισθῆναι, καὶ
τοῦτον νεκρὸν πολλαῖς αἰκίαις ἐπέβαλλεν (Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 315).
195 This is to be inferred from Theophanes’ claim that Heraclius was in Lazica (Theophanes,
Chronographia, p. 315); the Paschal Chronicle is rather more vague (Chronicon Paschale, p. 722).
196 Howard-Johnston, J., “Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns,” p. 20.
197 Chronicon Paschale, p. 717. My brief summary follows Howard-Johnston, J., “The Siege of
Constantinople,” p. 131–142.
198 Chronicon Paschale, p. 718.
Roman cavalry within the city were confronted by an enemy computed at eighty
thousand men, and the Avar host swarmed over the full breadth of the peninsula
from the shores of the Propontis to those of the Golden Horn. 199 The Avar siege
engines began to bombard the Theodosian Walls on the thirty-first day of July, and
on the following day the canoes of the Avar’s Slavic subjects filled the harbour in
preparation for an assault. An attempt to ferry some three or four thousand Iranian
troops across the Bosporus miscarried and was thwarted by the Roman navy. 200 On
the sixth day of August, the Avar host renewed the assault upon the full length of
the walls, and was continued into the next night; and on the following day, a contin-
gent of Slavs was to attack the sea walls. But the Romans had anticipated that nauti-
cal onslaught and frustrated it, and the Avar bombardment achieved no success
against the ramparts of Theodosius. One day later, on the eighth day of August, the
Avar host incinerated their engines and began to retreat. 201 The host of Shar-Baraz
likewise withdrew from Chalcedon.
THE FOURTH PHASE OF THE WAR 627–628

In the winter of the year 627, the news from every front was grim. The destruction
of the temple of Adur-Gushnasp, the death of Shahin, the defeat of Shahr-Baraz,
and the failure of the Avar siege were surely great blows to morale, and Iranian spies
would have communicated the dismal news of the emperor Heraclius’ formation of
an alliance with the Western Turks. At a moment when Khusro and his ministers
could do little but deliberate, that nomadic power smashed through the Caspian
Gates into Iberia, and devastated the countryside of Azarbaijan, Albania, and Ibe-
ria. 202 The emperor Heraclius had now returned to Transcaucasia, and it was below
the walls of Tiflis, before an assembly of soldiers, that the Roman emperor met the
yabghu khaghan, deputy to the supreme khaghan, of the Turks. That nomad prince
performed an act of obeisance to the ruler of a great sedentary power: the emperor
reciprocated, called the yabghu his son, and placed his own crown upon his head.
Feasting and a marriage between the daughter of Heraclius and the yabghu khaghan
confirmed the military and political union of the Roman and Turkish powers. 203 If
any Iranian effort had been exerted to frustrate this alliance, it failed; and the last
199 Chronicon Paschale, p. 719–720.

200 Chronicon Paschale, p. 721 gives the number of 3,000; Sebeos claims that 4,000 men per-
ished in a naval battle in the Bosporus (Sebeos, p. 123).
201 Chronicon Paschale, p. 722–725.
202 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 316; Moses Daskhurantsi, II.10, p. 85; Howard-Johnston,
“The Sasanian’ Strategic Dilemma,” p. 65.

203 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 316; Nicephorus, Breviarium, 12; Moses Daskhurantsi, II.10,
p. 85; Howard-Johnston, “Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns,” p. 24.

resort of Khusro was a vow to send against the Turks his most potent generals. But
this threat failed to halt the onslaught from the steppe for more than a moment. 204
Turkish and Roman ballistae, stone-throwers, and other siege engines, were di-
rected against the walls of Tiflis, and the course of the river Kura was diverted so as
to undermine their foundations. 205 The writer Moses Daskhurantsi has mistakenly
divided the siege into two campaigns, but from his testimony we can reconstruct a
single siege which lasted more than a year. 206 But the defenders’ will endured, and
they mocked the Turkish commander by drawing the likeness of his face upon a
pumpkin which they paraded above the battlements of the city, as they shouted
abuse at the host encamped below. It was only the failed sortie of the Iranian client
king Stephen which permitted Turkish and Roman forces to capture the lower city
of Tiflis. 207 The army of Heraclius and that of his nomadic ally separated: Turkish
troops remained to prosecute the siege below the ramparts of Tiflis, and the Roman
host, together with an escort of forty thousand Turks, marched southward into the
plains of northern Mesopotamia.
Heraclius’ appeal to the Turks issued in a singular diplomatic exchange. A
menacing letter, dictated in part by the supreme khaghan, was dispatched from the
tent of the yaghbu to the palace of Khusro. The king who had subdued the Roman
Near East was addressed as nothing more than the governor of Assyria, and the
ruler who had identified himself as a god among men, was instructed to vacate the
lands which he had conquered and to return the wood of the cross which he had
stolen. The supreme khaghan, who called himself ‘the king of the north, the lord of
the whole world, your king and the king of kings’, 208 vowed to destroy the empire of
Iran if his demands were not met, and the display of arms and siegecraft at Tiflis
announced that the Turks were prepared to match words with deeds.
So threatening an epistle, and the implication of an alliance between Roman
and Turk, surely revived the fear and alarm of the year of 573, when Iran had been
surrounded on all sides by enemies. 209 The power of the Western Turks had grown
since that horrible year, and Tong (the supreme khaghan) had lately re-established
his authority over the Töles people to the northeast, he had conquered the region of
Kapisi in the Hindukush, and his capital had been founded near the modern city of
Tashkent. It was Tong’s uncle Sipi, whom Roman sources call Ziebel, who held the
second rank in the Western Turkish empire, and with whom Heraclius had formed

206 Howard-Johnston, “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,” p. 66; Howard-Johnston, J.,
“Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns,” p. 24 with note 76.

208 The whole letter is found in Moses Daskhurantsi, II.12, p. 88.
209 Howard-Johnston, “The Sasanian’ Strategic Dilemma,” p. 65–66.
his alliance. 210 The two Turkish kings were surely figures of universal dread, but
Khusro concealed his fear of nomad power, and addressed Ziebel in haughty lan-
guage:
‘Go and tell your king, my brother khaghan, that your house has been honoured
and respected for ages by my ancestors and myself as that of our beloved brother,
for we were allied with each other through our sons and daughters. It was unwor-
thy of you to be paralysed and to allow yourself to be perverted by the words of
the hothead of the Romans, a slave who belongs to me!’ 211
It is possible that the words of this correspondence were invented by Moses
Daskhurantsi who reports them, and yet the force of the language and the character
of the exchange must be genuine. 212 However this may be, the condescending letter
of Khusro had no effect, and Iranian policy resolved upon another attempt to inter-
cept and to destroy Heraclius and his allies in the Transcaucasus.
An army was assembled in haste and placed under the command of a courtier
who bore the name Rahzad. Khusro flattered him, promoted him, gave him riches,
and bestowed upon him the appellation of Ruz-Beh, or ‘lucky’. 213 It was a fateful
nickname, for upon that man depended the honour of Iran, together with the
throne and the life of Khusro. The small force of Rahzad confronted the Roman
host upon the plain near the ancient ruin of Nineveh. Three thousand Iranian
troops dispatched from Ctesiphon joined the cause of Iran, but failed to withstand
the onslaught of the Roman host. This was in the year 627 on the twelfth day of
December. The Iranian army suffered heavy losses but it had not been routed, and
the two hostile forces remained on the field. Roman knights watered their horses at
a distance of two bow shots from their Iranian antagonists who watched over their
drew suddenly to the root of a steep mountain – perhaps to the Jabal ʿAyn al-
dead until the seventh hour of the night. At the eighth hour, the Iranian host with-
Safra. 214
Rahzad himself had perished, four thousand men were taken prisoner, and only
the natural and artificial defences of the Cut of Khusro and the Nahrawan canal
stood between Heraclius and the Iranian capital. 215 The further advance of the em-
210 De la Vaissière, E., “Ziebel Qaghan Identified,” in Zuckerman, C. (ed.), Constructing the
Seventh Century, Travaux et mémoires 17, 2013, p. 741–748. The name is Ζιέβηλ according to
Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 316.
211 Moses Daskhurantsi, II.12, p. 88. This is Dowsett’s translation, and I cannot improve it.
212 Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 158. But Howard-Johnston seems to consider the words to be
genuine (Howard-Johnston, J., “The Sasanians’ Strategic Dilemma,” p. 66.

213 In Armenian, this is rendered Roc Vehan (Moses Daskhurantsi, II.12, p. 89).
214 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 319; Kaegi, Heraclius, p. 163.
215 Sebeos, p. 126; Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 317–319. The figure of 4,000 prisoners is
given in Thomas Artsruni, p. 160. It was said that, before Rahzad was slain, he called upon
all the powers of heaven and said: ‘my gods! Judge between me and my merciless king!’ (Mo-
peror was attended by ravaging and pillage, and on Christmas day, the Roman army
stood upon the nearer shore of the Lesser Zab. In the palaces of Khusro, which
were captured and plundered, every amenity for the pleasure of a monarch was
found including three hundred antelopes, a hundred wild asses, and countless sheep,
pigs, and cattle. 216 These were seized and eaten by Heraclius’ men. Word reached the
Roman force that their inexorable advance had compelled Khusro to abandon his
favourite palace north of the capital, and the king fled to Ctesiphon together with all
his money, his treasures, and his elephants. 217
At the palace called Dastgard, the soldiers of Heraclius found three hundred
Roman standards, which had been captured at various times; aloes, agarwood, silk,
pepper, a vast array of linen shirts, and piles of sugar and ginger were discovered
also. The weighty cloaks of silk, the fleecy carpets, and the heavy woven rugs, which
the soldiers found, were instantly incinerated. The ostriches, antelopes, wild asses,
peacocks, pheasants, lions, and tigers which dwelt in the king’s hunting grounds
were objects of marvel to the soldiers of Heraclius, but many of these animals were
surely devoured by a hungry army. Prisoners from the cities of Edessa and Alexan-
dria, who had languished in the dungeons of Dastgard were released; and, after a
brief rest, on the sixth day of January the Roman army utterly destroyed that palace
in an exemplary act of terror and revenge. 218
THE COUP OF 628

It is still possible to imagine the anxieties and tension which filled the councils of
Khusro when he had returned to Ctesiphon. The mood was desperate; and, if we
may reason backward from later events, the opposition to the Persian king may have
begun to organise itself as early as the failure to capture Constantinople in the year
626. 219 Theophanes offers us a small glimpse of the grim circumstances of Khusro’s
return to the Iranian capital, and we may yet sense feelings of suspicion and para-
noia which centred upon the person of Shahr-Baraz whose death warrant Khusro
had prepared and signed. 220 We shall never know the reaction of the common peo-
ple, whose taxes had supported the war effort, and whose opinion had never been
consulted. But the writer Moses Daskhurantsi has left us a speech, attributed to the
nobles of Iran, which most clearly captures the spirit of the aristocracy:
ses Daskhurantsi, II.12, p. 89). For a modern analysis, see Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 160–
169.
217 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 321–322; Kaei, W. E., Heraclius, p. 174.
219 Cf. Howard-Johnston, J., “Pride and Fall: Khusro II and his Regime, 626–628,” in Gnoil,
G., La Persia e Bisanzio (Atti dei Convegni Lincei 201), 2004, p. 96.
220 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 324. Fanciful rumours of Shahr-Baraz’ treason appear in
the history of Tabari also (Tabari, v. 2, p. 185–186).

‘How long shall we fear and tremble before this bloody king? How long shall our
goods and chattels, our gold and silver be gathered into the royal treasury? How
long shall our roads be shut off and blocked to the detriment of the prosperity of
many kingdoms and countries? How long shall the souls quake in our bodies and
be repressed by his terrible command? Did he not destroy and swallow up like
the sea the very best of our comrades, the country’s leaders? Did not many of our
brothers perish on countless occasions, in hundreds and thousands, by all manner
of torments, some even by drowning, at his command? Did he not take men
from their wives and fathers from their sons and send them to distant peoples as
slaves and bondmen and conscripts against cruel foes?’ 221
The Iranian nobility had cooperated with Khusro’s war effort for nearly thirty years,
and an entire generation had arisen without ever knowing peace between the two
great powers. But the noble houses of Iran had willingly sacrificed their sons and
their patriarchs, and their private fortunes had supported the operations of the mili-
tary; and in the year 626 they had expected that victory was imminent only to be
disappointed. Any mention of trade in an ancient speech attributed to aristocrats
must be taken seriously, and we should assign considerable weight to the claim that
the war had depressed commerce. Perhaps it had once seemed that any price was
worth the annexation of Iran’s great western foe; but now Khusro’s ministers and
nobility faced the brute reality that this was impossible, and they resolved to termi-
nate both the war and the reign of Khusro.
A relic of the Persian royal tradition confirms and augments the complaints
transmitted by Moses Daskhurantsi. The writer Tabari depicts a monarch trans-
formed by his own good fortune and by his astounding military success into a con-
ceited, boastful, and avaricious man. 222 The ministry which oversaw state revenues
had been entrusted to a foreigner, who carried out his duties in a tyrannical fashion.
His methods were aggressive and illegal, and he punished a real or fictive arrears of
the land tax by confiscating property. 223 Khusro’s detractors further arraigned his
abuse of noble women and the lengthy military campaigns which kept soldiers far
from their families. 224 Political prisoners had filled Khusro’s dungeons, and soldiers
who had returned in defeat were likewise incarcerated. When Heraclius’ advance
upon Ctesiphon was imminent, Khusro commanded that every prisoner, and every
defeated soldier, be murdered. 225 This was the tyrant’s final act which prompted his
221 Moses Daskhurantsi, II.12, p. 89–90 (Dowsett’s translation).

222 Tabari, v. 2, p. 215.
223 Tabari, v. 2, p. 215. He was a Nabataean of Iraq, apparently (Bosworth E. (trans.), The
History of al-Tabari, p. 375–376.

224 Tabari, v. 2, p. 218–220. For analysis, see Howard-Johnston, J., “Al-Tabari on the Last
Great War of Antiquity,” p. 16–17.

225 Khusro commanded his chief body guard (Tabari, v. 2, p. 216):
.‫أن يقتل ك� مقي ّد �ي ��ن من ��ونه‬...

court to overthrow him, and when the emperor Heraclius had withdrawn to Ganzak
in Azarbaijan, he received word that Khusro had been slain on the twenty-eighth
day of February.
But let us return to Khusro’s reappearance at Ctesiphon, and reconstruct the
plot which ended his life and reign. The Roman emperor’s last demand for peace
had been refused; and Khusro, having arrived in the capital, commanded that the
bridges over the Nahrawan canal be severed. 226 This was a trap, but Heraclius avoid-
ed the errors of his predecessor Julian. 227 Amidst the calamities of foreign invasion,
a collapsing government, and royal isolation, 228 Khusro’s instincts instructed him to
strengthen whatever support remained and to look to his legacy. Accordingly, it was
Khusro’s intention to crown Mardanshah, a son begotten on his popular Christian
wife Shirin, and to appoint him as his successor. But the first-born son of Khusro,
who had been confined within a palace away from Ctesiphon, 229 objected. Shiruya
(that was his son’s name) instantly made contact with a party of disaffected nobles
who had long awaited a moment to destroy their tormenter. 230 It was either the fos-
ter-brother, 231 or the tutor, 232 of Shiruya who brought word to Gurdanasp, a general
who had fought with Shahr-Baraz and apparent leader of the opposition to Khusro.
That retired veteran refused a personal interview with Shiruya, but requested that
the youth express himself in the form of a letter. ‘You know,’ wrote the king’s son,
‘how the Persian state has been destroyed by that evil man Khusro, and that he
wishes to crown Mardanshah and he has overlooked me. If you speak to the army
so that they accept me, I shall be able to increase their wages, and I shall make peace
with the emperor of the Romans and with the Turks.’ 233 Shiruya wisely promised to
exalt Gurdanasp and to promote all fellow conspirators, for his letter was circulated
within a large body of disgruntled aristocrats. Twenty-two men, whom Theophanes
calls counts are noted, together with other military officers, Now-Hurmazd, captain
of Khusro’s bodyguard, two sons of Shahr-Baraz, and Shamta the son of Yazdin the
former minister of finance. 234
The identities of the conspirators, and their singular purpose, were communi-
cated in secret to Heraclius, and the emperor and his troops were instructed to re-

227 Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 173.
228 The Acts of St Anastasius depict Ctesiphon as a horrific and disorderly scene in which
corpses littered the roads (Flusin, B., Saint Anastase le Perse, I, p 82–91; II, p. 256–263).
229 Ferdowsi, Khusraw-i Parviz, l. 3533–3544.
230 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 325–326. I am following Howard-Johnston, J., “Al-Tabari
on the Last War of Antiquity,” p. 17–18.

231 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 325. Ferdowsi seems to agree that it was a foster-brother
also (Ferdowsi, Khusraw-i Parviz, l. 3536).

232 Moses Daskhurantsi, II.12, p. 90. Dowsett’s translation ‘governor’ should be amended.
234 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 28; Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 174 – 177.
main where they were. 235 The release of prisoners of war was the only Roman de-
mand, and the conspirators complied. The rebellion began immediately: horsemen
were stationed upon the bridge which united Ctesiphon with Veh-Ardashir where
Khusro resided, the gates of the Prison of Oblivion were flung open, and the new
reign of Shiruya was proclaimed by heralds. 236 This disorderly clamour disturbed the
repose of the tyrant who beheld from a window or a balcony the vast multitude ar-
rayed against him. He disguised himself and attempted to hide among the trees of
his garden as the soldiers of Shiruya surrounded his palace. A search party found the
king and imprisoned him in the palace of the nobleman Mahraspand, where he lan-
guished for four days. 237 At the behest of Shiruya, as it was said, grandees and aris-
tocrats were sent to revile and to spit upon his father. Mardanshah, and every other
son of the former king, were maimed and at length murdered; and then Khusro II,
‘the deadly hunter, the lion of the east, at whose roar distant peoples trembled and
those nearby melted as wax’, 238 was shot to death with arrows. 239
THE VICTORY OF HERACLIUS

The emperor Heraclius could not have expected to overturn in a moment twenty
years of Iranian dominion over the Roman east. The emperor’s small force, which
numbered between fifteen and twenty-five thousand men, 240 had surely received a
rigorous training in the tactics of the battlefield, and the capacities of Heraclius as a
general and a political leader were perhaps unequalled. 241 But when the invasion of
the Iranian empire began in the year 624, the outcome was doubtful, for a direct
confrontation between the full weight of Khusro’s forces and those of Rome would
have favoured Iran. It is therefore unlikely that the Roman government could have
contemplated or expected victory without the implementation of three important
policies.
I. In the early seventh century, the Turkish empire was the third great power of
western Eurasia. 242 Bringing this power into the war with Iran greatly enlarged the
military pressure applied to Khusro’s government, and it increased the likelihood of
a swift political resolution of the war. Heraclius’ penetration of the Iranian empire
from the north brought Roman forces near the western extremity of the Turkish
state and within easy diplomatic reach. Moses Daskhurantsi, whose history is the

236 Sebeos, p. 127; Moses Daskhurantsi, p. 90–91; Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 28; Theophanes,
Chronographia, p. 327; Chronicon Paschale, p. 729.
238 These are the epithets assigned in Moses Daskhurantsi, II.13, p. 90.
241 Howard-Johnston, J., “Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns,” p. 29–36; 42–43.
242 Barfield, T. J., The Perilous Frontier, p. 131–145.
source of those events, draws a veil over the formation of military plans – but it is
obvious that the Roman and Turkish powers decided swiftly upon a strategy, and
executed it in the year 626. 243 Iranian defences gave way in Albania, the siege of Tif-
lis loosened Iranian control of the Caucasus, and Heraclius’ destructive incursion
into Azarbaijan was a grievous abasement of Sasanian power. These humiliations
raised the grim prospect of the complete collapse of Iran’s northern frontier, and
many within Khusro’s government would have contemplated the total destruction
of highland Iran. 244 It is noteworthy that a Chinese source attributes the overthrow
of Khusro II to the Turks alone. 245 The murder of Khusro, as well as that of his
supposedly female successor, are credited to the influence of the Turkish yabghu
khaghan who is said to have installed one of his subordinates as governor at Ctesi-
phon. Chinese opinion on the downfall of Khusro II is surely founded upon the
Turkish view of their intervention, and it cannot be corroborated. But it is obvious
that Heraclius’ invasion could not have succeeded without Turkish assistance.
II. Deception and false information, disseminated by the spies of Heraclius, greatly
increased the emperor’s capacity for strategic surprise. When Roman forces first
assembled at Caesarea of Cappadocia, their purpose was to suggest an invasion of
Syria, thither to divert Iranian troops, and the later movements of that army eluded
Iranian interception in the Transcaucasus. But the greatest deception of Heraclius
threw discord into the heart of the Persian court. Sources of the Persian royal tradi-
tion declare that the great general Shahr-Baraz had defected to the Roman side in
about the year 626, after the abortive siege of Constantinople. 246 But this is most
improbable. Those accounts are fanciful and contradictory, and the more reliable
testimony of Sebeos depicts Shahr-Baraz as a forceful and obstinate negotiator of
the peace settlement in the year 629. 247 The image of a high-ranking general who
forsook his Sasanian master and embraced the cause of Heraclius must have been
243 Howard-Johnston, J., “Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns,” p. 41 with notes 127 and 128. Mo-
ses’ reckoning is off by one year.
244 Howard-Johnston, J., “Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns,” p. 41–42.
245 I am referring to the Xin Tang Shu, or the New Book of Tang, which I cannot read, but there
is a serviceable translation of a part of it in Tashakori, A., Iran in Chinese Dynastic Histories, p.

100–105. See also Chavannes, E., Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) occidentaux. Recueillis et com-
mentés par Édouard Chavannes, 1900, p. 172.
246 Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 323–324; Nicephorus, Breviarium, 12; Chronicle of Seert, II(2),
p. 540–541; Tabari, v. 2, p. 226–228. For analysis see Howard-Johnston, J., “Al-Tabari on

the Last Great War of Antiquity,” p. 12–14; Howard-Johnston, J., “Pride and Fall,” p. 103.
But Cobb, Kaegi, and Mango are inclined to believe the story (Kaegi, W. E. / Cobb, P. M.,
“Heraclius, Shahr-Baraz, and al-Tabari,” in Kennedy, H. (ed.), Al-Tabari: A Medieval Muslim
Historian and His Work, 2008, p. 95–112; Kaegi, W., Heraclius, 148–153; Mango, C., “Deux
Études sur Byzance et la Perse sassanide,” p. 107–108.
247 Sebeos, p. 128.
propagated by Roman counterintelligence, and the force of that rumour provoked

the order of execution against Shahr-Baraz.
III. In the Iranian capture of Jerusalem, the Roman state beheld the double humilia-
tion of imperial power and religious authority. Propaganda, such as we read in the
lurid account of Antiochus Strategus, accused the Iranian state of horrendous acts
of terror and sacrilege. The removal of the Holy Cross from its proper place in Jeru-
salem deprived the Roman empire of its most important symbol of salvation, victo-
ry, and power. Two hundred years earlier, the empress Pulcheria had sought to
avenge the persecuted Christians of Iran by means of a holy war, and the main or-
gan of communication was an issue of gold coins adorned by a large cross, and
bronze crosses were emblazoned upon soldiers’ cloaks also. 248 Heraclius employed
the emblem of the cross to far greater effect. In imitation of the Iranian drachm, a
new issue of silver currency began in the year 615, and those coins depicted a large
cross mounted above a globe resting upon three steps. This was an announcement
that the Roman state alone had been ordained by God to rule the world, and a small
legend invoked the aid of the deity in the struggle against the empire of Iran. 249 In
spring of the year 622, the emperor urged his soldiers to behave as obedient agents
of God’s will, and the Roman invasion of Iran in the year 624 was the moment of a
singular transformation of the idea of holy war. The Roman troops and their Cauca-
sian allies were stirred up to martial and religious fervour by the promise of immedi-
ate salvation. The emperor reminded his troops that they were within the land of the
Persians, and that flight was dangerous, but ‘our danger’, said Heraclius ‘is not with-
out reward, for it is the harbinger of everlasting life’. 250 The destruction of the tem-
ple of Adur-Gushnasp followed this exhortation. The desertion of some of the Ro-
mans’ Caucasian allies was the occasion for a more explicit elaboration of the new
doctrine:
‘Brethren, be not troubled by the multitude of the enemy, for if God wills it one
man shall rout thousands! Let us sacrifice ourselves to God for the salvation of
our brethren. Let us win the crown of the martyrs, that a future age may laud us,
and that God may give us our recompense!’ 251
In an era in which the end of the world was widely expected, there was perhaps no
more appropriate message for an army of soldiers fighting for their religion, and the
248 Holum, K. G., “Pulcheria’s Crusade,” p. 153–172.

249 Deus adiuta Romanis was the legend (Yannopoulos, L’Hexagramme, un monnayage byzantine en
argent du VIIe siècle, 1978, p. 102–108; Bellinger, A. R. / Grierson, P., Catalogue of the Byzantine
Coins, 1968, p. 17–18; 95–99). For analysis, see Howard-Johnston, J., “Heraclius’ Persian
Campaigns,” p. 37–39.
250 Οὐκ ἔστιν ἄμισθος ὁ κίνδυνος, ἀλλ᾽ αἰωνίου ζωῆς πρόξενος (Theophanes, Chronographia, p.
307).
memory of the Battle of Avarayr, in which it had been better to die than to re-
nounce the Christian faith, had surely prepared Heraclius’ Caucasian allies to hear
it. 252
The Iranian state responded to Roman propaganda with announcements that
Khurso was the protector of all Christians. His favouritism of monophysites coun-
terbalanced the real or imaginary torments which the Roman government had in-
flicted upon the most populous Christian community of the Near East, and myths
of the conversion of Sasanid kings and noble martyrs may have helped to ensure
monophysite loyalties also. But, despite the success of conquest, the reign of
Khusro came to a humiliating end; and, as it appeared at the time, the Near East
would soon return to Roman rule.
THE LEGACY OF KHUSRO II

In the year 626, Khusro and his ministers surely expected the collapse of the Roman
state and the establishment of Iranian rule from the Nile to the roots of the Hin-
dukush mountains and from the Euphrates to the Strymon. The city of the Caesars
was surrounded by armies obedient to Khusro and the foolhardy emperor of the
Romans and his forces had lately been expelled from Transcaucasia. This was the
occasion for the Iranian court to commemorate the proximate victory in monumen-
tal rock reliefs – a custom which had lain in abeyance for two centuries. 253 Such evi-
dence may provide a deeper understanding of Khusro’s character than the testimony
of hostile, or imaginary, written sources.
At Taq-e Bostan we find the investiture scene of Khusro II hewn within a large
niche. 254 In the upper portion the great king is flanked by the supreme god Ahura
Mazda and the goddess Anahita; and below in high relief a figure, which may repre-
sent the king or his protective spirit, sits upon a horse clad in heavy armour. A nim-
bus surrounds his head, and a lance, a shield, and a scabbard are still clearly visible
amidst the worn carving of chain mail and faded paint. Unfinished panels on either
side depict scenes of hunting stags and wild boar amidst the marshes of Mesopota-
mia. 255 At Bisutun a panel six hundred and fifty feet in width was smoothed down
and prepared for carving, and below it was a large viewing platform, a palace, a new
road, and a bridge over the river nearby. 256 In comparison with this huge complex of
252 Howard-Johnston, J., Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns, p. 40.

253 I am following Howard-Johnston, J., “Pride and Fall,” p. 94–96.
254 There is are two interesting pictures of it in Canepa, M., The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and
Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran, 2010, p. 141 and 142.
255 Canepa, M., The Two Eyes of the Earth, p. 157.
256 Salzmann, W., “Die ‘Felsarbeitung und Terrasse des Farhad’ in Bisutun: Ein spätsasa-
nidisches Monument,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 91, 1976, p. 110–134. See also Luschey, H.,
“Bisutun: Geschichte und Forschungsgeschichte,” Archäologischer Anzeiger, 89, 1974–1975, p.
126–134.
monuments, the neighbouring inscription of Darius I would have seemed mean and
insignificant. Another large, unfinished panel can be seen at Naqsh-e Rostam, and it
may be possible to attribute it to Khusro II also. 257 But the reliefs were never fin-
ished, and the House of Sasan would never again dream of world empire and the
conquest of Constantinople; and we may interpret them as symbols of a king whose
humiliation brought ruin upon the whole world.
It was perhaps a scene reminiscent of that at Taq-e Bostan which adorned the
temple of Adur-Gushnasp. The Roman soldiers who destroyed that shrine claimed
to recoil in horror and disgust from a depiction of Khusro seated in the heavens like
a god, surrounded by stars, the sun, and the moon, and attended by angels. The
Christians who beheld that supposedly blasphemous image claimed also to have
seen a mechanism for producing the sound of thunder and artificial rain; and the
emperor Heraclius commanded that this abomination be thrown down and pound-
ed into dust. 258 There remains no trace of what the invaders really saw within that
fire temple, and it is possible that the Romans mistook the image of the great god
Ahura Mazda for that of the Persian king. 259 But Khusro’s efforts to celebrate his
victories and to overawe his subjects cannot be doubted, and we may conclude that
the art of his time, as well as his diplomatic correspondence, announced him as ‘a
most manifest god among men’. 260
257 See panel no. 17 in fig. 2 of Schmidt, E. F., Persepolis III: The Royal Tombs and Other Monu-
ments, 1970.
259 Canepa, M., The Two Eyes of the Earth, p. 148–149.
260 Recall the letter which Khusro is said to have written to Bahram Chobin (Theophylact,
IV.8.5–8).
IX. THE COLLAPSE OF THE HOUSE OF SASAN
THE REIGN OF SHIRUYA AND HIS EPHEMERAL SUCCESSORS

Shiruya, who had taken the royal name of Kavad II, had dispatched a letter to the
Roman emperor; and this communication inaugurated an armistice in which the two
powers began the negotiation of a treaty. 1 The epistle of the new Kavad announced
the release of all prisoners of war as well as his willingness to do anything to assure
tranquillity between himself and Heraclius. The second half of Kavad’s letter and
the reply of the emperor, are preserved in mutilated form in the Pascal Chronicle; and,
according to the reconstruction of a modern writer, the Roman position was not
wholly conciliatory. Though Heraclius ordered the release of the prisoners and boo-
ty which he had captured, he emphasised the inferiority of Kavad by designating
him as his son, and he invoked the late Khusro’s murder of two Roman ambassa-
dors in the year 615. 2 Nevertheless, on the eighth day of April in the year 628, the
Iranian envoy Rashnan who represented his king at the camp of Heraclius departed
for Constantinople in the company of the Roman ambassador Eustathius, and their
purpose was to establish the terms of a permanent peace. 3
The writer Sebeos portrays the new king as ready and eager to return all Ro-
man territory to its traditional masters. But the representatives of either government
were surely preoccupied by defining the proper limits of that territory, and it is most
unlikely that the two sides reached an easy agreement. Shahr-Baraz, who had sub-
dued the Roman east, yet retained his post in Egypt, and he could not have been
expected willingly to relinquish his conquests at the behest of a feeble king to whom
he owed no loyalty. The emperor Heraclius and his advisers must have understood
this, and they surely knew that demanding the retrocession of all territories taken
from Rome by Iran would provoke strife between general and king. A letter, com-
posed at the behest of Kavad, ordered Shahr-Baraz to vacate his conquests and re-
turn to Iran, the general refused, and the new king was powerless to enforce the
1 Chronicon Paschale, p. 735; Howard-Johnston, J., “Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns,” p. 26.

2 Oikonomidès, N., “Correspondence between Heraclius and Kavadh-Siroe in the Paschal
Chronicle (628),” Byzantion XLI, 1971, p. 269–281.
3 Sebeos, p. 128; Chronicon Paschale, p. 734.
313
agreement which he had made with the Roman government. 4 There were perhaps
many examples of insubordination and mutiny, but only one has survived. The Ira-
nian garrison at Edessa refused to evacuate that city, and only Roman bombardment
and the threat of a prolonged siege persuaded them to depart. 5
After the passage of eight months, the ignominious reign of Kavad II came to
an end. His brief reign was disgraced by the massacre of his brothers. Moses
Daskhurantsi notices the maiming and subsequent execution of every living son of
Khusro, 6 and in the opinion of Tabari seventeen sons of Khusro were murdered at
new king’s command on the advice of his ministers Peroz and Shamta. 7 The near
extermination of the male line of the Sasanid family was to disrupt the royal succes-
sion forever, and royal prestige never recovered. But a worse calamity befell the
people of Iran, when the pestilence began again to afflict the empire. The Persian
king himself was the most exalted victim of that disease, 8 whose effects were very
severe. The writer Masʿudi suggests that either half the population of Iran, or at
least a third, were destroyed, and Tabari claims that ‘most of the Persians perished’. 9
Amidst the dense and populous settlements of Mesopotamia, epidemic disease
would have spread swiftly. Highland Iran may have been untouched, but the effect
of the pestilence upon the metropolitan region of Ctesiphon may well have been as
severe as our sources claim.
Though Ardashir III replaced his father Kavad II, the new king was a boy of
seven years, supervised by a regent called Mih-Adur-Gushnasp. 10 The general Shahr-
Baraz was now the most powerful figure in the empire of Iran; and, though the
young king and his protector were surely supported by a faction of nobles, the Ro-
man government directed its attention to Shahr-Baraz alone. Negotiations proceed-
ed over the course of about a year and half, the duration of the new reign, 11 as epis-
tles were exchanged between Alexandria and Constantinople. The great general re-
fused to surrender the full measure of the conquests which he and Shahin had
achieved, until the emperor Heraclius offered political and military support for the
monarchy of Shahr-Baraz. 12 Apart from concessions of territory, the chief demand
of Heraclius was the return of the Holy Cross, which the plunderer of Jerusalem was
4 Sebeos, p. 128; Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 29.

5 Agapius, Kitab al-ʿUnwan, p. 446.
7 Tabari, v. 2, p. 229.
8 Tabari, v. 2, p. 229; Nöldeke, T., Geschichte der Perser und Araber, p. 385, n. 4.
9 Masʿudi, Muruj al-Dhahab, v. 2, p. 232; Tabari, v. 2, p. 230. The outbreak of the disease is
also noticed in the Annals of Eutychius, v. 2, p. 8).

10 Tabari, v. 2, p. 230; Shahbazi, S., “Ardashir III,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. II, fasc. 4, 1986,
p. 381–382; Nöldeke, T., Geschichte der Perser, p. 386.

11 This was the length of Ardashir III’s reign (Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 30).
12 Sebeos, p. 129; Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 212.
IX. THE COLLAPSE OF THE HOUSE OF SASAN 315
pleased to grant. 13 The border between the two powers was established along the
river Euphrates; and southwestern Armenia, the mountains of the Armenian Tau-
rus, and all Mesopotamia south of the fortress of Amida were retained by Iran. 14
The frontier between the two great powers had not been so far westward since the
first century of our era, and so the Iranian government might yet have announced a
strategic victory.
The writer Sebeos has preserved the mere fact of the negotiation, but his exig-
uous testimony forbids us from following the course of it. Discussions were con-
cluded, as it seems, in early summer of the year 629, and the Iranian evacuation of
Egypt began in the month of June. It was not long thereafter, on the seventeenth
day of July, that Heraclius and Shahr-Baraz met at the site of Arabissus in southern
Cappadocia to ratify their agreement. 15 Heraclius sought to unite himself with the
new king of Iran by ties of marriage, and he betrothed his son Theodosius to Nice,
the daughter of Shahr-Baraz, who bore a conspicuously Hellenic name. 16 A church
was later erected upon the site of the meeting and it was given the name of Peace in
the Greek language.
Not long thereafter Shahr-Baraz and his forces occupied the Persian capital.
His siege of Ctesiphon was assisted by a motley army of six thousand Roman and
Iranian troops, whose attack was briefly resisted by Mih-Adur-Gushnasp who had
exerted every effort to strengthen the walls and gates of Ctesiphon. The city with-
stood the assault of the usurper’s siege engines; but subterfuge succeeded where
force had failed. Nev-Khusro (who was captain of Ardashir III’s bodyguard) and
Namdar Gushnasp (the General of the South) were enticed to open the gates of
Ctesiphon to the conqueror. 17 Ardashir III and the noblemen who had supported
him were slain, and their wives were ravished, by the troops of Shahr-Baraz. But the
coronation of the usurper was delayed until twenty-seventh day of April in the year
630. 18
We may perhaps find the cause of that delay in the perilous condition of Iran’s
northern defences lately ruined by the Turkish allies of Heraclius. It was late in the
year 629, or very early in the following year, that a sudden Turkish incursion into
Armenia inflicted a humiliating defeat upon the troops whom Shahr-Baraz had sent
13 Sebeos, p. 129–130.
15 Chronicle to 724, p. 17–18.
17 Tabari, v. 2, p. 230.
18 The chronology of this period is somewhat difficult to discern. Shahr-Baraz was unques-
tionably the supreme authority in the empire of Iran at the end of the 620s, and he is credit-
ed with the return of the Holy Cross; but he was not crowned until 27 April in the year 630
(Greatrex, G. / Lieu, S. N. C., The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, p. 227–228).
to confront the invaders. 19 Ten thousand Arab auxiliaries were dispatched to crush
the Turks with the hooves and flanks of their horses, and ‘to scatter them like dust
on the wind’. 20 But a feigned retreat led those Arabs into an ambush where they
were surrounded and cut in pieces. In a short while the Turkish khaghan might have
added the failing Sasanid state to his conquests. 21 But human affairs must often be
decided by chance, and the empire of Iran and the unsteady monarchy of a usurper
were saved from premature destruction when Turkish forces were withdrawn from
the region of the Caucasus. The writer Moses Daskhurantsi notes the sudden out-
break of conflict amongst the Turks, but failed to discern the reason for it. 22 A unit-
ed China under the Tang dynasty had overwhelmed the Turks in Central Asia, and
received their immediate surrender. 23 Turkish power was engulfed by civil war, the
invaders of Armenia hastened to participate in the struggle, and Iran was spared
further aggression from the north.
In the meanwhile, Iranian forces had withdrawn beyond the Euphrates, and the
fragments of the True Cross had been returned to Roman control. 24 The recovery of
Rome’s lost provinces and Christendom’s holiest relic were celebrated at Constanti-
nople and Jerusalem. Roman propaganda saluted Heraclius as a new David, a sec-
ond Alexander, and the saviour of the empire, and consigned Khusro to the un-
quenchable fires of hell. 25 Rome’s greatest trophy of victory, the Holy Cross, was
carried into Jerusalem by the emperor himself, and Heraclius deposited it within the
Church of the Resurrection on the twenty-first day of March – the day of the Zoro-
astrian festival of Now Ruz. 26 This important gesture had a double significance. The
theological speculation, which had divided Christendom, might yet have been van-
quished by the symbol of a universal Christian faith and a common Roman gov-
ernment; and the eschatological fervour aroused by the past war might have subsid-

20 I am paraphrasing the orders of Shahr-Baraz: ընդ ոտս եւ ընդ լանջս երիվարաց քոց
կոխեսցես զնոսա, եւ հոսեսցես զնոսա որպէս զփոշի առաջի հողմոյ (Moses
Daskhurantsi, II.16).
21 Hoyland, R., In God’s Path, p. 32.
22 Moses Daskhurantsi, II.16 p. 106.
23 Barfield, T. D., The Perilous Frontier, p. 142–145.
24 Sebeos, p. 130.
25 George of Pisidia, Heraclias I, l. 56; Heraclias II, l. 228–230; Expeditio Persica III, l. 48; Chroni-
con Paschale, p. 728. On the portrayal of Heraclius as a new Alexander, see Reinink, G. J.,
“Heraclius, the New Alexander,” p. 81–94; as a new David, see Alexander, S. S., “Heraclius,
Byzantine Imperial Ideology, and the David Plates,” Speculum, vol. 52, No. 2, 1977, p. 217–
237.
26 Sebeos, p. 131; Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 204–207.
ed amidst an unambiguous Christian triumph over a Zoroastrian and, as it was al-

leged, a Satanic foe. 27 Such, at least, were the hopes of Heraclius.
But the project of Christian unity failed, 28 and Heraclius’ expectation of a theo-
logical victory over the Sasanid House also came to nothing. The emperor had sure-
ly looked forward to the accession of his son Theodosius, who had married the
daughter of Shahr-Baraz, and the inauguration of a new Christian dynasty descended
from the conqueror of the Roman east. 29 But the elevation of the great general
served rather to exacerbate than to subdue factional strife at the Persian court, and
his reign was brief and unstable. No sooner had he mounted the throne than a plot
was formed to slay him, and the usurper perished after forty days of rule.
THE BRIEF REIGN OF BORAN

When the princess Boran, daughter of Khusro II and wife to the unfortunate
Shiruya, ascended the throne, the Sasanid state received its first female monarch. 30
Sebeos, who may have misunderstood his source, alleges that Boran had married
Shahr-Baraz, and that when the conqueror of the Roman east had been murdered
by his enemies, she became queen. 31 However this may be, her reign filled a year and
four months, and was not auspicious. A laudatory reference to her policy of exempt-
ing the common people from an onerous taxation is noticed in the Persian royal
tradition. 32 Her coins announce her as the restorer of the ‘race of the gods’ – an an-
nouncement that the Sasanid family had returned to the throne. 33 But, despite the
success she may have had in conciliating common, noble, and hieratic opinion, it
was the enfeebled government of Boran that yielded to the Roman demand to mod-
ify the terms of peace. An embassy led by Ishoʿyahb the patriarch of Seleucia-
Ctesiphon was dispatched to Aleppo, and a humiliated Iran restored the old frontier
of the year 591. 34
27 The victory dispatch of Heraclius is especially aggressive on this point: εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ
ἀκατάσβεστον τὸ ἡτοιμασμένον τῷ Σατανᾷ καὶ τοῖς ἀξίοις αὐτοῦ ἀπῆλθεν (Chronicon Pascha-
le, p. 729). See also Heilo, O., Eastern Rome and the Rise of Islam, p. 24–25.
28 Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 213–217.
29 Cf. Mango, C., “Deux études sur Byzance et la Perse sassanide,” p. 91–118.
31 Sebeos, p. 130; Tabari, v. 2, p. 231–232; Kaegi, W. E., Heraclius, p. 212–213. Noble disgust
at the usurpation of Shahr-Baraz is represented in the strange tale, reported by Tabari, that
he defecated into a bucket beside the throne immediately after his coronation.
33 For a modern treatment of Boran’s reign, see Malek, H. M. / Sarkosh Curtis, V., “History
and Coinage of the Sasanian Queen Boran (AD 629–631),” The Numismatic Chronicle (1966–),
vol. 158, 1998, p. 113–129.
34 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 30; Chronicle of Seert II(2), p. 557–560. For analysis, see Howard-
Johnston, J., “Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns,” p. 29.

THE RISE OF YAZDGARD III

The Persian royal tradition offers only exiguous notices of the monarchs and pre-
tenders who occupied the throne, or who attempted to occupy it, between the years
630 and 632. After a reign of one year and four months, Boran is said to have been
strangled by a general called Peroz, 35 and a mysterious man whom Tabari calls
Gushnasp-Dih, apparently ruled after her for less than a month. 36
Azarmidukht followed her royal sister upon the Iranian throne, and poison
ended a reign of sixth months. 37 If the anonymous Chronicle of Seert may be trusted,
the rule of Azarmidukht had been rejected by the eastern quarter of the Iranian ar-
my, and that military faction acknowledged as king a child by the name of Mihr-
Khusro. 38 The writer Tabari lists other kings who are little more than names to us:
Khusro III, Khurrazad-Khusro, and Peroz II each reigned for only a few days, and a
reign of sixth months is attributed to a certain Farrukhzad-Khusro, who was either
deposed or murdered by the nobility. 39 But order returned, or seemed to return,
with the accession of Yazdgard III, a grandson of Khusro II, who reigned for nine-
teen years. The disorderly state of the Ctesiphon compelled the court of Yazdgard
to perform his coronation and investiture at Istakhr, the putative origin of the
House of Sasan. 40
The rapid succession of monarchs and pretenders, which I have rehearsed,
suggest a period of civil war between the fall of Kavad II to the rise of Yazdgard III.
Such convulsions at the Persian court suggest that the Roman government had
erred in humiliating the royal house and sponsoring the rise of Shahr-Baraz. The
brief reign of the usurper Bahram Chobin, and the trouble that ensued, should have
dissuaded the government of Rome from the foreign policy enacted by Heraclius;
and a prostrate, exhausted Iran would be of no help in guarding Rome’s eastern
frontier. A policy of reconstruction and support might have restored the era of
peace and mutual cooperation; and the two powers might have resisted a common
threat which had already begun to emerge from the south. In about the year 632,
Maximus the Confessor, a Christian theologian resident in Egypt, composed a letter
to the governor of Numidia, and he expressed alarm at the terrible events of the day
in which a barbarous people of the Arabian desert, who in his opinion scarcely de-
served the appellation of men, had overrun and ravaged the settled lands to the
35 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 30; Chronicle of Seert II(2), p. 579.

36 Tabari, v. 2, p. 231–232.
37 Tabari, v. 2, p. 232. The reign of the last Sasanid queen is described in Daryaee, T., “The
Last Ruling Woman of Eranshahr: Queen Azarmigduxt,” International Journal of the Society of
Iranian Archaeologists, vol. 1, no. 1, winter-spring, 2015, p. 58–61.
38 Chronicle of Seert II(2), p. 579.
39 Tabari, v. 2, p. 233–234.
north. 41 Such raids would normally have had little significance for the two great sed-
entary powers, but these were the beginning of a momentous revolution.
ARABIA
In the ancient world Arabia was the proper name for the desert wastes on the fring-
es of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent. 42 The respective administrations of the Assyri-
an and Achaemenid empires had called that region after the people who dwelt there,
and the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah similarly called the nomads of the Syrian desert
Arabs. 43 Legal texts of the Achaemenid age suggest that some of the inhabitants of
Babylon, Nippur, Sippar, and Uruk were called Arabs, and when Xenophon and his
ten thousand Greeks marched from Sardis to Babylon, it was the region east of the
Euphrates that they acknowledged as Arabia. 44 But Herodotus knew of another
Arabia far to the south. It was a mysterious country of fragrant trees yielding aro-
matic gums, and the historian’s imagination filled it with vipers and winged ser-
pents. 45 It is to this strange land that we must now turn our attention.
The conquests of Ardashir I had embraced the regions of Oman, Bahrain, and
Yamama, and they inaugurated nearly four centuries of Iranian dominion along the
eastern coast of Arabia. This hegemony is proudly asserted in Shapur I’s monumen-
tal inscription at Naqsh-i Rustam. 46 Ammianus has left us an interesting description
of that region, its bustling towns, and the nautical traffic of the Persian Gulf in the
41 In the opinion of Maximus the Confessor, there was nothing worse than ἔθνος ὁρᾷν
ἐρημικόν τε καὶ βάρβαρον, ὡς ἰδίαν γῆν διατρέχον τὴν ἀλλοτρίαν, καὶ θηρσὶν ἀγρίοις καὶ
ἀτιθάσσοις, μόνης ἀνθρώπων ἔχουσι ψιλὸν σχῆμα μορφῆς, τὴν ἥμερον πολιτείαν
δαπανωμένην (Maximus Confessor, Epistula XIV). The rest of this letter is a bizarre rant
against Jews. For analysis, see Hoyland, R., Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evalua-
tion of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam, 1999, p. 76–78.
42 Herodotus II.8; 11–12; 75; 158; III.5; 9; Pliny V.65
43 Jeremiah 3:30:
‫ֲﬠ ָר ִ ֖בי ַבּ ִמּ ְד ָ ֑בּר‬

Hoyland, R., Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam, 2001, p. 5–8.
44 Xenophon, Anabasis, I.iv.19. See also Zadok, R., “Arabians in Mesopotamia during the
late-Assyrian, Chaldean, Achaemenian and Hellenistic Periods,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Mor-
genländischen Gesellschaft 131, 1981, p. 42–84.
45 Herodotus, III.107–109. The first attested reference to winged serpents, and their connex-
ion with Arabia, appear in a fragment of a clay tablet which narrates a military campaign of
the Assyrian king Esarhaddon in the seventh century before Christ (Borger, R., Die Inschriften
Asarhaddons, 1956). It is possible that certain fossils in the Negev desert inspired the legends
of winged snakes, and Herodotus may have misunderstood and embellished them (Radner,
K., “The Winged Snakes of Arabia and the Fossil Site of Makhtesh Ramon in the Negev,”
Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, vol. 97, 2007, p. 353–365).
fourth century; 47 and this is an important suggestion that Sasanian policy aimed to
dominate that prosperous trade route from the beginning. 48 In the early reign of
Shapur II, that control had been threatened by the Bedouins of southern Iraq, and a
punitive expedition spread terror and destruction throughout the Arabian peninsula,
and the Arabs never forgot the cruelty of the Persian king who had slain or taken
prisoner so many of their countrymen. This campaign gave way to the erection of
some impressive fortifications at the southern end of the river Euphrates; and the
Lakhmid dynasty of Hira was instructed to rule and control the riders of the desert.
The reign of Khusro I is distinguished for two important developments in
Arabia. An Iranian governor was appointed directly by the court at Ctesiphon, and
he exerted his authority over the further shore of the Persian Gulf from the island
of Bahrain. In the year 570, Khusro I extended Iranian rule deeper into Arabia when
he subjugated the Yemen. The conquest of the southern shore of the Arabian Pen-
insula was of great military and economic significance, for it permitted the Iranian
government to outflank any potential threat from the north, and to dominate the
trade route of the Red Sea. Control of that region had been the ambition of many a
local and foreign ruler for some time, and the expedition of Khusro came at the end
of many centuries of conflict and invasion in South Arabia.
An ancient struggle for control of the Yemen first gave way to stability at the
end of the third century of our era. 49 Shammar Yuharʿish, the king of Himyar, unit-
ed the whole of South Arabia under his authority: a large and dense population
arose there, and the solid institutions of the south permitted the Himyarite kingdom
to project power and influence northward, up the western coast of Arabia, through
the Hijaz, and perhaps even into Roman Syria. The Himyarite rulers of South Arabia
were distinguished by their embrace of the law of Moses and the Jewish religion,
and their supposed persecution of Christians was the cause, or the pretext, of the
alliance between Rome and the kingdom of Ethiopia across the Red Sea. In about
the year 520, at the instigation of the Roman emperor, an Ethiopian army crossed
that narrow straight, and overthrew the Himyarite monarchy and dissolved its alli-
ances with the tribes of interior Arabia. 50 Amidst the disorder which ensued
throughout the Arabian Peninsula two important events occurred. The first was the
conquest of the Yemen initiated by Khusro I. The second was that the Quraysh, a
47 Ammianus, XIII.vi.10.
48 Hoyland, R., Arabia and the Arabs, p. 27–28.
49 I am following Retsö, J., “The Road to Yarkmuk: The Arabs and the Fall of the Roman
Power in the Middle East,” in Rydén, L. / Rosenquist, J. O. (eds.), Aspects of Late Antiquity
50 For more detail, see Nebes, N., “The Martyrs of Najrān and the End of the Ḥimyar: On
and Early Byzantium, vol. 4, 1992, p. 31–41.
the Political History of South Arabia in the Early Sixth Century,” in Neuwirth, A., Sinai, N.,
Marx, M. (eds), The Qur’an in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’anic Milieu,
2010, p. 27–59, and Shahid, I., The Martyrs of Najran: New Documents, 1971.
small clan belonging to the Kinana tribe, settled at the hamlet of Mecca in north-
western Arabia.
The Yemen was distinguished from the rest of Arabia by the blessing of pre-
dictable rainfall in quantities large enough to sustain irrigation and agriculture. Set-
tlement throughout the rest of the Arabian Peninsula was sparse and impoverished.
Amidst a vast wilderness of sand and stone, some small towns had nevertheless aris-
en upon permanent sources of water or oases. Such colonies might support cultiva-
tion, but they rarely nourished more than a few merchants and peasants, who hardly
rose above the level of bare subsistence. 51 The wanderings of the nomadic Bedouin
of interior Arabia combined the slow rhythms of pastoralism and the elusive
movement of raiders mounted upon swift camels. They were, in the opinion of Pro-
copius, ‘the cleverest of all men at plundering’, and their military might was formi-
dable. 52 But the absence of a fixed centre of power, and the general poverty of the
interior forbade the formation of any form of state, and so direct rule of the Bedou-
in by other Arabs, or by a sedentary power, was impossible. Yet the inertia of a sed-
entary culture and stable government to the south meant that northern and central
kingdom at Hira, and their successors the Banu ʿIjl, were important organs of Irani-
Arabia would be susceptible to the influence of the Yemen. Moreover, the Lakhmid
an influence over the Bedouin Arabs, and the Iranian government seems to have
attempted to rule, or at least to control, all Arabia from their three bases at Hira,
Bahrain, and the Yemen. 53
Though the Bedouin of the interior might never be properly subjugated, the
empire of Iran was nevertheless the dominant power of Arabia at the end of Antiq-
uity. The Lakhmid king of Hira had even appointed a ruler over the city of Yathrib
in the Hijaz, and he oversaw the collection of taxes payed to Khusro I. 54 This is an
important piece of evidence which suggests that Iranian authority may have been
exercised along the entire cost of Arabia and northward into the Hijaz. Successive
borrowings from Ancient Egypt, the Semitic civilisations of Mesopotamia, the Hel-
lenistic world, and Iran had adorned and augmented the culture of settled Arabs and
Bedouins alike; and it is possible to imagine that, with time, the Sasanian govern-
ment might have assimilated all the Arabs. But a social order based upon real or im-
aginary descent from a common ancestor meant that the tribe was the largest, and
most important, group to which a person could belong; and no alliance, or religion,
not even a common code of laws, had yet united the Arabs within a single state, nor
51 Donner, F., The Early Islamic Conquests, p. 14–15.

52 …Σαρακηνοὶ…ἐς…τὸ ληίζεθαι πάντων μάλιστα δεξιοί (Procopius, Bellum Persicum,
II.xix.12). The context is a pep-talk delivered by the general Belissarius to his men at Nisibis.
53 Donner, F., The Early Islamic Conquests, p. 11–14.
54 The evidence for this is found in Ibn Khurradadhbih, Kitab al-masalik wa-l-mamalik, p. 128.
For analysis, see Lecker, M., “The Levying of Taxes for the Sassanians in Pre-Islamic Medina
(Yathrib),” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 27, 2002, p. 109–126.
had the various tribes been taught to feel a common identity or a common pur-
pose. 55
THE MESSAGE OF MUHAMMAD

An Arabian merchant, to whom I have alluded obliquely before, was born in the
reign of Khusro I. 56 He had attained about the age of forty years when he began to
seclude himself in the rocky wastes surrounding his hometown of Mecca. He be-
longed to the clan of the Quraysh who had drifted northward after the collapse of
the Himyarite kingdom. It was about the year 610, in a cave of the mountains near
Mecca, that Muhammad is said to have found the solitude which a Christian hermit
might have enjoyed, and there his meditations on the vanity and fragility of the
world began. The solitary reflections of Muhammad took shape in an atmosphere of
profound anxiety and tension. 57 To the north, a great war of increasing violence
threatened to destroy the binary world order of Iran and Rome which had endured
for centuries. The mercantile interests of the class of Arab traders, to which Mu-
hammad belonged, were likewise imperilled by feelings of uncertainty and instability.
But it was in the realm of eschatological speculation and religious fervour that
the war had its greatest effect. Jewish apocalyptic texts, which foresaw the collapse
of Roman power and the coming of the Messiah, had inspired a superstitious people
with fear and alarm. In their reflections upon the great clash of empires, Christian
ascetics of the Palestinian desert, and such holy men as Theodore of Syceon, and
George of Choziba had called a sinful people to repentance in anticipation of the
imminent end of the world. George beheld terrible visions of the Last Day, and he
urged his fellow monks to pray that the oncoming calamity be averted. Likewise,
Theodore of Syceon had prophesied the coming instability of the Christian faith and
widespread apostasy, barbarian incursions, bloodshed, the destruction of churches,
the cessation of the divine liturgy, and the disorderly collapse of the Roman state,
and he announced that the coming of the Adversary was at hand. Mihr-Mah-
Gushnasp, an Iranian Christian holy man who had taken the baptismal name of
George, was convinced that the last war of Antiquity was the war of nation against
nation foretold in the Gospel of St Matthew, and it was a clear sign that the world
55 Donner, F., The Early Islamic Conquests, p. 20–28; 39–41; Hoyland, R., Arabia and the Arabs,
p. 113–117.
56 That he was a merchant is first declared by Sebeos, p. 135. For the traditional account of
the life of Muhammad, see Donner, F. M., Muhammad and the Believers at the Origins of Islam,
2010, p. 39–50, and the more exhaustive Rodinson, M., Mahomet, 1968. For related historio-
graphical problems, see Donner, F. M., Muhammad and the Believers, p. 50–56.
57 Cameron, A., “Late Antique Apocalyptic: a Context for the Qur’an?” in Amirav, H. /
Grypeou, E. / Stroumsa, G. G. (eds), Visions of the End: Apocalypticism and Eschatology in the
Abrahamic Religions, 6th–8th Centuries, 2017 (forthcoming).
was approaching its end. 58 But what of Zoroastrian Iran? The apocalyptic propa-
ganda circulated amidst the usurpation of Bahram Chobin and the rise of Khusro II
suggests that the Iranian people had lately been accustomed to contemplate the end
of an age and the renewal of the world. 59 Such speculation must have attended the
great westward thrust of the Iranian empire in the early seventh century. As the
earthly agents of Ahura Mazda established the rule of the Persian king upon the ru-
ins of Roman power, many would have meditated upon the primordial unity of reli-
gious, ethnic, and political order ordained by the Wise Lord. Many would have con-
templated the supremacy of the Iranian empire over all civilised peoples; and some
believed, perhaps, that mankind’s final ordeals were imminent, and that the appear-
ance of Astwaterta, the saviour who would lead the final defeat of Angra Mainyu,
had drawn near. 60
The preaching of Muhammad gave voice to the same hopes and anxieties. 61
But the startling utterances of his Recitation, or Qur’an as it is called in Arabic, made
a greater impression upon the minds of men than the exhortations of any other con-
temporaneous ascetic, holy man, prophet, or priest. The preaching of Muhammad
was directed at a community of men whose highest obedience was to the tribe,
whose highest value was loyalty to their kin, and whose greatest fear was to be iso-
lated from their nearest relatives. 62 The inhabitants of a vast desert would have
58 Matthew 24:7; Vita S. Georgii Chozebitae, c. 18 (p. 117: l. 12 to 118: l. 6); Vita S. Theodori, v.
II, 127.14–20; 134.20–34 (on these sources, see Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World
Crisis, p. 167–171); Life of George, p. 475–477. For discussion of eschatological expectation,
see Shoemaker, S. J., The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early
Islam, 2018, p. 74–79 and Reinink, G. J., “Heraclius, the New Alexander: Apocalyptic Proph-
ecies in the Reign of Heraclius,” in Reinink, G. J. / Stolte, R. H., The Reign of Heraclius (610–
641): Crisis and Confrontation, 2002, p. 81–94.
59 Cf. Shoemaker, S. J., The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early
Islam, 2018, p. 105–113.

60 Cf. the ingenious arguments in Payne, R., “Cosmology the Expansion of the Iranian Em-
pire, 502–628 CE,” Past and Present, no. 220, 2013, p. 3–33.
61 Tesei, T., ““The Romans Will Win!” Q 30:2‒7 in Light of 7th c. Political Eschatolo-
gy,” Der Islam 95 (1), 2018, p. 1–29; Shoemaker, S. J. “‘The Reign of God Has Come’: Escha-
tology and Empire in Late Antiquity and Early Islam,” Arabica 61 (5), 2014, p. 515–517;
Denkha, A., “L’Eschatologie Musulmane,” Revue des Sciences religieuses, 87/2, 2013, p. 201–217;
Casey, D., “Mohammad the Eschatological Prophet” in Mayer, W. / Neil, B. (eds)., Religious
Conflict from Early Christianity to Early Islam, 2013, p. 229–244, especially 238 et seqq; Shoemak-
er, S. J., The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad’s Life and the Beginning of Islam, 2012, p.
118–196; Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, p. 445–446.
62 This observation, and those of the following two sentences are derived from Chabbi, J.,
Les trois Piliers de l’islam: lecture anthropolgique du coran, 2016. Chabbi’s attempt to reconstruct the
original message of Muhammad is founded upon the assumption that primitive Islam cannot
be understood without grasping its tribal and patriarchal origin. Few would disagree. But I
heard in the voice of the prophet some comforting allusions to the importance of
well-trodden paths through the wilderness, firm alliances among men, and the bene-
fit of a reliable guide. Isolation in the inhospitable wastes of Arabia, haunted by
strange spirits, and blasted by the fire of the sun, was perhaps Muhammad’s earliest
notion of hell. Muhammad’s depiction of the proximate end of the world was simi-
larly stark and frightening. 63 Incantatory, rhyming ejaculations, which had formerly
been associated with Arabian soothsayers, formed a series of jagged and disjointed
announcements of the fearsome calamities preceding the Day of Judgement. 64 The
earliest parts of Muhammad’s incantations invoke seas of fire, earthquakes, over-
turned graves, mountains thrown down, stars falling from the heavens, the moon
cleft in two, and the sky rent asunder. 65 A single, remote, and omnipotent deity
without a rival, and without a son, had recorded every thought, word, and deed of
every human person; and all mankind would soon be held to account. 66 God was
susceptible to no human feelings, nor had he suffered for the salvation of his crea-
tures. The whole universe was governed by this solitary divine power, and he was
surely a better object of worship than a vast array of local divinities who could not
cannot accept her assumption that the world of Muhammad was so insular and remote that
it had not been influenced by interaction with the two great powers to the north (Chabbi, J.,
Les trois piliers, p. 220–221, although this claim is reiterated frequently in the book), and that
the great religions of the day had had no influence upon Muhammad’s thoughts (Chabbi, J., Les
trois piliers, p. 100–107). Chabbi is rightly suspicious of later misinterpretations, distortions, or
interpolations, which come from the Abbasid age; but she fails to explain how these later
influences may be recognised. Any word or passage of the Quran which seems to militate
against her assumptions is discarded as a product of mediaeval exegesis. But, paradoxically,
Chabbi has no problem relying on the work of Ibn Manzur, a 14th-century Muslim encyclo-
paedist, or the 19th-century travel literature of Thesiger and Doughty. Apart from these,
there are very few references, and it is impossible to discern how Chabbi’s work may be fitted
into the vast, and growing, body of literature on the Quran and early Islam. Nevertheless, it
is an interesting and challenging book which suggests, inter alia, some new interpretations of
the terms sharia, sunna, and umma (Chabbi, J., Les trois Piliers, p. 174–189). For a thorough
review, see Pisani, E. / Chabbi, J. “Les trois piliers de l’islam,” Midéo, no. 33, 2018, p. 295–
304.
63 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, 2010, p. 355–358; 449. The success of the
Quran is surely a good proof that the medium is the message (McLuhan, M., Understanding
Media: The Extension of Man, 1964). The Quran declares, or implies, that the end of the world
is imminent in Quran 16:1; 16:79; 19:75; 21:1; 36:49; 40:18; 51:6; 52:7–8; 54:57; 56:1–2;
78:40.
64 Neuwirth, A., “Structural, Linguistic and Literary Features,” in MacAuliffe, J. D. (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to the Qur’an, 2006, p. 97–113.

65 Quran 54:1; 81:1–14; 82:1–4; 99.
66 Quran 10:61; 67:13–14; 82:6–19.
protect their Arabian votaries from the grim vicissitudes of life in the desert, and
who would be of no assistance at the awesome tribunal of God. 67
But Muhammad had also depicted a vivid and alluring portrait of heaven. The
pious dead would abide in spacious mansions amidst orchards and gardens; and,
clad in robes of silk, and adorned by pearls and bracelets of gold, they would recline
upon soft couches amidst cool streams shaded by the leaves of fruitful trees, as
comely boys and shy virgins served them food and drink from chargers and goblets
of silver. 68 Carpets, brocade, rubies, coral, dates, pomegranates, goodly pavilions,
raised thrones with green cushions, and vessels of gold, silver, and crystal are all
provided for the repose of the righteous. Here we surely behold a picture, or a cari-
cature, of the leisure hours of an Iranian nobleman. 69 But, in imitation of the Roman
doctrine of holy war, Muhammad promised his audience that death in battle assured
admittance to Paradise. The emperor Heraclius had announced the new doctrine in
the year 624 at the moment of the Roman invasion of Iran, and the Arab soldiers 70
who had accompanied the Roman army would have heard and transmitted it. In the
very same year, when the army of Muhammad’s community at Yathrib confronted
their Meccan antagonists at the Battle of Badr, 71 the Apostle of God declared: ‘no
man shall be slain this day who fights with patient courage without retreating but
God shall admit him to Paradise!’ 72
THE ORIGIN OF THE ARAB CONQUESTS

Modern writers have argued that the message of Muhammad was so potent that it
swiftly wore down and destroyed the ties of kinship and tribal loyalty which had
67 Quran 35:18; 44:41–42; 53:36–39.

68 Quran 9:72; 22:23–24; 55:46–78; 76:11–22.
69 Cf. Courtieu, G., “Das Glück bei Allah oder bei Khosrau? Prachtentfaltung wie bei einem
persischen Gastmahl in den Paradiesversen des Koran,” in Groß, M. / Ohlig, K.-H. (eds.),
Die Entstehung einer Weltreligion IV: Mohammed – Geschichte oder Mythos?, Inârah – Schriften zur
frühen Islamgeschichte und zum Koran, Band 7, 2017, p. 499–546.
70 Their participation is noted by Theophanes, Chronographia, p. 307.
71 For the date of the Battle of Badr, and a brief description of it, see “Badr,” in The Encyclo-
paedia of Islam, vol. 1, 1986, p. 867–868; Watt, M., Muhammad at Medina, 1956, p. 10–13. On
the coincidence of the doctrine in the exhortations of both Muhammad and Heraclius, see
Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses, p. 447; Howard-Johnston, J., “Heraclius’ Persian Cam-
paigns,” p. 39–40; Howard-Johnston, J., “The Official History of Heraclius’ Persian Cam-
paigns,” in Dabrowa, E. (ed.), The Roman and Byzantine Army in the East, 1994, p. 85.
72 I have paraphrased Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Muhammad, v. 1, p. 445:
.‫ل في ُقت َل صا��ا ً ��تسبا ً م ُقب�� ً �� م ُد�� ا�� اد�� ا�� ن ّة‬
ٌ �‫… �� يقاتلهم اليوم ر‬
And see also Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Muhammad, v. 1, p. 453. On the trustworthiness of this source,
plunged themselves into the mellay without armour: see the anecdotes about ʿUmayr ibn al-
see Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses, p. 402–408. Some of Muhammad’s followers eagerly
Humam and Asim ibn ʿUmar ibn Qatada in Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Muhammad, v. 1, p. 445.
determined the shape of Arabian society. 73 The preaching of Muhammad would

come to form the basis of the religion of Islam, and its principal effect, so the argu-
ment goes, was to transform each individual man into one of God’s earthly agents,
subject to a single divine set of laws, whose highest purpose was to fight for the new
religion without reckoning the cost. 74 An ancient enthusiasm for plunder and raiding
could now be subordinated to that purpose; and the troops who believed in the
message of the prophet were utterly devoted to a struggle for which they were pre-
pared to die. Such, we may be tempted to believe, was the origin of Arab unity. This
interpretation has the sanction of later Islamic orthodoxy, but it is a distortion of the
truth. 75
The age of Muhammad was as well a time of religious as of political tension.
The outcome of the great war to the north was uncertain. The fabric of a political
order which had held for centuries had frayed and was on the point of unravelling;
and, to the south, the future of Iranian power, which had appeared after the collapse
of the Himyarite state, was doubtful. In an atmosphere of anxiety new political and
religious authorities had begun to take shape throughout Arabia. Muhammad was
but one of many political leaders who had seemed to derive their authority from
God, and several enthusiasts vied for supremacy. Musaylima, Tuhayla, Aswad, Sajah,
Laqit, and Ibn Sayyad are the names of the most prominent such religious leaders;
and it is possible to imagine that a rival prophet and a rival doctrine might have tri-
umphed over Muhammad and his preaching. 76 The message of that merchant had
been rejected at Mecca and might have been forgotten. But in the year 622 the peo-
ple of Yathrib offered shelter and protection to the prophet and his associates, and
the community of believers 77 migrated northward. Tribal feuds had raged at Yathrib
with inexorable fury, no one had succeeded in halting the discord, and this was the
pretext upon which a representative of the new species of political prophet was
asked to intervene.
73 Donner, F. M., The Early Islamic Conquests, p. 55–57.

74 Quran 3:16–20; 22:78. Donner, F. M., The Early Islamic Conquests, p. 58–62.
75 Although I cannot agree with all her arguments, Chabbi is undoubtedly right to draw a
distinction between the original message of Muhammad and the later development of it in
the Middle Ages, and she is right to insist that the latter cannot be used to reconstruct the
former (Chabbi, J., Les trois Piliers de l’islam).
76 I am following Hoyland, R., In God’s Path, 2017, p. 34–38. On the matter of rival prophets,
see Robin, C., “Les Signes de la prophétie en Arabie,” in Georgoudi, S., et al. (eds.), La Rai-
son des signes, 2012, and Makin, A., Recontructing the Enemy: Musaylima in Muslim Literature, 2010.
77 This is how Donner characterises a movement which had yet to take the shape of ortho-
dox Islam familiar from mediaeval and modern times (Donner, F. M., Muhammad and the
Believers, p. 56–61.
A solemn agreement, known to posterity as the Constitution of Medina, 78 cement-

ed the alliance between Muhammad, the Meccan exiles who followed him, and the
people of Yathrib. That town came to be called the City of the Prophet, or Madinat
al-Nabi in the Arabic language; and it has thereafter been known in the West as Me-
dina. 79 In the opinion of Muhammad, the time of peaceable exhortation had passed;
and where words had failed the sword would succeed. At the command of the
prophet the community at Medina compelled the circumjacent tribes by force of
arms to participate in the struggle of Muhammad. The ever-widening reach of this
warfare issued in the Battle of Badr in the year 624, a counterattack at the well of
Uhud in the year 625 or 626, and the annexation of Mecca followed no later than
630. Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, a powerful leader of the Qurayshite tribe, gave his
daughter in marriage to Muhammad and the union of the communities of Mecca
and Medina was complete. The fertile oasis town of Ta’if fell shortly after the ca-
pitulation of Mecca, and the new triple alliance extended the sway of the prophet
throughout the Hijaz in north-western Arabia. 80
The armies of Muhammad penetrated northward into Roman lands in the year
630. We are reliably informed by the testimony of Baladhuri that Muhammad’s first
tribes loyal to the empire of Rome. The tribes of ʿAmila, Lakhm, and Judham had
thrust out of Arabia was prompted by intelligence of an attack meditated by three
perhaps been induced by the Roman government to pacify or to destroy the polity
of Muhammad, but their plans issued in defeat and subjugation. 81 The great Arab
general Khalid ibn Walid and the prophet himself advanced at the head of their re-
spective forces along the trade routes which for centuries had carried merchants
the town of ʿAqaba) and Udhruh (near the site of Petra) were subjugated in turn.
northward into Syria. They met no resistance at the oasis of Tabuk; and Aila (now
These and other settlements which submitted themselves to Muhammad agreed to

different terms, and the lineaments of many heterogeneous treaties are preserved
upon the pages of Baladhuri. From these interesting facts, we may infer the disor-
derly and weakened condition of Rome’s southern frontier and the absence of a
single political and military authority after the withdrawal of the armies of Iran. 82
This was the beginning of the Arab conquest of the Roman empire, noted by Max-
imus the Confessor.
78 See Walker, A., “Constitution of Medina” in Fitzpatrick, C. / Walker A., Muhammad in

history, thought and culture (2 vols), 2014, p. 113–115. But Donner calls this the ‘umma docu-
ment’ (Donner, F. M., Muhammad and the Believers, p. 228–232).
79 Donner, F. M., Muhammad and the Believers, p. 43.
80 These events are described in Baladhuri, p. 35–59. The dates are variously interpreted by
Hoyland Hoyland, R., In God’s Path, p. 34–38) and Donner (Donner, F. M., Muhammad and
the Believers, p. 46–49).
81 Baladhuri, p. 59–61.
82 Hoyland, R., In God’s Path, p. 39–41.
In the year 632, Muhammad was dead. Later Islamic tradition would have us
believe that the prophet’s message had prevailed over all the Arabs; but that the au-
thority of Abu Bakr, successor to the prophet, had retreated within the confines of
the Hijaz. Rival prophets and refractory Bedouins are said to have abandoned the
doctrines of Muhammad, and they refused to submit themselves to the empire of
Medina. A series of conflicts known to posterity as the Wars of Apostasy filled the
year 632, and the authority of the first caliph (as the successor to the prophet was
called) was at last restored and confirmed by the military genius of Khalid ibn al-
Walid. 83 It was only after the triumph of Abu Bakr, as we are assured, that the Arabs
as a united body embarked upon the project of conquering the whole world. But
this imaginary account is founded upon the double exaggeration of Muhammad’s
success at converting his compatriots and the authority of Abu Bakr. The real task
of the first caliph was not to restore the authority of Medina, but to impose it for
the first time throughout the Arabian Peninsula and to involve his countrymen with-
in the imperial project established by Muhammad.
But the tribes of north-eastern Arabia listened to the voice and acknowledged
the authority the prophetess Sajah whose preaching was informed by her ancestral
Christianity. 84 In her youth she had perhaps observed the dissolution of the Iranian
alliance with the Lakhmid dynasty at Hira which had provoked the skirmish at Dhu
Qar; and as the Arabs who dwelt upon the Iranian border grew increasingly refrac-
tory, 85 she began to command and direct their energies. It was in the reign of the
Persian queen Boran, under the leadership of Sajah, that Arab razzias across the
border began to grow in frequency and intensity. ‘They say,’ declares Dinawari, ‘that
when the monarchy passed to Boran, daughter of Khusro son of Hurmazd, word
spread everywhere that the empire of Persia had no king and they had had recourse
to a woman,’ and the generals Muthanna ibn Haritha and Suwayd ibn Qutba began
to raid the frontier of Iran. 86 This was in the year 630 – two years before the death
of Muhammad. Three years later, the Arabs of the north-east were united under the
command of Khalid ibn al-Walid, who had been dispatched to bring them under the
yoke of Medina; and their raiding was transformed into a project of conquest. The
83 Baladhuri, p. 104–107; Tabari, v. 3, p. 243–384; Donner, F. M., The Early Islamic Conquests,
p. 85–90; Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, p. 464–465; Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests, p. 72–
105.
84 Robin, C. J., “Les Signes de la prophétie en Arabie,” Makin, A., Recontructing the Enemy, p.
456, and Kister, M. J., “The Struggle against Musaylima and the Conquest of Yamama,” in
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 27, 2002, p. 23–25.
85 Chronicle of Seert II(2), p. 539–540.
86 Dinawari, p. 116–117.
outer defences of Iranian Mesopotamia gave way, the city of Hira fell to Khalid, and
the fortress of Peroz-Shapur was seized in the year 633. 87
THE BATTLE OF THE BRIDGE

In the year 634, Arab armies had subdued much of the Roman Orient, and the re-
gions of Syria and southern Mesopotamia were secure in preparation for an assault
na alone oversaw the invasion of Iran until the new caliph ʿUmar dispatched the
upon Ctesiphon. 88 Khalid was relieved of his command, and for a moment Muthan-
general Abu ʿUbayd at the head of a small force. His orders were to unite with
Sebeos, the army of Abu ʿUbayd began a siege of the royal city, but was driven off
Muthanna and to advance upon the Persian capital. In the opinion of the writer
and pursued to the shore of the river Euphrates. 89 An Iranian army commanded by
the general Rustam confronted the Arab host at a crossing at the site of Marawha
near Kufa, and it was the scene of an Iranian victory which came to be known as the
Battle of the Bridge. 90 There the Arab host is said to have marvelled at the royal
standard, which was fashioned from the skins of several tigers. 91 The insignia of
Rustam’s warriors, and the dense plate mail of their horses, which had so impressed
Plutarch and Ammianus, were alike objects of fear and amazement. The hideous
vaders and threw them into confusion. 92 Abu ʿUbayd, who had attempted to sever
sight of the Iranian elephants, and volleys of innumerable arrows, terrified the in-
the trunk or the head of an elephant, was himself crushed by the beast which he had
tried to destroy. An ignominious rout ensued, and an Arab soldier cut the bridge
over the river in an effort to prevent the retreat of his countrymen; but the result of
this was that many Arabs drowned as they tried to swim to safety. Muthanna, who
had survived this embarrassment, rallied the few troops who remained alive, and
retreated into the desert. The failure of the general Rustam to pursue and destroy
the flying enemy accuses the weakness of the Sasanian state and the unsteady mon-
archy of Yazdgard III.
THE BATTLES OF QADISIYA AND BABYLON

The defeat at Marawha was a severe blow to Arab morale, and it might have halted
their advance altogether. Their project of conquest sunk into desultory raiding
across the alluvial plain of Babylon, while the government at Medina issued a gen-
eral call to arms for a renewed assault upon the Persian capital. Tabari’s long exposi-
87 Baladhuri, p. 241–250; Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests, p. 103–104; Donner, F. M., The
Early Islamic Conquests, p. 183–184.
88 Hoyland, R., In God’s Path, 2017, p. 31–65.
89 Sebeos, p. 136–137.
90 Baladhuri, p. 251–252; Tabari, v. 3, p. 453–459.
91 Tabari, v. 3, p. 453–454.
92 Tabari, v. 3, p. 456.
tion of anecdotes, and the shorter treatment of Baladhuri, cannot be shaped into a
of the Arab commander Saʿd ibn Abu Waqqas, who had replaced Abu ʿUbayd. 93
narrative of the confrontation between the forces of the general Rustam and those
But we may be certain of the date and place of the conflict, for the Armenian writer
Moses Daskhurantsi claims that battle was joined at the village of Qadisiya, in the
vicinity of Hira, on the sixth day of January of the year 638. 94 But neither Moses, nor
Sebeos who also mentions the battle, furnish any further details, save that the gen-
eral Rustam was slain together with many of his Caucasian allies, and the Iranian
army barely escaped total destruction. 95 The way to the Persian capital was now
open, and the army of Saʿd pursued the relics of the Iranian host across an expanse
of mudflats, canals, and palm groves towards the ancient site of Babylon. The ruins
of Hammurabi’s capital and the seat of Nebuchadnezzar, now scarcely more than a
few hills of earth, were the scene of another Iranian rout. The Nakhwaragan, Mihran
of Rey, and two generals known as Hurmazdan and Perozan, were scattered togeth-
er with all their troops. Perozan fled northward to the village of Nihavand in Media,
where he began to muster a new army; and Hurmazdan moved south to Khuzestan,
where he raised taxes and levied a new force for the defence of southern Iran. 96 The
others repaired to Ctesiphon where they readied themselves for an obstinate siege.
Let us pause here and examine a curious feature of the Shahnameh. Toward the
melancholy end of that poem, we find the contents of a letter addressed by the gen-
eral Rustam to his brother Khurrazad. The Iranian hero has resigned himself to the
inevitable victory of the Arabs at Qadisiya, which he discerned from the position of
the stars, and the ensuing lamentation is a strange mixture of grief and rancour. 97
shall call every name Abu Bakr and ʿUthman.’ All royal glory, he says, shall perish
‘When the Arabs,’ says Rustam, ‘have made the pulpit level with the throne, they
from Iran; Persians, Turks, and Arabs shall dwell together and mingle; the revolu-
tion of the seasons shall cease to be celebrated; and the true religion shall be re-
placed by a base counterfeit. Much of the letter must have originated within the im-
agination of Ferdowsi; and in the condemnation of the victorious Arab troops clad
in black and the future reign of an unworthy king, we may detect the poet’s hatred
of the caliphs who ruled the declining Abbasid state in the eleventh century. 98 But
one important detail within the letter merits careful scrutiny.
93 Kennedy, p. 109–118.
95 Sebeos, p. 137; Moses Daskhurantsi, II.18 p. 110–111.
96 Tabari, v. 3, p. 619–622; Kennedy, p. 116.
97 The whole epistle may be found in Ferdowsi, Yazdgard-i Shahriyar, l. 35–133.
98 Ferdowsi, Yazdgard-i Shahriyar, l. 91:
.‫شود ��ا شاه ��دن فراز‬ ‫چو روز ا��آ�� به روز دراز‬
The second hemistich is a variant reading which we should prefer over the rather banal text
which Khalegi-Motlagh has printed.
Rustam’s epistle claims that, before the battle of Qadisiya, an Arab emissary
came to him offering terms.
‘From Qadisiya to the shore of the river, we shall grant that territory to your king;
but a road must be opened in that direction to the markets of your empire, so
that we may buy and sell there. This is all that we seek and nothing more. We
shall pay tax and heavy tribute, for we do not seek the diadem of the mighty. We
shall also obey the command of the monarch; and, if he so demand, we shall give
hostages.’ 99
These terms create a strange tension with the poet’s effusive embellishment of
Rustam’s missive. This suggests an origin within an indigenous Iranian account of
the Arab conquest, and it is most improbable that Ferdowsi invented what the Arab
ambassador had proposed. Can it be that Arab confidence waivered after their de-
feat at Marawha to such a degree that Saʿd had attempted to come to terms with
Rustam? Or had the merchants of the Quraysh, who sought access to Iranian mar-
kets, directed the forces of Saʿd for their own benefit? 100 Either possibility suggests a
startling departure from the orthodox Muslim account of the conquest of Iran.
THE FALL OF CTESIPHON

The people of Ctesiphon and its environs and the court of Yazdgard now endured a
siege of a year and a half. It was about the middle of the year 639 when resistance
gave way and the Persian capital was stormed. At least one Iranian sortie had been
beaten back within the walls of the capital; and, if we can trust the word of Tabari,
the proposal of a truce came to nothing. The Persian government, as it is said, of-
fered to establish the river Tigris as the boundary between the empire of Iran and
that of the Arabs – an important concession since that river bisected the agglomera-
tion of cities which formed the Iranian capital, whose western portion Veh-Ardashir
was occupied by the invaders. 101 But the terms were refused, and the Arabs who had
vowed to conquer Iraq and Iran, 102 would not relinquish the siege.
99 Ferdowsi, Yazdgard-i Shahriyar, l. 48–51:

،‫��ن رفت هر گونه �� ا��ن‬ ‫از�ن فرستاده آمد به من‬
‫زم�ن را ��ش�� با ��ر يار‬ ‫�� از قاد�� تا لب رودبار‬
،‫به ��رى ��ا هست بازارگ�ه‬ ‫و زان سو ي�� گشايند راه‬
،��‫و زان �� فزو�ى ��و ي�� ن‬ �� ‫��ان تا �� و فروش‬
‫��و ي�� د�� گُنداوران‬ ‫�� ما ساو و باژ ��ان‬
!�� ‫�� از ما ��واهد ��وگ�ن‬ �� ‫��نشاه را ب�� فرمان‬
100 Howard-Johnston, J., Witnesses to a World Crisis, p. 352.
101 Tabari, v. 4, p. 7.
102 This is the force of the phrase (Tabari, v. 4, p. 7):
.‫�� يكون بيننا وبين�� صلح ا��ا ً ح� ّى ناك� عسل افر��ن با��ج كو�ى‬
‫ افر��ن‬should perhaps be amended to ‫افر��ون‬.
Later tradition transformed the Arabian crossing of the Tigris into a furious,
but improbable, battle in the midst of that high and swift stream. 103 That strange
anecdote may be a reminiscence of a severe flood which afflicted Ctesiphon at that
time, and which is noticed by Baladhuri. 104 However that may be, at the Arabs’ ad-
vance across the Tigris, the court of Yazdgard resolved upon a tactical retreat and a
hasty withdrawal from the capital. But the evacuation was intercepted: the king and
his retinue fled along the highway across the Nahrawan canal, the royal baggage and
insignia were captured, and a contingent of Arabs pursued the fugitives as far as
Jalula at the root of the Zagros mountains. 105
When the victorious Arabs entered the eastern portion of the Persian capital,
they found it almost totally deserted. The palace erected by Khusro II, or perhaps
by his grandfather, was the scene of some small resistance, but that building was
swiftly occupied. The White Palace, as it was called, became the abode of the con-
queror Saʿd, and the great hall nearby was transformed into a place of public wor-
ship. 106 A vast arch and the largest vault ever constructed were the most conspicu-
ous features of that hall, which had once been the audience chamber, or perhaps the
throne room, of the Persian kings. Now the recitations of Muhammad, and a weekly
sermon, were to reverberate below that huge vault; and the writer Tabari observes
that statues of men and horses looked down from the walls as the faithful per-
formed their prayers. 107
The writer Tabari dwells with relish upon the great mass of booty retrieved
from the royal city. Treasure valued at three thousand million drachms was taken
from the king’s storehouse; 108 and the royal insignia, plundered from the king’s bag-
gage train, included fine clothes, gems, a sword belt and a coat of mail encrusted
with jewels, and perhaps the royal crown and other accoutrements befitting a
king. 109 An enormous carpet of about one hundred square feet in size depicted a
vast garden, and was inlaid with precious stones and woven with golden thread.
When this extraordinary object was discovered within the palace, the conquerors are
said to have divided into equitable portions; and Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of
103 Baladhuri, p. 263; Tabari, v. 4, p. 8–9; Kennedy, p. 119–121.

104 Baladhuri, p. 292–293.
105 Sebeos, p. 137; Moses Daskhurantsi, II.18, p. 112; Tabari, v. 4, p. 13–14.
106 Tabari, v. 4, p. 14–15. The White Palace and the so-called Arch of Khusro are not one
and the same structure (Keall, E. J., “Ayvan-e Kesra” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. III, fasc. 2,
2001, p. 155– 159.
107 Tabari, v. 4, p. 15–17.
108 Tabari, v. 4, p. 10.
109 Tabari, v. 4, p. 17–18. Arab tradition rather implausibly mentions the king’s swords, his
aventail, his greaves, arm plates, and coats of mail which had supposedly belonged to the
emperor Heraclius, to the khaghan of the Turks, to Bahram Chobin, and to other foes of the
House of Sasan.
Muhammad, received a fragment which he sold for twenty thousand drachms. 110
The Arabs, who were unaccustomed to the luxuries of the Persian court, seized a
great quantity of camphor which the domestics of the palace had burnt to purify the
air; and, mistaking it for salt, the conquerors mingled it with their food. 111 These
notices, which may not be genuine, announce the powerful impression which the
riches of the House of Sasan made upon the poor Bedouins of Arabia; and they may
be compared with the report of the treasures seized by Heraclius and his men at
Dastgard.
At Jalula, the forces of Yazdgard confronted an army of twelve thousand Arabs
who pursued them. Khurrazad, the brother of Rustam, had assembled an army of
reinforcements from the highlands of Media, and, joining forces with Mihran of
Rey, this host is said to have mounted the staunchest resistance which the invaders
had yet faced. 112 A large trench surrounded by hedges and sharpened stakes fortified
the Iranian position. 113 When battle was joined, ‘arrows and lances,’ says Baladhuri,
‘were employed until shivered in pieces, and swords were applied until bent’, a furi-
ous charge drove the Iranian army from its stockade, and the relics of the shattered
host were pursued until nightfall. 114 But Yazdgard, who had fled to Hulwan, escaped
destruction.
THE CONQUEST OF KHUZESTAN

The Chronicle of Khuzestan acquired its name because of its circumstantial narrative of
the Arab conquest of that region in southwestern Iran. 115 This narrative describes
the long and vigorous resistance mounted by the Persian general Hurmazdan against
the armies of the Arab general Abu Musa, and it was compiled shortly after the
events in question. 116 Diplomatic exchanges, treaties, and the payment of tribute
delayed a direct confrontation for two years, and during that interval Hurmazdan
raised money and an army of considerable size. The declaration of war was signalled
by the murder of Abu Musa’s ambassadors; but Iranian confidence was humbled
when the large force dispatched by Hurmazdan confronted the invaders and was
destroyed. The towns of Khuzestan were severally attacked and subjugated, and the
history of Tabari notes in some detail that the city of Gundishapur was taken by
110 Tabari, v. 4, p. 21–23.

111 Tabari, v. 4, p. 17; Baladhuri, p. 264.
112 Baladhuri, p. 264.
113 Tabari, v. 4, p. 24.
115 For a solid analysis of the worth of this source in connexion with the conquest of
Khuzestan, see Robinson, C., “The Conquest of Khuzistan: A Historical Reassessment,”

Bulletin of SOAS, 67 (1), 2004, p. 14–39.
116 The account begins at Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 36. For modern interpretations of it, see
Hoyland, R., In God’s Path, p. 83–84; and Kennedy, H., The Great Arab Conquests, p. 127.
subterfuge. 117 The siege of Susa filled only a few days, and the victorious Arabs
burst through its walls, slew the most prominent citizens, occupied the church dedi-
cated to Daniel the prophet, and carried off the royal treasures which had accumu-
lated at Susa since the days of Cyrus. The sarcophagus, which was said to contain
ied at the behest of the caliph ʿUmar. 118

the body of Daniel, was opened; and the mummified corpse was extracted and bur-
Soon only one free city remained in Khuzestan. Shushtar sits upon a rocky em-
inence above the river of the same name, where four centuries earlier Roman pris-
oners of war had constructed a dam for Shapur I. The ruins of a large castle still
attest the strong defences of that city, and it was here that Hurmuzdan and his
troops endured a siege of two years. 119 A citizen of Shushtar, whose origin was on
the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, 120 conspired with a man whose house abutted
the wall of that city. They approached the Arabs in secret and offered, in exchange
for one third of the eventual booty, to lead the invaders into the city through a tun-
nel which they had dug beneath the wall. The Chronicle of Khuzestan alludes to a pro-
and the general Hurmazdan was captured alive and sent to the caliph ʿUmar at Me-
miscuous massacre which is corroborated by the accounts of Baladhuri and Tabari,
dina. 121 This was about the year 641.
THE BATTLE OF NIHAVAND

AND THE PENETRATION OF THE IRANIAN PLATEAU
Arabian forces now began to march northward into the highlands of Iran, and it was
the firm resolve of Sasanian loyalists to resist them at the plain of Nihavand near
Hamadan in Media. There the general Perozan had mustered an army of sixty thou-
sand against an Arab host computed at forty thousand men. 122 For three days the
battle raged, until (as Sebeos informs us) the rumour was diffused that a contingent
of reinforcements had given the Arabian host the advantage. Iranian forces fled in
terror and confusion, the invaders found their camp deserted, and Tabari adds the
credible details that many a soldier fell to his death in a nearby ravine and that the
general Perozan and a few survivors were intercepted and slain on their flight to-
117 Tabari, v. 4, p. 93–94.

118 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 37; Tabari, v. 4, p. 92. It was said that a signet ring was found
upon the body of Daniel and it depicted a man between two lions. According to the Chronicle
of Khuzestan the coffin of Daniel was made of silver; but according to Sebeos it was a con-
tainer of bronze.
120 The Chronicle of Khuzestan (p. 37) says that he came from Qatar.
121 Chronicle of Khuzestan, p. 37; Baladhuri, p. 370; Tabari, v. 4, p. 85–86; Kennedy, The Great
Arab Conquests, p. 129–130.

122 Sebeos, p. 141.
wards the city of Hamadan. 123 The town of Nihavand itself was surrendered by a
Zoroastrian priest who offered to the conquerors a great mass of treasure in ex-
change for the safety of the town and its inhabitants. 124 With confidence and preci-
sion the writer Sebeos situates the Battle of Nihavand in the tenth regnal year of
Yazdgard III, or the year 641. 125
The fall of Nihavand and the rout of the forces assembled by Perozan opened
the Iranian plateau to conquest. Later traditions recorded by Tabari describe the
Battle of Nihavand as a vast scene of carnage in which men and horses lost their
footing upon a battlefield inundated with blood. 126 Sebeos offers a grim, but vague,
allusion to the Arab host’s advance across ‘the whole land’, as they put man and
beast to the sword everywhere and slew all living things within the fortresses which
they captured. 127 But this is an exaggeration: the slaughter at Nihavand gave way to
the peaceable capitulation of cities and fortresses, and the subjugation of Iran was
far less violent than Sebeos would have us believe.
The cities of Hamadan, Isfahan, and Gay surrendered without opposition, but
for thirty loyalists who departed Gay to join the Iranian resistance at Kirman. 128 At
the city of Qum the local ruler Yazdanfar granted the invaders lands, beasts, and
seeds in exchange for their protection against the men of Daylam whose predations
had annoyed his fellow citizens for some time. 129 Rey, the greatest city of Media, was
defended by Siyavakhsh, the grandson of the usurper Bahram Chobin, of the illus-
trious clan of Mihran. The rival family of Zinab made peace with the invaders and
solicited their intervention in their feud with Siyavakhsh, and the Arabs complied.
They were led into Rey by a secret entrance, Siyavakhsh and the Mihran family were
deposed and slain, and the government of Rey was entrusted to a new master. 130
The Arab general Suwayd invited the governors of Qumis, Gilan, Tabaristan, and
Gurgan to pay tribute, and the people of those regions were left unmolested. 131 The
penetration of Azarbaijan occurred at the same time: a momentary resistance led by
Isfandiyadh, brother to the late general Rustam, gave way to defeat and capture. But
123 Tabari, v.4, p. 132. The orthodox Muslim traditions concerning the Battle of Nihavand
can be found in Baladhuri, p. 302–306 and Tabari, v. 4, p. 114–137.
124 Baladhuri, p. 305; Tabari, v. 4, p. 133.
125 Յամի տասներորդի Յազկերտի արկային Պարսից... (Sebeos, p. 141). The various
dates provided by Tabari cannot be trusted.

126 Tabari, v. 4, p. 132:
‫فقت��ا ف��ا من أهل فارس فيما ب�ن ا��وال وا��عتام ما طبق أرض ا��عر�� دما ��لق الناس وا��واب فيه وأصيب فرسان من‬
.‫فرسان ا��س��ن �ي ا��لق �ي ا��ماء‬
127 Sebeos, p. 141.
129 See the evidence presented in Pourshariati, P., “Local Histories of Khurasan and the Pat-
tern of Arab Settlement,” Studia Iranica 27, 1998, p. 41–81.

130 Tabari, v. 4, p. 150–151.
131 Tabari, v. 4, p. 151–153.
the Iranian general took on the role of mediator between the conquerors and the
subject people, and he ensured their peaceful subjugation and obedience. 132 Similar
cooperation attended the conquest of the Iranian fortifications in the Caucasus. The
commander of the garrison at Darband, who bore the title Shahr-Baraz, made
common cause with the invaders, and he and his troops were exempt from taxation
in exchange for military service. 133
THE CONQUEST OF PERSIA

The invasion of Persia, properly so called, began in the year 634 when Arabs began
to cross the Gulf and to raid the southern coast of Iran. An expedition launched
from Bahrain, captured the island of Abarkavan in the year 639, and in the following
year Arabian armies had reached the ancestral heartland of Cyrus and Ardashir. 134
The governor of Kirman had perished in the struggle at Abarkavan, and Shahrak,
the governor of Persia, attempted to resist the conquerors in the vicinity of Tawwaj
– but without success. 135 In the following year, the cities of southern Iran succes-
sively capitulated to the victorious Arabs, and the ancient capital of Istakhr endured
and survived a siege in the year 644. 136 The city of Bishapur fell three years later, and
a Zoroastrian priest negotiated the surrender of Darabgird in the year 648. 137 By the
year 650 only Gor and Istakhr remained free.
The Arab siege of Gor failed to capture that city until the invaders followed a
dog through a secret passage in its walls. 138 At the regional capital of Istakhr the Ar-
abs met greater resistance; for the period of peace, which had followed capitulation,
swiftly gave way to an implacable rebellion, bombardment by siege engines, and a
sanguinary massacre of forty thousand persons. 139 Yazdgard III had fled the calami-
ties of siege and slaughter towards north-eastern Iran where he attempted to rally a
host to oppose the Arabs. But appeals for troops to the governors of Kirman and
Sistan failed, for they preferred rather to negotiate a peace with the invaders than to
support a tottering monarchy. 140
132 Tabari, v. 4, p. 153–155.

133 Tabari, v. 4, p. 155–160.
134 I am following Hinds, G. M., “The First Arab Conquests in Fars,” Iran vol. 22, 1984, p.
39–53.
136 Tabari, v. 4, p. 174.
140 Baladhuri, p. 315–316; Tabari, Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests, p. 187.
THE FLIGHT AND DEATH OF YAZDGARD III

The fugitive king and his degraded retinue made their way to the city of Marv. The
writer Tabari alleges that Yazdgard had dispatched an embassy to the Chinese court,
and it was at Marv that he received the Tang emperor’s formal refusal to assist
him. 141 But the Persian king endured a greater disappointment. Sebeos invokes a
certain ‘prince of the Medes’ whom we may perhaps identify with Khurrazad,
brother to the late Rustam. This prince had earlier agreed to join his king in the
northeast, but he rebelled and submitted himself to Arab rule. 142 This is surely evi-
dence of a disagreement between a king who had sought a military confrontation
and a prince who wished to make peace with the Arab conquerors. 143 Deprived of
the reinforcements of the Median army, Yazdgard resolved to flee into the Asiatic
steppe, but his small host was intercepted and routed by an Arab army sent to pur-
sue him. The last hope of Yazdgard was to seek refuge among the relics of the
Hephthalite Huns whose troops had formed part of the loyalist army. 144 But the
alliance between the king of Iran and those Huns was of short duration, for under
mysterious circumstances they slew Yazdgard; and, in the opinion of Sebeos, ‘they
extinguished the rule of the Persians and the race of Sasan’. 145
The mysterious end of the last Sasanid monarch has given rise to much emo-
tive speculation. A modern Iranian dramatist has employed the collapse of the
House of Sasan as means to examine the social and political troubles of his own day;
and we may detect in the play The Death of Yazdgard III some oblique criticisms of
the House of Pahlavi in the late 1970s; and in the Arabian onslaught we find a paral-
lel with the victorious Islamic revolution of the year 1979. 146 The pathos of
Yazdgard’s death struck the poet Ferdowsi a millennium earlier, and in the
Shahnameh we read the bitter tale of a monarch who failed to evade a noble plot to
murder him. None of the details may be corroborated, but it may be instructive to
examine Ferdowsi’s narrative.
A servant of a Turkish or Hephthalite ruler conspired with the governor of
Marv; and Mahuy (that was the governor’s name), and his troops, abandoned his
king in the midst of a skirmish with those nomads. Yazdgard fled the scene of the
141 Tabari, v. 4, p. 171–172.

142 Sebeos, p. 164. Sebeos says rather vaguely that the prince had ‘fortified himself in some
place’.
143 Cf. Hoyland, R., In God’s Path, p. 86.
144 Եւ փախուցեալ անկաւ ի զաւրս Թէտալաց, որ էին ի կողմանցն եկեալ նմա
յաւգնականութիւն (Sebeos, p. 163).

145 Sebeos, p. 164.
146 Beyzaie, B., Marg-e Yazdegerd: Majles-e Shah-koshi, 2014. That is the eleventh edition of the
play which was first performed on 10 September 1979. My analysis follows Farhadi, R. /
Mozaheb, M. A., “History, Aporia and Politics in Bahram Beyzaie’s Death of Yazdgerd,” An-
nals of Language and Literature, Volume 2, Issue 2, 2018, p. 19–25.
battle and hid himself within a mill by the river Zarq. There the degraded successor
to Cyrus and Ardashir passed the night upon a heap of straw, awaiting the return of
the absent miller. He appeared at dawn, and a melancholy conversation gave way to
the king’s request for food and the barsom twigs essential to Zoroastrian ritual. Bar-
ley bread and herbs were produced at once, but the search for barsom compelled
the miller to inquire at a nearby toll house upon the river. The suspicion of the su-
perintendent of the toll house was aroused by the miller’s request and he referred
him to the governor Mahuy. In the opinion of the governor, only the Sasanid king
would have requested the barsom twigs, and he instantly commanded that the miller
slay his royal guest. 147
As the weeping miller prayed for Yazdgard’s painless death, he plunged a dag-
ger into the breast of the king. Mahuy’s soldiers, who had gathered outside the mill,
removed the clothing and jewels from the king’s body, and brought them to their
master; and after nightfall the corpse of Yazdgard was cast into the mill pond. 148 If
we can trust the word of Ferdowsi, what follows is an extraordinary example of
popular devotion to the House of Sasan. Two Christian monks appeared and beheld
the dead king floating in the water. They returned to their convent and spread word
to their companions that Yazdgard had perished: a crowd of monks and priests is-
sued from the monastery to retrieve the body from the pond. Four monks removed
their clothes, entered the water, and dragged the descendant of Ardashir to shore. 149
In the garden of their convent, they erected a tomb for the late king. The monks
dried his wound, they embalmed his body with funerary unguents, and dressed it in
golden brocade. A bishop anointed the resting place of the king with wine, musk,
camphor, mistletoe, and rosewater. 150 This surprising narrative must repose upon a
popular, Christian reminiscence of the fall of the Sasanid monarchy. It is proof, per-
haps, of the Iranian Christians’ staunch support of the House of Sasan even as its
power crumbled and even amidst the desertion of its Zoroastrian followers. 151
THE EXTINCTION OF THE HOUSE OF SASAN

The king was dead, slain like the first Yazdgard in a noble plot in the north-east of
his empire, and a fugitive like Darius III. But, despite the testimony of Sebeos, this
was not the end of the House of Sasan. Though deprived of a throne and a country,
147 Ferdowsi, Yazdgard-i Shahriyar, l. 456–544.

150 Ferdowsi, Yazdgard-i Shahriyar, l. 702–705:
،‫��ش را به ا�� ا��ر افراختند‬ ‫به باغ ا��رون د��ه يى ساختند‬

‫به دبق و به ق�� و به ك�فور و مشك‬ ‫�� زخم آن دشنه ��د�� خشك‬
‫قصب ز�� و دس�ى ز �� ژورد‬ ‫بياراستندش به ديباى زرد‬
.‫سكوبا بيندود �� اى خواب‬ ‫�ى و مشك و ك�فور و دبق و گ��ب‬
151 Payne, R. E., A State of Mixture, p. 199–200.
Peroz (the eldest son of Yazdgard) sought help alike from the Turks and the empire
of China. 152 Gaozong (the third emperor of the Tang dynasty) refused military assis-
tance, but granted Peroz a protectorate in a place which the Chinese called Jiling.
This region, most probably Zarang in Sistan, received the name of the Persian Area
Command, where later sources describe vigorous resistance during the first Arab
civil war between the years 656 and 680. 153 Peroz was its governor from the mid-
650s until the year 663 when the Arabs resumed their victorious advance to the east.
In that tense period Peroz dispatched several embassies, and then fled, to the Chi-
nese capital at Chang’an, where he established a court in exile at some point be-
tween the years 673 and 675. Gaozong bestowed upon Peroz the sonorous title of
‘awe-inspiring general of the Left Guards’. 154 It was at Chang’an, in about the year
680, that Peroz died after two failed attempts to persuade the Tang emperor to send
an army into Iran, to expel the Arabs, and to enthrone either himself or his son
Narseh. 155
A statue stands before the tomb of Gaozong at the Qianling mausoleum near
Chang’an, and it commemorates ‘Peroz, king of Persia, grand general of the right
courageous guard, and commander-in-chief of Persia’. 156 The Tang emperor had
failed to restore Peroz to his throne, but the title which he bestowed may have flat-
tered the son of Yazdgard at the end of his life, and soothed the grief and rancour
of a king without a country. His brother Bahram survived him, and inspired belief in
a future saviour known as the Miraculous Bahram who should come for the deliver-
ance of Iran and the final defeat of the Arabs. 157 Such beliefs have left their mark in
Zoroastrian scripture, and they were nourished, as it seems, by the lingering pres-
ence of some displaced Iranian aristocrats in the region of the Hindukush who regu-
larly communicated with the Chinese court until late in the eighth century. 158
152 Chavannes, E., Documents sur les Tou-Kiue, p. 172.

153 The evidence is summarised in Boqin, J., “The Chinese Persia Expeditionary Force as
Referenced in the Turfan Documents,” in Luo, X. (ed.) / Covey, R. (trans.), Chinese Scholars
on Inner Asia, 2012, p. 41, and Crone, P., Nativist Prophets, p. 4.
154 I am following the most recent translation of this title in Zanous, H. P. / Sangari, E.,
“The Last Sasanians in Chinese Literary Sources: Recently Identified Statue Head of a Sasa-
nian Prince at the Qianling Mausoleum,” Iranian Studies, vol. 51, no. 4, 2018, p. 499–515.
155 Chavannes, E., Documents sur les Tou-Kiue, p. 173; Boqin, J., “The Chinese Persia Expedi-
tionary Force,” p. 42–56.

156 Compareti, M., “The Last Sasanians in China,” Eurasian Studies 2/2, 2003, p. 203.
157 Cereti, C. G., “Again on Wahram i Warzawand,” La Persia e l’Asia Centrale da Alessandro al
X secolo, 1996, p. 629–639.

158 Stark, S. / Agostini, D., “Zāwulistān, Kāwulistan and the Land Bosi 波斯 – on the ques-
tion of a Sasanian Court-in-Exile in the Southern Hindukush” in Studia Iranica 45, 2016, p.
17–38. The evidence of the Bundahishn, XXX, the Jamasp Namag, and the Zand Wahman Yasn
is translated and analysed in Stark, S. / Agostini, D., “Zāwulistān, Kāwulistan and the Land
Bosi,” p. 26–30.
Chinese sources record that Narseh, the son of Peroz, remained at the court of
Chang’an. In the year 670, the general Wang Fangyi had promised to make common
cause with the Western Turks, to lead an expedition into Iran, and to place Narseh
upon the Sasanid throne. But the real aim of that duplicitous general was to restore
Chinese authority over lands ruled by the Turks and invaded by the Arabs: he aban-
doned the cause of Narseh when that objective had been achieved. 159 Narseh re-
turned to Chang’an where an unnamed disease ended his life in the late first, or early
second, decade of the eighth century. 160 A certain Khusro, another descendant of
Yazdgard, is said to have formed a fruitless alliance with the Western Turks in about
the year 728 with the purpose of expelling the Arabs from Iran. 161 His failure was
the last attempt to restore the House of Sasan, and thereafter the descendants of
Ardashir and Yazdgard, and the nobles who followed them, were absorbed insensi-
bly within the Tang aristocracy. Near Chang’an a funerary stele, bearing an inscrip-
tion in the Middle Persian and Chinese languages, announces that it was erected by
an Iranian aristocrat of the Suren family. He had buried his daughter, who had died
at the age of twenty-six, in about the year 872. 162 Thereafter we hear no more of the
Sasanid court in exile.
159 Boqin, J., “The Chinese Persia Expeditionary Force,” p. 56–58; Compareti, M., “The Last
Sasanians in China,” p. 210.
160 Chavannes, E., Documents sur les Tou-Kiue, p. 173.
161 Compareti, M., “The Last Sasanians in China,” p. 211.
162 Baghbidi, H. R., “New Light on the Middle Persian-Chinese Bilingual Inscription from
Xi’an,” Maggi, M. / Orsatti, P., (eds.), The Persian Language in History, 2011, p. 105–115; p.
106–107 for the inscription itself.
X. OBSERVATIONS ON THE FALL
OF THE IRANIAN EMPIRE
The government of Iran had always imagined that the most serious menace to its
survival would come from the northeast. Ardashir I had established the Kushan
state, which he had subjugated, as a buffer between his empire and the world of
the nomad. The vast wall at Gurgan and the defences of the Caucasus proclaimed
Iranian fear of the men of the steppe, and these fortifications may be compared
with a looser system of castles along the Roman frontier. The astonishing rise of
Palmyra, the predations in the reign of Shapur II, and the achievements of the
Lakhm and Ghassan, may have suggested that the Arabs might on occasion tor-
ment the two great powers; and the linear defences, which abutted the Arabian
desert to the southwest, announce a prudent fear of the Bedouin and the harmful
effect of their razzias. But no one expected that the Arabs would destroy the em-
pire of Iran with such astonishing speed.
The slow decline of Rome’s western empire between the early fifth and late
sixth centuries is separated from its final extinction in the east by an interval of
nearly a thousand years. The decay and disappearance of the Abbasid and Ottoman
empires similarly filled many centuries. A far shorter time, a mere two decades be-
tween the victory of Heraclius and the death of Yazdgard III, was required for the
humiliation of Iran; and only a little less than a century elapsed before the exiled
House of Sasan at last relinquished the hope of expelling the Arab conquerors. The
speed and permanence of the failure of the Iranian state are indeed surprising, and
seem to require explanation.
THE REASONS FOR THE COLLAPSE OF THE SASANIAN EMPIRE

Modern writers have claimed that the disintegration of the empire of Iran was has-
tened by the exhaustion of warfare, by royal decadence and aristocratic divisions,
the effects of epidemic disease, corruption and moral decay, and by the centrifugal
341
force of ethnic separatism. 1 One writer has attributed the collapse to nothing more
than old age. 2 It is possible to find notices which support, or appear to support,
those claims, but none of them, by itself, is wholly satisfactory. We may observe
that, over the course of four centuries, the Iranian empire had successively over-
come foreign invasion, pestilence, and civil war; but in the seventh century of our
era, such disasters assailed the empire all at once. Amidst those calamities, jealousy,
or fear, had perhaps instructed Kavad II to murder his brothers, and when disease
ended the life of that king, the House of Sasan was nearly extinct. The prestige of
the ruling family never recovered, and the aristocrats who served it struggled to
support a tottering monarchy.
But we cannot be persuaded by the theory of a distinct identity amongst Ira-
nian aristocrats of real or imaginary Parthian ancestry, who (as the argument goes)
happily betrayed their sovereign and ushered in the Arab invaders. 3 Though the
impressions of seals and bullas announce the heritage of certain families whose
lineage can be traced to the Arsacid era, 4 these are not evidence of a tribal identity,
nor even that of a distinct society. The House of Sasan itself claimed authority nei-
ther by virtue of regional identity nor because of Persian ethnicity, and they held
dominion over Aryans and non-Aryans alike. 5 The earliest inscriptions put up by
Sasanian kings were regularly composed in three languages: Middle Persian, Greek,
and Parthian. We may fairly infer then that the Parthian and Hellenistic identities
lingered on in some form in the early days of Sasanian rule, but soon thereafter Par-
thian and Greek vanish altogether from inscriptions. Such evidence militates
against the claim that a distinct Parthian identity persisted until the Arab conquest
of Iran. It is also noteworthy that the last vestige of the Sasanid court in exile is a
monument erected by the family of Suren – proof that that clan willingly shared in
the exile of the House of Sasan.
It is true that the Arabs could not have crossed the alluvial plain of Babylon,
nor could they have traversed the numerous canals and watercourses, without the
help of local landowners. The writer Tabari draws our attention to two such men.
1 See, for example, Pourshariati, P., Decline and Fall, and Zarrinkoub, A. H., “The Arab
Conquest of Iran and its Aftermath,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. IV., 1975, p. 1–56.
The theories of Zarrinkoub are fully articulated in his flamboyant book Do Qarn-e Sokut
originally published in 1957 in Tehran, and which has seen four editions since then.
2 Yarshater, E., “Re-emergence of Iranian Identity after Conversion to Islam,” in Curtis, V.
/ Stewart, S., The Rise of Islam: The Idea of Iran, v. IV, I. B. Tauris, London, 2009, p. 5–12.
3 Pourshariati, P., Decline and Fall.
4 Gyselen, R., “The Great Families in the Sasanian Empire,” p. 107–114.
5 I am following Daryaee, T. / Pourshariati, P., Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire, 2009,
Journal of Persianate Studies 3, 2010, p. 239–254, and Greatrex, G. / Pourshariati, P., Decline
and Fall of the Sasanian Empire, 2009, Speculum, vol. 85, Issue 4, 2010, p. 1009–1010.
X. OBSERVATIONS ON THE FALL OF THE IRANIAN EMPIRE 343
Bistam the dihqan of Burs constructed a pontoon bridge for the army of Saʿd; 6 and
the dihqan Shirzad, who had (as it seemed) joined the Arabian side, is said to have
advised his new masters to construct siege engines. 7 Such notices, if they be genu-
ine, may attest the Arabs’ skill at employing the knowledge and talents of the peo-
ples whom they subjugated; and the farmers and landowners of Babylon, suspect-
ing that the invaders from the south were soon to become their permanent mas-
ters, may have eagerly thrown off the Sasanid yoke. Yet the example of the emper-
or Julian’s disastrous invasion of Iran suggests that Iranian policy may have aimed
at luring the invaders into a trap, and it is possible to doubt the sincerity of Bistam
and Shirzad. But, that the defence of the Iranian state was left to aristocrats and
local armies was surely a consequence, and not the cause, of the collapse of their
empire. The formation of peace treaties by local rulers and priests, and the subse-
quent outbreaks of rebellion against the conquerors were policies required by the
absence of a central authority.
The first great victory of the Arabs was the capture of the Persian capital and
the principle organs of the Iranian administrative state, and herein we surely behold
the most important reason for the swift failure of the empire of Yazdgard III. 8 The
analysis of Ibn Khaldun remains convincing: when the Arabs captured Ctesiphon,
he wrote, ‘the whole Persian empire perished and the regions which remained in
Yazdgard’s possession were of no avail to him’. 9 This presents, as Ibn Khaldun
argued, an obvious contrast with the other great sedentary power of the ancient
world. The eastern Roman state was deprived of its richest provinces, but retained
its capital at Constantinople; and for more than three centuries the rugged terrain
of Anatolia formed an impassable barrier to the successors of Muhammad. An Ira-
nian capital more remote than Ctesiphon would have been guarded by high moun-
tains and inhospitable deserts, but the natural and artificial defences which fortified
the Babylonian plain yielded swiftly to the Arab onslaught. Though the highlands
of Iran offered periodic resistance, the subjugation of the capital was permanent.
THE AFTERMATH OF DEFEAT

The Umayyad clan of the Quraysh had established themselves as the first Arabian
dynasty to rule the new empire. For nearly a century they held sway from their cap-
ital at Damascus, and the soldiers of Syria enforced, or attempted to enforce, their
6 Tabari, v. 3, p. 620.
7 Tabari, v. 3, p. 622–623, although Kennedy is inclined to doubt it (Kennedy, H., The Great
Arab Conquests, p. 118).
8 Cf. Crone, P., The Nativist Prophets, p. 1–2.
9 Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddima, III.7, p. 274:
.��‫ و�� ينفع ��د��د ما ب�� بيده من أطراف ممال‬، ‫ف��ا �لب ا��س��ون �� ا��دا�ن انقرض أ�� فارس أ��ع‬
authority over the provinces of the old Iranian empire. 10 But fifty-thousand Arabi-
an troops stationed at the city of Marv mingled with the local population toward
the end of the seventh century; and, without the prompting of a new Alexander,
they took Iranian wives and adopted the culture of Iran. In the year 750 a mysteri-
who traced their lineage to Muhammad’s uncle ʿAbbas, and their insurrection soon
ous figure by the name of Abu Muslim led in revolt the branch of the Quraysh
united the forces of Marv in the project of overthrowing the Umayyad dynasty. 11
The new dynasty, known to posterity as Abbasid, established a new capital between
the rivers Euphrates and Tigris at Baghdad only about twenty miles from the dere-
lict site of Ctesiphon. The workings of the civil administration imitated the cus-
toms of the Sasanian chancery, and a new generation of Iranian functionaries arose
in service to the new empire. Pride in their ancient civilisation, and confidence in
the new dynasty, instructed those men to celebrate the culture of their ancestors.
The Arabian empire took on an Iranian identity, 12 and the successors of the Arabi-
an prophet were instructed and edified by volumes of Persian wisdom literature,
treatises on Iranian courtly manners and good government, and the history of the
House of Sasan. 13
Al-Nabigha al-Jaʿdi, an Arab poet of the seventh century marvelled at the ex-
traordinary collapse of the Sasanid state, as though the empire of Iran had been
nothing but a dream. 14 But we might say with more truth that the empire had van-
ished but the dream lived on. There had been bitter resistance and rebellion in the
regions of Tabaristan and Khurasan. The authority of the caliph sat lightly upon
the more remote regions of the old Iranian empire. At the beginning of the Abbas-
id revolution, in the year 755, a rebellion was launched from Tabaristan by a Zoro-
astrian nobleman who traced his lineage to the House of Karen. The aim of Sun-
pad (that was the rebel’s name) was to expel the Arabs and to re-establish the Zo-
roastrian religion, but his attempt ended in failure. 15 A similar motive, and a similar
failure, are attributed to a Daylamite warlord of the tenth century by the name of
10 Kennedy, H., The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to
the Eleventh Century, third edition, 2016, 71–106.
11 Kennedy, H., The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, p.107–128.
12 Cf. Katouzian, H., The Persians: Ancient, Medieval and Modern Iran, 2010, p. 73–79.
13 Hoyland, R., The ‘History of the Kings of the Persians’ in Three Arab Chronicles: The Transmission
of the Iranian Past from Late Antiquity to Early Islam, 2018, p. 4–5; Savant, S. B., The New Mus-
lims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion, 2013; Crone, P., God’s Rule: Gov-
ernment and Islam, 2004, p. 148–164.
14 al-Nabigha al-Jaʿdi, Diwan (ed. Wadih al-Samad, Beirut, 1998), 71: l. 12–13 [p. 149]:
‫فارس بادت و� ُ ّدها ر�ِ�َا؟‬ ‫ هل �� َون إ�ى‬،‫الناس‬

ُ ‫يا أ��ا‬
‫ك��ا ك�ن م ُل��هم � ُ�ُ�َا‬ ��َ‫أمسوا عبيدًا ��ع َون شاء‬
15 Crone, P., The Nativist Prophets, p. 32–40. Crone doubts, of course, that Sunpad, also
called Sundbadh, had really determined to march on Mecca and destroy the Kaaba.
Mardavij. 16 In the ninth century, competition arose between rival Iranian families,
whose power and prestige the caliph could only grudgingly acknowledge. The Ta-
hirid, Saffarid, Samanid, Ziyarid, and Buyid monarchies arose amidst the decadence
of the Abbasid caliphate. For a little more than a hundred years, the Buyid mon-
archs ruled over Tabaristan, Iraq, and Persia, the heartland of the defunct Sasanian
state. 17 The degraded caliph at Baghdad ruled at the pleasure of Buyid monarch,
who revived the ancient title of king of kings until that state was dismembered by
the Seljuk and Ghaznavid Turks. 18 But there would be no Persian Justinian to re-
conquer his ancient patrimony, no Iranian Charlemagne would revive the religion
and monarchy of Ardashir, and there were no Zoroastrian monasteries to copy and
to preserve the literary heritage of Iran. The uniformity of Zoroastrian ritual, the
dream of Kirder and Mihr-Narseh, was no more, and the many local variations of
that religion began once again to diverge. Yet the vision of a vast sedentary empire
stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, and from the Tigris to the Indus, never
perished.
Most of the high aristocracy of Iran had perished in battle, or had fled to Chi-
na. It was the fate of the landed gentry, the dihqans, to preserve and transmit the
heritage of Iran to successive generations of Iranian Muslims. 19 The local gentry
survived in no other part of the Islamic empire, for the great families of Roman
Syria and Egypt vanish from the page of history in the early seventh century and
never return. 20 It was the dihqans, who had arisen under the monarchy of Khusro I,
who could look back with pride upon their Iranian and Zoroastrian ancestors and
boast of the achievements of their ancient kings and heroes. Caesar, Constantine,
and Justinian were nothing but names to the victorious Arabs and their subject
people, and their reigns were forgotten. But Khusro I became the model of a wise
and just ruler, and the real or imaginary maxims of the first Ardashir were copied
and repeated for centuries. The mighty hunter Bahram V, from whom the Buyid
kings claimed to be descended, was commemorated in poetry as a paragon of luxu-
ry and sybaritic living. Bahram Chobin, the imaginary ancestor of the Samanid
kings, became the tragic rebel, whose failure was yet worthy of admiration, and
Khusro II was the model of a tyrant corrupted by his own success. The more an-
16 Kennedy, H., “Survival of Iranianness,” in Curtis, V. / Stewart, S., The Rise of Islam: The
Idea of Iran, v. IV, 2009, p. 21–22.
17 Kennedy, H., The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, p. 182–213.
18 Madelung, W., “The Assumption of the Title Shāhānshāh by the Būyids and “The Reign
of the Daylam (Dawlat Al-Daylam)”,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 28, No. 2, 1969, p.
84–108.
19 I am following Kennedy, H., “Survival of Iranianness,” p. 13–29.
20 A good example is the Apion family resident in Egypt, whose existence (unlike that of
the dihqans) cannot be discerned in the papyrological record.

cient, and legendary, heroes of Iran recalled a time when Rome was a village and
the Arabs were servants of the Persian king. But the Achaemenids were soon for-
gotten, and the ruins of Persepolis were attributed to the mythical king Jamshid,
the founder alike of monarchy and civilised life. The lore of Iran was recorded in
what I have called the Persian royal tradition, and it achieved its greatest expression
in the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi in the eleventh century of our era.
The survival of the Persian language, in which the Shahnameh was composed,
may have seemed doubtful at first. The Coptic, Aramaic, and Greek languages
ceased to be heard in the empire of the caliphs, and the modern citizens of Egypt,
Syria, and Iraq mostly speak Arabic and call themselves Arabs. We may note an
impressive contrast between the Arabs and the conquerors of the Roman west, or
the foreign rulers of China, whose ancestral languages were forgotten, and whose
manners yielded to those of the people whose government they supplanted. 21 Only
in Iran did the Arabs meet a people who would not assimilate themselves to their
conquerors. Though the cumbrous writing system of Middle Persian gave way to
an elegant modification of the Arabic script, and many an Arabic word was bor-
rowed, the Persian tongue continued to be spoken. In the ninth century, the Sa-
manid court at Bukhara produced the poet Rudaki who elevated the new language
into the finest poetic idiom in the world. 22 The vivid and manly distichs of Daqiqi
and Ferdowsi, which commemorate the entire history of Iran, are in no way inferi-
or to the rough tones of Homer or the clarity of Vergil. 23 The poet Nizami 24 was
inspired by the legends of Bahram V and the romance of Khusro and Shirin, the
charming quatrains of Omar Khayyam 25 invoke the mythical kings of the Iranian
past, and the most famous work of Khaqani 26 is a solemn meditation on the royal
palace at Ctesiphon. Mowlavi, Sana’i, Attar, Saʿdi, and Hafez may be the finest
metaphysical poets who ever lived. 27 The language in which they wrote, and the
theme of the ancient splendour of Iran, remain the most potent symbols of a na-
tional identity, and not even the Ayatollah Khomeini, who overthrew the last mon-
arch of Iran, refrained from invoking Sasanian imagery and legends in his poetry. 28
21 Cf. Kennedy, H., The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, p. 102–103.
22 Rypka, J., History of Iranian Literature, 1968, p. 144–145.
23 Rypka, J., History of Iranian Literature, p. 153–162.
27 Rypka, J., History of Iranian Literature, p. 236–242; 250–253; 263–271.
28 Divan-e Emam: sorude-ha-ye hazrat-e emam Khomeini, Rasuli, J. (ed.), sixth edition, 1998.
CONCLUSION
For nearly three hundred years Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates bound together
the economic and cultural heartlands of the Roman and Iranian worlds. Upon the
ruins of the two great sedentary empires, they established and maintained a vast
common market of both trade and ideas. 29 This astonishing success proves that the
ambition of the House of Sasan was far from unreasonable or impossible. The edi-
fice was erected by the caliphs, but the ground had been loosened and the founda-
tion dug long before. A Parthian king had vowed that he would restore the ancient
limits of the empires of Cyrus and Alexander. Ardashir and Shapur had repeated
the same boast and asserted a hereditary right to those lands, and the ephemeral
successes of Khusro II seemed to announce the achievement of that ancient ambi-
tion. But in the end, the civilised world was united not by the successors to the
mythical kings from the Abode of the Aryans, but by those of Muhammad.
29Kennedy, H., The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, p. 103–106; Frankopan, P., Silk
Roads, p. 88–91.
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INDEX
Abarsam, vizier to Ardashir I, 31, n. 38; Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman histori-

49–50; 121; 276 an, 4; 55; 79–83; 87–90; 127; 279; on
Abbasid caliphate, 3; 324; 330; 341; 344; Arabia, 319–320; 329
346 Ananias of Shirak, Armenian geogra-
Achaemenid monarchy, 7–10; 15; 26; 28; pher, 150; 163, n. 228
29; 32; 36; 37; 43; 47–48; 53; 54; 98; Anatolius, Roman general, 118
270; 282–283; 319; 345 Antioch, 12–13; 39; 51–52; 55; 79–80;
Adrianople, battle of, 94 83; 85; 111; 151; 167; 169; 173; 179;
Adur-Narseh, Sasanian king, 66–67 184; conquest by Khusro I, 185–186;
Aegean Sea, 7; 36 192; 281; 284;
Africa, 1; 8; 176; 179; 191 Anush-Zad, revolt of, 195–199
Agathias, Roman historian and lawyer, Arabic language, 70; 109; 346
27; 35; 52; 60; 67; 104; 129; 146; 147; Arabs, 2; 69–71; 114, n. 97; 145; 153;
177; 205–207; 234; 279; 155; 167; 183; 186; 211; 244; 245;
Airyanem Vaejo, the mythical Aryan 253; 267; 273; 288; 316; 319–347
homeland in Zoroastrian scripture, 4; Araxes, river, 251; 281; 297
47 Ardaburius, Roman general, 111; 126–
Alans, a nomadic people, 21–22; 96; 195; 127
202; 208; 229 Ardashir I, Sasanian king, 1; 25–48; 49–
Aleppo, city in Syria, 194, n. 123; 317 50; 57–59; 65; 76; 98; 115; 120–122;
Alexander Romance, 37 262; 276; 278; 288; 319; 336; 338;
Alexander Severus, Roman Emperor, 340–341; 345; 347
35–37; 39; 42 Ardashir II, Sasanian king, 101
Alexander the Great, 10–11; 22; 26; 28; Armenia, between Rome and Iran, 17–
33–34; 36–37; 40; 97; 316 22; 32; 34–35; 38–39; 51; 53–55; 58;
Alexandria, city in Egypt, 130; 191; 234; 61–62; 64; 68; 70–71; 73–74; 84–85;
285, n. 101; conquest by Khusro II, 88; 94; 95; 108; 120; 134; 141; 144;
291–294; 314 153; 155; 166; 168; 169; 176; 183;
Altai mountains, 14; 76–77 188–189; 225–227; 231–232; 242–
Amida, 80; conquest by Shapur II, 81 – 243; 245; 262–263; 265; 273; 281;
84; 88; conquest by Kavad I, 153– 297; 299; 315; 316; its partition, 89–
157; 158; 163; 233; 245–246; 281; 90; abolition of its monarchy, 115–
315 116; tolerance of its Christianity,
138–139
389
Arsacid dynasty, 3; 12–23; 36; 43; 45; 49; Barbalissus, city in Syria, 51; 169
54; 59; 63; 88; 91; 115; 120; 178; 248; Binduya, uncle to Khusro II, 255–260;
251–252; 262–264; 342 263–269
Arshak I, Parthian king and founder of Bistam, uncle to Khusro II, 33; 108;
the Arsacid dynasty, 12; 21; 32; 49 255–259; his rebellion and death,
Arshak, Armenian king deposed by 268–271; 277
Shapur II, 89–90 Bistam, dihqan of Burs, 342–343
Artaban II, Parthian king, 89–90 Boran, Sasanian queen, 317–318; 328
Artaban V, Parthian king, 32–35; 44 Bounteous Immortals, lesser Zoroastrian
Aryavarta, the mythical Aryan homeland divinities, 46; 258; 274
in Vedic scripture, 47 Bukhara, city in Central Asia, 217–218;
Assyria, 7; 9; 284; 302 346
Attila the Hun, 75; 112; 118; 215 Bumin, khaghan of the Turks, 213; 215;
Avarayr, battle of, 116–117; 118; 133; 247
310 Byzantium, 79; 295; see also Constanti-
Avars, 160–161; 215; 217; 277; 295–296; nople
300
Avesta, Zoroastrian holy book, 31, n. 38; Cappadocia, a region of Asia Minor, 51;
47; 177; 184; 234; 276 95; 231; 296; 297; 315
Azarbaijan, 149, n. 144; 184; 194; 229; Caracalla, Roman emperor, 23; 33–34;
232; 235; 251; 256–258; 262–263; 37
265; 281; 297–298; 299; 301; 306; Carrhae, battle of, 17–18; 34; 39; 62; 81;
335 155; 187; 281
Caspian Gates, 95–96; 173; 174, n. 13;
Babylon, 7; 9; 11; 13; 15; 16; 86; 93; 128; 298; 301
137; 243; 282–283; 319; 329–331; Caspian Sea, 12; 15; 81; 94; 97; 224; 232
342–343 Cassius Dio, Roman historian, 37–38
Baghdad, 71; 344; 345 Caucasus, 19; 90; 95–97; 99; 112–113;
Bahram I, Sasanian king, 58–59 117; 120; 129; 133–134; 138–139;
Bahram II, Sasanian king, 60–61 158–159; 165–166; 183–184; 192;
Bahram III, Sasanian king, 61 199; 227–228; 316; 336; 341
Bahram IV, Sasanian king, 102 Central Asia, 1; 7; 8; 11; 22; 40; 43; 98–
Bahram V, Sasanian king, 108–116 99; 102; 119; 120; 160; 191; 212; 219;
Bahram Chobin, 241; his rise, 247–251; 220; 229; 238; 251; 271; 290; 316
his rebellion, 251–257; his brief rule, Chang’an, Chinese capital, 77; 339; 340
257–261; his fall, 263–266; his death, Christ, 31, n. 38; 71; 73; 90–91; 159; 297
268–271; 318; 323; 335; 345 Christianity, 71–72; 90–91; 115–116,
Bahram son of Siyawushan, 262–263 196–198, 199; 309; its evolution in
Balkans, 287 Iran, 102–105; persecution under
Baladhuri, Muslim historian of the Arab Shapur II, 71–73; toleration under
conquests, 3; 327; 330; 332–334 Yazdgard I, 106–108; persecution
Balash, Sasanian king, 117; 134; 138– under Bahram V, 110–111; persecu-
141; 145; 156; 152 tion under Yazdgard II, 117–119;
Balkh, city in Bactria or modern-day and Peroz’ policy, 129–134; tolera-
Afghanistan, 35; 124; 126; 218; 220; tion under Balash and Kavad I, 139,
237; 249; 250; 266; 270, n. 15 153, 156, 157, 166; and Khusro I’s
Banu ʿIjl, 288 policy, 209, 226, 233–235; Hurmazd
INDEX 391
IV’s refusal to persecute, 237–238; Dastaba, 270

and Khusro II’s policy, 271–277, Daylam, 20; 195; 269;
293; Khusro II’s flirtation with, 271– Daylamites, 204; 335; 344
272; and the death of Yazdgard III, Diocletian, Roman emperor, 61–67; 74;
338 177
Christology, 130–133 Dvin, Armenian capital, 94; 189; 197–
Chubriadanes, garrison commander at 198; 241; 263; 273; 297
Nisibis mentioned by Theophylact Dinawari, Iranian polymath and histori-
Simocatta, 253 an, 2; 3; 26; 28; 49; 50; 108–109; 110;
Cilicia, 173; 297 114–115; 117; 124–125; 128–129;
Circesium, a Roman fortress, 62; 184; 139; 140–141; 143; 148–150; 183;
230; 260 195–196; 217; 239; 248; 249–250;
Constantinople, 73; 83; 85; 104; 113; 254–257; 259; 262–263; 268–270;
126; 127; 130; 131; 166; 171; 174; 275; 280; 328
181; 184; 193; 194; 201; 202; 203;
207; 221; 222; 224; 225; 227; 240; Eastern Wei, Chinese dynasty, 213
242; 243; 244; 245; 260; 275; 277; Edessa, 51–52; 67; 81; 88; 131; 155; 157;
280; 281; 287; 290; 294; 295; 300; 163; 187; 190; 234; 244; 278; 280–
304; 311; 313; 314; 343; Persian and 281; 304; 314
Avar siege of, 296–297; 299–301 Egypt, 7; 12; 55–56; 66; 131; 191; 192;
Crassus, Roman patrician, his defeat by 290; 298; 313; 319; 321; 322; 345;
Parthia, 16–19; 20; 22; 39, n. 77 346; conquest by Cambyses, 7, con-
Ctesiphon, Sasanian capital, 2; 4; 21; 43; quest by Khusro II, 291–294; Sasa-
55; 58; 78; 84–85; 94–95; 103; 104; nian evacuation of, 315
108; 123; 167; 190; 194; 196; 207; Elishe, Armenian historian, 116; 118–
221; 222; 223; 228; 231; 242; 243; 120; 122; 124–125; 133; 135, n. 55
245; 247; 250; 262; 263; 270; 273; Eranshahr, name of the Sasanian empire,
275; 278; 281; 285; 288; 290; 296; 4; 129, n. 32
298; 303–307; 314; 317; 318; 320; its Eternal Peace, 175–176; its aftermath,
foundation, 13; its sack by Trajan, 176–180; its collapse, 182–184
22–23; its capture by Carus, 60; Jul- Euphrates, river, 1; 11; 13; 17; 38; 39; 52;
ian’s siege of, 84–87; fortifications 55; 56; 62; 67; 68; 69; 81; 85; 86; 88;
surrounding it, 178–179; siege by 93; 94; 95; 111; 128; 158; 169; 184;
Bahram Chobin, 253–259; recovery 185; 187; 188; 189; 230; 231; 243;
by Khusro II, 265–266; 267–271; 259; 265; 280; 281; 297; 310; 315;
siege by Shahr-Baraz, 315; Arab siege 316; 319; 320; 329; 344; 345;
and conquest of, 331–333; 343–344
Consanguineous marriage, 58 Feudalism, 16; 73; 198, n. 145
Cyrus, Achaemenid king, 1; 7; 9–10; 12– Ferdowsi, author of the Shahnameh, 2; 14;
13; 20; 28, n. 20; 29; 31–32; 36; 99; 26; 29; 30; 49; 50; 140; 142; 148; 149;
282–283; 334; 336; 338; 342 150; 181; 182; 184; 195; 196; 198;
218; 221; 222; 238; 248; 249; 254;
Dara, Roman fortress, 163; 167; 168– 255; 262; 280; 291; 330; 331; 337;
169; 174; 175; 179–180; 186–188; 338; 345; 346
200–201; 208; 230; 232; 233; 242–
243; 246; 248; 263–264; 278; 280– Ghassanid Arabs, 70; 157; 183; 227; 230;
282 244–245; 288; 241
Gog and Magog, biblical invaders of with, 114–115; Yazdgard II’s wars
Israel prophesied to opposed Christ with, 118–120; Peroz’ wars with, see
and his saints, 97; 114, n. 97; 159; Hephthalites; Yazdgard III seeks ref-
284 uge among them, 337
Graeco-Bactrian kingdoms, 10–12; their Hurmazd-Ardashir, Sasanian king, 55; 58
collapse, 14; 29; 40; 76 Hurmazd, Sasanian pretender and fugi-
Gondeshapur, 196 tive, 68; 84–85; 146
Gurdiya, wife and sister to Bahram Cho- Hurmazd I, Sasanian king, 26
bin, 249; 268; 271 Hurmazd II, Sasanian king, 66–67
Gurgan, region of north-eastern Iran, 12; Hurmazd III, Sasanian king, 123–125
21; 22; 38; 94; 108; 119; 136; 178; Hurmazd IV, Sasanian king, 217; the
269; 335; 341; wall of, 97–98; 120; sources for his reign, 237–241; his
121, n. 120; 218; 229 early reign, 241–243; his war with
Rome, 243–247; his war with the
Hamadan, city in Media, western Iran, Turks and its consequences, 247–
270; 298; 334–335 253; his war with Bahram Chobin,
Han, Chinese dynasty, 1; 13–14; 41–42; 253–255; his deposition and death,
76; 77 256–266
Hatra, 22; 38; 39; 42; 50; 51; 69;
Hephthalites, 98; 100–101; 120; 124– Iberia, 64–65; 71; 83; 89–90; 95–96; 96,
126; 128; 134; 140; 141; 143; 145; n. 11; 123; 134; 138; 158, n. 201; 166;
146; 151; 152; 159; 212; 213; 219– 168; 175; 184; 199; 201; 204; 206;
221; 223; 224; 238; 239; 247; 290; 232; 241; 251; 263; 298; 301
237; Peroz’ wars with, 135–138; their Ibn Miskawayh, Iranian historian and
decline, 160–161; collapse of their bureaucrat, 4; 228–229; 238; his value
empire, 214–218 as an historian, 171–172
Heraclius, Roman emperor, 240; 278; India, 11; 28–30; 39; 40; 43; 57; 100; 109;
279–280; 282; 284; 289; 318; 325; 160; 161; 191; 192; 234; 252; its prof-
333; 341; his campaigns 295–307; his itable trade, 162–163; 210; 212; 223
victory, 307–311 Islam, 2; 47; 171; rise of, 325–329
Herodian, Roman historian, 34; 36, n. Istakhr, 27–29; 60; 318; 336
66; 39, n. 77 Istemi, yabghu of the Turks, 215–216;
Herodotus, 9; 12; 93; 125, n. 12; 256, n. 217; 224; 247
118; 319
Hexi corridor, 13; 76 Jamasp, Sasanian king, 140; 143; 145, n.
Hindukush, mountain range, 1; 23; 40; 116; 146; 152
100; 302; 339 Jamshid, legendary Iranian culture-hero,
Huns, 1; 14; 78; 81; 82; 91; 94–95; 98; 275; 345
112–113; 118; 124–126; 127; 128; jarib, a unit of area, 148
133; 134; 143; 145; 146; 151; 152; Jesus, 31; 110; 115; 130; 156; 276; 285;
158–159; 161–162; 163; 174; 186; 286
190; 199; 208; 213–221; 238; 247; Jin, Chinese dynasty, 76–77
their attack on the Tocharians, 14– John Malalas, Roman chronicler, 62; 140;
15; 40–42; their origin and interac- 166–167; 172–176;
tions with China, 75–78; their migra- John of Epiphaneia, Roman historian
tion westward, 77–78; their influence whose work is lost, 240
on Iran, 98–101; Bahram V’s wars
INDEX 393
Julian the Apostate, Roman emperor, Lakhmid Arabs, 70–71; 109; 155; 157;
82–87; 94; 101; 157; 243; 306; 343 163; 166; 167; 179; 183; 188; 204;
Justin I, Roman Emperor, 164–166 221; 227; 228; 253; 273; 288; 320;
Justinian I, Roman emperor, 1; 63; 70; 321; 327; 328; 341
104; 114; 135; 167–168; 171–174; Luoyang, Chinese capital, 76; 77; 213;
176–179; 181–187; 190–193; 196– 219
197; 199; 201; 203–204; 205–206;
209; 211–212; 217; 221; 222; 234; Mani, 57–59
243; 245 Manichaeanism, 57; 66; 165, n. 241; 172
Mark Antony, Roman general, 18–19; 22
Karashahr, a town northeast of the Tak- Martyropolis, 153; 154; battle of, 169;
lamakan desert, 160; 213 245; 247; 264
Kashmir, 160 Marutha, bishop of Sophanene in Arme-
Kavad I, Sasanian king, 99; 114; 135; nia, 105–106
137; 138; 139; his rise, 140–142; his Maurice, Roman emperor, 232–233;
patronage of Mazdakism, 142–144; 244–245; 251; 260–264; 272; 273, n.
his deposition and restoration, 144– 33; 275; 277–278; 287; 289
147; his reforms, 147–151; his first Mazdak, a Zoroastrian heretic, 142–144;
war with Rome, 151–158; his war Mazdakism, 148; 151; 165; 173; 195
with the Hephthalites, 158–159; his Mecca, 70; 287; 321–322; 325–327
diplomacy, 160–163; his domestic Medina, 327–329
troubles, 163–166; his second war Menander the Guardsman, Roman dip-
with Rome, 166 –169; his sudden lomatic historian, 172; 207; 208; 215;
death, 170 216; 218; 220; 221; 223; 226; 230;
Kavad II, Sasanian king, 313–314; 318; 232; 239; 240; 241; 242; 243; 270
342 Mihrdad I, Parthian king, 12–13
Khabur, river, 62 Mihrdad II, Parthian king, 15; 20
Khotan, an oasis town south-west of the Mihrdad VI, king of Pontus, 36
Taklamakan desert, 160 Mihr-Narseh, vizier to several Sasanian
Kidarites, see also Huns, 100; 115; 119; kings, 106; 111; 113; 116; 117; 121–
125 122; 129; 345
Kirder, a Zoroastrian high priest, 57–60; Middle Persian language, 43
66; 102; 122; 345 Modu, king of the Xiongnu, 76; 77
Kermanshah, 101 Moses Chorenatsi, Armenian historian,
Kurds, 28; 32 25; 35; 51; 276, n. 51
Kushans, 14; 22; 29; 40–41; 50; 78; 91; Moses Daskhurantsi, Armenian histori-
100; 341 an, 299; 302–305; 308–309; 314; 316;
Kabul, 40; 102; 124 330;
Karnamag of Ardashir son of Pabag, 25–36; Mushel Manikonean, an Armenian no-
28; 30; 32; 33; 49 bleman loyal to the House of Sasan,
Kufa, town in Iraq, 329 262–263; 265
Muhammad, founder of Islam, 48; 71;
Lazar Parpetsi, Armenian historian, 118– 287; 288; 322–328; 332–333; 343–
119; 122; 124–125; 129; 134; 137, n. 344; 344; 347
70; 138; 139; 141; 241 Muqan, khaghan of the Turks, 215; 224;
Lazica, war in, 184; 188; 189; 190; 191; 239, n. 11; 247
197; 199–207
Narseh, Sasanian king, 27; 57; his igno- 147; 152–155; 158–159; 163–165;
minious reign, 61–66 168–169; 172–176; 180–212; 240;
Narses, commander of the eastern Ro- 279; 321
man field in the early seventh centu- Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, Syrian histori-
ry, 263–265; 278; 281; 287 an, 113; 127; 129; 135–137; 139; 142;
Nisibis, 34; 39; 63–64; 67; 71; 74–75; 78; 144; 147; 154–158
84; 88; 93–94; 104; 111; 118; 127; Pulcheria, sister to Roman Emperor
128; 132; 129; 145; 152; 157; 163; Theodosius II, 111; 309
179; 188; 200; 208; 229–231; 233– Peroz I, Sasanian king, 1; 98; 100–101;
234; 245; 253; 260; 264; 276; 298 108; 113; 115; 117; 120; 121; 151;
Nomads, 8–10; 21; 23; 42; 46; 94–95; 97; 159; 218; 219; his rise, 123–126; his
160; 173; 183; 195; 213–215; 219; tensions with Rome, 126–128; his
228; 260–261; 287; 290–291; 319; domestic policies, 128–133; his
321; 337; 341 Transcaucasian policy, 133–134; his
Northern Wei, Chinese dynasty, 125– wars with the Hephthalites, 135–138
126; 136; its foundation, 160–162; Peroz II, Sasanian king, 218
and the Turks, 212–214 Peroz III, Sasanian pretender, 339–340
Northern Zhou, Chinese dynasty, 216;
218; 222; 239, n. 11 Quran, Muslim holy book, 279; 323–325
Quraysh, 324; 326–327; 331; 343–344
Osrhoene, 62; 68; 80; 127; 157
Oxus river, 11; 40; 50; 114; 220; 237; Rey, 178; 248; 253; 270; 290; 330; 333;
250; 268; 290 335
Rouran, a nomadic confederacy, its es-
Pabag, father of Ardashir I, 25–31; 33; tablishment, 160–161; its collapse
39; 45 212–214; 215; 247
Pariovk, a Hephthalite king mentioned
by Sebeos, 270–271 Sabirs, a nomadic people, 159; 166; 169;
Pawstos Buzandatsi, Armenian historian, 173–174; 183; 186; 199; 202; 204;
91 205
Persepolis, 32; 54; 345 Sabrishoʿ, catholicos under Khusro II,
Philip the Arab, Roman emperor, 51; 271–276; 278; 289
53–54 Salamis, battle of, 10; 199
Philip of Macedon, 37; 72 Samarqand, 115; 217; 220; 238
Phocas, Roman Emperor, 277–278; Samosata, city on the upper Euphrates
281–284; 286–287; 289 now in southern Turkey, 51
Photius, patriarch of Constantinople and Sanʿa, capital of the Yemen, 228
epitomist, 219; 240 Saracens, 70; 109–112; 157; 179; 183;
Plague, 56; the Justinianic Plague, 171; 188; 204; 208; 221; 227; 243; 297; see
191–193; its effect on Iran, 194–199; also Arabs
221; 225; 275; later outbreaks, 314; Sasan, putative ancestor of Ardashir I,
342 25–31
Plataea, battle of, 10 Sebeos, Armenian historian, 233; 239;
Pliny the Elder, 15; 210 240; 249; 250; 256–257; 264–271;
Pompey, 16; 20 276; 281; 290; 295; 296; 331; 315;
Procopius of Caesarea, Roman historian, 317; 329; 330; 334; 335; 337; 338; the
4; 104; 123; 135–138; 140; 143; 145– value of his history, 241; 279
INDEX 395
Seleucia, 11; 12–13; 17; 21; 44; 86; 105 Taklamakan desert, 13; 76; 160
Seleucid monarchy, 11–12 Tang, Chinese dynasty, 316; 337; 339;
Shahnameh, the Iranian national epic, 2; 340
14; 26; 29; 49; 97; 142; 171; 182; 183; Tardu, khaghan of the Turks, 247; 287
195–196; 198; 218; 222; 249; 252; Theophanes the Confessor, Byzantine
262; 291; 330; 337; 345–346 chronicler, 104; 165; 166; 172; 173;
Shahrestaniha-yi Eranshahr, 50; 105; 150 221; 282; 284; 295; 299; 300; 304;
Shapur I, Sasanian king, 26; 27; the be- 306
ginning of his reign, 49–50; his war Theophanes of Byzantium, a Roman
with Rome, 51–54; his seizure of historian whose work is lost, 219;
Armenia, 54–55; and Palmyra, 55–57; 228
his interactions with Mani and Kird- Theophylact Simocatta, a verbose Ro-
er, 57–59; his later reign, 59–66 man historian, 225–226; 238; 242–
Shapur II, Sasanian king, 25; his rise, 66– 251; 253–265; 269; 278; 279; the val-
68; his relations with the Arabs, 69– ue of his history, 240
71; his persecution of Christians was Thermopylae, battle of, 10
war with Rome, 71–75; 78–89; his Tigris river, 11; 13; 21; 39; 60; 64; 65;
partition of Armenia, 89–91; his wars 80–81; 85–88; 93–94; 128; 156; 174;
in the east, 91 178; 244; 253; 257; 264; 269; 331–
Shawg, a Hephthalite king mentioned by 332; 344; 345
Sebeos, 270 Tirmiz, 125; 249
Shirin, wife to Khusro II, 272–276; 285; Tocharians, 13–14; 22; 40; 76; 77; 94
289, n. 127; 206; 346 Tuoba, a nomadic people who founded
Silk, 17; 211–212; 219; 222–224; 204; the Chinese dynasty of the Northern
325 Wei, 160–161
Silzabul, see Istemi Turan, 14; 97; 248
Sinjibu, see Istemi Turfan, a region northeast of the Takla-
Sima Qian, grand historian of China, 8, makan desert, 213
n. 9; 9, n. 11; 75 Turks, 2; 100; 171; 237; 256; 261; 264;
Socrates Scholasticus, Roman ecclesiasti- 266; 268; 306; 330; 337; 339–340;
cal historian, 106; 108; 111 345; their rise, 212–214; their de-
Sogdiana, 11; 115; 212; 214; 217; 219; struction of the Hephthalites, 214–
223; 238 218; their seizure of Sogdiana, 219–
Sogdians, 218–219; 223–224 221; their diplomacy and alliance
Sui, Chinese dynasty, 247, 287, 290–291 with Justin II, 222–230; defection of
Suren, family of Parthian origin, 13; 15; some Turks to Iran, 238; their war
17–18; 18, n. 67; 35; 88; 225; 340 with Iran, 247–251; their wars with
Sui China and crises of succession,
Tacitus, Roman historian, 15; 20; 80; 210 287–288; 290–291; their alliance with
Tabari, Persian universal historian, 2; 3; Heraclius, 298–299; 301–303; 308–
27; 28; 40; 50; 60; 66; 68; 101; 108; 309; their invasion of Iran in the
109; 113; 117; 123; 125; 128; 139; reign of Shahr-Baraz, 315–316
141; 143; 148; 149; 150; 180; 183;
194; 195; 218; 228; 229; 238; 239; Valens, Roman emperor, 90; 94
248; 249; 261; 274; 280; 305; 314; Valerian, Roman emperor, 52–53; 54–
318; 329; 331; 332; 333; 334; 335; 56; 63–64
337; 342
Vakhtang, king of Iberia, 123; 134; 166; Yazdgard I, 95; 100; 102–109; 128; 133;
199 164; 179;
Verethragna, Zoroastrian hypostasis of Yazdgard II, 115–121; 123; 125; 129;
victory, 271 133–134; 151; 282
Yazdgard III, 318; 329–333; 341; 343;
Wahrez, commander of Khusro I’s inva- his flight and death, 337–338; his de-
sion of the Yemen, 228 scendants, 338–340
Western Wei, Chinese dynasty, 213 Yuezhi, a nomadic people defeated by
Wusun, a nomadic people, 14 the Xiongnu, 14; see also Tocharians
Xerxes, Achaemenid king, 10; 199 Zareh, one of Peroz I’s sons, 138
Xianbei, a nomadic confederacy, 41; 42; Zoroaster, founder of the Iranian reli-
76; 151; 160; see also Sabirs gion, 4; 30; 59; 199; his religion, 107;
Xiongnu, 8, n. 9; 15; see also Huns 123; 234; 275; 286
Yahballaha I, bishop of Seleucia- Zoroastrianism, its doctrines, 45–48;
Ctesiphon and Iranian diplomat, 108 262; its assimilation with Christianity,
276–277

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The Last Empire of Iran

Michael R. Jackson Bonner

ISBN 978-1-4632-0616-1 ISSN 1935-6838

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available from the

Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... v

I am very thankful to Geoffrey Greatex, Robert Hoyland, Katarzyna Maksymiuk,

THE SOURCES OF SASANIAN HISTORY

an Islamic Empire, 2015, p. 1–6.

Map 2. The Iranian Frontier in the West.

THE SETTLED STATES OF EURASIA

Art: Essays on the Creation of an Iconography of Empire, 1979.

eration of a great and heterogeneous state. 4 Investment in agriculture on a gigantic

THE WORLD OF THE NOMAD

Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, 2009, p. 1.

THE CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT

THE SELEUCID MONARCHY

THE RISE OF PARTHIA

THE MIGRATION OF THE TOCHARIANS

41 Hansen, V., The Silk Road: A New History, 2012.

THE NATURE OF THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE

sent, 2008, p. 23–24.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE IRANIAN VICTORY

65 Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 32.1–3.

96, No. 4, 2003, p. 387–396.

mounted archers (Appian, IV.63; 88; 99).

ARMENIA BETWEEN ROME AND IRAN

Byzantium, 1996, p. 25.

cal History of Parthia, p. 70–78.

vaniloquentiam ac minas iaciebat (Tacitus, Annals, VI.31).

THE DECLINE OF THE HOUSE OF ARSHAK

83 Domitium Corbulonem retinendae Armeniae praeposuerat (Tacitus, Annals, XIII.8).

THE ORIGIN OF THE NEW DYNASTY

Grenet (Grenet, F., La Geste d’Ardashir fils de Pâbag, 2006).

II.27); cf. the βασιλικὰ ἀπομνημονεύματα (Agathias, Historiae, IV.30).

23 Nöldeke, T., Geschichte der Perser und Araber, p. 1.

in Encylopaedia Iranica, vol. XIII, fasc. 1, 2012, p. 100–103.

Parmeshwaranand, Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the Puranas, vol. 1, 2001, p. 36–37.

THE REIGN OF ARDASHIR

Alexander the Great to the Coming of Islam, v. II, 1992, p. 232–233.

PARTHIAN CIVIL WAR, ROMAN AGGRESSION,

47 Photographs of the coins of Walagash, or Vologases, VI can be seen at

SASANIAN PROPAGANDA AND ROMAN ANXIETY

dominated by a succession of princes who were stimulated by a singular obsession.

ARDASHIR’S WESTERN CONQUESTS

71 For example, see Dinawari, p. 37.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF ARDASHIR’S CONQUESTS

Winter, E., Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity, p. 74–77.

ARDASHIR’S EXPANSION EASTWARD

Notes (American Numismatic Society), vol. 30, 1985, p. 216–218.

Notes (American Numismatic Society), vol. 30, 1985, p. 215–281.

pire of the Steppes, 1971, p. 53–54.

THE CHARACTER AND LEGACY OF ARDASHIR

95The Letter of Tansar, p. 36–40.

THE ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION

ism, 2005; Boyce, Zoroastrians, p. 181–191; 192–228.

tals in Skjærvø, P. O., An Introduction to Zoroastrianism, 2005, p. 16–17.

118 I am following Shaked, S., “Eschatology i. In Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrian Influence,”

cient Yasnas, 30.7; 32.7; and 51.9.

ford Handbook of Late Antiquity, 2012, p. 1053–1077.

THE BEGINNING OF SHAPUR I’S REIGN

Ardashir. 3 The inscription of Shapur I confirms that a dignitary named Abarsam

3 Dinawari, p. 45; Ferdowsi, Ardashir, l. 67–72.

THE OUTBREAK OF WAR