Roman–Persian Wars

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Roman–Persian Wars
Date54 BC – 628 AD (681 years)
Location
Asia Minor, Balkans, Aegean Sea
Result Inconclusive
Belligerents

Roman Republic, succeeded by Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire

Parthian Empire, succeeded by Sasanian Empire

Commanders and leaders

The Roman–Persian Wars, also known as the Roman–Iranian Wars, were a series of conflicts between states of the

fall of the Sasanian Empire
and huge territorial losses for the Byzantine Empire, shortly after the end of the last war between them.

Although warfare between the Romans and Persians continued over seven centuries, the frontier, aside from shifts in the north, remained largely stable. A game of tug of war ensued: towns, fortifications, and provinces were continually sacked, captured, destroyed, and traded. Neither side had the logistical strength or manpower to maintain such lengthy campaigns far from their borders, and thus neither could advance too far without risking stretching its frontiers too thin. Both sides did make conquests beyond the border, but in time the balance was almost always restored. Although initially different in military tactics, the armies of both sides gradually adopted from each other and by the second half of the 6th century, they were similar and evenly matched.[2]

The expense of resources during the Roman–Persian Wars ultimately proved catastrophic for both empires. The prolonged and escalating warfare of the 6th and 7th centuries left them exhausted and vulnerable in the face of the sudden emergence and expansion of the

Eastern Roman Empire came under Muslim
rule.

Historical background

Rome, Parthia and Seleucid Empire in 200 BC. Soon both the Romans and the Parthians would invade the Seleucid-held territories, and become the strongest states in western Asia.

According to

eponymous branches in the Caucasus, namely the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia, the Arsacid dynasty of Iberia, and the Arsacid dynasty of Caucasian Albania. Meanwhile, the Romans expelled the Seleucids from their territories in Anatolia in the early 2nd century BC, after defeating Antiochus III the Great at Thermopylae and Magnesia. Finally, in 64 BC Pompey conquered the remaining Seleucid territories in Syria, extinguishing their state and advancing the Roman eastern frontier to the Euphrates, where it met the territory of the Parthians.[6]

Roman–Parthian wars

Roman Republic vs. Parthia

A sculpted head (broken off from a larger statue) of a Parthian warrior wearing a Hellenistic-style helmet, from the Parthian royal residence and necropolis of Nisa, Turkmenistan, 2nd century BC

Parthian enterprise in the

Lucius Cornelius Sulla for a Roman–Parthian alliance (c. 105 BC).[7] When Lucullus invaded Southern Armenia and led an attack against Tigranes in 69 BC, he corresponded with Phraates III to dissuade him from intervening. Although the Parthians remained neutral, Lucullus considered attacking them.[8] In 66–65 BC, Pompey reached agreement with Phraates, and Roman–Parthian troops invaded Armenia, but a dispute soon arose over the Euphrates boundary. Finally, Phraates asserted his control over Mesopotamia, except for the western district of Osroene, which became a Roman dependency.[9]

The Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus led an invasion of Mesopotamia in 53 BC with catastrophic results; he and his son Publius were killed at the Battle of Carrhae by the Parthians under General Surena;[10] this was the worst Roman defeat since the battle of Arausio. The Parthians raided Syria the following year, and mounted a major invasion in 51 BC, but their army was caught in an ambush near Antigonea by the Romans, and they were driven back.[11]

The Parthians largely remained neutral during

Syrian Gates, the Parthians withdrew from Syria. They returned in 38 BC but were decisively defeated by Ventidius, and Pacorus was killed. In Judaea, Antigonus was ousted with Roman help by Herod in 37 BC.[14] With Roman control of Syria and Judaea restored, Mark Antony led a huge army into Atropatene, but his siege train and its escort were isolated and wiped out, while his Armenian allies deserted. Failing to make progress against Parthian positions, the Romans withdrew with heavy casualties. Antony was again in Armenia in 33 BC to join with the Median king against Octavian and the Parthians. Other preoccupations obliged him to withdraw, and the whole region came under Parthian control.[15]

Roman Empire vs. Parthia

Parthia, its subkingdoms, and neighbors in 1 AD

With tensions between the two powers threatening renewed war,

Vologases I forcibly installed his brother Tiridates on the Armenian throne.[18] Roman forces overthrew Tiridates and replaced him with a Cappadocian prince, triggering an inconclusive war. This came to an end in 63 AD after the Romans agreed to allow Tiridates and his descendants to rule Armenia on condition that they receive the kingship from the Roman emperor.[19]

A fresh series of conflicts began in the 2nd century AD, during which the Romans consistently held the upper hand over Parthia. The Emperor

Nisibis and Edessa were expelled by the local inhabitants. Trajan subdued the rebels in Mesopotamia, but having installed the Parthian prince Parthamaspates on the throne as a client ruler, he withdrew his armies and returned to Syria. Trajan died in 117, before he was able to reorganize and consolidate Roman control over the Parthian provinces.[21]

Trajan's Parthian War initiated a "shift of emphasis in the 'grand strategy of the Roman empire' ", but his successor, Hadrian, decided that it was in Rome's interest to re-establish the Euphrates as the limit of its direct control. Hadrian returned to the status quo ante, and surrendered the territories of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Adiabene to their previous rulers and client-kings.[22]

Reliefs depicting war with Parthia on the Arch of Septimius Severus, built to commemorate the Roman victories

Nisibis, Singara and the third sacking of Ctesiphon.[24] A final war against the Parthians was launched by the Emperor Caracalla, who sacked Arbela in 216. After his assassination, his successor, Macrinus, was defeated by the Parthians near Nisibis. In exchange for peace, he was obliged to pay for the damage caused by Caracalla.[25]

Roman–Sasanian wars

Early Roman–Sasanian conflicts

Conflict resumed shortly after the overthrow of Parthian rule and

Carrhae, Nisibis and Hatra.[28]

Bishapur Relief II commemorating Shapur I's victories on the Western front, depicting him on horseback with a captured Valerian, a dead Gordian III, and a kneeling emperor, either Philip the Arab or Uranius.[29][30]

The struggle resumed and intensified under Ardashir's successor

denarii to the Persians in a hastily negotiated a peace settlement.[32]

With the Roman Empire debilitated by Germanic invasions and a series of short-term emperors, Shapur I soon resumed his attacks. In the early 250s, Philip was involved in a struggle over the control of Armenia; Shapur conquered Armenia and killed its king, defeated the Romans at the Battle of Barbalissos in 253, then probably took and plundered Antioch.[33] Between 258 and 260, Shapur captured Emperor Valerian after defeating his army at the Battle of Edessa. He advanced into Anatolia but was defeated by Roman forces there; attacks from Odaenathus of Palmyra forced the Persians to withdraw from Roman territory, surrendering Cappadocia and Antioch.[34]

In 275 and 282

Probus respectively planned to invade Persia, but they were both murdered before they were able to fulfil their plans.[35] In 283 the emperor Carus launched a successful invasion of Persia, sacking its capital, Ctesiphon; they would probably have extended their conquests if Carus had not died in December of the same year.[36] His successor Numerian was forced by his own army to retreat, being frightened by the belief that Carus had died of a strike of lightning.[37]

After a brief period of peace during

Daudia, and Arzan. Also, control of Armenia was given to the Romans.[40]

Julian's unsuccessful campaign in 363 resulted in the loss of the Roman territorial gains under the peace treaty of 299.

The arrangements of 299 lasted until the mid-330s, when

Battle of Samarra, during a difficult retreat along the Tigris. With the Roman army stuck on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, Julian's successor Jovian made peace, agreeing to major concessions in exchange for safe passage out of Sasanian territory. The Romans surrendered their former possessions east of the Tigris, as well as Nisibis and Singara, and Shapur soon conquered Armenia, abandoned by the Romans.[47]

In 383 or 384 Armenia again became a bone of contention between the Roman and the Sasanian empires, but hostilities did not occur.

first in 421–422 after Bahram V persecuted high-ranking Persian officials who had converted to Christianity, and the second in 440, when Yazdegerd II raided Roman Armenia.[49]

A rock-face relief at Naqsh-e Rostam, depicting the triumph of Shapur I over the Roman Emperor Valerian and Philip the Arab.

Byzantine–Sasanian wars

Anastasian War

Map of the Roman–Persian frontier after the division of Armenia in 384. The frontier remained stable throughout the 5th century.
Amida through the autumn and winter (502–503). The siege of the fortress-city proved to be far more difficult than Kavadh expected; the defenders repelled the Persian assaults for three months before they were beaten.[52] In 503, the Romans attempted an ultimately unsuccessful siege of the Persian-held Amida while Kavadh invaded Osroene and laid siege to Edessa with the same results.[53] Finally in 504, the Romans gained control through the renewed investment of Amida, which led to the fall of the city. That year an armistice was reached as a result of an invasion of Armenia by the Huns from the Caucasus. Although the two powers negotiated, it was not until November 506 that a treaty was agreed to.[54] In 505, Anastasius ordered the building of a great fortified city at Dara. At the same time, the dilapidated fortifications were also upgraded at Edessa, Batnae and Amida.[55] Although no further large-scale conflict took place during Anastasius' reign, tensions continued, especially while work proceeded at Dara. This was because the construction of new fortifications in the border zone by either empire had been prohibited by a treaty concluded some decades earlier. Anastasius pursued the project despite Persian objections, and the walls were completed by 507–508.[56]

Finally in 504, the Romans gained the upper hand with the renewed

Huns from the Caucasus. Negotiations between the two powers took place, but such was their distrust that in 506 the Romans, suspecting treachery, seized the Persian officials. Once released, the Persians preferred to stay in Nisibis.[57] In November 506, a treaty was finally agreed upon, but little is known of what the terms of the treaty were. Procopius states that peace was agreed for seven years,[58] and it is likely that some payments were made to the Persians.[59]

In 505 Anastasius ordered the building of a great fortified city at Dara. The dilapidated fortifications were also upgraded at Edessa, Batnac and Amida.[60] Although no further large-scale conflict took place during Anastasius' reign, tensions continued, especially while work continued at Dara. This construction project was to become a key component of the Roman defenses, and also a lasting source of controversy with the Persians, who complained that it violated the treaty of 422, by which both empires had agreed not to establish new fortifications in the frontier zone. Anastasius, however, pursued the project, and the walls were completed by 507/508.[57]

Iberian War

Roman and Persian Empires in 477, as well as their neighbors.

In 524–525 AD, Kavadh proposed that

Ghassanid leader Al-Harith ibn Jabalah turn a loose coalition into a coherent kingdom.[citation needed
]

In 530 a major Persian offensive in Mesopotamia was defeated by Roman forces under Belisarius at

Lakhmid forces at the Battle of Callinicum in 531, which resulted in his dismissal. In the same year the Romans gained some forts in Armenia, while the Persians had captured two forts in eastern Lazica.[68] Immediately after the Battle of Callinicum, unsuccessful negotiations between Justinian's envoy, Hermogenes, and Kavadh took place.[69] A Persian siege of Martyropolis was interrupted by Kavadh I's death and the new Persian king, Khosrau I, re-opened talks in spring 532 and finally signed the Perpetual Peace in September 532, which lasted less than eight years. Both powers agreed to return all occupied territories, and the Romans agreed to make a one-time payment of 110 centenaria (11,000 lb of gold). The Romans recovered the Lazic forts, Iberia remained in Persian hands, and the Iberians who had left their country were given the choice of remaining in Roman territory or returning to their native land.[70]

Lazic War

Roman and Sasanian Empires during Justinian's reign
  Roman (Byzantine) Empire
  Acquisitions by Justinian
  Sasanian Empire
  Sasanian vassals

The Persians broke the "Treaty of Eternal Peace" in 540 AD, probably in response to the Roman reconquest of much of the former western empire, which had been facilitated by the cessation of war in the East. Khosrau I invaded and devastated Syria, extorting large sums of money from the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia, and systematically looting other cities including

al-Mundhir IV, which was defeated by the Ghassanids under al-Harith ibn Jabalah. In 540, the Persians broke the "Treaty of Eternal Peace" and Khosrau I invaded Syria, destroying the great city of Antioch and deporting its population to Weh Antiok Khosrow in Persia; as he withdrew, he extorted large sums of money from the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia and systematically looted the key cities. In 541 he invaded Lazica in the north.[73] Belisarius was quickly recalled by Justinian to the East to deal with the Persian threat, while the Ostrogoths in Italy, who were in touch with the Persian King, launched a counter-attack under Totila. Belisarius took the field and waged an inconclusive campaign against Nisibis in 541. In the same year, Lazica switched its allegiance to Persia and Khosrau led an army to secure the kingdom. In 542 Khosrau launched another offensive in Mesopotamia and unsuccessfully attempted to capture Sergiopolis.[74] He soon withdrew in the face of an army under Belisarius, en route sacking the city of Callinicum.[75] Attacks on a number of Roman cities were repulsed and the Persian general Mihr-Mihroe was defeated and captured at Dara by John Troglita.[76] An invasion of Armenia in 543 by the Roman forces in the East, numbering 30,000, against the capital of Persian Armenia, Dvin, was defeated by a meticulous ambush by a small Persian force at Anglon. Khosrau besieged Edessa in 544 without success and was eventually bought off by the defenders.[77] The Edessenes paid five centenaria to Khosrau, and the Persians departed after nearly two months.[77] In the wake of the Persian retreat, two Roman envoys, the newly appointed magister militum, Constantinus, and Sergius proceeded to Ctesiphon to arrange a truce with Khosrau.[78][79] (The war dragged on under other generals and was to some extent hindered by the Plague of Justinian, because of which Khosrau temporarily withdrew from Roman territory)[80] A five-year truce was agreed to in 545, secured by Roman payments to the Persians.[81]

).
The Eastern Roman–Persian border at the time of Justinian's death in 565, with Lazica in Eastern Roman (Byzantine) hands

Early in 548, King

nomismata (solidi).[88] Both sides agreed not to build new fortifications near the frontier and to ease restrictions on diplomacy and trade.[89]

War for the Caucasus

War broke again shortly after Armenia and Iberia revolted against Sasanian rule in 571 AD, following clashes involving Roman and Persian proxies

Axumites and the Himyarites) and the Syrian desert, and after Roman negotiations for an alliance with the Western Turkic Khaganate against Persia.[90] Justin II brought Armenia under his protection, while Roman troops under Justin's cousin Marcian raided Arzanene and invaded Persian Mesopotamia, where they defeated local forces.[91] Marcian's sudden dismissal and the arrival of troops under Khosrau resulted in a ravaging of Syria, the failure of the Roman siege of Nisibis and the fall of Dara.[92] At a cost of 45,000 solidi, a one-year truce in Mesopotamia (eventually extended to five years)[93] was arranged, but in the Caucasus and on the desert frontiers the war continued.[94] In 575, Khosrau I attempted to combine aggression in Armenia with discussion of a permanent peace. He invaded Anatolia and sacked Sebasteia, but to take Theodosiopolis, and after a clash near Melitene the army suffered heavy losses while fleeing across the Euphrates under Roman attack and the Persian royal baggage was captured.[95]

The Sasanian Empire and its neighbors (including the Eastern Roman Empire) in 600 AD

The Romans exploited Persian disarray as general

Tamkhusro won a victory in Armenia, where Roman actions had alienated local inhabitants.[96] In the spring of 578 the war in Mesopotamia resumed with Persian raids on Roman territory. The Roman general Maurice retaliated by raiding Persian Mesopotamia, capturing the stronghold of Aphumon, and sacking Singara. Khosrau again opened peace negotiations but he died early in 579 and his successor Hormizd IV (r. 578-590) preferred to continue the war.[97]

The Roman-Persian frontier in the 4th to 7th centuries

In 580, Hormizd IV abolished the

marzpan (governor).[98][99] During the 580s, the war continued inconclusively with victories on both sides. In 582, Maurice won a battle at Constantia over Adarmahan and Tamkhusro, who was killed, but the Roman general did not follow up his victory; he had to hurry to Constantinople to pursue his imperial ambitions.[100] Another Roman victory at Solachon in 586 likewise failed to break the stalemate.[101]

The Persians captured

Battle of Blarathon and restored Khosrau II to power. In exchange for their help, Khosrau not only returned Dara and Martyropolis but also agreed to cede the western half of Iberia and more than half of Persian Armenia to the Romans.[102]

Late Roman silver coin showing the words Deus adiuta Romanis ("May God help the Romans")
Cherub and Heraclius receiving the submission of Khosrau II; plaque from a cross (Champlevé enamel over gilt copper, 1160–1170, Paris, Louvre).
Byzantine and Sasanian Empires in 600 AD
The Sasanian Empire at its greatest extent c. 620 AD

Climax

In 602 the Roman army campaigning in the Balkans mutinied under the leadership of Phocas, who succeeded in seizing the throne and then killed Maurice and his family. Khosrau II used the murder of his benefactor as a pretext for war and reconquer the Roman province of Mesopotamia.[103] In the early years of the war the Persians enjoyed overwhelming and unprecedented success. They were aided by Khosrau's use of a pretender claiming to be Maurice's son, and by the revolt against Phocas led by the Roman general Narses.[104] In 603 Khosrau defeated and killed the Roman general Germanus in Mesopotamia and laid siege to Dara. Despite the arrival of Roman reinforcements from Europe, he won another victory in 604, while Dara fell after a nine-month siege. Over the following years the Persians gradually overcame the fortress cities of Mesopotamia by siege, one after another.[105] At the same time they won a string of victories in Armenia and systematically subdued the Roman garrisons in the Caucasus.[106]

Phocas' brutal repression sparked a succession crisis that ensued as the general Heraclius sent his nephew Nicetas to attack Egypt, enabling his son Heraclius the younger to claim the throne in 610. Phocas, an unpopular ruler who is invariably described in Byzantine sources as a "tyrant", was eventually deposed by Heraclius, having sailed from Carthage.[107] Around the same time, the Persians completed their conquest of Mesopotamia and the Caucasus, and in 611 they overran Syria and entered Anatolia, occupying Caesarea.[108] Having expelled the Persians from Anatolia in 612, Heraclius launched a major counter-offensive in Syria in 613. He was decisively defeated outside Antioch by Shahrbaraz and Shahin, and the Roman position collapsed.[109]

Over the following decade the Persians were able to conquer

Avars and Slavs took advantage of the situation to overrun the Balkans, bringing the Roman Empire to the brink of destruction.[115]

During these years, Heraclius strove to rebuild his army, slashing non-military expenditures, devaluing the currency and melting down Church plate, with the backing of Patriarch Sergius, to raise the necessary funds to continue the war.[116] In 622, Heraclius left Constantinople, entrusting the city to Sergius and general Bonus as regents of his son. He assembled his forces in Asia Minor and, after conducting exercises to revive their morale, he launched a new counter-offensive, which took on the character of a holy war.[117] In the Caucasus he inflicted a defeat on an army led by a Persian-allied Arab chief and then won a victory over the Persians under Shahrbaraz.[118] Following a lull in 623, while he negotiated a truce with the Avars, Heraclius resumed his campaigns in the East in 624 and routed an army led by Khosrau at Ganzak in Atropatene.[119] In 625 he defeated the generals Shahrbaraz, Shahin and Shahraplakan in Armenia, and in a surprise attack that winter he stormed Shahrbaraz's headquarters and attacked his troops in their winter billets.[120] Supported by a Persian army commanded by Shahrbaraz, together with the Avars and Slavs, the three unsuccessfully besieged Constantinople in 626,[121] while a second Persian army under Shahin suffered another crushing defeat at the hands of Heraclius' brother Theodore.[122]

Khosrau II, in a manuscript of the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp made by Abd al-Samad c. 1535. Persian poems are from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh
.

Meanwhile, Heraclius formed an alliance with the

Kavadh II, who at once sued for peace, agreeing to withdraw from all occupied territories.[124] Heraclius restored the True Cross to Jerusalem with a majestic ceremony in 629.[125]

Aftermath

Byzantine Empire (green) by 626 under Heraclius; striped areas are lands still threatened by the Sasanians.
Byzantine Empire (orange) by 650. By this point the Sasanian Empire had fallen to the Arab Muslim Caliphate as well as Byzantine Syria, Palestine and Egypt.

The devastating impact of this last war, added to the cumulative effects of a century of almost continuous conflict, left both empires crippled. When Kavadh II died only months after coming to the throne, Persia was plunged into several years of dynastic turmoil and civil war. The Sasanians were further weakened by economic decline, heavy taxation from Khosrau II's campaigns, religious unrest, and the increasing power of the provincial landholders.[126] The Byzantine Empire was also severely affected, with its financial reserves exhausted by the war and the Balkans now largely in the hands of the Slavs.[127] Additionally, Anatolia was devastated by repeated Persian invasions; the Empire's hold on its recently regained territories in the Caucasus, Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt was loosened by many years of Persian occupation.[128]

Neither empire was given any chance to recover, as within a few years they were struck by the onslaught of the

Egypt and North Africa were also lost, reducing the Empire to a territorial rump consisting of Anatolia and a scatter of islands and footholds in the Balkans and Italy.[131] These remaining lands were thoroughly impoverished by frequent attacks, marking the transition from classical urban civilization to a more rural, medieval form of society. However, unlike Persia, the Roman Empire ultimately survived the Arab assault, holding onto its residual territories and decisively repulsing two Arab sieges of its capital in 674–678 and 717–718.[132] The Roman Empire also lost its territories in Crete and southern Italy to the Arabs in later conflicts, though these too were ultimately recovered.[citation needed
]

Strategies and military tactics

When the Roman and Parthian Empires first collided in the 1st century BC, it appeared that Parthia had the potential to push its frontier to the

Iranian plateau never fell, as the Roman expeditions had always exhausted their offensive impetus by the time they reached lower Mesopotamia, and their extended line of communications through territory not sufficiently pacified exposed them to revolts and counterattacks.[134]

From the 4th century AD onwards, the Sasanians grew in strength and adopted the role of aggressor. They considered much of the land added to the Roman Empire in Parthian and early Sasanian times to rightfully belong to the Persian sphere.

Proxy warfare
was employed by both Byzantines and the Sasanians as an alternative to direct confrontation, particularly through Arab kingdoms in the south and nomadic nations in the north.

Statue of a Sasanian cavalryman in Taq-e Bostan, equipped with both lance and archery equipment. Both rider and horse are fully armored.

Militarily, the Sasanians continued the Parthians' heavy dependence on cavalry troops: a combination of

cataphractarii and clibanarii units were introduced into the Roman army;[140] as a result, heavily armed cavalry grew in importance in both the Roman and Persian armies after the 3rd century AD and until the end of the wars.[135] The Roman army also gradually incorporated horse-archers (Equites Sagittarii), and by the 5th century AD they were no longer a mercenary unit, and were slightly superior individually in comparison to the Persian ones, as Procopius claims; however, the Persian horse-archer units as a whole always remained a challenge for the Romans, which suggests the Roman horse-archers were smaller in numbers.[141] By the time of Khosrow I the composite cavalrymen (aswaran) appeared, who were skilled in both archery and the use of lance.[142]

Roman siege engines

On the other hand, the Persians adopted war engines from the Romans.

Petra (550-551).[144] Use of complex torsion equipment was rare, since traditional Persian expertise in archery reduced their apparent benefits.[148] Elephants were employed (e.g. as siege towers) where the terrain was unfavorable for machines.[149] Recent assessments comparing the Sasanians and Parthians have reaffirmed the superiority of Sasanian siegecraft, military engineering, and organization,[150] as well as ability to build defensive works.[151]

By the beginning of Sasanian rule, a number of buffer states existed between the empires. These were absorbed by the central state over time, and by the 7th century the last buffer state, the Arab

constructed defensive walls opposite the territory of their opponents. According to R. N. Frye, it was under Shapur II that the Persian system was extended, probably in imitation of Diocletian's construction of the limes of the Syrian and Mesopotamian frontiers of the Roman Empire.[154] The Roman and Persian border units were known as limitanei and marzobans, respectively.[citation needed
]

The Sasanians, and to a lesser extent the Parthians, practiced mass deportations to new cities as a tool of policy, not just the prisoners-of-war (such as those of the Battle of Edessa), but also the cities they captured, such as the deportation of the Antioch's people to Weh Antiok Khosrow, which led to the decline of the former. These deportations also initiated the spread of Christianity in Persia.[155]

The Persians seem to have been reluctant to resort to naval action.[156] There was some minor Sasanian naval action in 620–23, and the only major Byzantine navy's action was during the Siege of Constantinople (626).[citation needed]

Assessments

The Roman–Persian Wars have been characterized as "futile" and too "depressing and tedious to contemplate".[157] Prophetically, Cassius Dio noted their "never-ending cycle of armed confrontations" and observed that "it is shown by the facts themselves that [Severus'] conquest has been a source of constant wars and great expense to us. For it yields very little and uses up vast sums; and now that we have reached out to peoples who are neighbor of the Medes and the Parthians rather than of ourselves, we are always, one might say, fighting the battles of those peoples."[158] In the long series of wars between the two powers, the frontier in upper Mesopotamia remained more or less constant. Historians point out that the stability of the frontier over the centuries is remarkable, although Nisibis, Singara, Dara and other cities of upper Mesopotamia changed hands from time to time, and the possession of these frontier cities gave one empire a trade advantage over the other. As Frye states:[152]

One has the impression that the blood spilled in the warfare between the two states brought as little real gain to one side or the other as the few meters of land gained at terrible cost in the trench warfare of the First World War.

"How could it be a good thing to hand over one's dearest possessions to a stranger, a barbarian, the ruler of one's bitterest enemy, one whose good faith and sense of justice were untried, and, what is more, one who belonged to an alien and heathen faith?"
Agathias (Histories, 4.26.6, translated by Averil Cameron) about the Persians, a judgment typical of the Roman view.[159]

Both sides attempted to justify their respective military goals in both active and reactive ways. According to the

John F. Haldon underscores that "although the conflicts between Persia and East Rome revolved around issues of strategic control around the eastern frontier, yet there was always a religious-ideological element present". From the time of Constantine on, Roman emperors appointed themselves as the protectors of Christians of Persia.[164] This attitude created intense suspicions of the loyalties of Christians living in Sasanian Iran and often led to Roman–Persian tensions or even military confrontations[165] (e.g. in 421–422). A characteristic of the final phase of the conflict, when what had begun in 611–612 as a raid was soon transformed into a war of conquest, was the pre-eminence of the Cross as a symbol of imperial victory and of the strong religious element in the Roman imperial propaganda; Heraclius himself cast Khosrau as the enemy of God, and authors of the 6th and 7th centuries were fiercely hostile to Persia.[166][167]

Historiography

The Humiliation of Valerian by Shapur (Hans Holbein the Younger, 1521, pen and black ink on a chalk sketch, Kunstmuseum Basel)

The sources for the history of Parthia and the wars with Rome are scant and scattered. The Parthians followed the

Greek historians (Herodian, Cassius Dio and Plutarch). The 13th book of the Sibylline Oracles narrates the effects of the Roman–Persian Wars in Syria from the reign of Gordian III to the domination of the province by Odaenathus of Palmyra. With the end of Herodian's record, all contemporary chronological narratives of Roman history are lost, until the narratives of Lactantius and Eusebius at the beginning of the 4th century, both from a Christian perspective.[168]

The principal sources for the early Sasanian period are not contemporary. Among them the most important are the Greeks

Augustan History is neither contemporary nor reliable, but it is the chief narrative source for Severus and Carus. The trilingual (Middle Persian, Parthian, Greek) inscriptions of Shapur are primary sources.[169] These were isolated attempts at approaching written historiography however, and by the end of the 4th century AD, even the practice of carving rock reliefs and leaving short inscriptions was abandoned by the Sasanians.[170]

For the period between 353 and 378, there is an eyewitness source to the main events on the eastern frontier in the Res Gestae of

Sozomenus, Zosimus, Priscus, and Zonaras are especially valuable.[171] The single most important source for Justinian's Persian wars up to 553 is Procopius. His continuators Agathias and Menander Protector offer many important details as well. Theophylact Simocatta is the main source for the reign of Maurice,[172] while Theophanes, Chronicon Paschale and the poems of George of Pisidia are useful sources for the last Roman–Persian war. In addition to Byzantine sources, two Armenian historians, Sebeos and Movses, contribute to the coherent narrative of Heraclius' war and are regarded by Howard-Johnston as "the most important of extant non-Muslim sources".[173]

References

Primary sources

Secondary sources

Citations

  1. . Retrieved 2019-06-09.
  2. ^ a b electricpulp.com. "Byzantine–Iranian Relations – Encyclopaedia Iranica". www.iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  3. ^ Howard-Johnston (2006), 1
  4. ^ Kia 2016, p. liii.
  5. ^ De Blois & van der Spek 2008, p. 137.
  6. ^ a b Ball (2000), 12–13; Dignas–Winter (2007), 9 (PDF)
  7. ^ Plutarch, Sulla, 5. 3–6
    * Mackay (2004), 149; Sherwin-White (1994), 262
  8. ^ Bivar (1993), 46
    * Sherwin-White (1994), 262–263
  9. ^ Sherwin-White (1994), 264
  10. ^ Plutarch, Crassus, 23–32
    * Mackay (2004), 150
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Further reading

External links