Bahram demanded the return of all the Christians that had fled from Persia to Constantinople. Theodosius II (East; 49; r.408-450) refused and Bahram declared war. The result was indecisive, and peace was arranged in 422. A new and dangerous threat appeared on the empire’s northeast frontier, a non-Iranian people known to the Greeks as Hephthalites or White Huns. They crossed the Syr Darya (=Jaxartes) River and were defeated by Bahram at Merv in 421.
Early in his reign Bahram’s son Yazdegerd II (r.438-457) made a preemptive attack on the Byzantines because they had violated the peace treaty by constructing fortifications near Carrhae in anticipation of subsequent expeditions. Theodosius asked for peace and in the ensuing negotiations both empires promised not to build any new fortifications in their border territories. A new threat, the Kidarites, came from the east. In 443 Yazdegerd gathered his forces and launched a prolonged campaign against the Kidarites and eventually drove them beyond the Amu Darya (=Oxus) River in 450.
The Armenians converted to Christianity in 301. Yazdegerd was a Zoroastrian. He attempted to secure political loyalty by pressuring the Armenians to abandon the western Roman Christian church in favour of the breakaway Nestorians or simply convert to Zoroastrianism. The Armenians under Vartan Mamikonian revolted. Yazdegerd gathered a massive army and defeated the Armenians at Avarayr in 451. Armenian resistance continued in the following decades. In his later years Yazdegerd engaged with the Kidarites until his death.
Yazdegerd’s son Hormizd III (457-459) was succeeded by his brother Peroz-I (r.459-484), whose reign was preoccupied with drought and famine. He invaded the Hephthalite country and suffered a crushing defeat. Towards the end of his reign, he gathered a large army and invaded the Hephthalites. He was lured into a trap and the Persians were defeated with great slaughter. Peroz was among those killed.
Peroz’s brother Balash (r.484-488) bought off the Hephthalites by paying them a huge tribute. He revoked Yazdegerd’s anti-Christian edicts, and in 484 Balash signed a formal peace treaty with Vartan’s nephew Vahan Mamikonian. Balash was deposed and his nephew Kavadh-I (82; r.488*531) ascended the throne. Kavadh wanted to centralise power away from the nobles. When he supported a communistic sect founded by the socialist activist Mazdak the nobles, recognizing the threat to their position, deposed and imprisoned Kavadh and placed his brother Diamasp (r.496-498) on the throne. Kavadh soon escaped and sought refuge with the Hephthalites, whose king gave him his daughter in marriage and provided military support for him to regain his throne. Diamasp yielded peacefully and the nobles submitted to Kavadh’s authority. (The Mazdaki doctrine was formally refuted in 529 during a theological discussion held before the king; its adherents were slaughtered and persecuted everywhere; Mazdak himself was hanged.)
The incessant Hephthalite demands for heavy tribute forced Kavadh to apply for subsidies from the Byzantines. When Anastasius-I (c.88; r.491-518) refused to contribute, Kavadh launched an invasion of Byzantine territories: in 502 he took the city of Theodosiopolis (=Erzurum) in Armenia and in 503 he captured Amida on the Tigris. In 505 he negotiated a peace – an invasion by the Huns meant that for the next ten years he had to concentrate his military forces on his northwest border.
In 525 Christians in Iberia (≈Georgia), vassals of Persia, asked Justinian-I (82; r.527-565) for a symbolic force to aid their independence. This provoked a massive Sassanid offensive. Justinian’s general Belisarius (c.500-565) entered Mesopotamia but was defeated in the desert Battle at Thannuris in 528. In June 530 a stunning victory over the Sassanids in the Battle of Dara was followed by a close defeat at the Battle of Callinicum on the Euphrates in 531. Kavadh died soon after.
Kavadh’s son Chosroes-I (r.531-579) made ‘Eternal Peace’ with Justinian in 532, which lasted eight years. The Persians believed that Justinian would attack them once he had defeated the Goths in the west. In 540 Chosroes captured the cities of Antioch, Apamea and Chalcis. In 541 he brought his army north to Lazica (=Egrisi) on request of the Lazic king to fend off Byzantine incursions into his territory. During this time Belisarius arrived in Mesopotamia. After capturing the important city of Petra on the coast of the Black Sea, Chosroes was forced to pull out of Lazica, leaving only a 1500 man garrison in Petra to defend the territory while he went south to deal with Belisarius in Mesopotamia.
In 542 Justinian and Chosroes attempted to reach a truce, but Justinian sent an army of 30,000 men into Armenia. The Sassanid army of 4000 men was forced to retreat to the town of Anglon in Armenia. The Byzantines pursued the Sassanians into the town but they walked into an ambush and were completely routed. This massive defeat resulted in a five-year truce in 545. When anti-Sassanians revolted in Lazica in 547, Justinian sent 8000 troops to support the Lazic king. A Byzantine-Lazic army that besieged Petra was forced to retreat when an army of 30,000 pro-Sassanian troops arrived. The fortress finally fell to the Byzantines in 551. The last major battle of the Lazic wars came in 556 when the Byzantine general Martin defeated a massive Sassanian force. Negotiations opened in 556, leading to the establishment of a fifty-year peace agreement in 561, in which the Persians would leave Lazica in return for an annual payment of gold.
In 522 a group of Monophysite Abyssinians crossed the Red Sea and were defeated and expelled by the Himyarites of the southern Arabian Peninsula (Yemen). The Abyssinians requested assistance from the Byzantines, who gave them supplies and vessels. The Abyssinians crossed the Red Sea once more and this time they overcame the Himyarites. The Yemenite Arabs appealed to Chosroes for help and a Sassanid contingent sailed for Yemen and defeated the Abyssinians. In 598 the Abyssinians struck back but this time they were totally defeated and they sailed back to their homelands. By backing the losing side Justinian had lost the strategically and economically important Yemen to the Sassanids.
To defeat the Hephthalites the Persians sought the assistance of the recently arrived Gokturks (‘Celestial Turks’) in Central Asia. In 557/8 the allies launched a two-prong attack and the Hephthalites were duly crushed. The Gokturks took the territory north of the Oxus River, while the Persians annexed land to the south. Competition for a greater share of the Silk Route trade, however, meant that Gokturks and the Sassanids moved steadily towards confrontation.
In 555 the Sassanian governor of Armenia killed a member of the Mamikonian noble family. This led to a revolt and murder of the governor and his personal guard in 571. Justin II (c.58; r.565-578) used this as an excuse to send an army in 572 into Sassanid territory and put Nisibis under siege, but the city’s defences held and the Byzantine forces had to retreat. Chosroes then laid siege to Dara, which fell after five months. When the Persians launched powerful raids in Syria, Justin appealed for peace. Chosroes accepted an indemnity and returned to his frontier.
When Tiberius (r.578-582) succeeded, the Sassanids, sensing they had the upper hand, attacked the Byzantine positions in Armenia. The Byzantines made successful counterattacks but while truce negotiations were underway the Sassanids crushed a Byzantine force. In 578 Maurice (63; r.582-602) led the Byzantine forces on a number of successful counterattacks. Meanwhile, the Armenian revolt ended and Sassanid authority in Armenia was re-established in Armenia. In 579 Tiberius made peace proposals to Chosroes’ son Hormiz IV (r.579-590), which were rejected. This resulted in a new round of fighting in Syria and Mesopotamia which the Byzantine general Maurice (63; r.582-602) managed to contain.
The Turks now dominated Central Asia. In 589 a very large Turko-Hephthalite force invaded northeastern Persia. Hormizd dispatched a contingent under general Bahram VI Chobin (r.590-591) to fight them. He marched upon Balkh and defeated the Turks, killing their Khan and capturing his son. Bahram then crossed the Oxus and defeated the eastern Turks.
Hormizd then sent Bahram to fight the Byzantines in the Caucasus. He was initially successful but suffered a severe defeat at the Araxes. He rebelled, and with the main Persian army he marched on Ctesiphon. Hormizd was killed and Hormizd’s son Chosroes II (r.590-628), unable to fight such an army, fled to Maurice who agreed to help him. Maurice’s army accompanied Chosroes back to Persia and in 591 Bahram was routed near Ganzak, southeast of Lake Urmia, and was killed later in Balkh in northern Afghanistan. Peace with Byzantium was concluded. For his aid, Maurice received portions of Armenia, parts of Mesopotamia, and Dara. Chosroes suppressed a revolt by his powerful uncle Bistram (591-596).
During the first twelve years of his rule, Chosroes remained loyal to his friendship with Maurice. When Phocas (r.602-610) murdered Maurice in 602, Chosroes used it as a pretext to attack the Byzantines. In 603 he attacked Dara which fell in 604 after a long siege and the other strongholds soon toppled: Mardin, Amida, Rhesaina and, in 609, Edessa.
In 610 the Persians crossed the Euphrates and overran northern Syria, reaching the Mediterranean coast beyond Antioch. A year later they thrust deep into Anatolia and seized Caesarea (=Kayseri) in Cappadocia. The Persians then pushed through southern Syria (Damascus fell in 613) to the northern edge of Palestine. In 614 they captured Jerusalem; in 615 an expeditionary force reached the Bosporus; in 516 Palestine was brought under direct Persian rule; and within two years of the capture of Alexandria in 619 the whole of Egypt was in Persian hands. In 626, Constantinople was besieged from the European side by the Avars, from the Asiatic side by Shahrbaraz’s Persians. Then came an astonishing reversal. Heraclius broke out and, going by the north, invaded Persia (622-628). In 627 he won an important victory at Nineveh. Early 628 he took Dastgerd, and went on to threaten Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Chosroes was assassinated and his son Kavadh II (r.628) succeeded him and signed a peace with Heraclius.
Kavadh’s son Ardashir III (c.9; r.628-630) was killed by Chosroes’ best general, Shahrbaraz (r.630). Shahrbaraz was assassinated and succeeded by Chosroes’ daughter Borandokht (r.630-631). She resigned or was murdered and succeeded by her sister Azarmidokht (r.631) until she too was murdered and succeeded by a pretender Hormizd VI (r.631-632). It seems that the nobles discovered Chosroes’ grandson Yazdegerd III (44; r.632-651) living in secret in Istakhr.
After gaining control over most of Arabia after the death of Mohammed (c.570-632), the Muslims turned their attention to their powerful neighbours, the Byzantines and the Sassanids. An Arab army under Khalid ibn al-Walid (592-642) defeated the Sassanid border forces and conquered al-Hira and Ubulla. When Khalid was ordered to march west and assume command on the Syrian front, the Sassanids counterattacked and the Muslims suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of the Bridge in 634. Following a small victory the next year at the Battle of Buwaib, the Muslims defeated the Persians at the Battle of Qadisiyya in 636.
In 637 the Muslims besieged and within a few months captured Ctesiphon. A new Sassanid army marched west in an attempt to reconquer Iraq, but they were met and defeated by a Muslim army at Jalula. After a last attempt at defence led by Yazdegerd himself at the Battle of Nihawand in 642, resistance and the Sassanid Empire waned, ending in 651 with the assassination of Yazdegerd in northwest Persia.
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