remained as of old, the defence and, when possible, the expansion of the eastern and western frontiers. In the first two centuries of the Sassanid Empire we hear practically nothing of its relations with the East. Only occasional notices show that the inroads of the Oriental nomads History of the Sassanian Empire. had not ceased, and that the extent of the empire had by no means exceeded the bounds of the Parthian dominion—Sacastene (Seistan) and western Afghanistan. Far to the east, on both sides of the Indus, the Kushana Empire was still in existence, though it was already hastening to decay, and about A.D. 320 was displaced from its position in India by the Gupta dynasty. In the west the old conflict for Osroene and northern Mesopotamia (now Roman provinces), with the fortresses of Edessa, Carrhae and Nisibis, still smouldered. Armenia the Sassanids were all the more eager to regain, since there the Arsacid dynasty still survived and turned for protection to Rome, with whom, in consequence, new wars perpetually broke out. In the reign of Bahram II. (276–293), the emperor Carus, burning to avenge the disaster of Valerian, penetrated into Mesopotamia without meeting opposition, and reduced Coche (near Seleucia) and Ctesiphon; but his sudden death, in December of 283, precluded further success, and the Roman army returned home. Bahram, however, was unable to effect anything, as his brother Hormizd was in arms, supported by the Sacae and other tribes. (Mamertin, Panegyr. Maximin. 7. 10; Genethl. Maximin. 5, 17.) He chose, consequently, to buy peace with Diocletian by means of presents. Some years later his uncle and successor, Narses, after subduing his rival Bahram III., occupied Armenia and defeated the emperor Galerius at Callinicum (296). But in the following year he sustained a severe reverse in Armenia, in which he lost his war-chest and harem. He then concluded a peace, by the terms of which Armenia remained under Roman suzerainty, and the steppes of northern Mesopotamia, with Singara and the hill-country on the left bank of the Tigris as far as Gordyene, were ceded to the victor (Ammian. Marc. xxv. 7, 9, Petr. Patr. fr. 13, 14; Rufus brev. 25). In return Narses regained his household. This peace, ratified in 297 and completely expelling the Sassanids from the disputed districts, lasted for forty years.
For the rest, practically nothing is known of the history of the first six successors of Shapur I. After the death of Hormizd II. (302–310), the son of Narses, the magnates imprisoned or put to death his adult sons, one of whom, Hormisdas, later escaped to the Romans, who used him as a pretender in their wars. Shapur II., a posthumous child of the late king, was then raised to the throne, a proof that the great magnates held the sovereignty in their own hands and attempted to order matters at their own pleasure. Shapur, however, when he came to manhood proved himself an independent and energetic ruler.
Meanwhile the Roman Empire had become Christian, the
sequel of which was that the Syro-Christian population of
Mesopotamia and Babylonia—even more than the
Hellenic cities in former times—gravitated to the
west and looked to Rome for deliverance from the
infidel yoke. On similar grounds Christianity, as
Shapur II. Persecution of
the Christians.
opposed to the Mazdaism enforced officially by the Sassanids,
became predominant in Armenia. Between these two great
creeds the old Armenian religion was unable to hold its own;
as early as A.D. 294 King Tiridates was converted by Gregory
the Illuminator and adopted the Christian faith. For this very
reason the Sassanid Empire was the more constrained to champion
Zoroastrianism. It was under Shapur II. that the compilation
of the Avesta was completed and the state orthodoxy perfected
by the chief mobed, Aturpad. All heresy was proscribed by the
state, defection from the true faith pronounced a capital crime,
and the persecution of the heterodox—particularly the
Christians—began (cf. Sachall, “Die rechtlichen Verhältnisse der
Christen in Sassanidenreich,” in Mitteilungen des Seminars
für orientalische Sprachen für Berlin, Bd. X., Abt. 2, 1907).
Thus the duel between the two great empires now becomes
simultaneously a duel between the two religions.
In such a position of affairs a fresh war with Rome was inevitable.[1] It was begun by Shapur in A.D. 337, the year that saw the death of Constantine the Great. The conflict centred round the Mesopotamian fortresses; Shapur thrice besieged Nisibis without success, but reduced several others, as Amida (359) and Singara (360), and transplanted great masses of inhabitants into Susiana. The emperor Constantius conducted the war feebly and was consistently beaten in the field. But, in spite of all, Shapur found it impossible to penetrate deeper into the Roman territory. He was hampered by the attack of nomadic tribes in the east, among whom the Chionites now begin to be mentioned. Year after year he took the field against them (353–358), till finally he compelled them to support him with auxiliaries (Ammian. Marc. 14, 3; 16, 9; 17, 5; 18, 4, 6). With this war is evidently connected the foundation of the great town New-Shapur (Nishapur) in Khorasan.
By the resolution of Julian (363) to begin an energetic attack on the Persian Empire, the conflict, after the lapse of a quarter of a century, assumed a new phase. Julian pressed forward to Ctesiphon but succumbed to a wound; and his successor Jovian soon found himself in such straits, that he could only extricate himself and his army by a disgraceful peace at the close of 363, which ceded the possessions on the Tigris and the great fortress of Nisibis, and pledged Rome to abandon Armenia and her Arsacid protégé, Arsaces III., to the Persian.
Shapur endeavoured to occupy Armenia and introduce the Zoroastrian orthodoxy. He captured Arsaces III. by treachery and compelled him to commit suicide; but the Armenian magnates proved refractory, placed Arsaces' son Pap on the throne, and found secret support among the Romans. This all but led to a new war; but in 374 Valens sacrificed Pap and had him killed in Tarsus. The subsequent invasions of the Goths, in battle with whom Valens fell at Adrianople (375), definitely precluded Roman intervention; and the end of the Armenian troubles was that (c. 390) Bahram IV. and Theodosius the Great concluded a treaty which abandoned the extreme west of Armenia to the Romans and confirmed the remainder in the Persian possession. Thus peace and friendship could at last exist with Rome; and in 408 Yazdegerd I. contracted an Conquest of Armenia. alliance with Theodosius II. In Armenia the Persians immediately removed the last kings of the house of Arsaces (430), and thenceforward the main portion of the country remained a Persian province under the control of a marzban, though the Armenian nobles still made repeated attempts at insurrection. The introduction of Zoroastrianism was abandoned; Christianity was already far too deeply rooted. But the sequel to the Roman sacrifice of Armenian interests was that the Armenian Christians now seceded from the orthodoxy of Rome and Constantinople, and organized themselves into an independent national church. This church was due, before all, to the efforts of the Catholicos Sahak (390–439), whose colleague Mesrob, by his translation of the Bible, laid the foundations of an Armenian literature (see Armenian Church).
In the interior of the Sassanian Empire the old troubles broke out anew on the death of Shapur II. (379). At first the magnates raised his aged brother Ardashir II. to the throne, then in 383 deposed him and enthroned Shapur's son as Shapur III. In 388, however, he was assassinated, as was also his brother, Bahram IV., in 399. But the Yazdegerd I. son of the latter, Yazdegerd I. (399–420), was an energetic and intelligent sovereign, who held the magnates within bounds and severely chastised their attempts at encroachment. He even sought to emancipate himself from the Magian Church,
