Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/640

612 526-546. tiation on this and other matters at Xisibis (525 or 526) seems, however, to have been badly managed on both sides, and its failure cost the Roman ambassador his place and the Persian his head. War now began on the borders in 527 before Justin s death (i.e., before 1st August). 1 A Roman attack on Xisibis and a Persian on Dara failed. Fighting, broken by negotiations, went on for several years, and in it Belisarius first came to the front as a general. Mondliir An important episode in this war is the invasion of Syria by of I lira. Mondliir of Hira. This prince seems to have been more powerful than was safe for Persia, and Kavadh had stripped him of all or part of his possessions and given them to Hdrith, a scion of the widespread house of the kings of the Kinda. When war broke out Mondliir, who was an experienced warrior, was restored to his old sway, and in 529 he fell on Syria, pillaging and holding captives to ransom as far as Antioch. Mondliir was a savage heathen, who on one day sacrificed 400 nuns of a Syrian cloister to his goddess Uzz;i (the planet Venus). In the same year he slew Harith in battle and executed in Hira a number of captives of the Kinda house. For half a century he was the terror of the subjects of Rome, little recking whether they were at peace or at war with his master, till in 554 he fell in battle with a Roman vassal, Harith ibn Jabala, whose son he had also sacrificed to Uzza. Under Mondhir s influence Kavadh in 531 undertook a regular campaign against Syria, the first since centuries. The Persians crossed the Euphrates and had pressed far to the north when Belisarius compelled them to turn back. In a battle at Rakka Belisarius was defeated, but the Persians found it expedient to continue their retreat (19th April 531). In Mesopotamia the Persians were this year successful, and had almost reduced the great fortress of Martyropolis (Maiferkat, Arab. Mayafarikin) when news came of Kav&dh s death, and a truce was made. In 528 or 529 Kavadh, through his son Khosrau, had made a bloody end of the Mazdakites, whose success proved too dangerous to society to be longer endured. Kavadh died, eighty-two years old, 13th September 531, and was succeeded by his destined heir, Khosrau (Chosroes), surnamed An6sharvan, "the Blessed," whom his father is said to have caused to be crowned as he lay on his death bed. 2 Khosrau I. was a great king, and deserved the title of "the Just," though he was not the ideal prince that Khosrau Eastern writers make him. By carrying out the regula tion of the land-tax already commenced by his father, and by measures to control the collection of taxes, he benefited his subjects as well as the treasury. In Babylonia at least, the richest province, his fiscal ordinances proved productive, and, according to an Eastern standard, not too oppressive, down to the fall of the Sasanian empire ; the Arabs themselves contrast the old Persian system with the oppressive taxation of Moslem times, which was ruinous to the finances of the state as well as to the inhabitants. The public welfare, too, was served by the construction or repair of bridges, canals, embankments, and the like. The priests favoured Khosrau for his extirpation of the Mazdakites, which he completed at the beginning of his reign ; but they were not permitted to rule his policy. He managed the great nobles with tact, rather strengthen ing than weakening the aristocratic basis of the realm, but making it serviceable to himself. Measures were taken to relieve the insecurity which the Mazdakites had introduced in relations of property and the family, and the army was the object of special care. Khosrau had a decided leaning to Western civilization ; and, though an Oriental despot could not be expected to sympathize with the highest fruits of Hellenic genius at a time when they 1 The principal sources for this war are Procopius and the Syrian account in Land, Anecdota, iii. 2 That the nomination of Khosrau surprised the Persian nobles is simply impossible. Procopius, it must be remembered, drew for the events at Khosrau s accession on the tales of the (true or false) pre- tendant Kavadh, son of Jam, and grandson of King Kavadh. But it is quite possible that such things as the removal of princes and the execution of valuable officials took place under Khosrau. I. s in ternal rule. [SASANIAN were little appreciated even in Europe, and the heathen philosophers who came to Persia to seek a philosophic state soon returned undeceived, it is to his honour that the Persian secured for them the free exercise of their faith by a clause in the treaty of 549. The Christians, so long as they obeyed the laws, were unmolested ; nay, Khosrau helped to maintain the worship not only of the Nestorians but even of the Monophysites, who had much more friendly relations to the Roman empire. Apostasy from Zoroastrianism was forbidden by ancient law, and proselytizing by Christians was strictly prohibited, yet the Monophysite abbot Ahudemmeh, who had got a large contribution from the king to build his monastery, and thereafter baptized a son of Khosrau, who presently fled to the Romans, was punished only by a mild imprisonment, in which he was allowed to see his scholars. 3 Nor did the Christians suffer for their sympathy with the rebellious prince Anoshazadh ; and yet Khosrau was no weakling, but energetic, warlike, and on occasion cruel. 4 The negotiations begun in 531 issued in September 532 in a "perpetual peace," the Romans promising a large annual subsidy and other concessions, while the Persians gave back certain castles in Lazistdn at the eastern end of the Black Sea. Khosrau had need of peace, and used it probably to protect the frontiers from divers barbarous foes, for tradition speaks of his measures for the safety of the borders towards the Caucasus and on the east. Un manageable tribes, too, were moved to new homes. In a few years he was strong enough to go to war again, feel ing perhaps that Justinian s successes in Africa and Italy had made the hereditary foe too strong. This clanger, no doubt, was forcibly set before him by the emissaries of the Gothic king Vitiges, and a tempting opportunity was presented by an appeal which came to him from the rebel nobles of Roman Armenia, Christians though they were. Pretexts for war were never lacking, if only through the Arab subjects of the two powers. But Khosrau certainly War wit desired the war, and early in 540 he set forth to attack Rome. Syria as Shapur I. had done, and marched through the land to the shore of the " Roman sea," taking and pillaging such strong cities as did not buy him oft . Antioch in particular yielded an enormous booty ; it was burned and the inhabitants carried captive. Turning homewards, the Persian traversed north Syria and Mesopotamia from west to east, levying a contribution even from the hated fortress of Dara. Carrha? alone, whose population was still mainly heathen, and so presumably inclined to the non-Christian empire, escaped scot free. Ctesiphon was reached at the close of summer, the whole campaign having come off without a single pitched battle. Khosrau, still more than Shapur II., sought in the barbarous old usage of whole sale captivities a means of appropriating to his own service the culture and technical skill of the West. Thus he made for the captive Antiochians a new municipality ( Khosrau- Antiochia, or "the Roman town") hard by the royal residence, which was a notable tribute to the superiority of Roman culture and life. The town was made as Western in character as could be, and the inhabit ants were established in comfort, and had religious freedom, and even a Christian mayor. They retained their national manners till the fall of the empire. Chariot -races, for example, were as popular as they had been in old Antioch. Next year Khosrau was invited to Lazistan by the natives, and penetrated to the Black Sea and took the strong place of Petra. In Mesopotamia war went on for several 3 This is known from an imprinted Syrian biography by a disciple of Ahudemmeh, who manages to make the king a tyrant by inventing a silly miracle to explain his clemency. Ahiidemmeh died, after two years imprisonment, 2d August 575. 4 Procopius naturally speaks unfavourably of so dangerous an enemy of the Romans.