Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/641

EMPIRE.] PERSIA 613 years with chequered fortune. In 546 the Romans paid a large sum for a five years truce, and another five years truce followed in 553, though LAzistan was excluded from both truces until 556, when the Romans had gained suc cesses there ; but during all this time the Persian and Roman Arabs never laid down their arms. At length, about Christmas 562, a fifty years peace was concluded, the Romans again promising a considerable yearly subsidy, and the Persians withdrawing their claims on Lazistan, though the possession of the neighbouring Suania was left an open question. The treaty also provided for religious freedom to the Persian Christians, while all proselytizing among Zoroastrians was strictly forbidden. stern During the truces (546-562) great changes had taken !- place in the East, where a powerful empire had been formed ests in the northern steppes by the Turks, whose name then, for the first time, became known in the West. The khakdn of the Turks, whom the Greeks call Silzibulos and the Arabs (after the Persians) name Sinjibu, took from the Hephthalites the right bank of the Oxus, while Khosrau (seemingly in alliance with the khakan, whose daughter he wedded) occupied the left bank (c. 560). Thus Bactria, from which the Sasanians had suffered so much, was at length embodied in their empire, and Per6z was fully avenged. 1 But the friendship of Turks and Persians was soon changed to that hostility which has long made the rulers of Turkestan and the deserts appear the natural enemies of the lords of Khorasdn. Khosrau must have made other conquests about the same time, for in the negotiations with Rome the Persian representative boasts that his master had conquered ten nations, and tradition enumerates the conquest, or rather recovery, of seven eastern lands. These statements must be taken with some discount, and it is not to be believed that Khosrau really ruled in Afghanistan or Sind, as tradition says, though he doubtless widened and secured the eastern limits of the empire. 2 About 570 an expedition was sent against Yemen, which the Christian Abyssinians had conquered in 525. A native prince invited Khosrau to expel the Blacks, and, after some hesitation, he sent a small force under Vahriz which easily effected this object. Persian rule was nominally maintained in Yemen till the time of Islam, and tribute was paid more or less irregularly ; but, as the Persians were not a seafaring people, this remote province beyond the waters was of no practical use to them in the way of diverting trade from the hands of the Romans. Khosrau had pre sumably hoped otherwise, for affairs of trade, especially the overland silk trade in inner Asia, had considerable influence on Sasdnian policy. About 551 Khosrau had to deal with a rebellion of his son Anoshazddh, who was then in disgrace in Susiana ; hearing that his father was dangerously ill, he claimed the crown, leaning on the Christians, whose religion was that of his mother. The rebel was easily overpowered and taken ; his punishment was not death, but such a partial blinding as made him unfit to reign. Second In his last years Khosrau had again to face the Romans. Roman The Roman alliance with the Turkish khakan, the efforts of Khosrau to hamper their intercourse with that potent ate, now his dangerous foe, the annoyance of the Christian empire at the fall of the Christian realm in Yemen, and the refusal of Justin II. (565-578) to pay the stipulated subsidy were all pretexts for war, but the decisive thing was that all Armenia suddenly threatened to become Roman. There Avere already plans of rebellion among the 1 A curious proof of the late character of Persian tradition is that it regards the Oxus as having always divided Iran and Turan, and the Turks as having always been next neighbours of Persia. - Purely fabulous exploits, like the conquest of Ceylon, mean only that to the Persians Khosrau, like Bahrain V., was lord of the whole world. Armenian nobles when an outburst of popular fanaticism 546-589. was caused by the attempt to erect a fire-temple in the capital Dovin, and the Persian Siiren 3 was slain (spring 571). The rebels and the king of Iberia turned to Con stantinople, and were taken under the protection of the incapable emperor, who fancied that he could regain both countries. This, of course, was a declaration of war. The events that followed are known from good contemporary sources, but cannot be arranged in clear chronological order. One of the first operations was an unsuccessful siege of Nisibis by the Romans. Khosrau, on the other hand, took Dara in 573, after a siege of six ^onths, and was joined beneath its walls by his captain Adharmahan, returning from a successful campaign in Syria on the model of that of 540, in which he had destroyed Apamea. 4 Tiberius, who with the empress Sophia held the reins of power in Constantinople and was recognized as co-regent in the end of 574, desired peace; but Armenia was ex cluded from the three years truce that he procured. In 575 Khosrau penetrated through that country into Cappa- docia, and, though he had to retire before the Romans and leave his camp to be pillaged, he escaped safely, burning Sebastia and Melitene on the way. The Romans pressed forward and spent the winter in Persian Armenia, but were driven back next year ; they had not even secured the sympathy of the Monophysite population. Even beyond Armenia the war broke out again before the truce had expired, and the Romans conducted it with no more humanity than the Persians, leading captive the Christian inhabitants of Arzanene, and making it a special favour to give them a place in Cyprus (577). Negotia tions for peace were frequent ; the Romans saw that it was vain to try to hold Armenia and Iberia, and might even have consented to give up the temporal and spiritual heads of the rebellion who had taken refuge at Constan tinople, but they very naturally would not make peace without recovering Dara. So things stood when Tiberius became sole emperor, and some months later Khosrau died (c. February 579). Hormizd IV., son of Khosrau by the Turkish princess, HormM was a proud enterprising prince. The Greeks speak ill of I ^ r - him, and indeed were much offended from the first that he neglected the usual courtesy of formally announcing his accession at Constantinople. Persian tradition makes him ill-disposed and a shedder of blood, and we know that he put his brothers to death when lie took the throne, but that, as the contemporary Christian narrator says, was a Persian custom. On the other hand, tradition acknowledges the strict impartial justice with which he upheld the cause of the poor against the great. It was the great man who felt his severity. In the army, too, he was careful of the plebeian troops, and lowered the status of the aristocratic cataphracts. Much to his honour is his reply to the priests when they asked him to withdraw his favour from the Christians. " As our royal throne," he said, " cannot stand on its front legs alone, so our rule cannot stand and be firm if we turn against us the Christians and members of other alien religions. Cease, therefore, your attacks on the Christians and follow zealously good works, that the Christians and others of alien faith may see them, and give praise and be drawn towards your faith." In many respects Hormizd seems to have resembled Yazdegerd I., whose fate, too, he shared ; the misfortune was that he had not his father s tact in managing the nobles and the clergy. The Avar with Rome Avent on throughout his reign with A-arying fortune. There Avas a serious Avar, too, with the Turks, but over these, or rather over one of their vassals, the Persian general Bahrain Ch6bin gained so complete 3 A member of the same house with the conqueror of Crassus. 4 Part of the captive Apameaus were settled in Xew Antioch.