NEW CONFLICT WITH ROME
He had certainly reduced the empire to tolerable order by the time the war with the Romans began. There had been much treating over terms, both parties had violated compacts more or less, and the only question was whether either of them was desirous of finding a casus belli. This was the case with Kavadh. In the summer of 502 he inaugurated that era of hideous strife which so reduced the strength of both Persia and Eastern Rome as to make possible the subsequent victories of the Arabs. In August he took Theodosiopolis (Karin or Erzerum), the capital of Roman Armenia, without a blow. On the 10th of January, 503, Amida fell after a three months’ siege, and was frightfully punished for its resistance. Myriads of the inhabitants were slaughtered, as we know from the good accounts we have in existing contemporary Syrian sources.
In this war, of which very full contemporary accounts have come down to us, especially from Syrian sources, the Roman operations were conducted without the necessary energy, and lacked the direction of a single commander. Mesopotamia was fearfully ravaged. In 504 the Romans regained possession of Amida, after a long siege, by treaty, or more correctly speaking by purchase. After many battles and sieges peace was concluded in the August of 506, a peace which left everything in statu quo ante. The Romans once more undertook to pay an annual contribution towards the maintenance of the fortifications in the Caucasus. The Persians are said to have been induced to conclude peace by a war with the “Huns.”
[506-554 A.D.]
From the vague fashion in which the Greek authors of that time use the word “Huns” we cannot tell which of the tribes of northern barbarians is here meant. That Kavadh was at this time involved in serious difficulties at home or abroad may be inferred from the fact that he did not forcibly prevent a gross violation of the treaty of peace on the part of the emperor Anastasius, who converted the little village of Dara, close upon the frontier, into a great fortress intended to keep Nisibis in check. There was no further outbreak of hostilities during the life-time of Anastasius; but Justin I (July the 9th, 518-August the 1st, 527) appears to have intermitted the payment of the moneys stipulated to Persia.
In return Kavadh incited the Arabs to make predatory raids into Roman territory, and Roman troops once more invaded and ravaged Armenia. In addition, violent quarrels arose about the Caucaso-Pontic districts, over which both sides claimed dominion. This time, however, Kavadh was little disposed towards war; perhaps he had realised that he could hardly hope to gain any permanent advantage. In the perpetual renewal of negotiations he had only one main object in view; he was anxious to procure the succession for Chosroes, the best beloved of his sons and certainly the most capable of ruling the empire, although he was not the eldest; and for this purpose he wished for a kind of guarantee from the emperor, which should take the form of an adoption of Chosroes by the latter. Negotiations concerning this and other matters were carried on at Nisibis. If matters went as they are represented to have gone, the Romans acted most perversely; in any case the negotiations had no other result than to put both parties out of humour. The chiefs of the Roman embassy escaped with no worse than degradation, the Persians were executed, though personally they deserved well of the king. These negotiations took place in 525 or 526; the war began again before the death of Justin. There was hard fighting on the frontier as early as the summer of 527, the Romans making a vain assault on Nisibis, and the Persians an equally fruitless attempt on Dara.
EXPLOITS OF MUNDHIR
In these many years of war, with frequent pauses for negotiation, Belisarius first comes into prominence as a commander. One noteworthy event, among others, is Mundhir’s great invasion of Syria. This Mundhir was the Arab vassal-prince of Hira, of the same line as the prince of the same name. He seems before this to have grown so powerful as to rouse Kavadh’s apprehensions, and the latter therefore deprived him, either wholly or in part, of his dominions for a time, in favour of Harith, a member of the much-ramified family of the Kinda kings. The statement that this event bore some relation to the Mazdakite troubles is hardly probable.
On the outbreak of the war with Rome, however, Kavadh restored the whole of his former dominions to the tried warrior Mundhir. In the spring of 529 the latter invaded Syria, laid the whole country waste as far as Antioch, and carried off troops of captives that he might secure their ransom. He was a savage who in one day slaughtered four hundred nuns from a Syrian nunnery in honour of his goddess Zuhara (the planet Venus). In the same year his rival Harith went to war with him, and Mundhir caused a number of members of the princely family of Kinda, who had fallen into his hands, to be put to death at Hira. For half a century he was the terror of Roman subjects, troubling himself little to inquire whether peace prevailed or not, till at length he fell in battle against the Roman prince of the Arabs, Harith, the son of Jabala (June, 554), whose captive son he had likewise sacrificed to Zuhara.
[531-540 A.D.]
It was Mundhir who induced Kavadh, after an interval, to undertake a campaign in Syria itself (531). The Persians advanced far to the north along the right bank of the Euphrates, but were compelled to retreat by Belisarius. A battle was fought at Callinicus (Rakka), near the frontier that is, in which Belisarius was totally defeated; but the Persian commander was nevertheless obliged to return home. The Persians gained some successes in Mesopotamia the same year, and had almost reduced the great fortress of Martyropolis (Maiferkat, Arabic Mayafarikin) when tidings came of the death of the king, and brought about a truce.
A few years before his death Kavadh had brought the Mazdakites to a horrible end. The sect seems to have grown so powerful that it could no longer be tolerated; for, in spite of all its theoretic idealism it threatened to subvert the foundations of society and the state. The catastrophe, which was accompanied by lavish bloodshed, took place in 528 or 529, under the orders of Prince Chosroes, acting in agreement with the king.
Kavadh died on the 13th of September, 531, aged eighty-two. He certainly destined Chosroes for his successor; and according to a report we may well credit, he had him crowned on his death-bed. Chosroes I (Chosrau), who bears the surname of Anosharvan, “the blessed,” was undoubtedly a great king. It is true that he was by no means the ideal king that Orientals make him out to have been, but neither does he bear the title of “the just” without due reason.
CHOSROES “THE JUST”
The negotiation taken in hand on his accession led in the course of a year to an “eternal peace” (September, 532). The Romans agreed to make a large annual payment and other concessions, the Persians gave up some castles in Lazistan (the ancient Colchis, at the eastern extremity of the Black Sea). The conclusion of peace was evidently a matter of great moment to the Persian king. He probably availed himself at once of this breathing space to protect his frontiers from barbarians of all kinds. Tradition is certainly right in attributing to him comprehensive measures for the defence of the Caucasus and northeastern frontier, among which was the forcible transplantation of unruly tribes.