The party in power set his son Ardashir III, a child of seven, in his place; and an epoch of unspeakable confusion ensued, in which the children and women on the throne served only as a pretext for the ambitions of contesting nobles. During Ardashir’s reign the cross, which had been sent back from Ctesiphon to Heraclius through the head of the Nestorian church, was solemnly set up again by him in Jerusalem. The festival of the Elevation of the Cross on the 14th of September still keeps that joyful day in remembrance (629).
The government at Ctesiphon was powerless. The Khazars invaded and ravaged the empire. Possibly it was at this time that Chosroes, the son of Kavadh and grandson of Hormuzd IV, who had grown to manhood among the Turks, first tried to establish his throne in Khorasan. He was killed in a few months, but a mightier than he, the victorious general Shahrbaraz, grasped at the crown. In a personal interview at Arabissus in Cappadocia (June, 629) he seems to have secured the assent of Heraclius, who must have been deeply interested in weakening the hostile empire by fostering internecine discord. Shahrbaraz then marched with a small force upon Ctesiphon, and the famous defender of the empire took the city of its kings by the treasonable aid of some of the principal inhabitants. The city was given over to plunder, murder, and horrors of every kind; and the boy Ardashir was slain on April 27, 630. But on the ninth of June, Shahrbaraz himself fell a victim of the jealousy and legitimism of his compeers. His corpse was dragged through the street; and tradition heaps grotesque irony on the man who would be king and could not, because he was not of the legitimate line.
[630-633 A.D.]
A woman, Boran, the daughter of Chosroes II, was next raised to the throne. She seems to have formally concluded peace with Heraclius at last; on what terms we do not know, but probably the peace with Maurice was simply ratified anew. At all events, Nisibis remained Persian.
Boran only reigned until about the autumn of 631. She was succeeded at Ctesiphon, probably after the brief intermediate reign of a prince, Peroz by name, by her sister Azarmidokht. At Nisibis, however, the troops of the murdered Shahrbaraz set up Hormuzd V, a grandson of Chosroes II, who held his ground in that district for some time (in the years 631 and 632). Azarmidokht was overthrown by Rustem, the mighty hereditary crown-general of Khorasan, whose father she had caused to be put to death. From the confused accounts of this time of confusion we cannot gather with any certainty who was king or who pretender in the capital or provinces, nor determine the date or even the sequence of these “reigns.”
It is certain that after Azarmidokht one Ferrukhzadh (or Khorrezadh) Chosroes was for some time accounted king at Ctesiphon. He was probably a child, and according to some authorities was the only son of Chosroes II who had escaped the general butchery. But others of the men in power set up another child at Persis, Yezdegerd III, son of Shahriyar and grandson of Chosroes II, and crowned him in the Fire temple of Ardashir (in the second half of 632 or the first half of 633). He was presently acknowledged in the capital, Chosroes having been put to death. No lasting resistance appears to have been encountered in other provinces.
ANARCHY AND CHAOS
No one could now dream of a real restoration of the fearfully distracted empire; but at least a grandson of Chosroes, who did not trace his descent from the parricide Sheroe, was sole king once more. He was consecrated at Istakhr, the home of the dynasty; and the mighty Rustem stood at his side. A change for the better seems really to have ensued, but it was no more than a brief respite. A foe destined to prove more formidable than Julian or Heraclius was already knocking at the gates of the empire. In the internal disorders which had distracted Ctesiphon, the loss of Yemen, and a few of the empire’s possessions in northeastern Arabia to the Moslems, had probably passed almost unnoticed.
The Moslems, however, were soon close at hand. The Bekr Bedouins had made raids upon the royal dominions several times since the battle of Dhu Kar. After a while Muthanna, one of their bravest chiefs, became a convert to Islam, and with that force behind them their attacks grew bolder. Then (probably in 633) the mighty Khalid, after subduing the insurrections in Arabia, appeared with a small force on the lower Euphrates to conduct the operations of these same Bedouins. Persian Arabs and imperial troops were defeated in small engagements, and soon a number of border forts were in the hands of the Moslems. The inhabitants of the regions west of the Euphrates, who were all Christians, and, like all the Christians about the Euphrates and Tigris, felt little loyalty to the empire, submitted to the victors and even undertook to supply them with information.
ARAB INCURSIONS
[633-637 A.D.]
The Arabs were already beginning to rove on the far side of the Euphrates; they plundered Baghdad, then a village, while a fair was being held there, as well as other places on the right bank of the Tigris. But Khalid presently received orders (the commencement of the summer of 634) to start for Syria, the conquest of which was at the time a matter of greater consequence to the caliph. His successor, Abu Obaid of Taif, brought some reinforcements with him; but when at length a regular Persian army came on the scene, the Moslems, in spite of their heroic valour, were completely defeated in the “battle of the Bridge,” on the Euphrates, November 26th, 634. After their leader had fallen Muthanna had great difficulty in extricating the remains of his army. Most of the Moslem conquests were lost without further ado. After some hesitation Omar (caliph since August 23rd, 634) resolved to send more troops to Irak. He appealed simultaneously to the greed and piety of the Arabs, urging them in the same breath to win the treasures of Chosroes and the joys of paradise. A larger Persian army was now defeated for the first time (at Buwaib, 635 or 636); the commander, a member of the house of Mihran, was among the slain.
The Arabs were once more masters of the country west of the Euphrates. They found an energetic and cautious leader in Saad, son of Abu Wakkas, one of the first followers of the prophet. The lords at Ctesiphon now realised the great danger that impended over the empire. The news of the battle on the Yarmuk (August 20th, 636) which cost Heraclius, the conqueror of Persia, the whole of Syria, probably contributed to their fears. Rustem, therefore, took the head of a great army in person. As a token of the gravity of the struggle he bore with him the sacred banner of the empire (dirafshi Kaviyan), which was supposed to have come down from time immemorial. He also took with him a number of elephants, according to the Persian usage in war. At the approach of the advanced guard of the Persian army Saad evacuated his position and retreated to Kadisiya, on the verge of the desert (south or southwest of Hira). For months the armies confronted one another, with only a little space between. The Arabic force was certainly much the smaller of the two; they could not have fed a large army in that place, for they were dependent on the produce of their raids and such provisions as the caliph sent after them from Medina.
At length the great battle of Kadisiya (end of 636 or 637) was fought. It lasted for several days; Saad was ill, but nevertheless took the command. The Persians were, for the most part, much better armed than the Arabs, but the courage of the latter was wound up to the highest pitch. They were terrified by the elephants at first, but as they pressed on gallantly for all their fears, the animals appear to have got beyond control and to have become a source of confusion to the Persian ranks. The great majority of the Persians certainly behaved with cowardice, after their ancient fashion; but the Arabs had hard work before the foe was defeated, Rustem himself slain, and the banner of the Persian Empire taken.