The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World Volume VII Part 12

As a preliminary step, he suggested to his lieutenant in Lazica that he should contrive the a.s.sa.s.sination of Gubazes, the Lazic king, in whom he saw an obstacle to his project. Phabrizus, however, failed in his attempt to execute this commission; and his failure naturally produced the immediate revolt of the province, which threw itself once more into the arms of Rome, and, despite the existing treaty with the Persians, was taken by Justinian under his protection.

The Lazic war, which commenced in consequence of this act of Justinian's, continued almost without intermission for nine years--from A.D. 549 to 557. Its details are related at great length by Procopius and Agathias, who view the struggle as one which vitally concerned the interests of their country. According to them, Chosroes was bent upon holding Lazica in order to construct at the mouth of the Phasis a great naval station and a.r.s.enal, from which his fleets might issue to command the commerce or ravage the sh.o.r.es of the Black Sea. There is no doubt that the country was eminently fitted for such a purpose. The soil is for the most part richly fertile; the hills are everywhere covered with forests of n.o.ble trees; the Rion (Phasis) is deep and broad towards its mouth; and there are other streams also which are navigable. If Chosroes entertained the intentions ascribed to him, and had even begun the collection of timber for s.h.i.+p-building at Petra on the Euxine as early as A.D. 549, we cannot be surprised at the att.i.tude a.s.sumed by Rome, or at her persistent efforts to recover possession of the Lazic territory.

The war was opened by an attack upon the great centre of the Persian power, Petra. This place, which was strongly situated on a craggy rock projecting into the sea, had been carefully fortified by Justinian before Lazica pa.s.sed into the possession of Chosroes, and had since received important additions to its defences at the hands of the Persians. It was sufficiently provisioned, and was defended by a body of fifteen hundred men. Dagisthseus, the Roman commander, besieged it with his entire force of eight thousand men, and succeeded by his constant attacks in reducing the garrison to little more than a fourth of its original number. Baffled in one attempt to effect a breach by means of a mine, he had contrived to construct another, and might have withdrawn his props, destroyed the wall, and entered the place, had he not conceived the idea of bargaining with the emperor for a specific reward in case he effected the capture. Whilst he waited for his messenger to bring a reply, the Persian general, Memeroes, forced the pa.s.ses from Iberia into Lazica, and descended the valley of the Phasis with an army of 30,000 men. Dagisthalus in alarm withdrew, and Petra was relieved and revictualled. The walls were repaired hastily with sandbags, and the further defence was entrusted to a fresh garrison of 3000 picked soldiers. Mermeroes then, finding it difficult to obtain supplies for his large army, retired into Persarmenia, leaving only five thousand Persians in the country besides the garrison of Petra. This small force was soon afterwards surprised by the combined Romans and Lazi, who completely defeated it, destroying or making prisoners almost the entire number.

In the ensuing year, A.D. 550, the Persians took the field under a fresh general, Chorianes, who brought with him a considerable army, composed of Persians and Alans. The allied Romans and Lazi, under Dagisthseus and Gubazes, gave battle to this new foe on the banks of the Hippis (the Tschenikal?); and though the Lazi, who had insisted on taking the lead and fighting separately, were at the first encounter routed by the Persian horse, yet in the end Roman discipline and stubbornness triumphed. Their solid line of footmen, bristling with spears, offered an impervious barrier to the cavalry of the enemy, which did not dare to charge, but had recourse to volleys of missiles. The Romans responded with the same; and the battle raged for a while on something like even terms, the superior rapidity of the Asiatics being counterbalanced by the better protection which their s.h.i.+elds gave to the Europeans, until at last, by a stroke of fortune, Rome obtained the victory. A chance arrow killed Chorianes, and his army instantly fled. There was a short struggle at the Persian camp; but the Romans and Lazi captured it. Most of the Persians were here put to the sword; the few who escaped quitted Lazica and returned to their own country.

Soon afterwards Dagisthseus was superseded by Bessas, and the siege of Petra was recommenced. The strength of the place had been considerably increased since the former attack upon it. A new wall of great height and solidity had been built upon a framework of wood in the place which Dagisthaeus had so nearly breached; the Roman mines had been filled up with gravel; arms, offensive and defensive, had been collected in extraordinary abundance; a stock of flour and of salted meat had been laid in sufficient to support the garrison of 3000 men for five years; and a store of vinegar, and of the pulse from which it was made, had likewise been acc.u.mulated. The Roman general began by attempting to repeat the device of his predecessor, attacking the defences in the same place and by the same means; but, just as his mine was completed, the new wall with its framework of wood sank quietly into the excavation, without suffering any disturbance of its parts, while enough of it still remained above the surface to offer an effectual bar to the a.s.sailants.

It seemed hopeless to recommence the mine in this place, and elsewhere the nature of the ground made mining impossible; some other mode of attack had therefore to be adopted, or the siege must have been abandoned. Rome generally took towns by the battering-ram; but the engines in use were of such heavy construction that they could not be dragged up an ascent like that upon which Petra stood. Bessas was in extreme perplexity, when some Hunnic allies, who happened to be in his camp, suggested a mode of constructing a ram, as effective as the ordinary one, which should nevertheless be so light that it could be carried on the shoulders of forty men. Three such machines were quickly made; and under their blows the wall would soon have given way, had not the defenders employed against them the terrible agency of fire, showering upon them from the walls lighted casks of sulphur, bitumen, and naphtha, which last was known to the Greeks of Colchis as "Medea's oil." Uncertain of succeeding in this attack, the Roman general gallantly led a scaling party to another portion of the walls, and, mounting at the head of his men, attempted to make good his footing on the battlements. Thrown headlong to the ground, but undeterred by his fall, he was about to repeat his attempt, when he found it needless.

Almost simultaneously his troops had in two other places penetrated into the town. One band had obtained an entrance by scaling the rocks in a place supposed to be inaccessible; a second owed its success to a combination of accidents. First, it had happened that a gap had shown itself in the piece of the wall which sank into the Roman mine, and a violent struggle had ensued between the a.s.sailants and defenders at this place.

Then, while this fight was going on, the fire which the Persians were using against the Roman battering-rams had been by a s.h.i.+ft of wind blown back upon themselves, and the wooden structure from which they fought had been ignited, and in a short time entirely consumed, together with its inmates. At sight of the conflagration, the Persians who stood in the gap had lost heart, and had allowed the Roman troops to force their way through it into Petra. Thus fell the great Lazic fortress, after a resistance which is among the most memorable in history. Of the three thousand defenders, seven hundred had been killed in the siege; one thousand and seventy were destroyed in the last a.s.sault. Only seven hundred and thirty were made prisoners; and of these no fewer than seven hundred and twelve were found to be wounded. The remaining five hundred threw themselves into the citadel, and there resisted to the last extremity, refusing all terms of capitulation, and maintaining themselves against an overwhelming force, until at last by sword and fire they perished to a man.

The siege of Petra was prolonged far into the winter, and the year A.D.

551 had begun ere the resistance ceased. Could the gallant defenders have maintained themselves for a few more weeks, they might not improbably have triumphed. Mermeroes, the Persian commander of two years previously, took the field with the commencement of spring, and, at the head of a large body of cavalry, supported by eight elephants, began his march to the coast, hoping to relieve the beleaguered garrison.

Unfortunately he was too late. On his march he heard of the capture of Petra, and of its complete destruction by Bessas, who feared lest the Persians should again occupy the dangerous post. Mermeroes had no difficulty in establis.h.i.+ng Persian rule through almost the whole of Lazica. The Romans did not dare to meet him in the field. Archssopolis, indeed, repulsed his attack; but no other important place in the entire country remained subject to the Empire. Qubazes and his followers had to hide themselves in the recesses of the mountains. Quartering his troops chiefly on the upper Phasis, about Kutais and its neighborhood, Mermeroes strengthened his hold on the country by building forts or receiving their submission, and even extended the Persian dominion beyond Lazica into Scymnia and Suania. Still Rome, with her usual tenacity, maintained a hold upon certain tracts; and Gubazes, faithful to his allies even in the extremity of their depression, maintained a guerilla war, and hoped that some day fortune would cease to frown on him.

Meanwhile, at Byzantium, fresh negotiations were in progress, and hopes were entertained of an arrangement by which all the differences between the two great powers would be satisfactorily adjusted. Isdigunas again represented his master at the Byzantine court, and conducted the diplomatic contest with skill and ability. Taxing Justinian with more than one infraction of the truce concluded in A.D. 545, he demanded the payment of a lump sum of two thousand six hundred pounds of gold, and expressed the willingness of Chosroes to conclude on these terms a fresh truce for five years, to take effect from the delivery of the money.

With regard to the extent of country whereto the truce should apply, he agreed to an express limitation of its range--the settled provinces of both empires should be protected by it, but Lazica and the country of the Saracens should be excluded from its operation. Justinian consented to these terms, despite the opposition of many of his subjects, who thought that Rome degraded herself by her repeated payments of money to Persia, and accepted a position little better than that of a Persian tributary.

Thus the peace of A.D. 551 did nothing towards ending the Lazic war, which, after languis.h.i.+ng through the whole of A.D. burst out again with renewed vigor in the spring of A.D. 553. Mermeroes in that year advanced from Kutais against Telephis, a strong fort in the possession of Rome, expelled the commandant, Martinus, by a stratagem, pressed forward against the combined Roman forces, which fled before him from Ollaria, and finally drove them to the coast and cooped them up in "the Island,"

a small tract near the mouth of the Phasis between that stream and the Doconus. On his return he was able to reinforce a garrison which he had established at Onoguris in the immediate neighborhood of Archseopolis, as a means of annoying and weakening that important station. He may naturally have hoped in one or two more campaigns to have driven the last Roman out of the country and to have attached Lazica permanently to the empire of the great king.

Unluckily, however, for Persia, the fatigues which the gallant veteran had undergone in the campaign of A.D. 553 proved more than his aged frame could endure, and he had scarcely reached Kutais when he was seized with a fatal malady, to which he succ.u.mbed in the course of the winter. Chosroes appointed as his successor a certain Nachoragan, who is said to have been a general of repute, but who proved himself quite unequal to the position which he was called upon to fill, and in the course of two years ruined the Persian cause in Lazica. The failure was the more signal from the fact that exactly at the time of his appointment circ.u.mstances occurred which seriously shook the Roman influence over the Lazi, and opened a prospect to Persia transcending aught that she could reasonably have hoped. This was nothing less than a most serious quarrel between Gubazes, the Lazic king, and some of the princ.i.p.al Roman commanders--a quarrel which involved consequences fatal to both parties. Gubazes, disgusted with the negligence or incapacity of the Roman chiefs, had made complaint of them to Justinian; they had retaliated by accusing him of meditating desertion, and had obtained the emperor's consent to his arrest, and to the use of violence if he offered resistance. Armed with this mandate, they contrived in a little time to fasten a quarrel upon him; and, when he declined to do as they required, they drew their swords upon him and slew him. The Lazic nation was, naturally enough, alienated by this outrage, and manifested an inclination to throw itself absolutely into the arms of Persia. The Romans, dispirited at the att.i.tude of their allies, and at variance among themselves, could for some months after Gubazes' death have offered but little resistance to an enterprising enemy. So demoralized were they that an army of 50,000 is said to have fled in dismay when attacked by a force of Persians less than a twelfth of their number, and to have allowed their camp to be captured and plundered. During this critical time Nachoragan remained inactive in Iberia, and contented himself with sending messengers into Lazica to announce his near approach and to animate and encourage his party. The result was such as might have been expected. The Lazi, finding that Persia made no effort to take advantage of their abstention, and that Rome despite of it maintained possession of the greater portion of their country, came to the conclusion that it would be unwise to desert their natural allies on account of a single outrage, however monstrous, and agreed to renew their close alliance with Rome on condition that the murderers of Gubazes should be punished, and his brother, Tzathes, appointed king in his place. Justinian readily gave his consent; and the year A.D. 555 saw the quarrel ended, and the Lazi once more heartily in accord with, their Roman protectors.

It was when affairs were in this state, and he had exactly missed his opportunity, that Nachoragan took the field, and, advancing from Iberia into the region about Kutai's with an army amounting to 60,000 men,1 made preparations for carrying on the war with vigor. He was opposed by Martinus, Justin, and Babas, the two former of whom with the bulk of the Roman forces occupied the region on the lower Phasis, known as "the Island," while Babas held the more central position of Archseopolis.

Nachoragan, after losing about 2,000 of his best troops in the vicinity of this last-named place, resolved to challenge the Romans to a decisive encounter by attacking the important post of Phasis at the mouth of the river. With some skill he succeeded in pa.s.sing the Roman camp on the island, and in establis.h.i.+ng himself in the plain directly south of Phasis before the Roman generals guessed his purpose. They, however, were able by a quick movement to throw themselves into the town, and the struggle became one between fairly balanced forces, and was conducted with great obstinacy. The town was defended on the south by an outer palisade, a broad ditch protected by sharp stakes and full of water, and an inner bulwark of considerable height but constructed wholly of wood.

The Phasis guarded it on the north; and here a Roman fleet was stationed which lent its aid to the defenders at the two extremities of their line. The yards of the s.h.i.+ps were manned with soldiers, and boats were hung from them containing slingers, archers, and even workers of catapults, who delivered their weapons from an elevation exceeding that of the towers. But Nachoragan had the advantage of numbers; his men soon succeeded in filling up part of the ditch; and the wooden bulwark could scarcely have long resisted his attacks, if the contest had continued to be wholly one of brute strength. But the Roman commander, Martinus, finding himself inferior in force, brought finesse and stratagem to his aid. Pretending to receive intelligence of the sudden arrival of a fresh Roman army from Byzantium, he contrived that the report should reach Nachoragan and thereby cause him to divide his troops, and send half of them to meet the supposed reinforcements. Then, when the Persian general nevertheless renewed his a.s.sault, Martinus sent secretly 5,000 men under Justin to a short distance from Phasis; and this detachment, appearing suddenly when the contest was going on at the wall, was naturally taken for the newly arrived army, and caused a general panic. The Persians, one and all, took to flight; a general sally was made by the Romans in Phasis; a rout and a carnage followed, which completely disheartened the Persian leader, and led him to give up his enterprise. Having lost nearly one-fourth of his army, Nachoragan drew off to Kutai's, and shortly afterwards, leaving the command of the Persians in Lazica to Vaphrizes, retired to winter quarters in Iberia.

The failure of Nachoragan, following closely upon the decision of the Lazi to maintain their alliance with Rome in spite of the murder of Gubazes, seems to have convinced the Persian monarch that, in endeavoring to annex Lazica, he had engaged in a hopeless enterprise, and that it would be the most prudent and judicious course to yield to the inevitable, and gradually withdraw from a position which was untenable. Having meted out to Nachoragan the punishment usually a.s.signed to unsuccessful commanders in Persia, he sent an amba.s.sador to Byzantium in the spring of A.D. 556, and commenced negotiations which he intended to be serious. Diplomacy seems to have been as averse in the days of Chosroes as in our own to an undignified rapidity of proceeding.

Hence, though there could be little to debate where both parties were substantially at one, the negotiations begun in May A.D. 556 were not concluded till after the commencement of the following year. A complete suspension of hostilities was then agreed upon, to extend to Lazica no less than to the other dominions of the two monarchs. In Lazica each party was to keep what it possessed, territory, cities, and castles. As this joint occupation was scarcely suitable for a permanent arrangement, it was provided that the two belligerents should, during the continuance of the truce, proceed to settle the terms on which a lasting peace might be established.

An interval of five years elapsed before the happy result, for which both parties had expressed themselves anxious, was accomplished. It is uncertain how Chosroes was occupied during this period; but there are some grounds for believing that he was engaged in the series of Oriental wars whereof we shall have to speak presently. Success appears to have crowned his arms wherever he directed them; but he remained undazzled by his victories, and still retained the spirit of moderation which had led him in A.D. 557 to conclude the general truce. He was even prepared, after five years of consideration, to go further in the line of pacific policy on which he had then entered, and, in order to secure the continuance of his good relations with Rome, was willing to relinquish all claim to the sovereignty of Lazica. Under these circ.u.mstances, amba.s.sadors of the highest rank, representing the two powers, met on the frontier between Daras and Nisibis, proclaimed the power and explained the motives of their respective sovereigns, and after a lengthy conference formulated a treaty of peace. The terms, which are given at length by a writer of the succeeding generation, may be briefly expressed as follows: (1) the Persians were to withdraw from Lazica, to give up all claim to it, and to hand over its possession to the Romans; (2) they were in return to receive from Rome an annual sum of 30,000 pieces of gold, the amount due for the first seven years being paid in advance; (3) the Christians in Persia were guaranteed the full and free exercise of their religion, but were forbidden to make converts from the disciples of Zoroaster; (4) commercial intercourse was to be allowed between the two empires, but the merchants were restricted to the use of certain roads and certain emporia; (5) diplomatic intercourse was to be wholly free, and the goods of amba.s.sadors were to be exempt from duty; (6) Daras was to continue a fortified town, but no new fortresses were to be built upon the frontier by either nation, and Daras itself was not to be made the headquarters of the Prefect of the East, or to be held by an unnecessarily large garrison; (7) all disputes arising between the two nations were to be determined by courts of arbitration; (8) the allies of the two nations were to be included in the treaty, and to partic.i.p.ate in its benefits and obligations; (9) Persia was to undertake the sole charge of maintaining the Caspian Gates against the Huns and Alans; (10) the peace was made for a period of fifty years. It has been held that by this treaty Justinian consented to become a tributary of the Persian Empire; and undoubtedly it was possible for Oriental vanity to represent the arrangement made in this light. But the million and a half, which Rome undertook to pay in the course of the next fifty years, might well be viewed by the Romans as an outlay for which they received an ample return in the cession to them of the Persian part of Lazica, and in the termination of their obligation to contribute towards the maintenance of the Caspian Gates. If there was any real danger of those results following from the Persian occupation of Lazica which both nations antic.i.p.ated, the sum must be considered to have been one of the best investments ever made by a State. Even if we believe the dangers apprehended to have been visionary, yet it cannot be viewed as an exorbitant price to have paid for a considerable tract of fertile country, a number of strong fortresses, and the redemption of an obligation which could not with honor be disowned.

To Chosroes the advantage secured by the treaty was similar to that which Rome had obtained by the peace of A.D. 532. Being no longer under any necessity of employing his forces against the Romans in the north-west, he found himself free to act with greatly increased effect against his enemies in the east and in the south. Already, in the interval between the conclusion of the general truce and of the fifty years' peace, he had, as it seems, invaded the territories of the Ephthalites, and, with the help of the Great Khan of the Turks, inflicted upon this people, so long one of Persia's most formidable enemies, a severe defeat. According to Tabari, he actually slew the Ephthalite monarch, ravaged his territory, and pillaged his treasures.

About the same time he had also had a war with the Khazars, had overrun their country, wasted it with fire and sword, and ma.s.sacred thousands of the inhabitants. He now entertained designs against Arabia and perhaps India, countries on which he could not hope to make an impression without earnest and concentrated effort. It was doubtless with the view of extending his influence into these quarters that the Persian monarch evacuated Lazica, and bound his country to maintain peace with Rome for the next half-century.

The position of affairs in Arabia was at the time abnormal and interesting. For the most part that vast but sterile region has been the home of almost countless tribes, living independently of one another, each under its own sheikh or chief, in wild and unrestrained freedom.

Native princes have seldom obtained any widely extended dominion over the scattered population; and foreign powers have still more rarely exercised authority for any considerable period over the freedom-loving descendants of Ishmael. But towards the beginning of the sixth century of our era the Abyssinians of Axum, a Christian people, "raised" far "above the ordinary level of African barbarism" by their religion and by their constant intercourse with Rome, succeeded in attaching to their empire a large portion of the Happy Arabia, and ruled it at first from their African capital, but afterwards by means of a viceroy, whose dependence on the Negus of Abyssinia was little more than nominal.

Abraha, an Abyssinian of high rank, being deputed by the Negus to re-establish the authority of Abyssinia over the Yemen when it was shaken by a great revolt, made himself master of the country, a.s.sumed the crown, established Abyssinians in all the chief cities, built numerous churches, especially one of great beauty at Sana, and at his death left the kingdom to his eldest son, Yaksoum. An important Christian state was thus established in the Great Peninsula; and it was natural that Justinian should see with satisfaction, and Chosroes with some alarm, the growth of a power in this quarter which was sure to side with Rome and against Persia, if their rivalry should extend into these parts. Justinian had hailed with pleasure the original Abyssinian conquest, and had entered into amicable relations with both the Axumites and their colonists in the Yemen. Chosroes now resolved upon a counter movement. He would employ the quiet secured to him by the peace of A.D.

562 in a great attack upon the Abyssinian power in Arabia. He would drive the audacious Africans from the soil of Asia, and would earn the eternal grat.i.tude of the numerous tribes of the desert. He would extend Persian influence to the sh.o.r.es of the Arabian Gulf, and so confront the Romans along the whole line of their eastern boundary. He would destroy the _point d'appui_ which Rome had acquired in South-western Asia, and so at once diminish her power and augment the strength and glory of Persia.

The interference of Chosroes in the affairs of a country so distant as Western Arabia involved considerable difficulties; but his expedition was facilitated by an application which he received from a native of the district in question. Saif, the son of Dsu-Yezm, descended from the race of the old Homerite kings whom the Abyssinians had conquered, grew up at the court of Abraha in the belief that that prince, who had married his mother, was not his step-father, but his father. Undeceived by an insult which Masrouq, the true son of Abraha and successor of Yaksoum, offered him, Saif became a refugee at the court of Chosroes, and importuned the Great King to embrace his quarrel and reinstate him on the throne of his fathers. He represented the Homerite population of Yemen as groaning under the yoke of their oppressors and only waiting for an opportunity to rise in revolt and shake it off. A few thousand Persian troops, enough to form the nucleus of an army, would suffice; they might be sent by sea to the port of Aden, near the mouth of the Arabian Gulf, where the Homerites would join them in large numbers; the combined forces might then engage in combat with the Abyssinians, and destroy them or drive them from the land. Chosroes took the advice tendered him, so far at any rate as to make his expedition by sea. His s.h.i.+ps were a.s.sembled in the Persian Gulf; a certain number of Persian troops were embarked on board them; and the flotilla proceeded, under the conduct of Saif, first to the mouth of the Gulf, and then along the southern coast of Arabia to Aden. Encouraged by their presence, the Plomerites rose against their foreign oppressors; a war followed, of which the particulars have been disfigured by romance; but the result is undoubted--the Abyssinian strangers were driven from the soil of Arabia; the native race recovered its supremacy; and Saif, the descendant of the old Homerite kings, was established, as the va.s.sal or viceroy of Chosroes, on the throne of his ancestors. This arrangement, however, was not lasting. Saif, after a short reign, was murdered by his body-guard; and Chosroes then conferred the government of Yemen upon a Persian officer, who seems to have borne the usual t.i.tle of Marzpan, and to have been in no way distinguished above other rulers of provinces. Thus the Homerites in the end gained nothing by their revolt but a change of masters. They may, however, have regarded the change as one worth making, since it gave them the mild sway of a tolerant heathen in lieu of the persecuting rule of Christian bigots.

According to some writers, Chosroes also, in his later years, sent an expedition by sea against some portion of Hindustan, and received a cession of territory from an Indian monarch. But the country of the monarch is too remote for belief, and the ceded provinces seem to have belonged to Persia previously. It is therefore, perhaps, most probable that friendly intercourse has been exaggerated into conquest, and the reception of presents from an Indian potentate metamorphosed into the gain of territory. Some authorities do not a.s.sign to Chosroes any Indian dominion; and it is at least doubtful whether he made any expedition in this direction.

A war, however, appears certainly to have occupied Chosroes about this period on his north-eastern frontier. The Turks had recently been advancing in strength and drawing nearer to the confines of Persia. They had extended their dominion over the great Ephthalite kingdom, partly by force of arms, partly through the treachery of Katulphus, an Ephthalite chieftain; they had received the submission of the Sogdians, and probably of other tribes of the Transoxianian region, previously held in subjection by the Ephthalites; and they aspired to be acknowledged as a great power, the second, if not the first, in this part of Asia. It was perhaps rather with the view of picking a quarrel than in the hope of any valuable pacific result, that, about the close of A.D. 567, Diza-bul, the Turkish Khan, sent amba.s.sadors to Chosroes with proposals for the establishment of free commercial intercourse between the Turks and Persians, and even for the conclusion of a treaty of friends.h.i.+p and alliance between the two nations. Chosroes suspected the motive for the overture, but was afraid openly to reject it. He desired to discourage intercourse between his own nation and the Turks, but could devise no better mode of effecting his purpose than by burning the Turkish merchandise offered to him after he had bought it, and by poisoning the amba.s.sadors and giving out that they had fallen victims to the climate.

His conduct exasperated the Turkish Khan, and created a deep and bitter hostility between the Turks and Persians. It was at once resolved to send an emba.s.sy to Constantinople and offer to the Greek emperor the friends.h.i.+p which Chosroes had scorned. The emba.s.sy reached the Byzantine court early in A.D. 568, and was graciously received by Justin, the nephew of Justinian, who had succeeded his uncle on the imperial throne between three and four years previously. A treaty of alliance was made between the two nations; and a Roman emba.s.sy, empowered to ratify it, visited the Turkish court in the Altai mountains during the course of the next year (A.D. 569), and drew closer the bonds of friends.h.i.+p between the high contracting powers. But meanwhile Dizabul, confident in his own strength, had determined on an expedition into Persia. The Roman amba.s.sador, Zemarchus, accompanied him on a portion of his march, and witnessed his insulting treatment of a Persian envoy, sent by Chosroes to meet him and deprecate his attack. Beyond this point exact information fails us; but we may suspect that this is the expedition commemorated by Mirk-hond, wherein the Great Khan, having invaded the Persian territory in force, made himself master of Shash, Ferghana, Samarkand, Bokhara, Kesh, and Nesf, but, hearing that Hornisdas, son of Chosroes, was advancing against him at the head of a numerous army, suddenly fled, evacuating all the country that he had occupied, and retiring to the most distant portion of Turkestan. At any rate the expedition cannot have had any great success; for shortly afterwards (A.D. 571) we find Turkish amba.s.sadors once more visiting the Byzantine court, and entreating Justin to renounce the fifty years' peace and unite with them in a grand attack upon the common enemy, which, if a.s.saulted simultaneously on either side, might (they argued) be almost certainly crushed. Justin gave the amba.s.sadors no definite reply, but renewed the alliance with Dizabul, and took seriously into consideration the question whether he should not yield to the representations made to him, and renew the war which Justinian had terminated nine years previously.

There were many circ.u.mstances which urged him towards a rupture. The payments to be made under the fifty years' peace had in his eyes the appearance of a tribute rendered by Rome to Persia, which was, he thought, an intolerable disgrace. A subsidy, not very dissimilar, which Justinian had allowed the Saracenic Arabs under Persian rule, he had already discontinued; and hostilities had, in consequence, already commenced between the Persian and the Roman Saracens. The successes of Chosroes in Western Arabia had at once provoked his jealousy, and secured to Rome, in that quarter, an important ally in the great Christian kingdom of Abyssinia. The Turks of Central Asia had sought his friends.h.i.+p and offered to combine their attacks with his, if he would consent to go to war. Moreover, there was once more discontent and even rebellion in Armenia, where the proselytizing zeal of the Persian governors had again driven the natives to take up arms and raise the standard of independence. Above all, the Great King, who had warred with such success for twenty years against his uncle, was now in advanced age, and seemed to have given signs of feebleness, inasmuch as in his recent expeditions he had individually taken no part, but had entrusted the command of his troops to others. Under these circ.u.mstances, Justin, in the year A.D. 572, determined to renounce the peace made ten years earlier with the Persians, and to recommence the old struggle.

Accordingly he at once dismissed the Persian envoy, Sebocthes, with contempt, refused wholly to make the stipulated payment, proclaimed his intention of receiving the Armenian insurgents under his protection, and bade Chosroes lay a finger on them at his peril. He then appointed Marcian to the prefecture of the East, and gave him the conduct of the war which was now inevitable.

No sooner did the Persian monarch find his kingdom seriously menaced than, despite his advanced age, he immediately took the field in person.

Giving the command of a flying column of 6000 men to Adarman, a skilful general, he marched himself against the Romans, who under Marcian had defeated a Persian force, and were besieging Nisibis, forced them to raise the siege, and, pressing forward as they retired, compelled them to seek shelter within the walls of Daras, which he proceeded to invest with his main army. Meanwhile Adarman, at the head of the troops entrusted to him, crossed the Euphrates near Circesium, and, having entered Syria, carried fire and sword far and wide over that fertile province. Repulsed from Antioch, where, however, he burnt the suburbs of the town, he invaded Coelesyria, took and destroyed Apamea, and then, recrossing the great river, rejoined Chosroes before Daras. The renowned fortress made a brave defence. For about five months it resisted, without obtaining any relief, the entire force of Chosroes, who is said to have besieged it with 40,000 horse and 100,000 foot. At last, on the approach of winter, it could no longer hold out; enclosed within lines of circ.u.mvallation, and deprived of water by the diversion of its streams into new channels, it found itself reduced to extremity, and forced to submit towards the close of A.D. 573. Thus the great Roman fortress in these parts was lost in the first year of the renewed war; and Justin, alarmed at his own temerity, and recognizing his weakness, felt it necessary to retire from the conduct of affairs, and deliver the reins of empire to stronger hands. He chose as his coadjutor and successor the Count Tiberius, a Thracian by birth, who had long stood high in his confidence; and this prince, in conjunction with the Empress Sophia, now took the direction of the war.

The first need was to obtain a breathing-s.p.a.ce. The Persian king having given an opening for negotiations, advantage was taken of it by the joint rulers to send an envoy, furnished with an autograph letter from the empress, and well provided with the best persuasives of peace, who was to suggest an armistice for a year, during which a satisfactory arrangement of the whole quarrel might be agreed upon. Tiberius thought that within this s.p.a.ce he might collect an army sufficiently powerful to re-establish the superiority of the Roman arms in the east; Chosroes believed himself strong enough to defeat any force that Rome could now bring into the field. A truce for a year was therefore concluded, at the cost to Rome of 45,000 aurei; and immense efforts were at once made by Tiberius to levy troops from his more distant, provinces, or hire them from the lands beyond his borders. An army of 150,000 men was, it is said, collected from the banks of the Danube and the Rhine, from Scythia, Pannonia, Moesia, Illyric.u.m, and Isauria; a general of repute, Justinian, the son of Germa.n.u.s, was selected to command them; and the whole force was concentrated upon the eastern frontier but, after all these preparations, the Caesar's heart failed him, and, instead of offering battle to the enemy, Tiberius sent a second emba.s.sy to the Persian head-quarters, early in A.D. 575, and besought an extension of the truce. The Romans desired a short term of peace only, but wished for a general suspension of hostilities between the nations; the Persians advocated a longer interval, but insisted that the truce should not extend to Armenia. The dispute continued till the armistice for a year had run out; and the Persians had resumed hostilities and threatened Constantina before the Romans would give way. At length it was agreed that there should be peace for three years, but that Armenia should be exempt from its operation. Rome was to pay to Persia, during the continuance of the truce, the sum of 30,000 aurei annually.

No sooner was the peace concluded than Chosroes put himself at the head of his army, and, entering Armenia Proper, proceeded to crush the revolt, and to re-establish the Persian authority throughout the entire region. No resistance was offered to him; and he was able, before the close of the year, to carry his arms into the Roman territory of Armenia Minor, and even to threaten Cappadocia. Here Justinian opposed his progress; and in a partial engagement, Kurs (or Cursus), a leader of Scythians in the Roman service, obtained an advantage over the Persian rear-guard, captured the camp and the baggage, but did not succeed in doing any serious damage. Chosroes soon afterwards revenged himself by surprising and destroying a Roman camp during the night; he then took and burnt the city of Melitene (Malatiyeh); after which, as winter was approaching, he retired across the Euphrates, and returned into his own country. Hereupon Justinian seems to have invaded Persian Armenia, and to have enriched his troops with its plunder; according to some writers, he even penetrated as far as the Caspian Sea, and embarked upon its waters; he continued on Persian soil during the whole of the winter, and it was not till the spring came that he re-entered Roman territory (A.D.

576).

The campaign of A.D. 576 is somewhat obscure. The Romans seem to have gained certain advantages in Northern Armenia and Iberia, while Chosroes on his part carried the war once more into Armenia Minor, and laid siege to Theodosiopolis, which, however, he was unable to take. Negotiations were upon this resumed, and had progressed favorably to a certain, point, when news arrived of a great disaster to the Roman arms in Armenia, which changed the face of affairs and caused the Persian negotiators to break up the conference. Tam-chosro, a Persian general, had completely defeated the Roman army under Justinian. Armenia had returned to its allegiance. There seemed every reason to believe that more was to be gained by arms than by diplomacy, and that, when the three years peace had run out, the Great King might renew the general war with a prospect of obtaining important successes.

There are no military events which can be referred to the year A.D.

577. The Romans and Persians amused each other with alternate emba.s.sies during its course, and with negotiations that were not intended to have any result. The two monarchs made vast preparations; and with the spring of A.D. 578 hostilities recommenced. Chosroes is accused of having antic.i.p.ated the expiration of the truce by a period of forty days; but it is more probable that he and the Romans estimated the date of its expiration differently. However this was, it is certain that his generals, Mebodes and Sapoes, took the field in early spring with 20,000 horse, and entering the Roman Armenia laid waste the country, at the same time threatening Constantina and Theodosiopolis. Simultaneously Tamchosro, quitting Persarmenia, marched westward and plundered the country about Amida (Diarbekr). The Roman commander Maurice, who had succeeded Justinian, possessed considerable military ability. On this occasion, instead of following the ordinary plan of simply standing on the defensive and endeavoring to repulse the invaders, he took the bolder course of making a counter movement. Entering Persarmenia, which he found denuded of troops, he carried all before him, destroying the forts, and plundering the country. Though the summer heats brought on him an attack of fever, he continued without pause his destructive march; invaded and occupied Arzanene, with its stronghold, Aphumon, carried off the population to the number of 10,090, and, pressing forwards from Arzanene into Eastern Mesopotamia, took Singara, and carried fire and sword over the entire region as far as the Tigris.

He even ventured to throw a body of skirmishers across the river into Cordyene (Kurdistan); and these ravagers, who were commanded by Kurs, the Scythian, spread devastation over a district where no Roman soldier had set foot since its cession by Jovian. Agathias tells us that Chosroes was at the time enjoying his summer villeggiatura in the Kurdish hills, and saw from his residence the smoke of the hamlets which the Roman troops had fired. He hastily fled from the danger, and shut himself up within the walls of Ctesiphon, where he was soon afterwards seized with the illness which brought his life to a close.

Meanwhile Kurs, unconscious probably of the prize that had been so near his grasp, recrossed the Tigris with his booty and rejoined Maurice, who on the approach of winter withdrew into Roman territory, evacuating all his conquests excepting Arzanene. The dull time of winter was, as usual, spent in negotiations; and it was thought that a peace might have been concluded had Chosroes lived. Tiberius was anxious to recover Daras, and was willing to withdraw the Roman forces wholly from Persarmenia and Iberia, and to surrender Arzanene and Aphumon, if Daras were restored to him. He would probably have been content even to pay in addition a sum of money. Chosroes might perhaps have accepted these terms; but while the envoys empowered to propose them were on their way to his court, early in the year A.D. 579, the aged monarch died in his palace at Ctesiphon after a reign of forty-eight years.

CHAPTER XXI.

_Administration of Persia under Chosroes I. Fourfold Division of the Empire. Careful Surveillance of those entrusted with Poiver. Severe Punishment of Abuse of Trust. New System of Taxation introduced.

Correction of Abuse connected with the Military Service. Encouragement of Agriculture and Marriage. Belief of Poverty. Care for Travellers.

Encouragement of Learning. Practice of Toleration within certain Limits.

Domestic Life of Chosroes. His Wives. Revolt and Death of his Son, Nus.h.i.+zad. Coins of Chosroes. Estimate of his Character._

A general consensus of the Oriental writers marks the reign of the first Chosroes as a period not only of great military activity, but also of improved domestic administration. Chosroes found the empire in a disordered and ill-regulated condition, taxation arranged on a bad system, the people oppressed by unjust and tyrannical governors, the military service a prey to the most scandalous abuses, religious fanaticism rampant, cla.s.s at variance with cla.s.s, extortion and wrong winked at, crime unpunished, agriculture languis.h.i.+ng, and the ma.s.ses throughout almost the whole of the country sullen and discontented.

It was his resolve from the first to carry out a series of reforms--to secure the administration of even-handed justice, to put the finances on a better footing, to encourage agriculture, to relieve the poor and the distressed, to root out the abuses that destroyed the efficiency of the army, and to excise the gangrene of fanaticism which was eating into the heart of the nation. How he effected the last named object by his wholesale destruction of the followers of Mazdak has been already related; but it appeared unadvisable to interrupt, the military history of the reign by combining with it any account of the numerous other reforms which he accomplished. It remains therefore to consider them in this place, since they are certainly not the least remarkable among the many achievements of this great monarch.

Persia, until the time of a.n.u.s.h.i.+rwan, had been divided into a mult.i.tude of provinces, the satraps or governors of which held their office directly under the crown. It was difficult for the monarch to exercise a sufficient superintendence over so large a number of rulers, many of them remote from the court, and all united by a common interest.

Chosroes conceived the plan of forming four great governments, and entrusting them to four persons in whom he had confidence, whose duty it should be to watch the conduct of the provincial satraps to control them, direct them, or report their misconduct to the crown. The four great governments were those of the east, the north, the south, and the west. The east comprised Khora.s.san, Seistan, and Kirman; the north, Armenia, Azer-bijan, Ghilan, Koum, and Isfahan; the south, Fars and Ahwaz; the west, Irak, or Babylonia, a.s.syria, and Mesopotamia.

It was not the intention of the monarch, however, to put a blind trust in his instruments. He made personal progresses through his empire from, time to time, visiting each province in turn and inquiring into the condition of the inhabitants. He employed continually an army of inspectors and spies, who reported to him from all quarters the sufferings or complaints of the oppressed, and the neglects or misdoings of those in authority. On the occurrence of any specially suspicious circ.u.mstance, he appointed extraordinary commissions of inquiry, which, armed with all the power of the crown, proceeded to the suspected quarter, took evidence, and made a careful report of whatever wrongs or malpractices they discovered.

When guilt was brought home to incriminated persons or parties, the punishment with which they were visited was swift and signal. We have seen how harsh were the sentences pa.s.sed by Chosroes upon those whose offences attacked his own person or dignity. An equal severity appears in his judgments, where there was no question of his own wrongs, but only of the interests of his subjects. On one occasion he is said to have executed no fewer than eighty collectors of taxes on the report of a commission charging them with extortion. Among the princ.i.p.al reforms which Chosroes is said to have introduced was his fresh arrangement of the taxation. Hitherto all lands had paid to the State a certain proportion of their produce, a proportion which varied, according to the estimated richness of the soil, from a tenth to one-half. The effect was to discourage all improved cultivation, since it was quite possible that the whole profit of any increased outlay might be absorbed by the State, and also to cramp and check the liberty of the cultivators in various ways, since the produce could not be touched until the revenue official made his appearance and carried off the share of the crop which he had a right to take. Chosroes resolved to subst.i.tute a land-tax for the proportionate payments in kind, and thus at once to set the cultivator at liberty with respect to harvesting his crops and to allow him the entire advantage of any augumented production which might be secured by better methods of farming his land. His tax consisted in part of a money payment, in part of a payment in kind; but both payments were fixed and invariable, each measure of ground being rated in the king's books at one dirhem and one measure of the produce. Uncultivated land, and land lying fallow at the time, were exempt; and thus the scheme involved, not one survey alone, but a recurring (annual) survey, and an annual registration of all cultivators, with the quant.i.ty of land under cultivation held by each, and the nature of the crop or crops to be grown by them. The system was one of much complication, and may have pressed somewhat hardly upon the poorer and less productive soils; but it was an immense improvement upon the previously existing practice, which had all the disadvantages of the modern t.i.the system, aggravated by the high rates exacted and by the certainty that, in any disputed case, the subject would have had a poor chance of establis.h.i.+ng his right against the crown. It is not surprising that the caliphs, when they conquered Persia, maintained unaltered the land system of Chosroes which they found established, regarding it as, if not perfect, at any rate not readily admitting of much improvement.

Besides the tax upon arable lands, of which we have hitherto spoken, Chosroes introduced into into Persia various other imposts. The fruit trees were everywhere counted, and a small payment required for each.

The personality of the citizens was valued, and a graduated property-tax established, which, however, in the case of the most opulent, did not exceed the moderate sum of forty-eight dirhems (about twenty-seven s.h.i.+llings). A poll-tax was required of Jews and Christians, whereof we do not know the amount. From all these burdens liberal exemptions were made on account of age and s.e.x; no female paid anything; and males above fifty years of age or under twenty were also free of charge. Due notice was given to each individual of the sum for which he was liable, by the publication in each province, town, and village, of a tax table, in which each citizen or alien could see against his name the amount about to be claimed of him, with the ground upon which it was regarded as due.

Payment had to made by instalments, three times each year, at the end of every four months.

In order to prevent the unfair extortion, which in the ancient world was always, with reason or without, charged upon collectors of revenue, Chosroes, by the advice of the Grand Mobed, authorized the Magian priests everywhere to exercise a supervision over the receivers of taxes, and to hinder them from exacting more than their due. The priests were only too happy to discharge this popular function; and extortion must have become rare under a system which comprised so efficient a safeguard.

Another change ascribed to Chosroes is a reform of the administration of the army. Under the system previously existing, Chosroes found that the resources of the state were lavishly wasted, and the result was a military force inefficient and badly accoutred. No security was taken that the soldiers possessed their proper equipments or could discharge the duties appropriate to their several grades. Persons came before the paymaster, claiming the wages of a cavalry soldier, who possessed no horse, and had never learned to ride. Some, who called themselves soldiers, had no knowledge of the use of any weapon at all; others claimed for higher grades of the service than those whereto they really belonged; those who drew the pay of cuira.s.siers were dest.i.tute of a coat of mail; those who professed themselves archers were utterly incompetent to draw the bow. The established rates of pay varied between a hundred dirhems a year and four thousand, and persons ent.i.tled to the lowest rate often received an amount not much short of the highest. The evil was not only that the treasury was robbed by unfair claims and unfounded pretences, but that artifice and false seeming were encouraged, while at the same time the army was brought into such a condition that no dependence could be placed upon it. If the number who actually served corresponded to that upon the rolls, which is uncertain, at any rate all the superior arms of the service fell below their nominal strength, and the lower grades were crowded with men who were only soldiers in name.

As a remedy against these evils, Chosroes appointed a single paymaster-general, and insisted on his carefully inspecting and reviewing each body of troops before he allowed it to draw its pay. Each man was to appear before him fully equipped and to show his proficiency with his weapon or weapons; horse soldiers were to bring their horses, and to exhibit their mastery over the animals by putting them through their paces, mounting and dismounting, and performing the other usual exercises. If any clumsiness were noted, or any deficiency in the equipment, the pay was to be withheld until the defect observed had been made good. Special care was to be taken that no one drew the pay of a cla.s.s superior to that whereto he really belonged--of an archer, for instance, when he was in truth a common soldier, or of a trooper when he served not in the horse, but in the foot.