THE SĀSĀNIDES, THE EPHTHALITES, AND THE TURKS
The history of Central Asia during the earlier centuries of our era is
bound up in that of Persia, and its course was moulded by the fortunes
of the great dynasty called after the grandfather of its founder,
the Sāsānide, which governed the empire from A.D. 219 until the Arab
invasion more than four centuries later. In the third century (A.D.
200) of our era the condition of Persia resembled that of France before
the power of feudalism was broken by the crafts and iron will of
Louis XI. The authority of the reigning dynasty was little more than
nominal, and the land was parcelled out among a host of petty tribes
whose mountain fastnesses enabled them to bid defiance to the Parthian
dynasty. Among the followers of one of their rabble chieftains was a
certain Pāpak, a native of a village lying to the east of Shīrāz. With
the aid of a son named Ardashīr, he overthrew his master, and usurped
authority over the province of Fars. Ardashīr’s bold and restless
character appears to have inspired his father with some distrust,
for on his death he left his dominions to another son, named Shāpūr.
The succession was contested by Ardashīr, but when he was about to
enforce his claim with the sword, Shāpūr died, in all probability by
poison.[50] Ardashīr’s thirst for empire now led him to attack his
neighbouring potentates. One after another succumbed to his genius;
and he became master, in turn, of Kirmān, Susiana, and other eastern
States. Then finding himself in a position to strike a blow for the
sovereignty of Persia, he bade defiance to Ardavān,[51] the last of the
Parthian line. A decisive battle was fought between them, probably in
Babylonia, in the year 218. Ardavān was slain, and Ardashīr was crowned
“king of kings” on the field. His capital was Istakhr, but he chose
Ctesiphon (or Madā´in) as a residence. How far Ardashīr’s personal
conquests actually extended, it is hard to define. Oriental historians
have greatly exaggerated the extent of his empire, which they allege
to have stretched from the Euphrates on one side, to Khwārazm on the
other. Ardashīr was a wise and just ruler, and his career can be
compared only with Napoleon’s. Without the prestige of birth or fortune
he won an empire, and was able to maintain order in extended realms
which had for centuries been a prey to anarchy. He died in 241, and was
succeeded by his son Shāpūr I. For the first ten years of his reign he
was, like his father, engaged in chronic warfare with Rome, which did
not terminate till 260, when the Emperor Valerian fell into his hands,
dying afterwards in captivity. According to extant coins, Shāpūr I.
made himself master of the non-Iranian lands to the east of Khorāsān,
and to him is ascribed the conquest of Nīshāpūr,[52] and Shāpūr in
Northern Persia. In 272 he was succeeded by his son Hormuz, who
continued the struggle with the Romans, in which Syria, Asia Minor,
and Armenia were alternatively subjects of contention.
The succeeding reigns have little bearing on history until we come to
that of Bahrām Gūr,[53] which was signalised by a persecution of the
Christians,[54] and a recommencement of warfare with Rome. Bahrām Gūr
was worsted in the latter, and entered into a treaty with the Western
Empire, which bound the contracting parties to tolerate the Christian
and Zoroastrian cults respectively. The Romans further undertook to pay
an annual subsidy towards the maintenance of the fortifications on the
Dariel Pass[55] in the Caucasus, by which both kingdoms were protected
from the inroads of the wild hordes of the North. Bahrām took advantage
of his truce with the Romans to make an expedition into Bactria,[56]
where he encountered the Ephthalites, or White Huns, whom, according
to Persian accounts, he utterly defeated. We are told that the
Khākān[57] of the “tribes of Transoxiana,” being informed that Bahrām
and his court were immersed in luxury and had entirely lost their
martial spirit, ventured to cross the Oxus and laid waste the whole
of Khorāsān.[58] He was soon undeceived, for Bahrām, at the head of
seven thousand men, fell upon the Turks by night, and put them utterly
to rout, the Khākān perishing by the king’s own hand. Bahrām then
crossed the Oxus and concluded a peace with his eastern neighbours.[59]
Bahrām died in 438, and was succeeded by his son Yezdijerd II. During
his reign of nineteen years his attention was engrossed by Armenia
and by Khorāsān, where he suffered many reverses at the hands of
the Ephthalites. On his death in A.D. 457 his two sons, Hormuz III.
and Pīrūz, became rival claimants to the throne. Their father, who
preferred the former, but feared a quarrel between the brothers, had
given Pīrūz the governorship of a distant province, Sīstān. Pīrūz, on
learning that his brother had seized the throne and won the support of
the nobility, fled across the Oxus, and implored the chief Khākān[60]
of the Ephthalites to espouse his cause. The Huns consented, and sent
an army thirty thousand strong to his aid.[61] With this accession of
strength, Pīrūz invaded Persia, and defeated his brother in a pitched
battle. Hormuz III. thus lost his crown, and was put to death together
with three of his nearest relatives. The reign of his successful rival
was fraught with useful domestic measures. He had to contend against
a famine which lasted for seven years; but, so prompt and effectual
were the means adopted to combat it, that, if Tabari is to be believed,
there was not a single death from starvation.[62] Pīrūz’s foreign
policy was by no means so praiseworthy: though he owed his crown to
the ready help of the Khākān of the Ephthalites, we find him in 480
freely attacking his benefactor’s son and successor. This apparent
ingratitude is ascribed by Joseph Stylites to the intrigue of the
Romans, whose jealousy of the power of Persia induced them to incite
the Huns to attack her eastern frontier. Nöldeke suggests as the cause
of this rupture the exorbitant nature of the demands made by the Huns
as the price of their assistance in placing Pīrūz on the throne. Be
this as it may, the struggle was disastrous to the Persian army. After
obtaining some trivial successes, Pīrūz was obliged to conclude more
than one humiliating treaty with the Huns, the terms of which he did
not loyally fulfil. On one occasion his son Kobād was left for two
years in their hands as a hostage for the payment of a large indemnity.
A little later we find Pīrūz himself a prisoner.
A crisis in his affairs came in 484, when he led an immense force
against his inveterate foes, only to suffer a crushing defeat at their
hands, and to lose his life; while his daughter was taken prisoner and
forced to enter the Khākān’s harem. Persia now lay at the mercy of the
barbarians whose hordes overran the country, drowning its civilisation
in blood. From this anarchy the land was saved by the efforts of a
great noble named Sukhrā, or Zermihr. At the time of the Huns’ invasion
he was essaying to quell one of the periodical revolts in Armenia.
Hurrying back to the Persian capital with a considerable force, he
established a semblance of order, and placed Balāsh, a brother of
Pīrūz, on the throne. The new king bought off the White Huns, probably
by undertaking to pay a yearly tribute. But his treasury was empty.
He was able to attach no party in the State to his banner, and in 488
he incurred the resentment of the all-powerful priesthood. Falling
into their hands, he was deprived of his eyesight, a loss which under
the Persian law incapacitated him from ruling. Balāsh was succeeded by
his nephew, Kobād,[63] son of Pīrūz. Tabari tells us that before he
came to power, even probably on the accession of his brother, he had
fled to the Khākān for help to meet his claim. On his way he halted
at Nīshāpūr, and took to wife the daughter of a nobleman, who bore
him a son, the famous Anūshirawān. He was kept waiting four years for
the promised help, but finally, after much entreaty, the Khākān gave
him the control of an army, with which he set out for Madā´in.[64]
On reaching Nīshāpūr he learnt the news of his brother’s death.[65]
The first act of his reign was to resign the entire administration
to Sukhrā, on the score of his own youth and inexperience. Finding,
when he came to man’s estate, that the people regarded Sukhrā as their
sovereign and ignored his own ancestral claims, he determined to rid
himself of a too powerful minister, and had him put to death.
When Kobād had been for ten years on the throne a false prophet arose
in the person of a certain Mazdak, who taught that all men were equal,
and that it was unjust that one should have more possessions or
wives than another. The inference was that there should be an equal
division of all property. These tenets appear at first identical with
the latest plans of social ethics. But Mazdakism had a side which is
not shared by the Socialistic creed. Its founder preached a life of
piety and abstinence, and himself practised an extreme asceticism,
refraining from the use of animal food. Kobād saw in the new cult an
opportunity of eluding the grip of the nobles and clergy, who stifled
his aspirations to govern as well as reign. He espoused the reformer’s
side with ardour,[66] and thereby hastened the anarchy which such
doctrines were certain to promote. The followers of Mazdak adopted such
of his principles as appealed to their unbridled lust, and ignored
the religious teaching with which he sought to hold it in check. The
disorders were stemmed by a combination between the nobles and the
clergy, who seized and imprisoned Kobād, setting up his brother Jāmāsp
in his stead. But Kobād contrived to escape from confinement, and
sought shelter with old allies, the Ephthalites. With them he sojourned
until 502, when he returned to Persia at the head of a large force, and
overthrew his brother, thus regaining sovereignty. The remainder of
Kobād’s career was as stirring as the commencement had been. Hardly was
he reinstated on the throne ere hostilities broke out with Rome, and
then began a series of terrible conflicts which reduced the strength of
both parties to the lowest ebb, and rendered them a prey to barbaric
invasion.
Not until 506 was a truce concluded between the two powers; but it did
not bring rest to Kobād’s distracted empire. He was soon plunged into
hostilities with the Huns,--whether the Ephthalites, or another branch
of the race, is uncertain. The result is not recorded, but it must be
assumed to have been favourable to his army. In 528 he was confronted
with a more pressing danger than had attended his struggles with Roman
legions over barbaric hordes. Mazdak’s now rampant army held the land,
and a reign of terror set in which threatened the existence of its
institutions. Kobād at length became alive to the potency of the force
for evil which he had encouraged, and the measures which he adopted for
the suppression were drastic and effectual. The effort, however, proved
too severe for his declining strength, and three years later he closed
a chequered but not unsuccessful career.
His successor, Chosrau I., surnamed Anūshirawān “the Just,” stands
forth as the most illustrious figure in the annals of ancient Persia.
Chroniclers agree in depicting him as a wise and benevolent ruler, and
one who made his prowess reflected in distant regions. His first care
was to restore order in a realm which still groaned under the curse of
Mazdakism; his next to crush the Ephthalites, whose incursions into his
eastern provinces had been as disastrous as those of the Roman legions
into Armenia. In the meanwhile the Ephthalites were being threatened
from another quarter by the Turks.
The Turks proper, that is the Tu-kiué of the Chinese, first appear in
the history of the Sāsānides about A.D. 550. At that period the Turks
were divided into two distinct khanates--(1) the Eastern Turks,[67] who
possessed the vast territory between the Ural and Mongolia; and (2) the
Western Turks, or Tu-kiué, who ruled in Central Asia from the Altai to
the Jaxartes. About 550 the Khākān of the Turks, whose name was Tumen,
being elated with successes he had gained over the Tartars,[68] made
so bold as to demand in marriage the daughter of the Khākān of the
Juen-Juen, Tiu-ping. On receiving an insulting refusal, Tumen at once
declared war against the Juen-Juen; at the same time he married the
daughter of the Chinese emperor, with whose aid he defeated Tiu-ping.
Tumen then took the title of Il-khān (or khān of the people), and
established his court in the mountain of Tu-kin, near the sources of
the Irtish. He only enjoyed his newly acquired empire for a short time,
for in the following year (A.D. 553) he died. His son Ko-lo mounted
the throne, but died very shortly afterwards, and was succeeded by
his illustrious brother Mokan-khān, whom we find in 554 entering into
relations with Anūshirawān the Just. Though he had finally crushed the
Juen-Juen, and became master of their vast country, he was fearful
of the superiority of the Chinese, and therefore turned his arms in
a westerly direction.[69] The Turks now crossed the Jaxartes and
entered Badakhshān, where they encountered the Ephthalites, with whom,
according to Tabari, they at first dwelt in peace.
Great uncertainty prevails as to the dates and details of the campaigns
undertaken by the Anūshirawān in association with the Turks against
their inveterate foes. But their result is not open to question; for
about the year 560 we find the territories of the White Huns divided
between the allies. The Turks then became masters of Transoxiana, while
the Persians took possession of Balkh and Tokhāristān. The Oxus served
as the boundary between their respective spheres of influence.[70] Then
Bactria, which had been a perpetual thorn in Persia’s side, became one
of its provinces, and the fate of Pīrūz was fully avenged. Anūshirawān
set a seal to his friendship with the Turks by espousing their chief’s
daughter; but the alliance did not produce lasting results. The Romans
regarded with unconcealed apprehension the alliance between foes
which threatened the existence of their Western Empire, and they sent
frequent embassies to the Turkish Khākān with a view to detaching
him from Anūshirawān. The reconciliation was partially successful,
but the recurrence of disorders on his frontier led the Persian king
to build the great city of Darband, to serve as a rallying point in
repulsing Turkish attacks. After its completion we hear little of their
troublesome neighbours, and Anūshirawān’s concluding years were exempt
from the troubles which had overwhelmed so many of his predecessors.
On the death of Chosrau Anūshirawān in A.D. 579, Hormuz IV., his son
by the daughter of the Turkish Khākān, ascended the throne. The new
reign was soon clouded by war with Rome, and his own kinsmen on the
maternal side. At one period Hormuz endured simultaneous attacks from
four different quarters. A Turkish prince, called by Tabari, Shāba,
at the head of 300,000 warriors advanced as far as Bādghīs and Herāt.
The Roman emperor, with an army of 80,000 strong, attacked Hormuz in
the Syrian desert. The king of the Khazars led a large force against
Darband, and finally two Arab chieftains raided the Euphrates Valley.
Shāba sent Hormuz a haughty message “to see that his bridges and roads
were in good order, for that he intended to cross Persia on his way to
the Romans.” The Persian monarch’s reply was the despatch of a nobleman
of Ray, named Bahrām Chūbīn, in command of twelve thousand picked
veterans, to hinder the progress of the Turks. Bahrām advanced against
them by forced marches, and surprised Shāba in his camp. The Turks were
routed, and Shāba perished by an arrow from Bahrām’s bow. The dead
chieftain’s son was taken prisoner, and sent together with 250,000
camel-loads of booty to Hormuz. The victorious general was straightway
despatched to Transcaucasia to oppose the Romans; but there he met with
a crushing defeat. It is not within the scope of the present work to
record all the details of the extraordinary career of Bahrām Chūbīn,
who is one of the favourite heroes of Persian poetry.[71] Suffice it
to state that Hormuz, in an evil hour for himself, deprived the great
general of his command as a punishment for his failure in the campaign
against the Romans, and then drove him into a revolt which led to his
own dethronement (590). His successor, Chosrau II., surnamed Parvīz
“the Victorious,” proved a despot of the true Oriental type. He began
his reign by slaughtering an uncle Bendoe, to whose efforts he owed
the throne of Persia. Another uncle called Bistām, who had stood by
him at the crisis of his fate, escaped his clutches, and held out
against him for six years with the aid of the Turks and people of
Daylam, succumbing at length to treachery. But Parvīz was a brave and
capable soldier; and at one period of his career it seemed as though
Persia were destined to build up an eastern empire on the ruins of the
Roman sway. In 613 he conquered Damascus, and in the following year
Jerusalem bowed its stubborn neck to the Persian yoke.[72] But a new
movement was gathering force which was destined to sweep before it the
effete civilisation of Persia and Byzantium.