_Civil War of Narses and his Brother Hormisdas. Narses victorious. He
attacks and expels Tiridates. War declared against him by Diocletian.
First Campaign of Galerius, A.D. 297. Second Campaign, A.D. 298. Defeat
suffered by Narses. Negotiations. Conditions of Peace. Abdication and
Death of Narses._
It appears that on the death of Varahran III., probably without issue,
there was a contention for the crown between two brothers, Narses and
Hormisdas. We are not informed which of them was the elder, nor on what
grounds they respectively rested their claims; but it seems that Narses
was from the first preferred by the Persians, and that his rival
relied mainly for success on the arms of foreign barbarians. Worsted in
encounters wherein none but Persians fought on either side, Hormisdas
summoned to his aid the hordes of the north--Gelli from the shores of
the Caspian, Scyths from the Oxus or the regions beyond, and Russians,
now first mentioned by a classical writer. But the perilous attempt to
settle a domestic struggle by the swords of foreigners was not destined
on this occasion to prosper. Hormisdas failed in his endeavor to obtain
the throne; and, as we hear no more of him, we may regard it as probable
that he was defeated and slain. At any rate Narses was, within a year or
two of his accession, so firmly settled in his kingdom that he was
able to turn his thoughts to the external affairs of the empire, and to
engage in a great war. All danger from internal disorder must have been
pretty certainly removed before Narses could venture to affront, as he
did, the strongest of existing military powers. [PLATE XVIII.]
[Illustration: PLATE 18.]
Narses ascended the throne in A.D. 292 or 293. It was at least as early
as A.D. 296 that he challenged Rome to an encounter by attacking in
force the vassal monarch whom her arms had established in Armenia.
Tiridates had, it is evident, done much to provoke the attack by his
constant raids into Persian territory, which were sometimes carried even
to the south of Ctesiphon. He was probably surprised by the sudden march
and vigorous assault of an enemy whom he had learned to despise; and,
feeling himself unable to organize an effectual resistance, he had
recourse to flight, gave up Armenia to the Persians, and for a second
time placed himself under the protection of the Roman emperor. The
monarch who held this proud position was still Diocletian, the greatest
emperor that had occupied the Roman throne since Trajan, and the prince
to whom Tiridates was indebted for his restoration to his kingdom. It
was impossible that Diocletian should submit to the affront put upon him
without an earnest effort to avenge it. His own power rested, in a great
measure, on his military prestige; and the unpunished insolence of
a foreign king would have seriously endangered an authority not very
firmly established. The position of Diocletian compelled him to declare
war against Narses in the year A.D. 296, and to address himself to a
struggle of which he is not likely to have misconceived the importance.
It might have been expected that he would have undertaken the conduct of
the war in person; but the internal condition of the empire was far
from satisfactory, and the chief of the State seems to have felt that
he could not conveniently quit his dominions to engage in war beyond his
borders. He therefore committed the task of reinstating Tiridates and
punishing Narses to his favorite and son-in-law, Galerius, while he
himself took up a position within the limits of the empire, which at
once enabled him to overawe his domestic adversaries and to support and
countenance his lieutenant.
The first attempts of Galerius were unfortunate. Summoned suddenly from
the Danube to the Euphrates, and placed at the head of an army composed
chiefly of the levies of Asia, ill-disciplined, and unacquainted with
their commander, he had to meet an adversary of whom he knew little
or nothing, in a region the character of which was adverse to his own
troops and favorable to those of the enemy. Narses had invaded the
Roman province of Mesopotamia, had penetrated to the Khabour, and was
threatening to cross the Euphrates into Syria. Galerius had no choice
but to encounter him on the ground which he had chosen. Now, though
Western Mesopotamia is ill-described as a smooth and barren surface of
sandy desert, without a hillock, without a tree, and without a spring
of fresh water, it is undoubtedly an open country, possessing numerous
plains, where, in a battle, the advantage of numbers is likely to be
felt, and where there is abundant room for the evolutions of cavalry.
The Persians, like their predecessors the Parthians, were especially
strong in horse; and the host which Narses had brought into the field
greatly outnumbered the troops which Diocletian had placed at the
disposal of Galerius. Yet Galerius took the offensive. Fighting under
the eye of a somewhat stern master, he was scarcely free to choose his
plan of campaign. Diocletian expected him to drive the Persians
from Mesopotamia, and he was therefore bound to make the attempt. He
accordingly sought out his adversary in this region, and engaged him
in three great battles. The first and second appear to have been
indecisive; but in the third the Roman general suffered a complete
defeat. The catastrophe of Crassus was repeated almost upon the same
battle-field, and probably almost by the same means. But, personally,
Galerius was more fortunate than his predecessor. He escaped from the
carnage, and, recrossing the Euphrates, rejoined his father-in-law in
Syria. A conjecture, not altogether destitute of probability, makes
Tiridates share both the calamity and the good fortune of the Roman
Caesar. Like Galerius, he escaped from the battle-field, and reached the
banks of the Euphrates. But his horse, which had received a wound, could
not be trusted to pass the river. In this emergency the Armenian prince
dismounted, and, armed as he was, plunged into the stream. The river
was both wide and deep; the current was rapid; but the hardy adventurer,
inured to danger and accustomed to every athletic exercise, swam across
and reached the opposite bank in safety.
Thus, while the rank and file perished ignominiously, the two personages
of most importance on the Roman side were saved. Galerius hastened
towards Antioch, to rejoin his colleague and sovereign. The latter
came out to meet him, but, instead of congratulating him on his escape,
assumed the air of an offended master, and, declining to speak to him or
to stop his chariot, forced the Caesar to follow him on foot for nearly
a mile before he would condescend to receive his explanations and
apologies for defeat. The disgrace was keenly felt, and was ultimately
revenged upon the prince who had contrived it. But, at the time, its
main effect doubtless was to awake in the young Caesar the strongest
desire of retrieving his honor, and wiping out the memory of his great
reverse by a yet more signal victory. Galerius did not cease through the
winter of A.D. 297 to importune his father-in-law for an opportunity of
redeeming the past and recovering his lost laurels.
The emperor, having sufficiently indulged his resentment, acceded to
the wishes of his favorite. Galerius was continued in his command. A
new army was collected during the winter, to replace that which had been
lost; and the greatest care was taken that its material should be of
good quality, and that it should be employed where it had the best
chance of success. The veterans of Illyria and Moesia constituted the
flower of the force now enrolled; and it was further strengthened by the
addition of a body of Gothic auxiliaries. It was determined, moreover,
that the attack should this time be made on the side of Armenia,
where it was felt that the Romans would have the double advantage of
a friendly country, and of one far more favorable for the movements of
infantry than for those of an army whose strength lay in its horse. The
number of the troops employed was still small. Galerius entered Armenia
at the head of only 25,000 men; but they were a picked force, and they
might be augmented, almost to any extent, by the national militia of the
Armenians. He was now, moreover, as cautious as he had previously been
rash; he advanced slowly, feeling his way; he even personally made
reconnaissances, accompanied by only one or two horsemen, and, under
the shelter of a flag of truce, explored the position of his adversary.
Narses found himself overmatched alike in art and in force. He allowed
himself to be surprised in his camp by his active enemy, and suffered a
defeat by which he more than lost all the fruits of his former victory.
Most of his army was destroyed; he himself received a wound, and with
difficulty escaped by a hasty flight. Galerius pursued, and, though he
did not succeed in taking the monarch himself, made prize of his
wives, his sisters, and a number of his children, besides capturing
his military chest. He also took many of the most illustrious Persians
prisoners. How far he followed his flying adversary is uncertain; but
it is scarcely probable that he proceeded much southward of the Armenian
frontier. He had to reinstate Tiridates in his dominions, to recover
Eastern Mesopotamia, and to lay his laurels at the feet of his colleague
and master. It seems probable that having driven Narses from Armenia,
and left Tiridates there to administer the government, he hastened to
rejoin Diocletian before attempting any further conquests.
The Persian monarch, on his side, having recovered from his wound, which
could have been but slight, set himself to collect another army, but at
the same time sent an ambassador to to the camp of Galerius, requesting
to know the terms on which Rome would consent to make peace. A writer
of good authority has left us an account of the interview which followed
between the envoy of the Persian monarch and the victorious Roman.
Apharban (so was the envoy named) opened the negotiations with the
following speech:
“The whole human race knows,” he said, “that the Roman and Persian
kingdoms resemble two great luminaries, and that, like a man’s two eyes,
they ought mutually to adorn and illustrate each other, and not in the
extremity of their wrath to seek rather each other’s destruction. So
to act is not to act manfully, but is indicative rather of levity and
weakness; for it is to suppose that our inferiors can never be of any
service to us, and that therefore we had bettor get rid of them. Narses,
moreover, ought not to be accounted a weaker prince than other Persian
kings; thou hast indeed conquered him, but then thou surpassest all
other monarchs; and thus Narses has of course been worsted by thee,
though he is no whit inferior in merit to the best of his ancestors.
The orders which my master has given me are to entrust all the rights of
Persia to the clemency of Rome; and I therefore do not even bring with
me any conditions of peace, since it is for the emperor to determine
everything. I have only to pray, on my master’s behalf, for the
restoration of his wives and male children; if he receives them at your
hands, he will be forever beholden to you, and will be better pleased
than if he recovered them by force of arms. Even now my master cannot
sufficiently thank you for the kind treatment which he hears you have
vouchsafed them, in that you have offered them no insult, but have
behaved towards them as though on the point of giving them back to
their kith and kin. He sees herein that you bear in mind the changes of
fortune and the instability of all human affairs.”
At this point Galerius, who had listened with impatience to the long
harangue, burst in with a movement of anger that shook his whole
frame--“What? Do the Persians dare to remind us of the vicissitudes of
fortune, as though we could forget how they behave when victory inclines
to them? Is it not their wont to push their advantage to the uttermost
and press as heavily as may be on the unfortunate? How charmingly they
showed the moderation that becomes a victor in Valerian’s time! They
vanquished him by fraud; they kept him a prisoner to advanced old age;
they let him die in dishonor; and then when he was dead they stripped
off his skin, and with diabolical ingenuity made of a perishable human
body an imperishable monument of our shame. Verily, if we follow this
envoy’s advice, and look to the changes of human affairs, we shall not
be moved to clemency, but to anger, when we consider the past conduct
of the Persians. If pity be shown them, if their requests be granted, it
will not be for what they have urged, but because it is a principle of
action with us--a principle handed down to us from our ancestors--to
spare the humble and chastise the proud.” Apharban, therefore, was
dismissed with no definite answer to his question, what terms of peace
Rome would require; but he was told to assure his master that Rome’s
clemency equalled her valor, and that it would not be long before he
would receive a Roman envoy authorized to signify the Imperial pleasure,
and to conclude a treaty with him.
Having held this interview with Apharban, Galerius hastened to meet and
consult his colleague. Diocletian had remained in Syria, at the head
of an army of observation, while Galerius penetrated into Armenia and
engaged the forces of Persia. When he heard of his son-in-law’s
great victory he crossed the Euphrates, and advancing through Western
Mesopotamia, from which the Persians probably retired, took up his
residence at Nisibis, now the chief town of these parts. It is perhaps
true that his object was “to moderate, by his presence and counsels, the
pride of Galarius.” That prince was bold to rashness, and nourished an
excessive ambition. He is said to have at this time entertained a design
of grasping at the conquest of the East, and to have even proposed to
himself to reduce the Persian Empire into the form of a Roman province.
But the views of Diocletian were humbler and more prudent. He held
to the opinion of Augustus and Hadrian, that Rome did not need any
enlargement of her territory, and that the absorption of the East was
especially undesirable. When he and his son-in-law met and interchanged
ideas at Nisibis, the views of the elder ruler naturally prevailed; and
it was resolved to offer to the Persians tolerable terms of peace. A
civilian of importance, Sicorius Probus, was selected for the delicate
office of envoy, and was sent, with a train of attendants, into Media,
where Narses had fixed his headquarters. We are told that the Persian
monarch received him with all honor, but, under pretence of allowing
him to rest and refresh himself after his long journey, deferred his
audience from day to day; while he employed the time thus gained in
collecting from various quarters such a number of detachments and
garrisons as might constitute a respectable army. He had no intention of
renewing the war, but he knew the weight which military preparation ever
lends to the representations of diplomacy. Accordingly it was not until
he had brought under the notice of Sicorius a force of no inconsiderable
size that he at last admitted him to an interview. The Roman ambassador
was introduced into an inner chamber of the royal palace in Media, where
he found only the king and three others--Apharban, the envoy sent to
Galerius, Archapetes, the captain of the guard, and Barsaborsus, the
governor of a province on the Armenian frontier. He was asked to unfold
the particulars of his message, and say what were the terms on which
Rome would make peace. Sicorius complied. The emperors, he said,
required five things:--(i.) The cession to Rome of five provinces beyond
the river Tigris, which are given by one writer as Intilene, Sophene,
Arzanene, Carduene, and Zabdicene; by another as Arzanene, Moxoene,
Zabdicene, Rehimene, and Corduene; (ii.) the recognition of the Tigris,
as the general boundary between the two empires; (iii.) the extension of
Armenia to the fortress of Zintha, in Media; (iv.) the relinquishment by
Persia to Rome of her protectorate over Iberia, including the right of
giving investiture to the Iberian kings; and (v.) the recognition of
Nisibis as the place at which alone commercial dealings could take place
between the two nations.
It would seem that the Persians were surprised at the moderation of
these demands. Their exact value and force will require some discussion;
but at any rate it is clear that, under the circumstances, they were
not felt to be excessive. Narses did not dispute any of them except the
last: and it seems to have been rather because he did not wish it to
be said that he had yielded everything, than because the condition was
really very onerous, that he made objection in this instance. Sicorius
was fortunately at liberty to yield the point. He at once withdrew
the fifth article of the treaty, and, the other four being accepted, a
formal peace was concluded between the two nations.
To understand the real character of the peace now made, and to
appreciate properly the relations thereby established between Rome
and Persia, it will be necessary to examine at some length the several
conditions of the treaty, and to see exactly what was imported by each
of them. There is scarcely one out of the whole number that carries its
meaning plainly upon its face; and on the more important very various
interpretations have been put, so that a discussion and settlement of
some rather intricate points is here necessary.
(i.) There is a considerable difference of opinion as to the five
provinces ceded to Rome by the first article of the treaty, as to their
position and extent, and consequently as to their importance. By some
they are put on the right, by others on the left, bank of the Tigris;
while of those who assign them this latter position some place them in
a cluster about the sources of the river, while others extend them very
much further to the southward. Of the five provinces three only can
be certainly named, since the authorities differ as to the two others.
These three are Arzanene, Cordyene, and Zabdicene, which occur in that
order in Patricius. If we can determine the position of these three,
that of the others will follow, at least within certain limits.
Now Arzanene was certainly on the left bank of the Tigris. It adjoined
Armenia, and is reasonably identified with the modern district of
Kherzan, which lies between Lake Van and the Tigris, to the west of the
Bitlis river. All the notices of Arzanene suit this locality; and the
name “Kherzan” may be regarded as representing the ancient appellation.
Zabdicene was a little south and a little east of this position. It
was the tract about a town known as Bezabda (perhaps a corruption of
Beit-Zabda), which had been anciently called Phoenica. This town is
almost certainly represented by the modern Fynyk, on the left bank of
the Tigris, a little above Jezireh. The province whereof it was the
capital may perhaps have adjoined Arzanene, reaching as far north as the
Bitlis river.
If these two tracts are rightly placed, Cordyene must also be sought
on the left bank of the Tigris. The word is no doubt the ancient
representative of the modern Kurdistan, and means a country in
which Kurds dwelt. Now Kurds seem to have been at one time the chief
inhabitants of the Mons Masius, the modern Jebel Kara j ah Dagh and
Jebel Tur, which was thence called Oordyene, Gordyene, or the Gordisean
mountain chain. But there was another and a more important Cordyene
on the opposite side of the river. The tract to this day known as
Kurdistan, the high mountain region south and south-east of Lake Van
between Persia and Mesopotamia, was in the possession of Kurds from
before the time of Xenophon, and was known as the country of the
Carduchi, as Cardyene, and as Cordyene. This tract, which was contiguous
to Arzanene and Zabdicene, if we have rightly placed those regions,
must almost certainly have been the Cordyene of the treaty, which, if
it corresponded at all nearly in extent with the modern Kurdistan, must
have been by far the largest and most important of the five provinces.
The two remaining tracts, whatever their names, must undoubtedly have
lain on the same side of the Tigris with these three. As they are
otherwise unknown to us (for Sophene, which had long been Roman, cannot
have been one of them), it is impossible that they should have been of
much importance. No doubt they helped to round off the Roman dominion
in this quarter; but the great value of the entire cession lay in the
acquisition of the large and fruitful province of Cordyene, inhabited
by a brave and hardy population, and afterwards the seat of fifteen
fortresses which brought the Roman dominion to the very edge of
Adiabene, made them masters of the passes into Media, and laid the whole
of Southern Mesopotamia open to their incursions. It is probable that
the hold of Persia on the territory had never been strong; and in
relinquishing it she may have imagined that she gave up no very great
advantage; but in the hands of Rome Kurdistan became a standing menace
to the Persian power, and we shall find that on the first opportunity
the false step now taken was retrieved, Cordyene with its adjoining
districts was pertinaciously demanded of the Romans, was grudgingly
surrendered, and was then firmly re-attached to the Sassanian dominions.
(ii.) The Tigris is said by Patricius and Festus to have been made the
boundary of the two empires. Gibbon here boldly substitutes the Western
Khabour and maintains that “the Roman frontier traversed, but never
followed, the course of the Tigris.” He appears not to be able to
understand how the Tigris could be the frontier, when five provinces
across the Tigris were Roman. But the intention of the article probably
was, first, to mark the complete cession to Rome of Eastern as well as
Western Mesopotamia, and, secondly, to establish the Tigris as the line
separating the empires below the point down to which the Romans held
both banks. Cordyene may not have touch the Tigris at all, or may have
touched it only about the 37th parallel. From this point southwards,
as far as Mosul, or Nimrud, or possibly Kileh Sherghat, the Tigris was
probably now recognized as the dividing line between the empires. By the
letter of the treaty the whole Euphrates valley might indeed have been
claimed by Rome; but practically she did not push her occupation of
Mesopotamia below Circeshim. The real frontier from this point was the
Mesopotamian desert, which extends from Kerkesiyeh to Nimrud, a
distance of 150 miles. Above this it was the Tigris, as far probably
as Feshapoor; after which it followed the line, whatever it was, which
divided Oordyene from Assyria and Media.
(iii.) The extension of Armenia to the fortress of Zintha, in Media,
seems to have imported much more than would at first sight appear from
the words. Gibbon interprets it as implying the cession of all Media
Atropatene, which certainly appears a little later to be in the
possession of the Armenian monarch, Tiridates. A large addition to the
Armenian territory out of the Median is doubtless intended; but it is
quite impossible to determine definitely the extent or exact character
of the cession.
(iv.) The fourth article of the treaty is sufficiently intelligible.
So long as Armenia had been a fief of the Persian empire, it naturally
belonged to Persia to exercise influence over the neighboring Iberia,
which corresponded closely to the modern Georgia, intervening between
Armenia and the Caucasus. Now, when Armenia had become a dependency
of Rome, the protectorate hitherto exercised by the Sassanian princes
passed naturally to the Caesars; and with the protectorate was bound up
the right of granting investiture to the kingdom, whereby the protecting
power was secured against the establishment on the throne of an
unfriendly person. Iberia was not herself a state of much strength; but
her power of opening or shutting the passes of the Caucasus gave her
considerable importance, since by the admission of the Tatar hordes,
which were always ready to pour in from the plains of the North, she
could suddenly change the whole face of affairs in North-Western Asia,
and inflict a terrible revenge on any enemy that had provoked her. It
is true that she might also bring suffering on her friends, or even
on herself, for the hordes, once admitted, were apt to make little
distinction between friend and foe; but prudential considerations did
not always prevail over the promptings of passion, and there had been
occasions when, in spite of them, the gates had been thrown open and
the barbarians invited to enter. It was well for Rome to have it in her
power to check this peril. Her own strength and the tranquillity of
her eastern provinces were confirmed and secured by the right which she
(practically) obtained of nominating the Iberian monarchs.
(v.) The fifth article of the treaty, having been rejected by Narses
and then withdrawn by Sicorius, need not detain us long. By limiting the
commercial intercourse of the two nations to a single city, and that a
city within their own dominions, the Romans would have obtained enormous
commercial advantages. While their own merchants remained quietly at
home, the foreign merchants would have had the trouble and expense of
bringing their commodities to market a distance of sixty miles from the
Persian frontier and of above a hundred from any considerable town; they
would of course have been liable to market dues, which would have fallen
wholly into Roman hands; and they would further have been chargeable
with any duty, protective or even prohibitive, which Rome chose to
impose. It is not surprising that Narses here made a stand, and insisted
on commerce being left to flow in the broader channels which it had
formed for itself in the course of ages.
Rome thus terminated her first period of struggle with the newly revived
monarchy of Persia by a great victory and a great diplomatic success. If
Narses regarded the terms--and by his conduct he would seem to have done
so--as moderate under the circumstances, our conclusion must be that
the disaster which he had suffered was extreme, and that he knew the
strength of Persia to be, for the time, exhausted. Forced to relinquish
his suzerainty over Armenia and Iberia, he saw those countries not
merely wrested from himself, but placed under the protectorate, and so
made to minister to the strength, of his rival. Nor was this all. Rome
had gradually been advancing across Mesopotamia and working her way
from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Narses had to acknowledge, in so many
words, that the Tigris, and not the Euphrates, was to be regarded as
her true boundary, and that nothing consequently was to be considered as
Persian beyond the more eastern of the two rivers. Even this concession
was not the last or the worst. Narses had finally to submit to see his
empire dismembered, a portion of Media attached to Armenia, and five
provinces, never hitherto in dispute, torn from Persia and added to the
dominion of Rome. He had to allow Rome to establish herself in force on
the left bank of the Tigris, and so to lay open to her assaults a great
portion of his northern besides all his western frontier. He had to
see her brought to the very edge of the Iranic plateau, and within a
fortnight’s march of Persia Proper. The ambition to rival his ancestor
Sapor, if really entertained, was severely punished; and the defeated
prince must have felt that he had been most ill-advised in making the
venture.
Narses did not long continue on the throne after the conclusion of this
disgraceful, though, it may be, necessary, treaty. It was made in
A.D. 297. He abdicated in A.D. 301. It may have been disgust at his
ill-success, it may have been mere weariness of absolute power, which
caused him to descend from his high position and retire into private
life. He was so fortunate as to have a son of full age in whose favor he
could resign, so that there was no difficulty about the succession. His
ministers seem to have thought it necessary to offer some opposition to
his project; but their resistance was feeble, perhaps because they hoped
that a young prince would be more entirely guided by their counsels.
Narses was allowed to complete his act of self-renunciation, and, after
crowning his son Hormisdas with his own hand, to spend the remainder of
his days in retirement. According to the native writers, his main object
was to contemplate death and prepare himself for it. In his youth he had
evinced some levity of character, and had been noted for his devotion to
games and to the chase; in his middle age he laid aside these pursuits,
and, applying himself actively to business, was a good administrator, as
well as a brave soldier. But at last it seemed to him that the only life
worth living was the contemplative, and that the happiness of the hunter
and the statesman must yield to that of the philosopher. It is doubtful
how long he survived his resignation of the throne, but tolerably
certain that he did not outlive his son and successor, who reigned less
than eight years.