_First reign of Kobad. His Favorites, Sufral and Sapor. His Khazar War.
Rise, Teaching, and influence of Mazdak. His Claim to Miraculous
Powers. Kobad adopts the new Religion, and attempts to impose it on
the Armenians. Revolt of Armenia under Vahan, successful. Kobad yields.
General Rebellion in Persia, and Deposition of Kobad. Escape of Mazdak.
Short Reign of Zamasp. His Coins._
When Kobad fled to the Ephthalites on the failure of his attempt to
seize the crown, he was received, we are told, with open arms; but no
material aid was given to him for the space of three years. However, in
the fourth year of his exile, a change came over the Ephthalite policy,
and he returned to his capital at the head of an army, with which
Khush-newaz had furnished him. The change is reasonably connected with
the withholding of his tribute by Balas; and it is difficult to suppose
that Kobad, when he accepted Ephthalite aid, did not pledge himself to
resume the subordinate position which his uncle had been content to hold
for two years. It seems certain that he was accompanied to his capital
by an Ephthalite contingent, which he richly rewarded before dismissing
it. Owing his throne to the aid thus afforded him, he can scarcely have
refused to make the expected acknowledgment. Distinct evidence on the
point is wanting; but there can be little doubt that for some years
Kobad held the Persian throne on the condition of paying tribute to
Khush-newaz, and recognizing him as his lord paramount.
During the early portion of his first reign, which extended from A.D.
487 to 498, we are told that he entrusted the entire administration of
affairs to Suklira, or Sufrai, who had been the chief minister of his
uncle. Sufrai’s son, Zer-Mihr, had faithfully adhered to him throughout
the whole period of his exile, and Kobad did not regard it as a crime
that the father had opposed his ambition, and thrown the weight of
his authority into the scale against him. He recognized fidelity as
a quality that deserved reward, and was sufficiently magnanimous to
forgive an opposition that had sprung from a virtuous motive, and,
moreover, had not succeeded. Sufrai accordingly governed Persia for some
years; the army obeyed him, and the civil administration was completely
in his hands. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Kobad
after a while grew jealous of his subordinate, and was anxious to strip
him of the quasi-regal authority which he exercised and assert his own
right to direct affairs. But, alone, he felt unequal to such a task. He
therefore called in the assistance of an officer who bore the name of
Sapor, and had a command in the district of Rhages. Sapor undertook to
rid his sovereign of the incubus whereof he complained, and, with the
tacit sanction of the monarch, he contrived to fasten a quarrel on
Sufrai which he pushed to such an extremity that, at the end of it,
he dragged the minister from the royal apartment to a prison, had him
heavily ironed, and in a few days caused him to be put to death.
Sapor, upon this, took the place previously occupied by Sufrai; he
was recognized at once as Prime Minister, and Sipehbed, or
commander-in-chief of the troops. Kobad, content to have vindicated his
royal power by the removal of Sufrai, conceded to the second favorite
as much as he had allowed to the first, and once more suffered the
management of affairs to pass wholly into the hands of a subject.
The only war in which Persia seems to have been engaged during the first
reign of Kobad was one with the Khazars. This important people,
now heard of for the first time in Persian history, appears to have
occupied, in the reign of Kobad, the steppe country between the Wolga
and the Don, whence they made raids through the passes of the Caucasus
into the fertile provinces of Iberia, Albania, and Armenia. Whether
they were Turks, as is generally believed, or Circassians, as has been
ingeniously argued by a living writer, is doubtful; but we cannot be
mistaken in regarding them as at this time a race of fierce and terrible
barbarians, nomadic in their habits, ruthless in their wars, cruel and
uncivilized in their customs, a fearful curse to the regions which they
overrun and desolated. We shall meet with them again, more than once,
in the later history, and shall have to trace to their hostility some of
the worst disasters that befel the Persian arms. On this occasion it
is remarkable that they were repulsed with apparent ease. Kobad marched
against their Khan in person, at the head of a hundred thousand men,
defeated him in a battle, destroyed the greater portion of his army,
and returned to his capital with an enormous booty. To check their
incursions, he is said to have built on the Armenian frontier a town
called Amid, by which we are probably to understand, not the ancient
Amida (or Diarbekr), but a second city of the name, further to the
east and also further to the north, on the border line which separated
Armenia from Iberia.
The triumphant return of Kobad from his Khazar war might have seemed
likely to secure him a long and prosperous reign; but at the moment when
fortune appeared most to smile upon him, an insidious evil, which had
been gradually but secretly sapping the vitals of his empire, made
itself apparent, and, drawing the monarch within the sphere of its
influence, involved him speedily in difficulties which led to the loss
of his crown. Mazdak, a native of Persepolis, or, according to others,
of Nishapur, in Khorassan, and an Archimagus, or High Priest of the
Zoroastrian religion, announced himself, early in the reign of Kobad,
as a reformer of Zoroastrianism, and began to make proselytes to the new
doctrines which he declared himself commissioned to unfold. All men, he
said, were, by God’s providence, born equal--none brought into the
world any property, or any natural right to possess more than another.
Property and marriage were mere human inventions, contrary to the will
of God, which required an equal division of the good things of this
world among all, and forbade the appropriation of particular women by
individual men. In communities based upon property and marriage, men
might lawfully vindicate their natural rights by taking their fair share
of the good things wrongfully appropriated by their fellows Adultery,
incest, theft, were not really crimes, but necessary steps towards
re-establishing the laws of nature in such societies. To these
communistic views, which seem to have been the original speculations
of his own mind, the Magian reformer added tenets borrowed from the
Brahmins or from some other Oriental ascetics, such as the sacredness
of animal life, the necessity of abstaining from animal food, other than
milk, cheese, or eggs, the propriety of simplicity in apparel, and the
need of abstemiousness and devotion. He thus presented the spectacle of
an enthusiast who preached a doctrine of laxity and self-indulgence,
not from any base or selfish motive, but simply from a conviction of its
truth. We learn without surprise that the doctrines of the new teacher
were embraced with ardor by large classes among the Persians, by the
young of all ranks, by the lovers of pleasure, by the great bulk of
the lower orders. But it naturally moves our wonder that among the
proselytes to the new religion was the king. Kobad, who had nothing to
gain from embracing a creed which levelled him with his subjects, and
was scarcely compatible with the continuance of monarchical rule, must
have been sincere in his profession; and we inquire with interest, what
were the circumstances which enabled Mazdak to attach to his cause so
important and so unlikely a convert.
The explanation wherewith we are furnished by our authorities is,
that Mazdak claimed to authenticate his mission by the possession and
exhibition of miraculous powers. In order to impose on the weak mind
of Kobad he arranged and carried into act an elaborate and clever
imposture. He excavated a cave below the fire-altar, on which he was in
the habit of offering, and contrived to pass a tube from the cavern to
the upper surface of the altar, where the sacred flame was maintained
perpetually. Having then placed a confederate in the cavern, he invited
the attendance of Kobad, and in his presence appeared to hold converse
with the fire itself, which the Persians viewed as the symbol and
embodiment of divinity. The king accepted the miracle as an absolute
proof of the divine authority of the new teacher, and became thenceforth
his zealous adherent and follower.
It may be readily imagined that the conversion of the monarch to such a
creed was, under a despotic government, the prelude to disorders, which
soon became intolerable. Not content with establishing community of
property and of women among themselves, the sectaries claimed the
right to plunder the rich at their pleasure, and to carry off for the
gratification of their own passions the inmates of the most illustrious
harems. In vain did the Mobeds declare that the new religion was false,
was monstrous, ought not to be tolerated for an hour. The followers of
Mazdak had the support of the monarch, and this protection secured them
complete impunity. Each day they grew bolder and more numerous. Persia
became too narrow a field for their ambition, and they insisted on
spreading their doctrines into the neighboring countries. We find traces
of the acceptance of their views in the distant West; and the historians
of Armenia relate that in that unhappy country they so pressed their
religion upon the people that an insurrection broke out, and Persia
was in danger of losing, by intolerance, one of her most valued
dependencies.
Vatian, the Mamigonian, who had been superseded in his office by a fresh
Marzpan, bent on forcing the Armenians to adopt the new creed, once more
put himself forward as his country’s champion, took arms in defence
of the Christian faith, and endeavored to induce the Greek emperor,
Anastasius, to accept the sovereignty of Persarmenia, together with
the duty of protecting it against its late masters. Fear of the
consequences, if he provoked the hostility of Persia, caused Anastasius
to hesitate; and things might have gone hardly with the unfortunate
Armenians, had not affairs in Persia itself come about this time to a
crisis.
The Mobeds and the principal nobles had in vain protested against the
spread of the new religion and the patronage lent it by the Court.
At length appeal was made to the chief Mobed, and he was requested to
devise a remedy for the existing evils, which were generally felt to
have passed the limits of endurance. The chief Mobed decided that, under
the circumstances of the time, no remedy could be effectual but the
deposition of the head of the State, through whose culpable connivance
the disorders had attained their height. His decision was received with
general acquiescence. The Persian nobles agreed with absolute unanimity
to depose Kobad, and to place upon the throne another member of the
royal house. Their choice fell upon Zamasp, a brother of Kobad, who was
noted for his love of justice and for the mildness of his disposition.
The necessary arrangements having been made, they broke out into
universal insurrection, arrested Kobad, and committed him to safe
custody in the “Castle of Oblivion,” proclaimed Zamasp, and crowned him
king with all the usual formalities. An attempt was then made to deal
the new religion a fatal blow by the seizure and execution of the
heresiarch, Mazdak. But here the counter-revolution failed. Mazdak was
seized indeed and imprisoned; but his followers rose at once, broke open
his prison doors, and set him at liberty. The government felt itself too
weak to insist on its intended policy of coercion. Mazdak was allowed
to live in retirement unmolested, and to increase the number of his
disciples.
The reign of Zamasp appears to have lasted from A.D. 498 to A.D. 501,
or between two and three years. He was urged by the army to put Kobad
to death, but hesitated to adopt so extreme a course, and preferred
retaining his rival as a prisoner. The “Castle of Oblivion” was regarded
as a place of safe custody; but the ex-king contrived in a short time to
put a cheat on his guards and effect his escape from confinement. Like
other claimants of the Persian throne, he at once took refuge with the
Ephthalites, and sought to persuade the Great Khan to embrace his cause
and place an army at his disposal. The Khan showed himself more than
ordinarily complaisant. He can scarcely have sympathized with the
religious leanings of his suppliant; but he remembered that he had
placed him upon the throne, and had found him a faithful feudatory and
a quiet neighbor. He therefore received him with every mark of honor,
betrothed him to one of his own daughters, and lent him an army of
30,000 men. With this force Kobad returned to Persia, and offered battle
to Zamasp. Zamasp declined the conflict. He had not succeeded in making
himself popular with his subjects, and knew that a large party desired
the return of his brother. It is probable that he did not greatly desire
a throne. At any rate, when his brother reached the neighborhood of the
capital, at the head of the 30,000 Ephthalites and of a strong body of
Persian adherents, Zamasp determined upon submission. He vacated the
throne in favor of Kobad, without risking the chance of a battle, and
descended voluntarily into a private station. Different stories are told
of his treatment by the restored monarch. According to Procopius, he
was blinded after a cruel method long established among the Persians;
but Mirkhond declares that he was pardoned, and even received from his
brother marked signs of affection and favor.
The coins of Zamasp have the usual inflated ball and mural crown, but
with a crescent in place of the front limb of the crown. The ends of the
diadem appear over the two shoulders. On either side of the head there
is a star, and over either shoulder a crescent. Outside the encircling
ring, or “pearl border,” we see, almost for the first time, three stars
with crescents. The reverse bears the usual fire-altar, with a star and
crescent on either side of the flame. The legend is extremely brief,
being either _Zamasp_ or _Bag Zamasp_, i.e. “Zamaspes,” or “the divine
Zamaspes.” [PLATE XXII., Fig. 1.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXII.]