Roman-Persian Wars

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The empire was so hard-pressed by the German tribes in the West that it could ill afford a major, Trajan-style invasion of Iraq. Unfortunately, that is precisely what it got under Emperor Julian (361-363), a brilliant but headstrong man in his thirties who marched on Ctesiphon in 363. Julian not only failed to take the city but also made insufficient preparation for his army’s eventual retreat. Short of supplies and harassed by the enemy, Julian’s legions were stopped short when the emperor fell in a minor skirmish. Julian’s successor, Jovian, was forced to surrender Nisibis and everything that Galerius had won in 298 in order to gain a safe conduct back to Roman territory. The Sassanids held on to their new gains for 150 years as both Rome and Persia changed from ancient to medieval states.

Deprived of its western, Latin-speaking provinces by Germanic invaders, the Eastern Roman empire, centered on Constantinople, slowly evolved into the Greek-speaking Byzantine state. Meanwhile, in sixth-century Persia, society coalesced around the new and lasting medieval ideal of the courtier-gentleman. In spite of these changes, the Romano-Persian conflict continued. The decisive factors of instability, as they had been since the year 227, were Sassanid aggression and Roman overextension.

After a period of relatively peaceful coexistence for a century or so after Julian’s defeat, the conflict heated up again in the sixth century under the Sassanid Kavad (488-531) and particularly his son Khusro I (531-579). Khusro ‘the Just,’ as he was later known, was a great and ambitious administrative and military reformer. The aims of the Sassanids during sixty years of intermittent fighting (502-562) were generally less a matter of annexing Roman territory than of laying siege to major Roman centers (Antioch, for example, which fell in 540) and thereby winning plunder, prestige, and tribute from the Byzantine government. The Byzantines had no one but themselves to blame for this renewed threat.

Justinian (527-565) devoted most of his energy to reconquering Rome’s lost western territory in Italy, Spain, and northern Africa. In itself this was one of the spurs to Khusro’s war. Khusro feared the threat that a reunified Roman Empire might pose to Persia. Justinian’s efforts in the West forced him to strip the defenses of the East, an opportunity of which Khusro took advantage. In the end, the two sides made peace in 562, although the Byzantine Empire was required to make large annual subsidies to Persia. It was a hollow peace for Rome. Like Trajan, Justinian had overextended himself. His successors lost the reconquered western territories in short order, while Justinian’s settlement with Khusro was not backed up by the military resources it required–resources that had been devoted to the draining war in the West.

The last act–some might say that it was the most dramatic act of all–came forty years later. The protagonists were the Sassanid Khusro II ‘the Victorious’ (590-628) and the Byzantine Heraclius (610-641). In the face of a succession struggle in Byzantium, Khusro made a breathtaking sweep from Armenia through Anatolia and Syria down to Egypt. In effect, he had finally fulfilled the old Sassanid dream of a Mediterranean empire–only briefly though. Heraclius made a heroic reorganization of Byzantine defenses and counterattacked. The culmination was a great defeat of the Sassanid army on the plains of northern Iraq in 627. Khusro II was murdered a year later.

The epilogue is well-known. At the time of Khusro II’s death in 628, Mohammed was about to return in triumph to Mecca. He and his Arab armies were the real victors of the exhausting Perso-Byzantine wars. By the end of the century, they had conquered most of the Byzantine empire and virtually all of the Sassanid. Most of this territory has remained Muslim, if not Arab, until the present day.

From Crassus to Augustus to Trajan to Shapur I and Galerius, to Julian to Khusro I and Justinian, and to Khusro II and Heraclius–what are the lessons of the seemingly all-but-endless war between Rome and Persia?

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Tags: Ancient-Medieval, Historical Conflicts

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