4.10. THE IBERIAN WAR (I). FROM THE ACCESSION OF JUSTINIAN I TO THE SAMARITAN REVOLT.
Even before the floundering of the last-ditch attempt at peace talks (which prove that Kawād I did not want this war to happen), there had been aggressive clashes between the armed forces of both sides outside of Iberia and Lazica. In mid-summer of 527 CE, the
dux of Mesopotamia, Libelarius, led a force into
Bēṯ Arabāyē (the Sasanian province of Arbayestān), but failed to take either Nisibis or Thebetha. Roman losses were considerable, and Justinian, who had now become sole emperor, replaced Libelarius with Belisarius. Justin I had died on August 1st, 527 CE, and was succeeded without any incident by the heir designate, his nephew Justinian.
Gold solidus of Justinian I. On the obverse: D(-ominus) N(-oster) IVSTINIANVS P(-ius) F(-elix) AVG(-ustus). Reverse: VICTORIA AVGGG(-usti). Mint of Constantinople.
Justinian I (
Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus;
Ἰουστινιανός,
Ioustinianós), also known as Justinian the Great, was to be the last great Roman emperor of Antiquity, and possibly the last Roman emperor whose native language was Latin (according to Procopius, he always spoke Greek with an accent). Known as “the emperor who never sleeps”, he was an indefatigable worker, and he pursued the goal of
renovatio imperii during his reign, i.e. the full restoration of the Roman Empire to its former greatness, on all fields. This of course implied the military conquest and annexation of the lost western lands of the Empire, so in this respect his reign should have been relatively pacific in the East, as he harbored no conquest plans against the Sasanians, but he would be repeatedly frustrated in his ambitious plans of conquest in the West by the ambitious and aggressive stance of the Sasanians in the East, led by his great contemporary Xusrō I. This
Šāhān Šāh would show itself to be an implacable enemy of the Romans, to the same level of Šābuhr I and Šābuhr II, and possibly this hostility was in part of a personal nature, due to the undiplomatic way in which Justin I and his nephew had managed Kawād I’s demands in 524 CE; as well as the product of the progressive worsening of mutual relations since the last decades of the V c. CE.
This is also the first mention in historical records of Belisarius, the great general of Justinian. Although best known for his campaigns against Vandals and Ostrogoths in the West, Belisarius also fought in the East, with mixed success, against the Sasanians. Although sometimes romantically considered to have been “the last of the Romans”, Belisarius also serves as an example of how much the Roman army and his leaders had evolved over the time. He was born in the town of
Germane (or
Germania) in Thrace in a family of Illyrian or Thracian descent who also spoke Latin as their native language; so he belonged to that great quarry of soldiers and generals that had supplied the Roman army since the III c. CE. He entered the Roman army serving in the personal guard of Justin I. This emperor and his nephew Justinian noticed him as a capable and innovative officer and allowed him to recruit a regiment of heavy cavalry, integrated into the emperor’s personal guard. This unit wa formed mainly by Hunnic mercenaries, and later Justinian I allowed it to grow to a small private army of 7,000 men, that was to be the core of all of the armies commanded by Belisarius. These soldiers were known as
buccellarii and were authentic private armies comparable to the
Gefolge (
comitatus, comitati in Latin) of Germanic chiefs and rulers. The fact that now Roman armies could be centered around a general’s private
comitatus, which was formed almost exclusively by mercenaries from the Steppe equipped with heavy weapons but who could fight equally as light archers or as heavy “shock” cavalry, illustrates how much the Roman army had changed since the times of Trajan. And by the way, this way of fighting of Belisarius’
buccellarii was exactly the same employed by the Sasanian heavy cavalrymen, the
savārān/
asbārān, who were equipped with full armor and with an extensive range of weaponry, from the heavy thrusting lance (the
contus/kontos/nēzak) to long swords, maces, axes and composite bows that allowed them to fight as a distance if the need arose, depending on the circumstances of the battlefield. By the VI c. CE, the Romans were heavily copying the fighting methods of the Sasanians, the warriors of the Steppe, or both.
Belisarius was chosen to replace Libelarius because he had recently conducted a successful raid against Sasanian Armenia:
Procopius of Caesarea, History of the Wars – Book I: The Persian War, XII:
And the Romans, under the leadership of Sittas and Belisarius, made an inroad into Persarmenia, a territory subject to the Persians, where they plundered a large tract of country and then withdrew with a great multitude of Armenian captives. These two men were both youths and wearing their first beards, body-guards of the general Justinian, who later shared the empire with his uncle Justinus. But when a second inroad had been made by the Romans into Armenia, Narses and Aratius unexpectedly confronted them and engaged them in battle. These men not long after this came to the Romans as deserters and made the expedition to Italy with Belisarius; but on the present occasion they joined battle with the forces of Sittas and Belisarius and gained the advantage over them. An invasion was also made near the city of Nisibis by another Roman army under command of Libelarius of Thrace. This army retired abruptly in flight although no one came out against thorn. And because of this the emperor reduced Libelarius from his office and appointed Belisarius commander of the troops in Daras. It was at that time that Procopius, who wrote this history, was chosen as his adviser.
This appointment took place in 527 CE, probably in the fall, after Justinian I’s rise to the purple. You may have noticed in the above passage that Procopius also inserts himself into the story: when Belisarius was appointed as Libelarius’ replacement, he was appointed as Belisarius’ “adviser” (in reality, more as his personal secretary). The failed raid by Libelarius was followed by the last-ditch peace talks between the Roman officials Hypatius and Pharesmanes and the Sasanian
spāhbed Bawi. After the failure of these talks, Kawād I unleashed the Lakhmids once more against the Roman East:
The Syriac Chronicle of the Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, Book VIII, Chapter V:
And Mundhir, the Tayyaye (i.e. Arab) king, went up into the territory of Emesa and Apamea and the district of Antioch twice; and he carried off many people and took them down with him. And four hundred virgins, who were suddenly captured from the congregation (of the church) of Thomas the Apostle at Emesa (?), he sacrificed in one day in honour of ‘Uzzai (i.e. a goddess of the Arab pre-Islamic pantheon). Dada the ascetic, an old man, who was captured from the congregation, saw it with his eyes, and told me.
Theophanes the Confessor, Chronographia, AM 6021:
On March 21st of the 7th indiction (i.e. 528 CE, although this is not clear), Mundhir son of Zekikē, prince of the Saracens, invaded and looted Syria I as far as the boundaries of Antioch, up to a place called Litargon, and the estates of Skaphathae. He killed many people and burned the territory outside Chalcedon and the Sermian estate and the Kynegian country. And, hearing (this), the Roman commanders went out against him. When they realised this, the Saracens, with the Persians, took their booty and prisoners and fled through the inner limes.
As according to Theophanes this campaign took place near the vernal equinox, Shahīd thought that it was the Arabic
raba’iyya, the spring campaign, as documented in Arabic poetry and Sabaic epigraphy. The Israeli scholar Zeev Rubin identified the locations quoted by Theophanes: "Chalcedon" is Chalcis (modern Qinnasrin); the
Sermian estate is present-day
Sarmin; and
Litargon is
Licarbai in Ammianus, present-day
al-Tarib (all located within the modern state of Syria).
But this time, Justinian I took energetic measures against the Lakhmid raiders. First, he sent reinforcements of Lycaonian infantry to the East, and he renewed the
foedus with the Ghassānids, who once more entered Roman service, and the latter found in them at last a powerful adversary against al-Munḏir III. In late 527 or early 528 CE Ḥārith, the phylarch of Palæstina I, quarreled with the local
dux and fled eastwards into the desert. There he was defeated and killed by al-Munḏir III. Justinian I reacted swiftly, writing personally to the
duces of Phœnice, Arabia and Mesopotamia and to various phylarchs, instructing them to avenge Ḥārith’s death. Their force failed to encounter the Lakhmid king, but they sacked several Sasanian forts, and returned with much booty in April 528 CE. The Ghassānids took part in force in this punitive expedition, and at least three of their phylarchs are attested for in the sources: Ḥārith the son of Jabala, Nu’man and Jafna. This is told in several sources:
John Malalas, Chronographia, XVIII, 16:
In that year it happened that enmity developed between the dux of Palestine Diomedes, a silentiarius, and the phylarch Arethas. Arethas took fright and went to the inner limes towards India. On learning this Alamoundaros, the Persian Saracen, attacked the Roman phylarch, captured him and killed him, for he had 30,000 men with him. On learning this, the emperor Justinian wrote to the duces of Phoenice, Arabia and Mesopotamia and to the phylarchs of the provinces to go after him and pursue him and his army. There set out at once the phylarch Arethas, Gnouphas, Naaman, Dionysios dux of Phoenice, John dux of Euphratesia, and the chiliarch Sebastianus with their military force. Learning of this Alamoundaros the Saracen fled to Indian territory with the Saracen force that he had. The Roman duces and phylarchs went in with an accompanying force and, not finding him anywhere there, they set off toward Persian territory. They captured his camp and took prisoner a number of men, women, and children, as many dromedaries as they found and other animals of various kinds. They burnt four Persian fortresses, capturing the Saracens and Persians in them, and they returned victorious to Roman territory in the month of April of the 6th indiction (i.e. 528 CE).
According to Irfan Shahīd, the first
Arethas named in the passage is Ḥārith the Kindite, who quarreled with Diomedes
dux of Palestine; the second, who took part in the expedition against al-Munḏir III, is Ḥārith the Ghassānid. It is worthy of notice that the
augustus himself inspired the dispatch of the punitive expedition and wrote personally to the
duces and the phylarchs. If this is literally true, it reflects Justinian I's intense interest in the eastern front, perhaps owing to his personal acquaintance with the danger presented by al-Munḏir III's aggressiveness. Ḥārith the Kindite had quarreled with the Roman
dux of Palestine and left Roman service, but his death at the hands of the empire's enemy Munḏir was a blow to the prestige of Rome among the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula. Hence the determination of Justinian I to avenge his death through an assertion of Roman power in northern Arabia.
The southern part of the Roman-Sasanian border in Late Antiquity. Notice how far into the Roman rearguard were the places reached by al-Munḏir III in his raids. As we will see later, it is unclear if the passage by Theophanes the Confessor quoted above refers to the raid of March 528 CE or to the one that happened the following year. Emesa, Chalcis (Qinnasrin) and Berœa (Beroia in Greek) were all located closer to the Mediterranean shore than to the Sasanian border, and dangerously close to Antioch. Although these were looting raids and al-Munḏir III did not take any walled cities, the raids caused considerable damage, and as the Roman sources state, he captured considerable amounts of war booty and prisoners that were held for ransom by the Lakhmid king. Notice also the location of Dara just on the common border, directly to the west of the main Sasanian base at Nisibis.
It seems clear that this expedition was not solely conducted by Arab
fœderati, but also by regular Roman troops, as Malalas refers to the troops commanded by the Roman officials as
stratiōtai, the Greek equivalent of
limitanei. The inclusion of Roman troops under Roman commanders was interpreted by Shahīd as a sign that Justinian I did not wish this expedition to be seen as a feud between Arabs, but as an imperial response. Despite his defection, Ḥārith the Kindite had been a Roman phylarch for nearly a quarter of a century. Ḥārith the Ghassānid might have been precisely his replacement as phylarch of Palæstina, while Jafna and Nu’mān (according to Shahīd) may have been phylarchs of Phœnice Libanensis especially since Justinian in the first year of his reign effected important changes in the military administration of that province, assigning it two
duces, stationed in Damascus and Palmyra, instead of one. Justinian I's
novella on Phœnice establishes that more than one phylarch is attested there in the 530s CE, leading to the conclusion that he may also have raised the number of phylarchs in Phœnice from one to two. The chances are that this arrangement goes back to his first regnal year, 527-528 CE.
With the information supplied by the sources, it is impossible to know where this force gathered and what direction it took in his pursuit of al-Munḏir III. Greek authors use the vague phrase "the Indian parts or territories", referring to areas involving the Arabs in the Peninsula, the Ḥimyarites, and the Axumites. In this context it is the northern Arabian Peninsula, where Ḥārith the Kindite fled, where al-Munḏir III sought him, and where the Lakhmid king fled from the Roman force. Wherever this was in Arabia, it certainly was not in Sasanian territory, as is clear from Malalas’ language where he says that, after despairing of finding al-Munḏir III in the "Indian territories," the Roman-Arab force set off toward "Persian territory".
"Persian territory" is more geographically precise than "Indian territory". From the description of what the Roman-Arab force did to al-Munḏir III and his Sasanian overlords, it is possible to infer that the region involved was not far from Munḏir’s jurisdiction. The account speaks of the capture of the "tents" of al-Munḏir III, and what of men and animals there was in them. It is hard to believe that this is a reference to al-Ḥīra, his capital. If this had been the case, such a military success would have been expressed by Malalas in no ambiguous terms. The reference must be to some military outpost of the Lakhmids.
Twice we find reference to the Sasanians, the four fortresses that were burned together with the “Persians” in them. From Malalas' details, this must be a region in the defense of which Sasanians and Arabs collaborated, that is, the jurisdiction of al-Munḏir III, which was both Arab and Sasanian, partly the latter inasmuch as it was a sphere of indirect Sasanian rule and influence supervised by al-Munḏir III as a vassal king. However, since this jurisdiction was vast, extending to the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, it is difficult to pinpoint the reference. But the nearer it was to the Roman frontier, the more likely it is that it was the region where the Roman-Arab army operated since it is hard to believe that the Roman contingent would have penetrated as far into Arabia as the Persian Gulf. Thus it is likely to have been not far from al-Ḥīra and the middle Euphrates. The fortresses themselves suggest such Sasanian or Sasanian-Arab establishments as
Khandaq Šābuhr, "the ditch of Šābuhr," and the two fortified palaces not far from al-Ḥīra,
Khawarnaq and
Sadīr. The burning of the four Sasanian fortresses and the capture of the soldiers who defended them were clearly acts of war against the Sasanian Empire itself. Perhaps this is what Justinian I was calculating when he sent the Roman contingent with the Arab in the expeditionary force. The war with
Ērānšahr had broken out openly in the previous year, and the Roman
augustus may have wanted the expedition to be not only an inter-Arab war of revenge but also a Roman offensive against the Sasanian Empire's southern flank, conducted not only by his Arab
fœderati but also by Roman regular forces.
Picture of the Euphrates’ middle course near Halabiye (ancient Zenobia), in the modern state of Syria.
Jabala the Ghassānid is conspicuous by his absence in this expedition. Since he had been the foremost Arab ally of the Romans for twenty-five years and died later in the same year as the expedition, it may be inferred that he was too old to endure an arduous campaign in Inner Arabia pursuing an elusive enemy under difficult climatic conditions. It would have been natural for him to ask his son Ḥārith to perform that task, the very son he was grooming as his successor.
The Roman raids in Sasanian Armenia and Arbayestān may have been intended by Justinian I to gain time for his accelerated program of reordering and reinforcing the defenses of Roman Armenia and Mesopotamia against the inevitable Sasanian offensive, although the raid of al-Munḏir III deep into the Roman rearguard must have caused some distraction from this efforts, Justinian I’s decision to recall the Ghassānids into Roman service proved to be a sound one, as it allowed the Romans to counterattack and strike against Lakhmid-Sasanian territory on the middle and lower Euphrates only with the local forces already deployed in the Arabian limes (including the Arab
fœderati).
The new
augustus, perhaps advised by his two former bodyguards Belisarius and Sittas, decided to carry out a large-scale reorganization of Roman Armenia in 528 CE. Hitherto, both Armenia Interior and the former satrapies (i.e. the parts of the old Kingdom of Armenia annexed by the Romans at the end of the IV c. CE) had had to rely primarily on their own defenses: only gradually had the Romans begun to exert their authority in this region. At the highest level, he created a new post, that of
Magister Militum per Armeniam, the holder of which supplanted the
Magister Militum per Orientem in Armenia and the Transcaucasus. Beneath him were the local
duces and Roman garrisons. This is also probably the time in which Justinian I carried out important legislative reforms in Roman Armenia that effectively erased the old Armenian law (mainly identical to Iranian law) and substituted it by Roman law, as studied by the Soviet/Armenian scholar Nina Garsoïan. Until this moment, the Romans had left local government in the hands of the Armenian aristocracy, a good part of which owned states on both sides of the border (like the Mamikonians); so she saw in these reforms, that targeted directly the laws of hereditary transmission that (like in Iranian law) allowed for the concentration of large estates in the hands of aristocratic clans, an attempt to subvert the social order in Roman Armenia and to break the power of the great noble houses in these Roman provinces, due to the fear by the court of Constantinople that this aristocracy might be tempted one day to rise in open revolt and join the Sasanians. Justinian I’s reforms and efforts at improving the defenses in the East are well attested in the sources:
Procopius of Caesarea, The Buildings of Justinian – Book III, I:
Even so, Roman soldiers did not serve these officials, but rather certain Armenians that had been accustomed to (do so) previously, and consequently they were unable to ward off invading enemies. Having examined these matters, the Emperor Justinian immediately removed the name of “satraps” from the region and stationed two duces, as they are called, in these provinces. He joined to them many numeri of Roman soldiers so that they might guard together with them the Roman borders.
Codex Iustinianeus, I.29.5:
The Emperor Justinian to A. Zeta (Sittas), vir illustris and magister militum for Armenia, Pontus Polemoniacus and the gentes. Having, through God’s grace, received the Roman power, and having considered (this matter) with solicitous care and vigilant concern, we have found it appropriate to create by this law a special military commander for parts of Armenia, Pontus Polemoniacus and the gentes. We chose your highness, which has been greatly commended to us by its former activity, confident that you would be suitable for such an honour. We have entrusted to your care certain provinces, namely Greater Armenia, which is called Interior, and the gentes (namely Anzitene, Ingilene, Asthianene, Sophene, Sophanene, in which lies Martyropolis, Belabitene), as well as First and Second Armenias and Pontus Polemoniacus, together with their duces. The comes Armeniæ is to be abolished altogether. We have placed under your command certain numeri, not only those which have now been formed, but also (some) detached from the praesental, eastern and other armies. Furthermore, the number of soldiers in them shall not be diminished; rather, because we have added many (numeri) to them without burdening the state or raising taxes, (although) we have now withdrawn some, the result is nevertheless that they remain more numerous than they had been before our blessed time.
John Malalas, Chronographia, XVIII, 10:
In the year of Justinian’s reign mentioned above, a man named Sittas was dispatched as magister militum per Armeniam, for in previous times Armenia did not have a magister militum but satraps, duces, governors and comites. The emperor gave the magister militum numeri of soldiers from the two praesental (armies) and (the army) of the East. Sittas enrolled indigenous scriniarii and made them his own military scriniarii in accord with an imperial rescript, having requested the emperor to enroll natives since they knew the regions of Armenia. The emperor granted him this, and the rights of the Armenian duces and comites, and also their consulars who were formerly milites castrensiani; for the former offices had been abolished. He also took four numeri from the magister militum per Orientem and from that time (Armenia) became a great bulwark and help for the Romans.
This was an important revamping of the Roman army in the East. Hitherto the whole Roman border in the East, from the Black to the Red seas, had been under the overall command of the
Magister Militum per Orientem, based at Antioch. This official commanded directly the Field Army of the East, and then under him there could be some local
comites (like the
Comes Armeniæ) who could command over certain sectors of the border covering several provinces, or he could command directly over the provincial
duces and the phylarchs of the Arab
fœderati, who were usually also one per province. Justinian I took command over the northern sector of the border, north of Mesopotamia to the Black Sea, away from the
Magister Militum per Orientem, and entrusted it to the newly-created
Magister Militum per Armeniam, and he also assigned to this new official a new army, the Field Army of Armenia, formed by units taken from the Field Army of the East buts also from the two
Præsentalis armies based around Constantinople. According to the Justinianic law quoted above, Justinian I did so while increasing the overall number of effectives of the army, so at the end of this reorganization the two Roman field armies in the East contained more effectives than did the Field Army of the East before it. Obviously, this was good news for the Romans and bad news for the Sasanians.
Map of the Roman-Sasanian border in Late Antiquity. The provinces located north of Amida and the upper Tigris valley were assigned by Justinian I to the newly created Magister Militum per Armenian. Notice the two provinces of “Armenia Maior” and “Satrapiæ”, both of which had been annexed by Rome after the partition of the old independent kingdom of Armenia between Romans and Sasanians in the late IV c. CE.
There were now therefore
duces based at Tzanzakon, Horonon, Artaleson, Citharizon, Martyropolis and Melitene, while the headquarters for the new
Magister Militum per Armeniam were located at Theodosiopolis. Fortifications were also strengthened: Malalas noted building work at Martyropolis (now renamed as
Iustinianopolis in honor to the new emperor) in 528 CE, and work was probably also carried out at Citharizon, Theodosiopolis and elsewhere, according to Procopius.
More to the south, fortification efforts were also carried out in Mesopotamia, according to the Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene:
The Syriac Chronicle of the Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, Book IX, Chapter II:
During the lifetime of the Emperor Justin, who had learnt that Thannuris was an advantageous place for a city to be built as a place of refuge in the desert, and for an army to be stationed as a protection for the ‘Arab against the forays of the Tayyaye, Thomas the silentiarius of Apadna was sent to build it. And when he had got ready a certain amount of material, the works which had started to be carried out were halted by the Tayyaye and Qadishaye from Singara and Thebetha (…).
The Syriac Chronicle of the Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, Book IX, Chapter V:
In the days of Belisarius, the dux, in the (year) five, the Romans, having been prevented from building Thannuris on the frontier, wished to make a city at Melabasa. And therefore, Gadar the Kadisene was sent with an army by Kavadh; and he hampered the Romans and put them to flight in a battle which he fought with them on the hill of Melabasa (…).
The
Silentiarii were a
schola of the imperial guard in Constantinople created in the IV c. CE, and whose function was to keep order during imperial audiences, to call the meeting of the emperor's privy council, the
consistorium, and to keep order and silence in the Great Palace in Constantinople (an act called
silentium nuntiare, in Latin). They were rather a special class of courtiers than a military unit and were recruited exclusively among the senatorial class. The
schola was supervised by the
Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi and its members belonged to the jurisdiction of the
Magister Officiorum. They were led by three
decuriones (Greek:
δεκουρίωνες, dekouríōnes), and although originally they were low-ranked in the court hierarchy, by the V c. CE its members had been raised to the rank of
viri spectabili, and by the VI c. CE, its
decuriones had been elevated to the dignity of
viri illustres (highest social rank in Late Roman social order).
And further south, efforts were also carried out starting in 527 CE to reorganize and reinforce the defenses of Phœnice after al-Munḏir III’s raid, as reported by Malalas:
John Malalas, Chronographia, XVIII, 10:
In the month of October of the sixth indiction (i.e. 527 CE) the emperor appointed an Armenian named Patricius as comes Orientis in Antioch. To him he gave a large sum of money with instructions to go and reconstruct the city in Phoenice on the limes, known as Palmyra, and its churches and public buildings. He also ordered a numerus of soldiers to be stationed there with the limitanei, and also the dux of Emesa, to protect the Roman territories and Jerusalem.
As you may have noticed above, the Romans were able to conduct these reorganizations and construction works undisturbed in Armenia and Phoenice, but not in Mesopotamia, where the Sasanians attacked them and frustrated their designs. In 528 CE Belisarius (his military rank at this stage is somewhat uncertain; it is unclear if at this stage he was still merely
dux of this province or if as Procopius wrote, he was already “General of the East”. i.e. probably
Magister Militum per Orientem), led an expedition to Thannuris. Here he tried unsuccessfully, to protect Roman workers undertaking the construction of a fort right on the frontier. This region, located south of Dara, was poorly defended, and had been historically subjected to raiding by the Sasanians and their Arab vassals. This failed attempt is recorded by the Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene:
The Syriac Chronicle of the Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, Book IX, Chapter II:
Now because, as we have made known above, the Romans had equipped themselves and fought against Nisibis and Thebetha, afterwards the Persians also similarly came and made an entrenchment in the desert of Thannuris. And when the dux Timostratus, the magister militum had died, Belisarius had succeeded him; and he did not hanker after bribes, and was kind to the peasants, and did not allow the army to injure them. For he was accompanied by Solomon, a eunuch from the fortress of Edribath; he was a shrewd man, and accustomed to the affairs of the world. He had been notary to the dux Felicissimus and had been attached to the other governors and had gained cunning through experience of difficulties.
Accordingly, a Roman army was gathered in order to enter the desert of Thannuris against the Persians; with (it were) Belisarius, Coutzes, the brother of Bouzes, Basil, Vincent, and other commanders, and Atafar, the chief of the Tayyaye. When the Persians heard, they craftily dug several ditches among their trenches, and concealed them all round outside by triangular stakes of wood and left several openings. When the Roman army arrived, they did not foresee the Persians’ deceitful stratagem, but the generals entered the Persian entrenchment at full speed; and when they fell into the pits, they were seized, and Coutzes was slain. Of the Roman army those who were mounted turned back and, fleeing, returned to Dara with Belisarius; but the infantry, who did not escape, were killed or taken captive. Atafar, the Tayyaye king, during his flight was struck from nearby and died; he was a warlike and skilful man, and he was very practiced in Roman arms, and in various places had excelled and was celebrated.
John Malalas, Chronographia, XVIII, 10:
In that year news was brought to the emperor Justinian of a battle between the Persians and the Romans following a Persian invasion of Mesopotamia by an army of 30,000 men under Xerxes, the son of the emperor Koades. His elder son Perozes was fighting in Lazica and Persarmenia with a large force, and at that time their father Koades did not enter Roman territory. Against Meran and Xerxes there set out the ex-dux of Damascus, Koutzis the son of Vitalianus, an excellent soldier, and Sebastianus with the Isaurian contingent, and Proclianus the dux of Phœnice and the comes Basileios. Belisarius and Tapharas the phylarch were also with them. Tapharas was thrown to the ground and killed when his horse stumbled, and Proclianus likewise. Sebastianus and Basileios were taken prisoners, Koutzis was captured after being wounded, but Belisarius escaped by taking flight. When these events were reported to the emperor Justinian, he was extremely distressed. Some generals also fell on the Persian side with many of their forces, and the Persians retired to their own country.
Procopius of Caesarea, History of the Wars – Book I: The Persian War, XIII:
[Apr. 1, 527] Not long after this Justinus, who had declared his nephew Justinian emperor with him, died, and thus the empire came to Justinian alone. [Aug. 1, 527] This Justinian commanded Belisarius to build a fortress in a place called Minduos, which is over against the very boundary of Persia, on the left as one goes to Nisibis. He accordingly with great haste began to carry out the decision of the emperor, and the fort was already rising to a considerable height by reason of the great number of artisans. But the Persians forbade them to build any further, threatening that, not with words alone but also with deeds, they would at no distant time obstruct the work. When the emperor heard this, inasmuch as Belisarius was not able to beat off the Persians from the place with the army he had, he ordered another army to go thither, and also Coutzes and Bouzes, who at that time commanded the soldiers in Libanus (i.e. Phœnice Libanensis). These two were brothers from Thrace, both young and inclined to be rash in engaging with the enemy. So, both armies were gathered together and came in full force to the scene of the building operations, the Persians in order to hinder the work with all their power, and the Romans to defend the labourers. And a fierce battle took place in which the Romans were defeated, and there was a great slaughter of them, while some also were made captive by the enemy. Among these was Coutzes himself. All these captives the Persians led away to their own country, and putting them in chains, confined them permanently in a cave; as for the fort, since no one defended it any longer, they razed what had been built to the ground.
It is quite obvious that although the three sources mostly agree on the main story, they differ quite markedly in the details. The most glaring difference is that according to Malalas and the Pseudo-Zacharias, Belisarius was present at the battle (and thus commanding the defeated Roman army) while Procopius implies he was not with it, which is probably incorrect (Procopius shows more than once a certain proclivity to protect Belisarius’ reputation, although this seems to have varied according to his mood as he wrote his extensive
corpus of works).
Satellite image of Tell Tuneinir, in northeastern Syria, by the banks of the upper Khabur River. This was the location of the late Roman city of Thannuris, that Justinian I attempted to fortify during the Iberian War. The site was continuously inhabited since the third-second millennia BCE until the XV c. CE.
Despite the fact that according to Procopius the Sasanians had been issuing clear menaces against the Roman team of builders, according to Malalas it was them who first sent an army to the site and seized the opportunity to fortify themselves in the location. And the army they sent was a big one, with 30,000 men according to Malalas, commanded by “Xerxes, the king’s son”, and they reached the site before the Romans did. When they heard that the Romans were approaching, they fortified themselves with the results described by the Pseudo-Zacharias. It is unknown who this “Xerxes” was. We know that Kawād I had three sons, named (from eldest to youngest) Kāvūs, Jam and Xusrō. Although
Xusrō (usually rendered as
Chosroes in Greek texts) seems to be the name that approaches more the name given by Malalas, it seems unlikely that the commander was him, as he would be later king after his father’s death and Malalas would have probably stated it. But the other two names are quite phonetically distant from “Xerxes”, so it must remain somewhat of a mystery who this “Xerxes” was. Malalas adds that “his older brother Perozes” was commanding an army in Armenia, so he probably was not Kāvūs, who according to the eastern sources was the best commander and most warlike among the three brothers, although again there is an obvious problem with the names: no son of Kawād I named “Pērōz” is mentioned in Perso-Arabic sources, but as “pērōz” is also an adjective in Middle Persian (“victorious”), it may have been a honorary title, and Malalas may have been (as is common in Greek sources) confusing names, titles and offices. I am somewhat puzzled by this issue because I have found in secondary sources that this “Xerxes” was disgraces after the battle because his father Kawād I was furious about the large losses suffered by his army, but as you can see in the three accounts quoted above this is not mentioned by the three original sources. In Malalas’ account, the Sasanian army is also commanded by “Meran”, which is once more a confusion of a surname for a name, as this is a Hellenized version of “Mihrān”.
But if the Sasanian army was large, it is probably that the Roman army was even larger. This can be inferred from two facts. First, that the Sasanians decided to fight on the defensive, and second, that Belisarius had gathered men from several Roman provinces, plus a considerable force of Ghassānid
fœderati (led by their supreme phylarch Jabala, as we will see later) and that if Procopius is correct, by this time Belisarius had been promoted to the rank of
Magister Militum per Orientem, and so that he could have commanded the Field Army of the East. In peacetime, a Roman field army like this one would have included about 20,000 men, and more in peacetime, so if we add to it the forces of Ghassānids (who might have been able to mobilize 10,000 warriors or more) and the provincial
duces, which at the very least included the two
duces from Phœnice Libanensis (Coutzes and Bouzes, according to Procopius) and probably also of Mesopotamia, which was the province in which the fight took place.
Despite the efforts by Procopius to present this encounter as a lesser affair, it was undoubtedly an important battle, if only because of the magnitude of the armies involved. And the reason for his attempts at diminishing its importance are obvious: it was a complete Roman defeat, bordering on the disaster. As this was Belisarius’ first field battle as a commanding general (and Procopius, by his own words, was his “adviser”), this may have been an inauspicious start for both their careers. Irfan Shahīd noted that if we have to believe the account by the Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, the Sasanians defeated the Romans using the same “trick” that the Hephthalites had used against Pērōz in 484 CE: digging a hidden ditch between them and the enemy and then enticing the enemy to charge into it, although it is also possible that the Sasanians simply built one of their formidable campaign bases (see previous thread for more detailed information) and the Romans failed to overcome them. Personally, I would incline for this second outcome, because if the Sasanians used such a “devious” tactic Procopius would have exploited it to explain the Roman defeat, which he did not. And also because if Procopius is right in his statement that the Sasanian army also suffered many losses (and this is not yet another attempt at lessening Belisarius’ defeat), that would seem to suggest that the Sasanians did not win the battle through a clever ruse, but through a hard-won encounter. The list of high-ranking Roman officers killed or captured in this battle is staggering; if we combine the three accounts, it amounts to one of the two
duces of Phœnice (Coutzes), Proclianus (another
dux), Sebastianus the commander (“chiliarch” in the Greek original) of the Isaurian infantry, and the
comes Basileios. Malalas wrote explicitly that Belisarius saved himself by fleeing the battlefield.
But perhaps the most significant loss suffered by the Romans was that of the king of their Ghassānid
fœderati, whom Shahīd identified with Jabala the Ghassānid, who had commanded this Arab people for more than a quarter of a century by now. This defeat clearly distressed Justinian enough to send officials and troops from Constantinople (possibly drawn from the two
præsentalis armies garrisoned near it) to reinforce the eastern cities:
John Malalas, Chronographia, XVIII, 11:
The emperor sent senators from Constantinople to defend the cities of the East with their forces, the patrician Plato to Amida, the patrician Theodoros to Edessa, Alexander the son of Hierios to Beroia, and other senators to Souron and Constantia to defend the cities. At that time, the patrician Pompeios was sent with a large force, which included Illyrians, Scythians, Isaurians and Thracians. Hostilities were suspended by agreement between the Romans and the Persians because of the onset of severe winter conditions.
The following year began, according to Shahīd, with a renewed Sassanian large-scale raid against
Oriens. In March 529 CE, the Lakhmid king al-Munḏir III led a combined Arab-Sasanian force that invaded the province of Syria Prima, deep in the Roman rearguard. Shahīd quotes as the sources for this incursion Theophanes the Confessor and John Malalas as a secondary, less detailed source. But here I must express my puzzlement because the fragment that Shahīd quotes in support of his assertion is the entry by Theophanes for the
Anno Mundi 6021 that I quoted above as referring to a previous Lakhmid invasion of
Oriens in 527 CE, following Greatrex and Lieu. I am no scholar and thus I am unable to ascertain who is correct here, but at first sight it seems that Shahīd might be right, for Theophanes’ entry for Anno Mundi 6021 is remarkably similar to the following passage by Malalas, which is clearly dated to after the winter truce of 528-529 CE:
John Malalas, Chronographia, XVIII, 32:
In that year Alamoundaros, the Persian Saracen, came with a force of Persians and Saracens and plundered First Syria as far as the borders of Antioch, even burning some places within its territory. On hearing these events, the Roman exarchs went out against them. Once the Saracens became aware of this, they took all their booty and escaped across the outer limes.
If we agree with Shahīd’s chronology (which is pretty clear in the case of Malalas, assuming he followed a straightforward storyline, and as he wrote much closer in time to the events than Theophanes), then it is possible that this was the Lakhmid king’s retaliation for the Roman raid of the previous year. The invasion of 529 CE targeted Syria Prima, rather than Phœnice which al-Munḏir III had attacked in 527 CE. As Shahīd suggested, possibly the fortification of Palmyra and reorganization of the military administration of Phœnice discouraged the Lakhmid king from again invading the now alert and combat-ready province. It is also worthy of notice that Malalas states explicitly that al-Munḏir III commanded not only Arab forces, but also Sasanian soldiers as well, just as the previous year the Roman punitive raid had included Roman regular troops in addition to the Arab
fœderati.
Plaster model of the ancient Roman city of Scythopolis, in ancient Samaria. It is today the archaeological site and museum of Beit Shean, in northern Israel. It was a noticeably large city for its time, among the largest in late Roman Palestine.
Rome’s Ghassānid
fœderati failed to react against this raid, Shahīd offers as an explanation for it that they were based in the south of the limes in Palestine while the Lakhmids attacked across its northernmost part; and Shahīd offers this as one explanation for Justinian I’s decision to reorganize the entire Roman Arabian
limes and raise the Ghassānid phylarch Ḥārith ibn Jabala to the leadership of all of Rome’s Arab
fœderati, an unprecedented decision. If we are to follow the accounts by Malalas and Theophanes (with the
caveats I have stated above) the Roman response was a new invasion of Lakhmid and Sasanian territory, carried out by regular Roman troops (the two chronographers do not mention the “Saracen” allies of Rome in this case) in April of 529 CE.
In June 529 CE, the Samaritans in Palestine revolted. The revolt started in Scythopolis, in
Palæstina Secunda, where they set many parts of the city on fire and crowned the “bandit chief” Julian as ruler. After burning estates and killing Christians, they entered Neapolis, where Julian mistreated the bishop of the city. Malalas' account of the course of the revolt after it reached Neapolis is detailed and of interest:
John Malalas, Chronographia, XVIII, 446-447:
When the governors of Palestine and the dux Theodoros, the snub-nosed, learnt of this, they immediately reported the daring rebel to the emperor Justinian. The dux set out against Julian with a large force, taking with him the phylarch of Palestine. On learning of this Julian, the Samaritan rebel, fled from Neapolis. The dux pursued him with his force, and they joined battle. The dux cut down a large number of the Samaritans and captured the Samaritan Julian, whom God delivered into his hands. He beheaded Julian and sent his head with the diadem to the emperor Justinian. When the emperor learnt about the rebellion of the Samaritans and the ill-fated Julian, the information from the governors arrived at Constantinople at the same time as the rebel leader's head. 20,000 of the Samaritans fell in the battle. Some of them fled to the mountain known as Garizim, and others to Trachon, to what is known as the Iron Mountain. The Saracen phylarch of the Romans took 20,000 boys and girls as booty from the Samaritans; he took these as prisoners and sold them in Persian and Indian territory.
Shahīd tried to identify who the “Saracen phylarch of the Romans” was, and he reduced it to two possibilities: either the Ghassānid Ḥārith ibn Jabala or his brother Abū Karib. Shahīd finally decided for Ḥārith based on the information provided by the Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene, who also reported this insurrection, and because Abū Karib was the phylarch of
Palæstina Tertia, far to the south, while Ḥārith, as phylarch of
Arabia, was ideally located near to Samaria to quickly assist its local
dux Theodoros in dealing with the uprising.
Malalas presents the Samaritan campaign as having two phases: the first commanded by the
dux Theodoros, the second by the
dux Eirenaios. His account of the second phase runs:
John Malalas, Chronographia, XVIII, 447:
When the emperor learnt that the Samaritans had burnt many estates in Palestine at the start of their rebellion, he was angry with the dux of Palestine for not having proceeded against them and scattered them as soon as he heard that they were gathering, before their attack on the estates and the city. He relieved the dux of his office with ignominy and ordered him to be kept under strict guard. Eirenaios the Antiochene was sent as dux in his place. He set out against the Samaritans who still remained in the mountains and killed many of them, exacting a harsh vengeance.
Shahīd thought that although they were not explicitly mentioned by Malalas in this second phase of the Samaritan rebellion, it is almost certain that the Ghassānid
fœderati, led by the phylarch of
Arabia Ḥārith also took part in it. The issue of the Samaritan prisoners sold by the Ghassānid phylarch also drew Shahīd’s attention. Though "Persian territory" is clear enough, "Indian territory" is not, since the vague term "Indian" in Roman usage can refer to various regions, such as India proper, the Arabian Peninsula (especially the Red Sea coastal regions), Axum (i.e. present-day Eritrea and northern Ethiopia), or roughly the Red Sea area. We may eliminate the first; the chances are that he sold some of the prisoners in the Red Sea region, most probably Axum. Ḥārith’s jurisdiction lay further from the Red Sea than that of his brother Abū Karib: he may thus have given some of the prisoners to his brother, who sold them on both sides of the Red Sea, in Arabia and Axum, seeing that he himself may have taken part in the Trachonitis campaign (in the last stages of the uprising). Why were Samaritan prisoners sold in such distant countries? Probably because of the imperial efforts to rid the Holy Land of a sect that had caused so much trouble. Imperial legislation had recently imposed heavy disabilities on them, and the war had decimated their ranks. Leaving them in the hands of the
fœderati along the borders of Palestine would have left them dangerously near the Holy Land where they would want to return, while banishing them to a distant land such as Axum would ensure that they were far enough away to end their will to return.
Several scholars have suggested different reasons for the Samaritan revolt. Some connect the revolt with the invasion of Syria by al-Munḏir III. Although this is not a sufficient cause, the two events may indeed be connected. The Lakhmid invasion may have encouraged the Samaritans to rise up.
The situation of the Samaritans in the late Roman Empire had become desperate by this point. While the Jews had a base outside the empire in both the Sasanian Empire and Ḥimyar (at least before the Axumite victory over Dhū Nuwās in South Arabia), the Samaritans had no such base and were completely isolated. It is thus conceivable that they did look outside the boundaries of the empire, and the Sasanians with their Lakhmids would have been an obvious choice. After all, the Samaritans, and the Jews, though hostile to each other, lived close together and had a common enemy in the Roman state. The Samaritans may have been influenced by the Jews in trying to reach out to
Ērānšahr and the Lakhmids. This is suggested by a statement by the Pseudo-Zacharias of Mytilene according to which the Samaritans believed they had been settled in Palestine by the Assyrians, and that the
Šāhān Šāh was equaled by them to the Assyrian kings of the Bible. But more importantly, Malalas wrote explicitly about diplomatic contacts between the Samaritans and Kawād I and about as many as 50,000 Samaritan refugees being granted asylum within the Sasanian Empire, a point to which I will return later. This Samaritan delegation seems to have had enough influence to persuade the Sasanian king not to sign a treaty with the Romans, with whom peace talks had been ongoing since the summer of 529 CE.
After the crushing of the first phase of the insurrection, the rebel Samaritans fled across the Jordan River into Trachonitide, in modern Jordan, in what was then the Roman province of Arabia. Irfan Shahīd thought that the “Trachonitis” (Greek for “Iron Mountain”) of Malalas is not the region usually designed with this name, bordering with the Syrian desert and further to the northeast, but the area around Mount Nebo in Jordan, further south, a rugged area that had religious significance for the Samaritans. They considered Moses as the writer of their version of the Pentateuch and held this prophet in special reverence; Samaritan inscriptions dated to the first half of the VI c. CE have been found in this area, and Shahīd suggested that this may suggest that the Samaritan revolt had Messianic undertones.
