Beautiful work, as always. I find one nitpick:
Diocletian lived for 7 years after abdication.
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You’re right, of course. My mistake. But in my opinion an exception in 400 years is hardly representative. Diocletian, like Augustus, was an exception in many respects.
14. THE EARLY SASANIAN ARMY.
14. THE EARLY SASANIAN ARMY.
Historical evidence for the early Sasanian army is scarce, but much evidence has survived from the late Sasanian era, either in original Middle Persian texts or in medieval Arabic or New Persian translations and quotations. By the late Sasanian era, there was in circulation in the Sasanian empire a truly imposing amount of war manuals, treatises and the like, and from what’s remained of them, added to epigraphic sources of the III century (like the ŠKZ) and texts from ancient Graeco-Roman authors, modern scholars have been able to draw a rough sketch of the early Sasanian military.
Ardaxšir I was first and mainly a warlord who tanks to his military abilities rose first to the throne of Pārs and then to the throne of Iran, and who spend practically all his life in campaign on a horse, expanding constantly his territories in every possible direction.
The Middle Persian word for “army” is spah. The C-i-C of the army was of course the Sasanian šahanšah himself, and both Ardaxšir I and his son and heir Šābuhr I commanded their armies in the field. Immediately under him, the second highest echelon was that of Ērān spāhbed, literally “general of the Iranians”, a post which was always held by a member of the wuzurgān; scholars believe that the Ērān spāhbed was not actually a commanding officer, but rather a sort of “minister for war” in charge for the overall supervision of the army and with the key responsibility of conducting peace negotiations in the name of the šahanšah. The commander officer of an army assembled for a campaign received the title of spāhbed (general). In the ŠKZ the old Parthian title of aspbed (“Master of Horse”, chief of the cavalry) is still attested, although under the Sasanians it did not have the same importance as under the Arsacids, when the aspbed was the second highest ranking commander after the king himself. In later Sasanian texts, instead of this title a new title appears, that of savārān sardār (Chief of the Cavalry). Another title attested is that of paygān sālār (Chief of the Infantry); these two titles were probably the Iranian equivalents of the late Roman posts of magister equitum and magister peditum respectively; and thus must’ve been mostly administrative posts.
A detail of Šābuhr I’s rock relief of Bishapur III in Fārs, showing infantry.
A very high-ranking post in the ŠKZ inscription is that of hazārbed, which under both Ardaxšir I and Šābuhr I was held by a certain Pābag. His rank was high enough to be listed immediately after the princes of the royal family, and before the wuzurgān. Scholars believe that his responsibility was mainly to ensure the king’s personal safety; and that thus he commanded the royal guard and the forces raised in the royal estates; he had to be a person who enjoyed the king’s trust, and thus the hazārbed appears sometimes in sources as leading armies in campaign. In the ŠKZ, the Ērān spāhbed is listed among the members of Ardaxsir I’s court, but not among the members of Šābuhr I’s court, while in the latter’s court we find an aspbed, which does not appear amongst Ardaxsir’s courtiers; according to the scholar Shapur Shahbazi, it’s probable that under Šābuhr I, the hazārbed took over the responsibilities of the Ērān spāhbed, although this title reappears again in the inscription of Narseh at Paikuli, dated to the last decade of the III century CE.
British reenactor Nadeem Ahmad in the full garb of a Sasanian spāhbed.
The chief minister of the Sasanian šahanšah was the wuzurg framādār (although this title is not attested under the first two Sasanian monarchs), which would often also fulfill military command posts under later Sasanian kings. This sort of “prime minister” was usually a member of the wuzurgān, and in Islamic times the Abbasid caliphs would revive the office under the Arabic name of wazīr (from whence the English word “vizier”). This title though is not attested in any surviving source from the III century CE.
Another post in the central organization of the army was the Ērān ambāragbed, the “chief of army depots”, in charge of supplying the army, while the pushtigbān sālār was probably the commander of the royal guard (a substantial force of elite heavy cavalry, and thus an army on its own); although again the office must’ve not existed before Šābuhr II’s reign at the earliest (when the very word pushtigbān is first attested). According to the Zoroastrian Denkard, the Sasanian military had even a corps of veterinaries (the stōr bizešk) charged with caring after the health of the horses of the cavalry.
There were also territorial commands, of which the one that is already attested since Arsacid times and was kept by the Sasanians was that of marzbān. Again, there’s some controversy about this post. It was mainly of a military nature, although marzbānān also held civilian attributions. Most scholars believe that the marzbān was the military governor of a border province (a “march”), and thus the commander of the military forces stationed there as garrisons and with the faculty of mobilizing its non-permanent forces (militias, allied tribes, noble levies, etc.) in case of foreign attack. The problem (in my opinion) is that then most scholars list the provinces ruled by a marzbān and include interior provinces like Spāhān, Pārs and Kirmān which were not under any foreign menace (well, Pars was attacked across the Persian Gulf by Arab tribes in the early IV century CE). To me, it seems that a marzbān was just a military governor and that it existed in all provinces, but that in border provinces its post was more relevant, because the in case of foreign attack the marzbān was responsible for defending the province until the king sent reinforcements. Apart from being military governors, the marzbānān also acted as civilian governors, but in the ranks under him the civilian and military administrations became divided into separate branches.
A particularity of the Sasanian military, inherited from the Arsacids and which was totally absent from the Roman army was that most of these posts were the patrimonial property of the wuzurgān. This was the inevitable consequence of the structure of the Iranian society. For example, it was very problematic to appoint a marzbān to a province if its nobility did not like him, so the post of marzbān to any given province was usually inherited within the most powerful clan in that province, like in the case of the province of Abaršahr, where the title of kanārang (local equivalent to marzbān) became hereditary within the ruling family of Tūs, which became known as the Kanarangiyan. Some scholars also believe that at one given time the post of aspbed also became hereditary within the Ispahbudhan clan.
The above passages already suggest that from the start the Sasanian army, although it retained most of the core Arsacid tactics and doctrines, was organized in a very different way than its predecessor. It had a central command structure, with even its own logistical branch, something completely unattested for the Arsacid period. Over time, the tendency was to increase the number of men in the royal forces, allowing the šahanšah to have less dependence of the forces of the great clans. But according to modern scholars, in the VI century CE after the reforms of Xusrō I the royal army still amounted to less than half of the total armed force available to the Sasanian kings. Under the first two kings of the dynasty, the situation can’t have been much different than it was under the last Arsacids, with the overwhelming majority of the army coming from the levies among the great clans.
Sasanian cavalry depicted in Šābuhr I’s rock relief at Bishapur III.
Cavalry remained the core of any Iranian army under the Sasanians, but its composition varied with respect to that of the Arsacid era. Scholars believe that little (if any) light cavalry archers were raised in the Iranian plateau, and that now most of the light horse archers of the Iranian armies were provided by allies, vassals and mercenaries (Albanians, Kushans, Kidarites, Hephtalites, Turks, etc), especially from nomadic Central Asian peoples. According to late Sasanian sources from the Vi century CE, Ardaxšir I divided the population into four states: priests, warriors (artēštārān), husbandmen and peasants, and finally artisans and traders. Only the artēštārān (the nobility) could belong to the cavalry, some of it was provided by the king himself, some of it by the wuzurgān and their retinues and the rest by the āzādān, the lesser nobility. This noble cavalry was the flower of Sasanian cavalry, and it was formed by armored horsemen equipped at first in a way lighter that under the Arsacids; the great battle relief of Ardaxšir I against Ardawān V at Ardaxšir-Xwarrah shows Sasanian horsemen equipped with Roman-style mail armor while their Arsacid foes were equipped with an older and heavier lamellar armor. These horsemen were equipped (under Xusrō I) with a kontos, sword, war axe or mace, a bow an quiver with 30 arrows, a lasso and even a sling. The idea was obviously that this “universal” cavalry could be used to fulfill the roles that in Arsacid times had fulfilled the light and heavy cavalry. In the same relief, horses also appear to be armored not with iron armor, but with a leather or thick cloth mantlet.
Detail of Ardaxšir I’s armor in his victory relief at Ardaxšir-Xwarrah.
Under Šābuhr II in the IV century CE, the trend turned again to favor more heavily protected cavalrymen, as attested by Ammianus Marcellinus in his Res Gestae.The Sasanian army also differed from its Arsacid predecessor by its increased use of infantry. There were three main types of infantry: light infantry, infantry archers and heavy infantry.
Light infantrymen were called paygān, and according to Classical authors, they were “pitiable peasants”, poorly armed and with no training, who were only fitted to serve the cavalrymen and to be used as labour forces in sieges and to build fortifications. They were raised by levy from amongst the peasant populations of the estates of the king and the nobility, and they were regarded as mere “cannon fodder” by their leaders. Obviously, they were no match for Roman heavy infantry.
The archers were the elite of the Sasanian infantry. They were masters in area shooting, and their training was geared towards delivering rapid and overwhelming archery fired against selected areas in the battlefield. They usually shot their arrows protected behind large wickerwork and oxhide shields, and they acted in coordination with the cavalry. Battles were usually opened by them by showering the enemy ranks with their arrows, to “soften” them for a cavalry charge. According to Islamic medieval authors, Ardaxšir I was himself an accomplished bowman, and invented a new type of draw which enhanced the speed and strength of an archer’s shots.
Finally, the IV century Roman author Ammianus Marcellinus also wrote about heavy infantry in the armies of Šābuhr II “armed like mirmillones”, which was a type of Roman gladiator. This means that in Sasanian armies served infantry provided with heavy shields, metal helmets and swords, with some body armor. This heavy infantry came probably (as in late Sasanian times) from the semi-independent Iranian northern mountain tribes of Daylam and Gilan near the Caspian sea which served as mercenaries in the armies of the šahanšah. There’s also the possibility that under Ardaxšir I these forces included Roman deserters, as implied by Dio and other sources.
The region of Daylam, on the Alborz mountains south of the Caspian sea.
Possibly already under Šābuhr I, the Sasanians began using war elephants, probably as a consequence of the impact they made in their war against the Kushans in Afghanistan and the Indus valley. Against undisciplined or demoralized enemies, they could work miracles. Against the disciplined Roman army, their effectiveness was dubious, although the Sasanians kept using them until the very end.
Like under the Arsacids, the army was organized into divisions (gund) which were in turn subdivided in “banners” (drafš), each one identified by their own standard).
Another important difference with the army of the Arsacids that became very obvious since the very early days of the new dynasty was that the Sasanians finally mastered the siege techniques employed by the Romans, which was a very bad development for the Romans. During its first Mesopotamian campaign, the Sasanian army behaved like the Arsacid armies of old, they were only able to surround Roman fortified cities and try to force them into surrendering through hunger; as the Sasanian army had to return to Iran each autumn, these sieges were short and unable to force the well supplied Roman defenders into submission. But in the 238-239 campaign, Ardaxšir I’s army achieved the surrender of Nisibis and Carrhae, heavily garrisoned and protected cities, and in 239-40, Hatra and Dura-Europus also fell into Sasanian hands; this marks a 180 degree turn in the situation; for the first time Iranian armies seemed able to take fortified cities like the Romans did. It’s not sure what happened, but it’s probable that Roman deserters (as implied by Dio, and the imperial legislation passed by Severus Alexander) trained the Sasanians in Roman siege tactics; from this moment on, the Sasanians became as skilled in sieges (both in offense and defense) as the Romans were. A dramatic testimony of this proficiency can be found in the ruins of Dura Europus, the “Pompey of the East”, which was besieged and finally destroyed by a Sasanian army in 256 CE in which almost all siege techniques (including poisonous gas) were used both by the Roman defenders and the Sasanian besiegers.
The Sasanian army also differed from its Arsacid predecessor in that it was much more willing to fight pitched battles than the old Arsacid armies were. If necessary, they could also resort to the old tactics of guerrilla warfare, harassing and scorched earth, but unlike under the Arsacid kings, now the Romans were able to fight many more pitched battles against their Iranian foes.
The IV century Roman soldier and author Ammianus Marcellinus hated the “Persians”, but he admired their “patriotism”. According to him, this was taken to the extreme in Šābuhr II’s army: if a man was found to have deserted to the enemy, his entire family was put to the sword. Ammianus and other late Roman authors also extolled the tenacity of Sasanian armies in sieges; they were fearsome when besieging, but really formidable when besieged. This proficiency of the Sasanian army in sieges becomes already evident under Ardaxšir I and especially under his son Šābuhr I. The propaganda value of Zoroastrian religion was also exploited by the Sasanian kings, who usually carried mowbedān with them into battle, and sometimes even the mowbedān mowbed, to help raise the morale of their men.
Historical evidence for the early Sasanian army is scarce, but much evidence has survived from the late Sasanian era, either in original Middle Persian texts or in medieval Arabic or New Persian translations and quotations. By the late Sasanian era, there was in circulation in the Sasanian empire a truly imposing amount of war manuals, treatises and the like, and from what’s remained of them, added to epigraphic sources of the III century (like the ŠKZ) and texts from ancient Graeco-Roman authors, modern scholars have been able to draw a rough sketch of the early Sasanian military.
Ardaxšir I was first and mainly a warlord who tanks to his military abilities rose first to the throne of Pārs and then to the throne of Iran, and who spend practically all his life in campaign on a horse, expanding constantly his territories in every possible direction.
The Middle Persian word for “army” is spah. The C-i-C of the army was of course the Sasanian šahanšah himself, and both Ardaxšir I and his son and heir Šābuhr I commanded their armies in the field. Immediately under him, the second highest echelon was that of Ērān spāhbed, literally “general of the Iranians”, a post which was always held by a member of the wuzurgān; scholars believe that the Ērān spāhbed was not actually a commanding officer, but rather a sort of “minister for war” in charge for the overall supervision of the army and with the key responsibility of conducting peace negotiations in the name of the šahanšah. The commander officer of an army assembled for a campaign received the title of spāhbed (general). In the ŠKZ the old Parthian title of aspbed (“Master of Horse”, chief of the cavalry) is still attested, although under the Sasanians it did not have the same importance as under the Arsacids, when the aspbed was the second highest ranking commander after the king himself. In later Sasanian texts, instead of this title a new title appears, that of savārān sardār (Chief of the Cavalry). Another title attested is that of paygān sālār (Chief of the Infantry); these two titles were probably the Iranian equivalents of the late Roman posts of magister equitum and magister peditum respectively; and thus must’ve been mostly administrative posts.
A detail of Šābuhr I’s rock relief of Bishapur III in Fārs, showing infantry.
A very high-ranking post in the ŠKZ inscription is that of hazārbed, which under both Ardaxšir I and Šābuhr I was held by a certain Pābag. His rank was high enough to be listed immediately after the princes of the royal family, and before the wuzurgān. Scholars believe that his responsibility was mainly to ensure the king’s personal safety; and that thus he commanded the royal guard and the forces raised in the royal estates; he had to be a person who enjoyed the king’s trust, and thus the hazārbed appears sometimes in sources as leading armies in campaign. In the ŠKZ, the Ērān spāhbed is listed among the members of Ardaxsir I’s court, but not among the members of Šābuhr I’s court, while in the latter’s court we find an aspbed, which does not appear amongst Ardaxsir’s courtiers; according to the scholar Shapur Shahbazi, it’s probable that under Šābuhr I, the hazārbed took over the responsibilities of the Ērān spāhbed, although this title reappears again in the inscription of Narseh at Paikuli, dated to the last decade of the III century CE.
British reenactor Nadeem Ahmad in the full garb of a Sasanian spāhbed.
The chief minister of the Sasanian šahanšah was the wuzurg framādār (although this title is not attested under the first two Sasanian monarchs), which would often also fulfill military command posts under later Sasanian kings. This sort of “prime minister” was usually a member of the wuzurgān, and in Islamic times the Abbasid caliphs would revive the office under the Arabic name of wazīr (from whence the English word “vizier”). This title though is not attested in any surviving source from the III century CE.
Another post in the central organization of the army was the Ērān ambāragbed, the “chief of army depots”, in charge of supplying the army, while the pushtigbān sālār was probably the commander of the royal guard (a substantial force of elite heavy cavalry, and thus an army on its own); although again the office must’ve not existed before Šābuhr II’s reign at the earliest (when the very word pushtigbān is first attested). According to the Zoroastrian Denkard, the Sasanian military had even a corps of veterinaries (the stōr bizešk) charged with caring after the health of the horses of the cavalry.
There were also territorial commands, of which the one that is already attested since Arsacid times and was kept by the Sasanians was that of marzbān. Again, there’s some controversy about this post. It was mainly of a military nature, although marzbānān also held civilian attributions. Most scholars believe that the marzbān was the military governor of a border province (a “march”), and thus the commander of the military forces stationed there as garrisons and with the faculty of mobilizing its non-permanent forces (militias, allied tribes, noble levies, etc.) in case of foreign attack. The problem (in my opinion) is that then most scholars list the provinces ruled by a marzbān and include interior provinces like Spāhān, Pārs and Kirmān which were not under any foreign menace (well, Pars was attacked across the Persian Gulf by Arab tribes in the early IV century CE). To me, it seems that a marzbān was just a military governor and that it existed in all provinces, but that in border provinces its post was more relevant, because the in case of foreign attack the marzbān was responsible for defending the province until the king sent reinforcements. Apart from being military governors, the marzbānān also acted as civilian governors, but in the ranks under him the civilian and military administrations became divided into separate branches.
A particularity of the Sasanian military, inherited from the Arsacids and which was totally absent from the Roman army was that most of these posts were the patrimonial property of the wuzurgān. This was the inevitable consequence of the structure of the Iranian society. For example, it was very problematic to appoint a marzbān to a province if its nobility did not like him, so the post of marzbān to any given province was usually inherited within the most powerful clan in that province, like in the case of the province of Abaršahr, where the title of kanārang (local equivalent to marzbān) became hereditary within the ruling family of Tūs, which became known as the Kanarangiyan. Some scholars also believe that at one given time the post of aspbed also became hereditary within the Ispahbudhan clan.
The above passages already suggest that from the start the Sasanian army, although it retained most of the core Arsacid tactics and doctrines, was organized in a very different way than its predecessor. It had a central command structure, with even its own logistical branch, something completely unattested for the Arsacid period. Over time, the tendency was to increase the number of men in the royal forces, allowing the šahanšah to have less dependence of the forces of the great clans. But according to modern scholars, in the VI century CE after the reforms of Xusrō I the royal army still amounted to less than half of the total armed force available to the Sasanian kings. Under the first two kings of the dynasty, the situation can’t have been much different than it was under the last Arsacids, with the overwhelming majority of the army coming from the levies among the great clans.
Sasanian cavalry depicted in Šābuhr I’s rock relief at Bishapur III.
Cavalry remained the core of any Iranian army under the Sasanians, but its composition varied with respect to that of the Arsacid era. Scholars believe that little (if any) light cavalry archers were raised in the Iranian plateau, and that now most of the light horse archers of the Iranian armies were provided by allies, vassals and mercenaries (Albanians, Kushans, Kidarites, Hephtalites, Turks, etc), especially from nomadic Central Asian peoples. According to late Sasanian sources from the Vi century CE, Ardaxšir I divided the population into four states: priests, warriors (artēštārān), husbandmen and peasants, and finally artisans and traders. Only the artēštārān (the nobility) could belong to the cavalry, some of it was provided by the king himself, some of it by the wuzurgān and their retinues and the rest by the āzādān, the lesser nobility. This noble cavalry was the flower of Sasanian cavalry, and it was formed by armored horsemen equipped at first in a way lighter that under the Arsacids; the great battle relief of Ardaxšir I against Ardawān V at Ardaxšir-Xwarrah shows Sasanian horsemen equipped with Roman-style mail armor while their Arsacid foes were equipped with an older and heavier lamellar armor. These horsemen were equipped (under Xusrō I) with a kontos, sword, war axe or mace, a bow an quiver with 30 arrows, a lasso and even a sling. The idea was obviously that this “universal” cavalry could be used to fulfill the roles that in Arsacid times had fulfilled the light and heavy cavalry. In the same relief, horses also appear to be armored not with iron armor, but with a leather or thick cloth mantlet.
Detail of Ardaxšir I’s armor in his victory relief at Ardaxšir-Xwarrah.
Under Šābuhr II in the IV century CE, the trend turned again to favor more heavily protected cavalrymen, as attested by Ammianus Marcellinus in his Res Gestae.The Sasanian army also differed from its Arsacid predecessor by its increased use of infantry. There were three main types of infantry: light infantry, infantry archers and heavy infantry.
Light infantrymen were called paygān, and according to Classical authors, they were “pitiable peasants”, poorly armed and with no training, who were only fitted to serve the cavalrymen and to be used as labour forces in sieges and to build fortifications. They were raised by levy from amongst the peasant populations of the estates of the king and the nobility, and they were regarded as mere “cannon fodder” by their leaders. Obviously, they were no match for Roman heavy infantry.
The archers were the elite of the Sasanian infantry. They were masters in area shooting, and their training was geared towards delivering rapid and overwhelming archery fired against selected areas in the battlefield. They usually shot their arrows protected behind large wickerwork and oxhide shields, and they acted in coordination with the cavalry. Battles were usually opened by them by showering the enemy ranks with their arrows, to “soften” them for a cavalry charge. According to Islamic medieval authors, Ardaxšir I was himself an accomplished bowman, and invented a new type of draw which enhanced the speed and strength of an archer’s shots.
Finally, the IV century Roman author Ammianus Marcellinus also wrote about heavy infantry in the armies of Šābuhr II “armed like mirmillones”, which was a type of Roman gladiator. This means that in Sasanian armies served infantry provided with heavy shields, metal helmets and swords, with some body armor. This heavy infantry came probably (as in late Sasanian times) from the semi-independent Iranian northern mountain tribes of Daylam and Gilan near the Caspian sea which served as mercenaries in the armies of the šahanšah. There’s also the possibility that under Ardaxšir I these forces included Roman deserters, as implied by Dio and other sources.
The region of Daylam, on the Alborz mountains south of the Caspian sea.
Possibly already under Šābuhr I, the Sasanians began using war elephants, probably as a consequence of the impact they made in their war against the Kushans in Afghanistan and the Indus valley. Against undisciplined or demoralized enemies, they could work miracles. Against the disciplined Roman army, their effectiveness was dubious, although the Sasanians kept using them until the very end.
Like under the Arsacids, the army was organized into divisions (gund) which were in turn subdivided in “banners” (drafš), each one identified by their own standard).
Another important difference with the army of the Arsacids that became very obvious since the very early days of the new dynasty was that the Sasanians finally mastered the siege techniques employed by the Romans, which was a very bad development for the Romans. During its first Mesopotamian campaign, the Sasanian army behaved like the Arsacid armies of old, they were only able to surround Roman fortified cities and try to force them into surrendering through hunger; as the Sasanian army had to return to Iran each autumn, these sieges were short and unable to force the well supplied Roman defenders into submission. But in the 238-239 campaign, Ardaxšir I’s army achieved the surrender of Nisibis and Carrhae, heavily garrisoned and protected cities, and in 239-40, Hatra and Dura-Europus also fell into Sasanian hands; this marks a 180 degree turn in the situation; for the first time Iranian armies seemed able to take fortified cities like the Romans did. It’s not sure what happened, but it’s probable that Roman deserters (as implied by Dio, and the imperial legislation passed by Severus Alexander) trained the Sasanians in Roman siege tactics; from this moment on, the Sasanians became as skilled in sieges (both in offense and defense) as the Romans were. A dramatic testimony of this proficiency can be found in the ruins of Dura Europus, the “Pompey of the East”, which was besieged and finally destroyed by a Sasanian army in 256 CE in which almost all siege techniques (including poisonous gas) were used both by the Roman defenders and the Sasanian besiegers.
The Sasanian army also differed from its Arsacid predecessor in that it was much more willing to fight pitched battles than the old Arsacid armies were. If necessary, they could also resort to the old tactics of guerrilla warfare, harassing and scorched earth, but unlike under the Arsacid kings, now the Romans were able to fight many more pitched battles against their Iranian foes.
The IV century Roman soldier and author Ammianus Marcellinus hated the “Persians”, but he admired their “patriotism”. According to him, this was taken to the extreme in Šābuhr II’s army: if a man was found to have deserted to the enemy, his entire family was put to the sword. Ammianus and other late Roman authors also extolled the tenacity of Sasanian armies in sieges; they were fearsome when besieging, but really formidable when besieged. This proficiency of the Sasanian army in sieges becomes already evident under Ardaxšir I and especially under his son Šābuhr I. The propaganda value of Zoroastrian religion was also exploited by the Sasanian kings, who usually carried mowbedān with them into battle, and sometimes even the mowbedān mowbed, to help raise the morale of their men.
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The English word “pagan” derives from the Latin word “paganus”’ which was a derogatory name used by early Christians against non-monotheists; it’s a derivation from “pagus”, a Latin word that had several meanings: district (administrative unit in which the territory of a civitas was divided), countryside, hill-fort, etc. According to linguists pagus comes from an old (reconstructed) Indo-European verbal root, *pag-, which would have had the meaning of “to stake a border on the ground”. The English verb “to peg” has the same origin. As both Latin and Middle Persian are Indo-European languages, it’s possible that both words are related.
I understood paganus to have been used as essentially 'peasant' or 'hillbilly' in the pre-Christian period, at least, and of course the payghan of the Sasanians would be peasants.
Of course it's also possible it's completely unrelated - foot is pronounced something like 'pah' according to my hearing of modern Farsi - so I can totally imagine it meaning something like 'Pai(h)' - 'ghan' meaning foot-something
I understood paganus to have been used as essentially 'peasant' or 'hillbilly' in the pre-Christian period, at least, and of course the payghan of the Sasanians would be peasants.
Of course it's also possible it's completely unrelated - foot is pronounced something like 'pah' according to my hearing of modern Farsi - so I can totally imagine it meaning something like 'Pai(h)' - 'ghan' meaning foot-something
It was early Christians who used it as a derogatory name, because Christianity spread first in the cities and then at a much slower rate in the country, so urban Christians began calling all those who still clung to the ancient religions pagani, meaning “hillbillies”, whether they lived in a pagus and were peasants or not. The word pago still exists in Spanish with a similar meaning to the old Latin one, and in modern Romance languages pays, país or paese all derive from pagus.
Just began reading this and despite not having gotten that far I would like to say that this is a really nice thread. Thanks for sharing it with us!
Just began reading this and despite not having gotten that far I would like to say that this is a really nice thread. Thanks for sharing it with us!
Thank you very much
.
You are correct regarding the meaning of "Pāh (پا)" which of course means leg in parsi (both modern and ancient). the second part which is "ghān or "gān (گان)" (pronounced just like "gun" in english !) is actually a postfix used to pluralize the words (note this works with some words and cannot be applied to any given word)... foot is pronounced something like 'pah' according to my hearing of modern Farsi - so I can totally imagine it meaning something like 'Pai(h)' - 'ghan' meaning foot-something
So as reckoned by yourself Pāhigān (پایگان) means Footmen
Another Q which I want to know your thoughts on Semper:
Browsing Twitter I found this very cool map of the different peoples represented in the Behistun inscription of Darius the Great. But I found one ethnic group particularly interesting: the people called 'Arian' from eastern Iran. I find them interesting because I thought the term 'Aryan' was a general umbrella term for all of the Iranian ethnic groups such as Medes, Persians etc.. If so, what are a separate individual group in eastern Iran doing being referred to as 'Arian'? Are the two terms different? Wikipedia says that in Greek and Roman authors there's a region called 'Ariana' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariana) covering eastern Iran, which is again confusing because you'd think that region would extend to the rest of Iran if it means 'Land the Aryans inhabit'. The reason I bring this up is because in an earlier post you mentioned Ardashir I being the first ruler to use the term 'Iran' in his inscriptions. Do we have any idea why he's doing that?
Browsing Twitter I found this very cool map of the different peoples represented in the Behistun inscription of Darius the Great. But I found one ethnic group particularly interesting: the people called 'Arian' from eastern Iran. I find them interesting because I thought the term 'Aryan' was a general umbrella term for all of the Iranian ethnic groups such as Medes, Persians etc.. If so, what are a separate individual group in eastern Iran doing being referred to as 'Arian'? Are the two terms different? Wikipedia says that in Greek and Roman authors there's a region called 'Ariana' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariana) covering eastern Iran, which is again confusing because you'd think that region would extend to the rest of Iran if it means 'Land the Aryans inhabit'. The reason I bring this up is because in an earlier post you mentioned Ardashir I being the first ruler to use the term 'Iran' in his inscriptions. Do we have any idea why he's doing that?
Someone needs to make a collection of hipster headwear from that image. I think I'd buy the Scythian cap.
If they do the Syrian one I'm in too
Very interesting reads @Semper Victor, I have yet to catch up with everything but your posts are still amazing
E: "poisonous gas" wot?
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Another Q which I want to know your thoughts on Semper:
Browsing Twitter I found this very cool map of the different peoples represented in the Behistun inscription of Darius the Great. But I found one ethnic group particularly interesting: the people called 'Arian' from eastern Iran. I find them interesting because I thought the term 'Aryan' was a general umbrella term for all of the Iranian ethnic groups such as Medes, Persians etc.. If so, what are a separate individual group in eastern Iran doing being referred to as 'Arian'? Are the two terms different? Wikipedia says that in Greek and Roman authors there's a region called 'Ariana' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariana) covering eastern Iran, which is again confusing because you'd think that region would extend to the rest of Iran if it means 'Land the Aryans inhabit'. The reason I bring this up is because in an earlier post you mentioned Ardashir I being the first ruler to use the term 'Iran' in his inscriptions. Do we have any idea why he's doing that?
Arya (Areia in Greek) is the Latin name of one of the great satrapies of the Achaemenid empire, and also the name of a region in what's today western Afghanistan; the name still remains in its capital city Herat and its main river, the Harī Rūd (Greek Areios).
But according to R.Schmitt's entry in the Encyclopedia Iranica, the etymology does not seem to derive from "Aryan". In Old Persian, its name was Haraiva, and in Avestan it was Haraēuua. Meanwhile, the root for the name "aryan" is attested in old Indo-Aryan languages as:
- *arya- (reconstructed Proto-Iranian).
- āˊrya- (Old Indic, as attested in the Rigveda).
- ariya- (Old Persian, like in the Behistun inscription of Darius I).
- airiia- (Avestan).
As for the meaning of the word "aryan", scholars consider it today to have been originally the self designation of the peoples of Ancient India and Ancient Iran who spoke Aryan languages, in contrast to the “non-Aryan” peoples of those “Aryan” countries. It's important noticing that the concept included not only the speakers of Iranian languages, but also the speakers of Indic or Indo-Aryan languages (sanskrit, prakrit, etc.).
In India the word is attested in the Vedas, where it evolved over time from a purely linguistic and ethnic concept into a more complex meaning mixed with religion, and lost its original meaning. While in Iran the speakers of Aryan languages showed themselves to be more conservative and retained the original meaning. In the inscription placed at his tomb at Persepolis, Darius I stated:
Darius was not from Arya, so as you can see the concept of "being Aryan" had nothing to do with "being from Arya" (even if the people from Arya were indeed Aryans by language
).
If they do the Syrian one I'm in too
Very interesting reads @Semper Victor, I have yet to catch up with everything but your posts are still amazing
E: "poisonous gas" wot?
Thank you
.
15.1. THE CAMPAIGN OF GORDIAN III AGAINST ŠĀBUHR I. THE SITUATION IN ROME AT THE START OF GORDIAN III’S REIGN.
15.1. THE CAMPAIGN OF GORDIAN III AGAINST ŠĀBUHR I. THE SITUATION IN ROME AT THE START OF GORDIAN III’S REIGN.
The murder of Severus Alexander and the accession of Maximinus Thrax is usually considered the start of the so-called III century crisis in the Roman Empire, a period marked by the combined onslaught of foreign invasions, civil wars, epidemies and a fiscal and economic crisis that almost caused the fall of the empire. By contrast, the nascent Sasanian empire enjoyed a long period of political stability and territorial and economic expansion under the combined reigns of Ardaxšir I (224-240 CE) and his son and heir Šābuhr I (240-270 CE).
It’s in this period that scholars must also confront a problem with available sources. Cassius Dio’s History of the Romans stops in 229 CE, and Herodian’s narrative stops in 238 CE with the murder of Maximinus Thrax. There are no surviving Graeco-Roman sources for the rest of the III century. Thus, scholars must resort to alternate sources:
The first act by the Senate after the acclamation of the young Gordian III as sole augustus was to condemn the late Pupienus and Balbinus to the ultimate punishment of damnatio memoriae (same as Maximinus). What did they do to deserve this fate is unknown, but this should make people think twice before blaming solely the Praetorians for their deaths. Herodian though puts the blame solely on the Praetorians, who had been humiliated by the Roman populace led by Balbinus and who resented the fact that the army at large (not the Praetorian Guard itself) had been deprived of what it saw as its privilege since the accesion of Septimius Severus, the right to appoint the new Augustus. Thus according to Herodian, it was the Praetorians who, following the murder of Pupienus and Balbinus acclaimed Gordian III as augustus, excusing their actions by stating publicly that they were merely carrying on the people's will. Although this still does not explain why did the Senate go as far as it went with the damnatio memoriae of their late colleagues.
The first three years of the new reign were years of total inactivity on the eastern border, with the Romans failing to retaliate against the Sasanian advances. Given that it’s quite improbable that the teenaged emperor governed by himself, it’s possible that the government was assumed by a regency council drawn from the ranks of the Senate, and that this council was dominated by western senators who did not care much about eastern affairs. By 240 CE, the situation in the East was a total disaster for Rome. The new Sasanian dynasty had brought the Roman border back to the Euphrates, like in the times before Lucius Verus’ conquests, and the only ally of Rome that still resisted the apparently unstoppable Sasanian tide was Armenia, led by its Arsacid king Tiridates II. During his three- year reign Maximinus Thrax had left aside completely the defense of the Roman East and had concentrated only in Rome’s northern borders, and this had been one of the main causes for the wave of discontentment that led to his fall.
According to Syncellus and Zonaras, Sasanian armies had taken Nisibis and Carrhae, although they say nothing about the other main fortified Roman cities and encampments like Singara, Edessa or Resaina. The situation was probably even worse than the list of fallen cities might suggest; Nisibis had been the base of Legio III Parthica, and if the city had been lost, this legion must’ve been destroyed or at the very least badly mauled. Carrhae lies near the Euphrates, Hatra had also fallen and the city had been razed to the ground, and the advanced Roman fortified city of Dura-Europos had also been lost. So, while it’s possible that Edessa and Resaina had not been lost (as they were both located near the Euphrates), it’s very probable that Singara, located much more to the east and south than any of these cities, had also been lost, which raises again the question about the sort suffered by the legion based there (Legio I Parthica). The same applies to the roughly 10,000 auxiliaries that had been stationed in the province, especially in the forts along the Singara-Khabur road; which archeological evidence shows that were either destroyed or abandoned at the time. Further proof for the loss of Mesopotamia is the fact that the Nisibis mint stopped its issues completely after 240 CE. Scholars David S. Potter and Yann Le bohed state that Singara and Resaina fell into Sasanian hands in 241 CE, although I've been unable to find the ancient sorces that provide this bit of information.
Map of Roman Mesopotamia with the main fortified cities and fortified bases qu.oted in the text
A much more alarming hint is that the imperial mint at Antioch (the main Roman mint in the East) also stopped minting in 240-241 CE, which has led some scholars to suggest that the Sasanian armies had managed to either besiege or perhaps even take the city for a time, but the sources do not mention it (except the always unreliable SHA), so this must be treated just like a (very, very unlikely) hypothesis.
To make matters worse, the Sasanian empire was led by a vigorous new king, who was an adult man with plenty of military experience, while the emperor in Rome was a thirteen-year-old boy. It took the Romans two years to react after the accession of Gordian III to the purple. His first years were difficult. Gordian III came from a respected and wealthy senatorial family, and was well liked by the Senate and the Roman plebs (who for some reason had been very fond of the ephemeral two first Gordiani). Even though, as due to his age he couldn’t have been able to fulfill his duties as augustus, and although the sources don’t tell us anything, it’s quite possible that the old senatorial families of the Severan era took advantage of the situation to govern in his name (as I wrote above). But, apart from the situation in the East, there were other troubles. One of the first measures of Gordian III’s government was to dismiss Legio III Augusta for its role in killing his kinsmen. It was not a very enlightened decision, for it left the rich North African provinces of Africa and Numidia practically defenseless, and in 240 CE the senatorial proconsul of Africa Sabinianus proclaimed himself augustus. The revolt had to be quashed by the governor of Mauretania Caesariensis, who had to go to Carthage with the auxiliary units garrisoned in his province to deal with the revolt (Philip the Arab would re-form Legio III Augusta after Gordian III’s death).
And apart from the situation in Mesopotamia there were also problems in the lower Danube. Maximinus Thrax seems to have dealt with the immediate menaces against the Rhine and upper Danube borders, but 238 marks the first official appearance of the Goths in Roman history. This year, the ancient Greek city of Olbia in the estuary of the Bug river (which was part of the Roman province of Moesia Inferior) was sacked by them, and soon after the city of Histropolis, in the mouth of the Danube, suffered the same fate (although the source is the SHA, scholars agree that the information is reliable). Meanwhile, the Dacian tribe of the Carpi also crossed the Danube further to the west, invading Lower Moesia proper. Before their deaths, Pupienus and Balbinus sent the senator Tullius Menophilus (one of the defenders of Aquileia against Maximinus Thrax) to deal with the new menace; it’s possible that he was the first man to be entrusted with a general command encompassing several provinces, in this case Lower Moesia and the Dacian provinces. Menophilus reinforced the defenses of Marcianopolis near the mouths of the Danube and repaired the roads in the area (and probably turned it into an important military base, as a mint was established there under his rule). Then he opened separate negotiations with the Goths and Carpi, and agreed to pay a substantial yearly “subsidy” to the Goths, while in comparison the Carpi were offered a pittance. This satisfied the Goths, who quit the war, and the Carpi, angry but unable to put up a serious menace without the Goths, had to accept the deal, and retired back to the north of the Danube. This was the first attested encounter between Goths and Romans, and things did not end well for the Romans, who had to buy the Goths’ retreat. After this episode, he continued for a while in the Lower Danube, which implies that the new government of Gordianus III confirmed him in his post.
Silver Pentassarion of Gordian III with the god Serapis. Minted at Marcianopolis by the consular legate Tullius Menophilus.
In 241 CE, the young Gordian III married Furia Sabina Tranquillina, a step that according to those amongst the ancient sources which give a more extensive treatment of his reign would give a complete turnaround to his hitherto lackluster reign, for the girl was the daughter of a rising star in the Roman administration, the equestrian C. Furius Sabinius Aquila Timesitheus. For the following passages about this character, I’ll by drawing data from the paper written about him by Professor Tommaso Gnoli from the University of Bologna.
Sestertius of Gordian III and his wife Tranquillina, with Greek inscription.
Timesitheus must’ve been a man of remarkable administrative abilities. Whatever scholars have been able to put together regarding his career seems to confirm this: his rise began under Caracalla and continued uninterrupted under Macrinus, Elagabalus, Severus Alexander, Maximinus Thrax and Gordian III, slowly but steadily and always holding administrative posts. Luckily, his complete equestrian cursus honorum is detailed in an epigraphic inscription from Gallia Lugdunensis and dated to 238 CE. The full cursus honorum (in chronological order) is as follows:
The inscription preserved at the Roman Museum in Lyons with Timesitheus' cursus honorum.
And then we’re left with the key hiatus 238-241 CE, for which we have no evidence for Timesitheus’ post. Gnoli hypothesizes (and it seems quite probable to me) that he occupied the post of Prefect for the annona in Rome, i.e. the imperial officer in charge for the supply of foodstuffs to the city of Rome and the distribution of the imperial dole. It’s a possible appointment for two reasons:
Gnoli points out something that has been known to scholars for quite some time: all these authors drew their basic data for Gordian III’s reign from the lost work of Dexippus. None of them lived under Gordian III (the closest one/s, the SHA, must’ve written towards the end of the IV century CE), so they were completely dependent on the Athenian’s work, who was a contemporary of the facts. And Dexippus, like all humans, had his favoritisms. He was a champion of Greek virtues, and Timesitheus was probably of Greek or Syrian Greek origins (lots of imperial bureaucrats from this provenance entered the imperial service under the Severans, due to the Syrian background of the empresses of this dynasty). Dexippus thus showed a parochial attitude towards Timesitheus for the simple fact that he was a fellow Greek, although judging from the comparison between the authors that used his work, the original assessment by Dexippus was far more nuanced that the one that appears in the SHA. Another factor that probably raised Timesitheus’ value in Dexippus’ eyes was his alleged conservatism, which was shared by the Athenian. That Timesitheus was a conservative character is implicit in the fact that the senatorial circle that ruled affairs in Gordian III’s name allowed the marriage of the young augustus with Timesitheus’ daughter, an in other alleged actions which took place shortly after it.
Gnoli hypothesizes (an opinion that I find very interesting) that the period between 238 CE and 260 CE (the capture of Valerian at Edessa) was marked by a newfound predominance by the Senate, and repeated bouts of conservative politics that this body, which thought of itself as the guardian of Roman essences, tried to impose on a society and a state that was changing at a rapid pace. In this sense, if Timesitheus really had a fraction of the influence that ancient authors give him over the teenage emperor, he must’ve enjoyed the full support of the Senate and must’ve taken care to avoid going against its wishes. To Gnoli, the real novelty that Timesitheus brought to Roman politics was a renewed interest in the east; after all he was probably a Syrian, and it’s possible that his rise had been engineered by the eastern faction within the Senate, to end the lack of reaction by the Roman state to Sasanian advances in the East.
And in this sense, the entry of Timesitheus into the imperial family and his rise to the Praetorian prefecture truly made a change, for in 242 CE a new expeditio orientalis was launched. The new campaign was launched with a full propaganda campaign and with all due pomp and ceremony in the Urbs, which according to the SHA included archaic gestures like having Gordian III open the gates to Janus’ temple (the latest time that such an action is attested in Roman history), sacrifices to the main Roman gods, and the like. Probably in early spring, the emperor, and the two Praetorian prefects (Timesitheus and Gaius Iulius Priscus, who was also an easterner born in Damascus) left Rome towards the northern border, to follow the now familiar main military road along the Danube and Thrace towards the Bosphorus and Hellespont, gathering legionary vexillationes, auxiliary units and “barbarian” numeri in their wake.
The murder of Severus Alexander and the accession of Maximinus Thrax is usually considered the start of the so-called III century crisis in the Roman Empire, a period marked by the combined onslaught of foreign invasions, civil wars, epidemies and a fiscal and economic crisis that almost caused the fall of the empire. By contrast, the nascent Sasanian empire enjoyed a long period of political stability and territorial and economic expansion under the combined reigns of Ardaxšir I (224-240 CE) and his son and heir Šābuhr I (240-270 CE).
It’s in this period that scholars must also confront a problem with available sources. Cassius Dio’s History of the Romans stops in 229 CE, and Herodian’s narrative stops in 238 CE with the murder of Maximinus Thrax. There are no surviving Graeco-Roman sources for the rest of the III century. Thus, scholars must resort to alternate sources:
- Epigraphy (which grew increasingly scarce as the century advanced).
- Numismatics.
- Isolated references and fragments, like Egyptian papyri, texts by III century Graeco-Roman Christian writers (like Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage) that were copied by later Christians, the Acts of the Christian Martyrs and strange and difficult sources like the so-called Thirteenth Sybilline Oracle, a “prophetic” text written somewhere in the Roman East in the 260s.
- Roman and Greek writers from the IV century CE and later.
- The so-called Historia Augusta, a very problematic Latin source (see previous posts) written by one or several authors known collectively as Scriptores Historiae Augustae (SHA).
- Sextus Aurelius Victor (c.320 – c.390 CE) was a high-ranking Roman official who wrote a Latin short history of imperial Rome, entitled De Caesaribus and covering the period from Augustus to Constantius II. His work is an example of the historical genre known as epitome, re-using material by older authors in a highly condensed and shortened form (which has allowed its survival until modern times).
- The Res Gestae of Ammianus Marcellinus (c.325-330 – c.391-400 CE). Ammianus was a native of the Roman east who although having Greek as his first language, chose to write in Latin (a very, very rare decision). He was for many years a soldier of the Roman army under Constantius II and Julian. A staunch adherent of paganism and traditional “Roman virtues”, his work is full of criticism against Christians. Originally, the Res Gestae was written in 31 books, of which the first 13 are now lost, and covered the period from the accession of Nerva (94 CE) until the death of emperor Valens at the battle of Adrianople (378 CE). The surviving books cover the period from 353 to 378 CE.
- Flavius Eutropius (IV century CE) was another high-ranking member of the imperial Roman government who wrote a Latin epitome in ten books entitled Breviarium historiae Romanae, from the foundation of Rome to the reign of the eastern emperor Valens (to whom the book is dedicated).
- Festus (later IV century CE) was yet another high-ranking Roman official who wrote another epitome, the Breviarium rerum gestarum populi Romani, commissioned by the eastern emperor Valens. It covers the period from the foundation of Rome until 364 CE.
- The anonymous Epitome de Caesaribus (late IV century CE) is a Latin compendium of biographies of Roman emperors, from Augustus to Theodosius I.
- Zosimus (active in Constantinople between 490 and 510 CE) was an imperial functionary who wrote in Greek a work titled New History in six books, covering from Augustus to the year 410 CE. For events between 238 to 270 CE, he drew on the lost work of Dexippus. Zosimus was a pagan, and the objective of his work was to “demonstrate” how the decadence of the Roman empire was due to the rejection of the old gods by the Christian emperors.
- Peter the Patrician was magister officiorum under Justinian I, and wrote in Greek a history of the first four centuries of the Roman Empire, from the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE to the death of Emperor Constantius II in 361 CE, of which about twenty fragments are extant.
- George Syncellus (? – after 810 CE) was a Byzantine monk who wrote a universal chronicle entitled Extract of Chronography. In it he reused much material from Dexippus for events of the III century.
- John Zonaras (Constantinople, XI-XII centuries CE) was a Byzantine monk who wrote a universal history from Adam to the death of emperor Alexios I (1118 CE), entitled Extracts of History. For events of the III century he’s one of the most important sources available, as he makes abundant use of sources now lost.
The first act by the Senate after the acclamation of the young Gordian III as sole augustus was to condemn the late Pupienus and Balbinus to the ultimate punishment of damnatio memoriae (same as Maximinus). What did they do to deserve this fate is unknown, but this should make people think twice before blaming solely the Praetorians for their deaths. Herodian though puts the blame solely on the Praetorians, who had been humiliated by the Roman populace led by Balbinus and who resented the fact that the army at large (not the Praetorian Guard itself) had been deprived of what it saw as its privilege since the accesion of Septimius Severus, the right to appoint the new Augustus. Thus according to Herodian, it was the Praetorians who, following the murder of Pupienus and Balbinus acclaimed Gordian III as augustus, excusing their actions by stating publicly that they were merely carrying on the people's will. Although this still does not explain why did the Senate go as far as it went with the damnatio memoriae of their late colleagues.
The first three years of the new reign were years of total inactivity on the eastern border, with the Romans failing to retaliate against the Sasanian advances. Given that it’s quite improbable that the teenaged emperor governed by himself, it’s possible that the government was assumed by a regency council drawn from the ranks of the Senate, and that this council was dominated by western senators who did not care much about eastern affairs. By 240 CE, the situation in the East was a total disaster for Rome. The new Sasanian dynasty had brought the Roman border back to the Euphrates, like in the times before Lucius Verus’ conquests, and the only ally of Rome that still resisted the apparently unstoppable Sasanian tide was Armenia, led by its Arsacid king Tiridates II. During his three- year reign Maximinus Thrax had left aside completely the defense of the Roman East and had concentrated only in Rome’s northern borders, and this had been one of the main causes for the wave of discontentment that led to his fall.
According to Syncellus and Zonaras, Sasanian armies had taken Nisibis and Carrhae, although they say nothing about the other main fortified Roman cities and encampments like Singara, Edessa or Resaina. The situation was probably even worse than the list of fallen cities might suggest; Nisibis had been the base of Legio III Parthica, and if the city had been lost, this legion must’ve been destroyed or at the very least badly mauled. Carrhae lies near the Euphrates, Hatra had also fallen and the city had been razed to the ground, and the advanced Roman fortified city of Dura-Europos had also been lost. So, while it’s possible that Edessa and Resaina had not been lost (as they were both located near the Euphrates), it’s very probable that Singara, located much more to the east and south than any of these cities, had also been lost, which raises again the question about the sort suffered by the legion based there (Legio I Parthica). The same applies to the roughly 10,000 auxiliaries that had been stationed in the province, especially in the forts along the Singara-Khabur road; which archeological evidence shows that were either destroyed or abandoned at the time. Further proof for the loss of Mesopotamia is the fact that the Nisibis mint stopped its issues completely after 240 CE. Scholars David S. Potter and Yann Le bohed state that Singara and Resaina fell into Sasanian hands in 241 CE, although I've been unable to find the ancient sorces that provide this bit of information.
Map of Roman Mesopotamia with the main fortified cities and fortified bases qu.oted in the text
A much more alarming hint is that the imperial mint at Antioch (the main Roman mint in the East) also stopped minting in 240-241 CE, which has led some scholars to suggest that the Sasanian armies had managed to either besiege or perhaps even take the city for a time, but the sources do not mention it (except the always unreliable SHA), so this must be treated just like a (very, very unlikely) hypothesis.
To make matters worse, the Sasanian empire was led by a vigorous new king, who was an adult man with plenty of military experience, while the emperor in Rome was a thirteen-year-old boy. It took the Romans two years to react after the accession of Gordian III to the purple. His first years were difficult. Gordian III came from a respected and wealthy senatorial family, and was well liked by the Senate and the Roman plebs (who for some reason had been very fond of the ephemeral two first Gordiani). Even though, as due to his age he couldn’t have been able to fulfill his duties as augustus, and although the sources don’t tell us anything, it’s quite possible that the old senatorial families of the Severan era took advantage of the situation to govern in his name (as I wrote above). But, apart from the situation in the East, there were other troubles. One of the first measures of Gordian III’s government was to dismiss Legio III Augusta for its role in killing his kinsmen. It was not a very enlightened decision, for it left the rich North African provinces of Africa and Numidia practically defenseless, and in 240 CE the senatorial proconsul of Africa Sabinianus proclaimed himself augustus. The revolt had to be quashed by the governor of Mauretania Caesariensis, who had to go to Carthage with the auxiliary units garrisoned in his province to deal with the revolt (Philip the Arab would re-form Legio III Augusta after Gordian III’s death).
And apart from the situation in Mesopotamia there were also problems in the lower Danube. Maximinus Thrax seems to have dealt with the immediate menaces against the Rhine and upper Danube borders, but 238 marks the first official appearance of the Goths in Roman history. This year, the ancient Greek city of Olbia in the estuary of the Bug river (which was part of the Roman province of Moesia Inferior) was sacked by them, and soon after the city of Histropolis, in the mouth of the Danube, suffered the same fate (although the source is the SHA, scholars agree that the information is reliable). Meanwhile, the Dacian tribe of the Carpi also crossed the Danube further to the west, invading Lower Moesia proper. Before their deaths, Pupienus and Balbinus sent the senator Tullius Menophilus (one of the defenders of Aquileia against Maximinus Thrax) to deal with the new menace; it’s possible that he was the first man to be entrusted with a general command encompassing several provinces, in this case Lower Moesia and the Dacian provinces. Menophilus reinforced the defenses of Marcianopolis near the mouths of the Danube and repaired the roads in the area (and probably turned it into an important military base, as a mint was established there under his rule). Then he opened separate negotiations with the Goths and Carpi, and agreed to pay a substantial yearly “subsidy” to the Goths, while in comparison the Carpi were offered a pittance. This satisfied the Goths, who quit the war, and the Carpi, angry but unable to put up a serious menace without the Goths, had to accept the deal, and retired back to the north of the Danube. This was the first attested encounter between Goths and Romans, and things did not end well for the Romans, who had to buy the Goths’ retreat. After this episode, he continued for a while in the Lower Danube, which implies that the new government of Gordianus III confirmed him in his post.
Silver Pentassarion of Gordian III with the god Serapis. Minted at Marcianopolis by the consular legate Tullius Menophilus.
In 241 CE, the young Gordian III married Furia Sabina Tranquillina, a step that according to those amongst the ancient sources which give a more extensive treatment of his reign would give a complete turnaround to his hitherto lackluster reign, for the girl was the daughter of a rising star in the Roman administration, the equestrian C. Furius Sabinius Aquila Timesitheus. For the following passages about this character, I’ll by drawing data from the paper written about him by Professor Tommaso Gnoli from the University of Bologna.
Sestertius of Gordian III and his wife Tranquillina, with Greek inscription.
Timesitheus must’ve been a man of remarkable administrative abilities. Whatever scholars have been able to put together regarding his career seems to confirm this: his rise began under Caracalla and continued uninterrupted under Macrinus, Elagabalus, Severus Alexander, Maximinus Thrax and Gordian III, slowly but steadily and always holding administrative posts. Luckily, his complete equestrian cursus honorum is detailed in an epigraphic inscription from Gallia Lugdunensis and dated to 238 CE. The full cursus honorum (in chronological order) is as follows:
- Praefectus of Cohors I Gallica in Hispania Tarraconensis, the only military post listed.
- Procurator rationis privatae per Belgicam et duas Germanias, i.e. administrator of the imperial estates in these provinces.
- Procurator provinciae Arabiae ibi vice praesidis bis, i.e. imperial supervisor of the province of Arabia, and vice-governor, twice. (under the joint government of Elagabalus and Severus Alexander).
- Procurator in urbe magister XX, ibi logistae thymelae, i.e. supervisor in Rome for the collection of the 5% inheritance tax, and supervisor of the imperial theaters and circuses (under Severus Alexander).
- Procurator provinciae Syriae Palaestinae ibi exactori reliquorum annonae sacrae expeditionis; i.e. imperial officer in charge for fiscal affairs and for the collection of the extraordinary taxes in kind raised from the province of Syria Palaestina for the eastern expedition of Severus Alexander. This is his first truly important post, because that means he was one of the main functionaries responsible for the supply of the huge army that Severus Alexander gathered in the East.
- Procuratori provinciarum Bithyniae Ponti Paphlagoniae tam patrimoni quam rationis privatae ibi vice procuratoris XXXX item vice procuratoris patrimoni provinciarum Belgicae et duarum Germaniarum ibi vice praesidis provinciae Germaniae inferioris; i.e. imperial officer in charge of fiscal affairs and administrator of the imperial estates in the provinces of Bythinia, Pontus and Paphlagonia, imperial officer in charge for the collection of the 2,5% customs tax and administrator of imperial estates in Belgica, Lower and Upper Germany and provisional governor of Lower Germany. This is an unusual accumulation of posts, quite rare in other known equestrian or senatorial careers. Timesitheus must’ve been a very competent administrator to have so many posts heaped upon his person (and in widely dispersed areas of the empire). Gnoli proposes an interpretation for this wide array of posts as follows: Timesitheus ad developed his functions in Palestine brilliantly, and while Severus Alexander was in Antioch in the winter of 233-34 CE planning his second (and never carried out) campaign against Ardaxšir I, he appointed Timesitheus as supervisor for the administration of imperial states and fiscal supervisor over territories that straddled two whole Asian provinces and part of another (Paphlagonia was part of the province of Galatia). When the emperor had to leave in a hurry for the Rhine in the spring of 234 CE, he took Timesitheus with him and appointed him with similar responsibilities for the two Germanies and Gallia Belgica, which were essential for the supply of the Rhine army. In early 235 CE, Severus Alexander, his mother and his ministers met their end at the hands of mutinied soldiers of the Lower Germany legions at Mogontiacum, Gnoli thinks that it’s possible that the senatorial governor of Lower Germany was amongst those murdered at Mogontiacum, and that the new emperor Maximinus Thrax then appointed Timesitheus as provisional governor for the province while a new senatorial governor was chosen; on top of all his other appointments.
- Procurator provinciae Asiae ibique vice XX et XXXX itemque vice proconsulis; i.e. imperial officer for the supervision of fiscal affairs in the province of Asia and for the collection of the 5% inheritance tax and the 2,5% customs tax, and provisional governor for the province. Maximinus Thrax sent Timesitheus back to Asia, to one of the richest provinces in the empire, where he also acted as provisional governor (an uncommon honor for an equestrian in a senatorial province of proconsular rank like Asia).
- Procurator provinciarum Lugdunensis et Aquitaniae; i.e. imperial officer for the supervision of fiscal affairs in the provinces of Gallia Lugdunensis and Gallia Aquitania. This is the last line in the inscription, and as it is dated to 238 CE, according to Gnoli this must’ve been Timesitheus’ post at the time of Maximinus Thrax’s death.
The inscription preserved at the Roman Museum in Lyons with Timesitheus' cursus honorum.
And then we’re left with the key hiatus 238-241 CE, for which we have no evidence for Timesitheus’ post. Gnoli hypothesizes (and it seems quite probable to me) that he occupied the post of Prefect for the annona in Rome, i.e. the imperial officer in charge for the supply of foodstuffs to the city of Rome and the distribution of the imperial dole. It’s a possible appointment for two reasons:
- First, because as we’ve seen when recalling his career, he was a man very experienced with logistics and supplies.
- Second, because he must’ve been residing in Rome when he got lucky and Gordian III married his daughter Tranquillina.
Gnoli points out something that has been known to scholars for quite some time: all these authors drew their basic data for Gordian III’s reign from the lost work of Dexippus. None of them lived under Gordian III (the closest one/s, the SHA, must’ve written towards the end of the IV century CE), so they were completely dependent on the Athenian’s work, who was a contemporary of the facts. And Dexippus, like all humans, had his favoritisms. He was a champion of Greek virtues, and Timesitheus was probably of Greek or Syrian Greek origins (lots of imperial bureaucrats from this provenance entered the imperial service under the Severans, due to the Syrian background of the empresses of this dynasty). Dexippus thus showed a parochial attitude towards Timesitheus for the simple fact that he was a fellow Greek, although judging from the comparison between the authors that used his work, the original assessment by Dexippus was far more nuanced that the one that appears in the SHA. Another factor that probably raised Timesitheus’ value in Dexippus’ eyes was his alleged conservatism, which was shared by the Athenian. That Timesitheus was a conservative character is implicit in the fact that the senatorial circle that ruled affairs in Gordian III’s name allowed the marriage of the young augustus with Timesitheus’ daughter, an in other alleged actions which took place shortly after it.
Gnoli hypothesizes (an opinion that I find very interesting) that the period between 238 CE and 260 CE (the capture of Valerian at Edessa) was marked by a newfound predominance by the Senate, and repeated bouts of conservative politics that this body, which thought of itself as the guardian of Roman essences, tried to impose on a society and a state that was changing at a rapid pace. In this sense, if Timesitheus really had a fraction of the influence that ancient authors give him over the teenage emperor, he must’ve enjoyed the full support of the Senate and must’ve taken care to avoid going against its wishes. To Gnoli, the real novelty that Timesitheus brought to Roman politics was a renewed interest in the east; after all he was probably a Syrian, and it’s possible that his rise had been engineered by the eastern faction within the Senate, to end the lack of reaction by the Roman state to Sasanian advances in the East.
And in this sense, the entry of Timesitheus into the imperial family and his rise to the Praetorian prefecture truly made a change, for in 242 CE a new expeditio orientalis was launched. The new campaign was launched with a full propaganda campaign and with all due pomp and ceremony in the Urbs, which according to the SHA included archaic gestures like having Gordian III open the gates to Janus’ temple (the latest time that such an action is attested in Roman history), sacrifices to the main Roman gods, and the like. Probably in early spring, the emperor, and the two Praetorian prefects (Timesitheus and Gaius Iulius Priscus, who was also an easterner born in Damascus) left Rome towards the northern border, to follow the now familiar main military road along the Danube and Thrace towards the Bosphorus and Hellespont, gathering legionary vexillationes, auxiliary units and “barbarian” numeri in their wake.
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Do we know why Valens commissioned so many histories? (or at least, why so many survive that date to his reign)?
I don’t know; although the work of Ammianus was not commisioned by Valens in any way. Ammianus was s staunch pagan traditionalist, and he despised all Christian emperors (that’s the main reason why Julian was his hero), and that includes the Arian Valens too. He explicitly blamed Valens’ impatience and arrogance for the Roman disaster at Adrianople. The only two works explicitly related to Valens are Festus’ Breviarium (an imperial commision) and Eutropius’ one, which is dedicated to Valens, but it’s unclear if it had been commisioned by him or not.
The reasons for the survival of some many Epitomes and Breviarii is simply that as they were short works, it was easier and cheaper to copy them during the Middle Ages, which improved their chances of survival through textual transmission. Of the longer works written by more committed authors, almost none of them has survived complete (Herodian for example is an exception, but he kept his work fairly short), there are always missing parts (Livius, Tacitus, Dio, Ammianus) or have been lost entirely and only isolated fragments survive, especially in quotations or epitomes by later authors. For some reason, in this later cathegory we must include all pagan and secular authors who wrote in Greek after Herodian until the V century: all the works of Dexippus of Athens, Eunapius of Sardis and other authors have been lost, and only fragments survive. At least in the case of Dexippus, we know that his works were still preserved in Constantinople in the X century, as in Constantine VII’s De Ceremoniis several passages of his works were quoted. And Dio’s History of the Romans was still preserved in the same city in the XI-XII centuries, when John Zonaras wrote his epitome.
About Latin authors, it’s usually very hard to say when the textual transmission was interrupted. In the case of Ammianus, the surviving books of the Res Gestae were published in Florence in the Renaissance, and the provenance of the text was from a manuscript from a German abbey copied in late Carolingian times. But the text that remains was saved in extremis when an humanist asked the abbot to let him copy the surviving folios of the old manuscript, that were about to be cut up and re-used to make covers for the accounting books of the abbey. And some of the pages he copied had already been cut and part of the text was missing on the margins, so imagine what was the state in which the text was published, in this first edition large parts of it were practically impossible to understand, and since then scholars have laboriously reconstructed the lagoons in the text as best as they could.
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Hmm yes, and I see on wiki that Afghans are (probably) horsemen. NiceYou are correct regarding the meaning of "Pāh (پا)" which of course means leg in parsi (both modern and ancient). the second part which is "ghān or "gān (گان)" (pronounced just like "gun" in english !) is actually a postfix used to pluralize the words (note this works with some words and cannot be applied to any given word)
So as reckoned by yourself Pāhigān (پایگان) means Footmen
Regarding the Romans: it's, when you look at all that, quite surprising Rome ever survived the 3rd century