Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

25 Proxy policy’: Lahmids and Gassānids 169
His example did not alter the general Persian policy and the Sasanians
continued to entrust individual Arab rulers with the control of the restless
Arab tribes along their borders. 94 In the so called Inscription of Paikuli,
an inscription of Narsē (293–302), we read that once more a ‘king of the
Lahmids’ paid his respect to the Sasanian king on the occasion of his
accession to the throne. 95 Apparently the Persians had put him in charge
as an allied vassal along their Western frontier so that he would continue
the tasks carried out by Imruulqais before.
It thus looks as if – corresponding to the Persian policy – the Romans also
tried to protect their own border by using local Arabs as commanders in
these areas. Inevitably this ‘Arabia policy’ extended the geographical scope
of the conflict between the great powers and introduced a new element
to the Roman–Iranian relations. Whereas henceforth the Sasanians always
entrusted one powerful family, namely the Lahmids, with the protection
of their interests in the Arab territories, the Romans always used several
phylarchs who, in return for pay, performed services that helped with the
protection of the border and controlling the restless Arab tribes. This rather
loose state of dependence, which is alluded to in the grave inscription of
Imruulqais, did not change before the beginning of the sixth century when
the Ghassanid dynasty became to Byzantium what the Lahmids had been
to the Sasanians for a long time. 96 In the sixth century the ‘proxy policy’
of the great powers, that is the policy of including Arab rulers in their own
political considerations, reached its peak.
25: Proxy policy : Lahmids 97 and Ghassanids 98
Procopius, De Bello Persico i.17.40–41 and 45–48
(40) . . . For Alamoundaros was a very smart man and very experienced in war,
extremely dedicated to the Persians and exceptionally daring to the effect that he
thwarted Roman interests for almost fifty years. (41) From the borders of Egypt
to Mesopotamia he raided every territory where and from where he captured all
things, one after the other. . .
(45) To sum up: this man was the worst and most dangerous enemy for the
Romans. The reason for this was that Alamoundaros was the only one holding the
94 See Mayerson 1989: 71–9.
95 Humbach and Skjaervo 1983: § 92 (p. 71 ed. Skjaervo); Skjaervo 1983: 126; on this second great
epigraphic statement by a third-century Sasanian ruler see Kettenhofen 1995c: 1–47.
96 On the importance of the Lahmids for the protection of the Sasanian Western frontier against the
Bedouins of the Arabian–Syrian desert see Nyberg 1959: 316–26.
97 Rothstein 1968 and Shahîd 1986: 632–4.
98 Nöldeke 1887b; Kawar 1957–8: 232–55 and Shahîd 1965: 1020–1.