Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

186 6 Shared interests: Continuing conflicts
a descendant of the Arsacid dynasty continued to rule the Persian sector
of the country. In 428, however, the situation changed when Bahrām V.
Gōr (420–39) decided to depose king Artashes (Ardaˇsīr) as well as the head
of the Armenian Church, the catholicos Sahak, and to appoint a Persian
governor who would henceforth administer Armenian affairs. 57 Sahak was
replaced initially by an Armenian Surmak, and then by two Syrians. This
final loss of independence and an anti-Christian policy pursued by the
Sasanian rulers in the following period led to a split within the ranks of the
Armenian nobility into pro- and anti-Sasanian factions; moreover, during
the course of the fifth century numerous military conflicts arose between
the Armenians and the Sasanians. 58 Two Armenian authors, Lazarus of
Pharp, whose history was composed around 500, taking up where the Epic
Histories end and continuing to 485, and Eliˇsē, who wrote his History of
Vardan and the Armenian War around 570, describe the last unsuccessful
revolt of the Armenians against the Sasanian overlordship in 450/51 and
the ensuing fate of the Armenian captives in the Sasanian Empire. 59 The
following passage by the Syrian chronicler Joshua the Stylite shows that the
tense situation in Armenia continued to bear an impact on the relations
between Byzantium and Persia.
Joshua Stylites 21 (249.15–23)
Now, when the Armenians who were under the rule of Kavādh heard that the
Romans had not replied to him with a truce, they took heart and were encouraged,
and they uprooted the fire shrines that had been built in their country by the
Persians, and they killed the Magians in their midst. And Kavādh sent against
them a certain marzban, 60 with an army, that he might punish them and again
force them to worship fire; but they fought with him and destroyed both him and
his army. They sent envoys to the emperor in order to submit to him, but he was
not willing to receive them, so that it might not be supposed that he was provoking
the war with the Persians.
The author of these lines wrote a very detailed and informative description
of Roman–Sasanian conflicts, and in particular those of the fifth century.
His work is one of the oldest examples of Syriac historiography and also
yields much information regarding the social and economic climate in
57 Cf. Chaumont 1987a: 429, ‘Thereafter the government of Armenia was conducted by marzbans,
who were sometimes picked from the Armenian nobility. The first marzban appointed by Vahram
was Veh-Mihr-Sapur.’
58 On a detailed analysis of the military as well as diplomatic activities see Yuzbashyan 1986: 51–5 (in
Russian with an English summary) and Luther 1997: 141–4.
59 Cf. Thomson 1982 and 1991.
60 Title of the governor of a border province and military commander of the Sasanian border troops.