Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

188 6 Shared interests: Continuing conflicts
as well as a desire for more autonomy. The plan failed but the unrest in
Armenia further weakened the monarchy of Kavādh I. Conflicts broke out
within the Sasanian Empire, and eventually Kavādh I was deposed. 66 Only
with the help of the Hephthalites did he manage to return to the throne
in 498/99. Shortly after, Anastasius once more refused to grant financial
support to the king, which triggered the outbreak of the first Byzantine–
Sasanian War in the sixth century (12). Apparently Kavādh remembered
well that the Armenians had revolted against Sasanian rule a decade earlier
– the first Persian attack in August 502 targeted the capital of Lesser
Armenia, Theodosio(u)polis. 67 Once more Armenia was the setting for a
war between Byzantium and the Sasanian Empire. 68
27: Protection of the frontier
The following comments focus on an area that was of exceptional strategic
importance in antiquity and played a crucial role in relations between
Rome and its Eastern neighbours: the Caucasus (map 12). 69 Only very few
routes existed by which this region between the Black and the Caspian
Seas, characterised by its huge mountain ranges, could be crossed. Apart
from the coastal routes along the Black Sea and along the Caspian Sea
the most important pass was the so-called Caucasian Gates. 70 These portae
Caucasiae are different from the portae Caspiae, which are situated south of
the Caspian Sea and often confused with the former in the ancient sources.
The portae Caucasiae, however, a narrow passage through the Caucasus, are
the only route to Ibēria and this is why they are sometimes also called portae
Hiberiae. Procopius describes how the Huns settling in the Transcaucasus
and as far as the Maeotic Lake (Sea of Asov) invaded Persian as well as
Roman territories through this pass, which was set there by nature just as
if made by the hand of man. The author explains that their horses did
not come to any harm nor did they have to take detours or overcome
66 On the so-called Mazdakite revolt and its consequences for inner affairs in Persia see 11.
67 Ios. Styl. 48; Malal. 16.9 (p. 398); Zach. HE vii.3 (22.15–22); cf. also Luther 1997: 178–9 and Greatrex
1998: 79–80.
68 On the political and religious situation in Armenia during the reign of Kavādh I see Chaumont
1987a: 430–2; on the general history and culture of Armenia in late antiquity see Redgate 1998 (repr.
1999): esp. 140–64 and Thomson 1999: xi–xxx.
69 Toumanoff 1954: 109–90; Lang 1962: 25–8; Braund 1986: 31–49 and 1989: 31–43; Dabrowa 1989:
77–111; Dreher 1996: 188–207.
70 Luther 1997: 105 n. 29 locates two strategically important passes through the Caucasus, namely the
so-called Alans’ Gate or Dariel pass, situated to the north of Tiflis (= portae Caucasiae), and the
Derbend pass, the Caspian Gates, to the Persian Atropatēnē.