Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

190 6 Shared interests: Continuing conflicts
the Romans to intervene before the Persians could form political alliances
with northern nomadic peoples. During the first and second centuries
cooperation between Rome and Ibēria proved advantageous for both states,
and this at a time when the Romans were confronted by the Parthian
expansion westwards and their political interests in Armenia were at stake.
The peoples in the mountainous regions south of the Caucasus also feared
the Parthians, who were thus the common enemies of Rome and Ibēria.
While the Ibērians hoped that close contacts between the two would secure
their own freedom, the Romans saw these contacts as a means to stop the
Eastern power from invading this strategically important region.
The end of Parthian rule did not change the situation. Common interests
in the Caucasus intensified the relations between Rome and the Sasanian
Empire. 75 As part of the foedus of 244 between Philip the Arab and ˇ Sāpūr
I the Roman emperor was obliged to make annual subsidiary payments
to the Sasanian king (16), money which had previously been used for
the protection of the fortresses in the Caucasus. This meant that ˇ Sāpūr
I was henceforth responsible for maintaining the Caucasian passes. The
regulations of 244 also entailed that the Roman emperor had to withdraw
from this strategically important region where the Sasanians now gained
much influence. In the military confrontations of the following period
the Ibērian king may have fought on the Persian side; in the great ˇ Sāpūr
Inscription the Ibērian king is listed among the subjects of the Persian
king 76 and in the Inscription of Paikuli he is still among those who show
reverence to Narsē at the beginning of his reign. 77
Only when Narsē was defeated and the two powers concluded the treaty
of 298 (6 and 17) did Rome regain hegemony over the important countries
Kolchis and Ibēria, which form modern Georgia. The sixth-century
Byzantine historian Peter the Patrician states that the rulers of Ibēria had
to receive the symbols of their power from Rome. 78 The territories which
ˇSāpūr I had conquered in this part of the Caucasus had therefore been
lost by the end of the third century. In 298 Diocletian achieved obvious
strategic advantages and thereby continued the existing policy of protecting
Roman interests around the Black Sea and of securing the Caucasian
passes. It is doubtful whether the Caucasus region was also an issue in the
agreements of the year 363 (18). However, John the Lydian, who wrote his
75 On the Sasanian interests see Yuzbashian 1996: 143–64.
76 ˇ SKZ § 44 (p. 355 ed. Back); on the successes of ˇ Sāpūr I in the Caucasus see Kettenhofen 1982c: 42–3.
77 Inscription of Paikuli § 92 (p. 71, ed. Skjaervo).
78 Petr. Patr. frg. 14 (FHG iv 189).