Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

194 6 Shared interests: Continuing conflicts
support the fortress Iuroeipaach by sending either money or troops, saying
that each side should defend their own country and maintain their
own fortresses. 98 In contrast, during the first half of his reign the Byzantine
emperor Zeno (474–5/476–91) did make subsidiary payments to Pērōz,
although these should probably not be labelled ‘tribute’, as the Syrian chronicler
Joshua the Stylite clarifies in his detailed account. 99
Immediately after the death of the Sasanian king (484) the payments
for the fortification of the Caucasian passes ceased. 100 This led to new
tensions. When in the year 502 Kavādh I (488–97/499–531) asked the
emperor Anastasius (491–518) to send him money for his battle against
the Hephthalites, 101 the emperor’s rejection led to the outbreak of the first
Byzantine–Sasanian War in the sixth century. 102 Apparently, the Persian
ruler had offered Anastasius one of the Caucasian fortresses in turn; during
the peace negotiations in the spring of 531 Kavādh I accused Anastasius of
having been the aggressor by saying, among other things, that the emperor
had not been willing to ‘acquire’ the Caspian Gates. If he had done so, he
would have had to maintain an army there for all times and bear a great
financial burden in order to fend off the barbarians. 103
Both the question of how the costs for maintaining the Caucasian
fortresses would be met and the cessation of the annual payments triggered
many new conflicts way into the sixth century. 104 It is thus not surprising
that when Justinian I (527–79) and Xusrō I(531–79) tried to put an
end to the second Roman–Persian War in the sixth century in 562 (20)
the diplomatic efforts towards a comprehensive agreement also focused on
the protection of the shared border and its defence against the bellicose
nomadic peoples attacking from the north. According to Menander the
Guardsman the Persians agreed to march against invasions of the Huns,
the Alans and other barbarians in the Caucasus region whereas the Romans
promised not to send troops into the area and thus to give up any influence
in the region. 105 This means that the Persians, who had firmly established
their military presence in the Caucasus by the sixth century, 106 were now
willing to defend this insecure border by themselves without insisting on
98 Priscus frg. 47 (= FHG iv 107).
99 Ios. Styl. 8; see the detailed commentary in Luther 1997: 101–8; also Blockley 1985a: 66–7, ‘The
insistence of Joshua that the payments made by Zeno were no tribute suggests that some thought
they were, perhaps because the Persians had attempted to convert an occasional payment into a
regular.’
100 Ios. Styl. 18.
101 Proc. BP i.7.1–4 and Ios. Styl. 20 and 23; on Kavādh’s requests see Blockley 1985a: 68.
102 Greatrex 1998: 73–119. 103 Proc. BP i.16.4. 104 Blockley 1985a: 68–74.
105 Menander Protector, frg. 11. 106 Kramers 1935–7: 613–18.