Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

34 Legitimate rule and the ‘family of kings’ 241
events of the years 590/91. According to Tabarī Xusrō II became extremely
angry when it was reported to him how the Romans had betrayed Maurice
and killed him. He received Maurice’s son, who had fled to him, crowned
him and declared him the new monarch of the Romans. 36 Theophylact
Simocatta explicitly states that for Xusrō Phocas’ usurpation dissolved the
good relationship between Romans and Persians and triggered war. 37 From
a king’s perspective, just as the monarchy in the Sasanian Empire had been
threatened in 590/91 by a usurper, Phocas’ activities and reign of terror in
602 questioned the imperial rule and asked for solidarity between legitimate
rulers. Xusrō’s decision to go to war against Phocas triggered the last great
confrontation between Romans and Persians (15).
There is no doubt that until its downfall the Sasanian Empire remained
the natio molestissima for Rome – which ultimately had to be destroyed. 38
One of the main reasons for this was the fact that the Sasanians rejected
Rome’s claim for universal rule. 39 However, a Sasanian ‘King of kings’
could be acknowledged and respected by a Roman emperor as a much
honoured equal, and this status was not threatened by the universal claims
of the world power Rome. The West and the East shared a basic consensus
regarding a legitimacy of rule, and this not only manifested itself as a strong
ideology of rule but could turn into ‘Realpolitik’ – certainly carrying force
as a political argument. Ultimately this consensus therefore facilitated the
emergence of an international law binding sovereign states on the basis of
principles that are still applied today.
36 Tabarī, tr. Nöldeke 290; Bosworth 317 (1002).
37 However, at the very end of his work Theoph. Simoc. (viii.15.7) states as explicitly that the events
in Byzantium were merely a pretext for Xusrō II in order to open war against the West; cf. Garsoïan
1983: 578 and Blockley 1985a: 74.
38 Amm. xxiii.5.19. 39 See the commentary on 1 and 2.