Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

254 9 Exchange of information between West and East
the main theme of his narrative are the Roman wars against the Francs,
Goths and Sasanians. 45 Agathias points to his efforts in gathering precise
information from official Persian sources. 46 Access to these he owed to the
activities of the translator Sergius, who was held in high esteem by Xusrō
I(531–79) and whom the author asked to translate the Persian documents
into Greek. Agathias may have claimed to have had access to the archives of
the Sasanian kings in order to make his account more trustworthy; however,
even if this is a false claim, it is remarkable that the scenario could have
been possible.
As the above examination has shown, contacts took place via diplomats,
spies, refugees, exiles and historians who were interested in foreign cultures
and whose names we often know. The mediators were also ‘unemployed
philosophers’ as well as Christians and Jews in the Sasanian Empire because
of their close contacts with their fellow-believers in the Roman Empire.
They all found their way into the neighbouring empire and furthered the
exchange of ideas and knowledge between the two cultures, above all within
the border areas and in Mesopotamia. 47
36: Deportations: Enforced resettlement of prisoners
Moreover, in the context of the Persian conquests numerous people were
deported into the Sasanian Empire. 48 Together with these, Western ideas
and culture reached Iran. Already ˇ Sāpūr I (240–72) boasted in the epigraphic
record of his deeds that as a consequence of his victorious campaigns
in the Roman Eastern provinces he had deported innumerable people
from the Roman Empire and resettled them in the Persis, in Parthia, in
the Susiane, in Mesopotamia 49 and all other provinces. 50 The deportations
of a large number of Romans to the Sasanian ancestral homelands after the
victory over the emperor Valerian in 260 and the assignment of Roman
prisoners to several cities in Iran are confirmed by a Nestorian chronicle,
the so-called Chronicle of Seert, which was composed in Arabic. This
text stems from a period soon after 1036 and is not only significant for
our knowledge about the religious situation in Iran but also an important
source with regard to the Sasanian–Roman relations. 51
45 On the Persia-excursus see Cameron 1969–70: 69–183. 46 See Suolathi 1947.
47 Matthews 1989b: 29–49.
49 See Simpson 2000: 37–66.
51 Decret 1979: 93–152.
48 Lieu 1986: 475–505 and Kettenhofen 1994b: 297–308.
50 SKZ, ˇ § 30 (pp. 324–6 ed. Back).