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JSOU Report 16-1
Populations were increasingly dependent on local rulers or notables to navigate
the labyrinth of obstacles that accompanied these shifts in imperial
fortunes. In addition, the wars brought shifts in populations that tended
to add an even more complex social and cultural mix to the region. It also
promoted ‘march lords’ whose loyalty often became an important part of
imperial security as they formed a buffer between empires but a barrier
against more local forces of instability. To the point, stability and security
required an imperial or overarching structure that enforced a more or less
reliable political and administrative construct; however, underneath that
structure there existed a highly diverse heterogeneous society.
One of the better illustrations of how these developments affected a longterm
conflict was the struggle for control between the Christian Byzantine
Empire, including what is also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire
(330-1453 CE), and the Persian Zoroastrian Sassanian Empire (224-651 CE).
It was a long-term struggle that ebbed and flowed for centuries. The battleground
was what this monograph describes as the Greater Levant. At any
given point, it might appear that one side or the other would win the contest.
It was a very complex struggle, and it also required empires to protect
their southern flanks from each other and from tribal raiders originating in
Arabia using semi-independent tribal vassals. The Byzantines employed the
Ghassanids, originally a Yemeni tribal grouping of Azd that migrated into
the Levant, became Christianized and formed a tribal buffer covering the
southern and eastern flanks of the Byzantine Empire. The Lakhmids were
another Yemeni tribe that migrated into the edges of Mesopotamia and the
Sassanian Empire; while at times problematic for the Sassanians, their rivalry
with Ghassanids made them a buffer against Byzantium to the West and the
Arabian tribes to the south.
Despite the utility of the tribes, the Byzantines and the Sassanians
attempted to impose a level of control over both that undermined the symbiotic
relationship. Although Christian, the Ghassanids belonged to a Jacobite
sect that the Byzantine Church viewed as heretical—the resulting persecution
opened fissures in that alliance. The Sassanians became increasingly
concerned with the military and economic power accumulated by Lakhmids,
and in the early 7th century, the Sassanians annexed the Lakhmid buffer
state. Thus, in an attempt to extend control, both empires stepped over the
line with their vassals in attempting to impose conformity. It proved fatal
to one and severely damaged the other.
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