Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

656 22a. the sasanid monarchy
according to its size and according to the kind of crops raised; the tax was
calculated in the drahm currency, but some at least probably continued to
be levied in kind, calculated according to the current value of the produce
in drahms. This new system, if efficiently applied, would enable a monarch
to anticipate incomes and budget expenses. It might be seen as oppressive
on the peasantry, primarily because the fixed drahm rates apparently disregarded
fluctuations in agricultural yield caused by drought, other natural
calamities or war, but this is to ignore the best testimony about the reform:
if a distinction is drawn between the reform’s institution and operation in
Khusro’s reign, and what it subsequently became, the system appears reasonably
efficient and fair. It considerably augmented crown revenues, but
also included a mechanism that enabled constant revision and made tax
rebates and remissions possible where and when necessary.
The fiscal reform was accompanied by an agricultural reform.
Dispossessed farmers were restored to their lands, financial help was available
to enable them to restart cultivation, and a mechanism was instituted
to assist farms affected by natural disasters. The overall result should have
been to maintain a system of small farms that might be easily taxed, and to
prevent the growth of huge estates whose powerful owners might accumulate
privileges and immunities, and obstruct effective taxation.
Khusro’s reform was meant to have a lasting impact on Sasanid military
organization by providing the king with a standing army of crack units of
horsemen (asavaran), under his direct command and permanently at his disposal,
who received a salary, at least when on foreign campaign. This body
of palatini was recruited among young nobles as well as the country gentry,
the dehkanan, who wished to start a military career. On the frontiers, troops
recruited from the nomadic periphery of the Sasanid empire (e.g. Turks),
as well as from semi-independent enclaves within it (e.g. Daylam in the
mountainous region of Gilan), might be employed to repel invasions or
check them until the arrival of the mobile crack units.
Khusro’s system appears to have enjoyed moderate success for a few
decades, until the difficulties that beset the Sasanid monarchy exposed its
weaknesses. In the fiscal area, its proper functioning depended on internal
stability, external security and continuing financial prosperity, backed up by
revenues other than the land and poll taxes (e.g. taxes on international trade,
especially the silk trade, booty from foreign wars, tributes and diplomatic
subsidies, etc.). These supplementary sources of income were necessary to
ensure the smooth running of the control mechanism that was integral to
Khusro’s system. However, its stability as a whole depended too much on
a delicate balance which only a very powerful monarch could maintain at
the best of times, and in the vast Sasanid monarchy, with its long continental
frontiers, it was exposed to the dangers that threatened the empire itself.
Growing military commitments increased financial demands and pressure
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