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658 22a. the sasanid monarchy
start, as the very territorial nature of their command suggests. The same is
true about the marzbans, the commanders of the frontier provinces.
The delusion that the direct dependence of Khusro’s nobility on the
king as its restorer and benefactor would make it enduringly more tractable
and obedient shatters in view of the role played by people of this class
under subsequent reigns, quite apart from the revolts in Khusro’s first
decade. Vahram Chobin of the noble house of Mihran, the first serious
pretender outside the royal house since the establishment of the Sasanid
dynasty, was supported by many disgruntled nobles. Khusro II overcame
him with great difficulty in 591, but only with the expensive support of the
Byzantine emperor Maurice. 52 Later, the Sasanid monarchy was rocked by
other major revolts, such as those of Bistam and Bindoe, Khusro’s relatives
and allies turned his foes, and of his powerful general, Shahrvaraz, who was
to depose his grandson Ardashir III and claim the throne. 53 By the time of
the Arab conquest, local rulers, especially in the east and in the Caspian
provinces, had become virtually independent. The same is indicated by the
confused Arabic traditions concerning Yemen after its conquest by the
Persians in the last decade of Khusro Anushirwan’s reign. The growing
independence of the great landlords meant that sooner or later they would
inevitably control not only their own retinues of fighting men but also
independent taxation in their own domains. Thus, for example, according
to Dinawari, the rebel Bistam instituted taxation in the territories under his
rule (Khorasan Qumis, Gurgan and Tabaristan) and in the process remitted
half the land-tax. 54 Other potentates, not in direct revolt against the
king, may have acted less openly but may not have been impelled by the
requirements of war propaganda to be as generous.
Under Khusro II, oriental sources record impressive data about royal
revenues, which might suggest that the machinery devised by Khusro I was
still operating smoothly, and that Khusro II made even better use of it than
his grandfather. 55 But the full narrative of Tabari conveys a different
impression: the revenues were not the product of regular taxation but are
to be explained, in part, by the influx of booty from Byzantine territories
(the rich spoils of Alexandria and Jerusalem), and in part by extreme measures
of extortion. It was primarily as an efficient operator of the taxation
machinery that Khusro’s Nestorian finance minister (vastaryoshansalar),
Yazdin, endeared himself to his lord; the favourable Khuzistan Chronicle
insists on the vast amounts of money that he sent to the treasury from the
sunrise of one day to the sunrise of the next. 56 Such extortions seem to
have involved not only the imposition of an unbearable burden on tax-
52 Theophylact iv,v; Whitby, Maurice 276–308. 53 Whitby (1994) 252–3.
54 Dinawari p. 102 (ed. Guirgass).
55 Altheim and Stiehl (1954) 41–2; Altheim and Stiehl (1957) 52–3.
56 Khuz. Chron. 23; Tabari 1041–3; cf. Nöldeke (1879) 351–6.
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