Geoffrey Greatrex (2005). Byzantium and the East in - Kaveh Farrokh

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The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian Persians emerged the victors near Callinicum. Negotiations continued nevertheless, but the death of Kavadh in late 531 changed the situation. Justinian seized the opportunity offered, refusing to allow his ambassadors to proceed and to acknowledge Khusro as king, no doubt hoping to foment internal strife in Persia. When Khusro swiftly secured his position, however, Justinian soon resumed talks and agreed to a truce. In the following year, a peace was agreed. 32 The Eternal Peace (532–540) Never before had the two powers agreed to a peace of indefinite duration. On both sides there was, it seems, considerable optimism about the future of their relations. Khusro returned forts in Lazica and Armenia to the Romans, while Justinian’s chief concession was a one-time payment to the Persians of 11,000 pounds of gold. John Malalas reports, “The two rulers agreed and stated explicitly in the treaty that they were brothers according to the ancient custom, and that if one of them required money or men in a military alliance, they should provide it without dispute” (Malalas, Chronographia, 18.76, trans. Jeffreys and Scott, revised). On the face of it, the two powers had returned to the golden days of the fifth century, when the Romans had indeed provided financial help, albeit intermittently. Scraps of evidence from the 530s appear to confirm a spirit of cooperation between the two powers. Certainly Justinian took the opportunity it gave him to redeploy many of the forces that had defended the East to undertake his campaigns to reconquer first North Africa, then Italy. But already by 539 Khusro was seeking a pretext to break the peace. Behind the renewal of war, clearly the responsibility of the Persians, we may detect two main factors: first, the ongoing needs of the depleted Persian treasury; and second, the deterioration of the defences of the Roman East, providing the Persians with a perfect opportunity to seize large amounts of property and manpower at little cost. As we shall see, Khusro was interested neither in fighting pitched battles nor in annexing Roman territory: his main goal in violating the peace was riches. 33 Justinian’s Second Persian War (540–562) In 540 Khusro broke the Eternal Peace and led his army up the Euphrates, avoiding the newly strengthened fortresses of Mesopotamia and aiming instead for the more weakly defended Syria. Pausing briefly to extort money from cities en route in return for passing them by, 488 Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2006
Byzantium and the East in the Sixth Century he sacked Beroea and continued westwards, while the Romans vainly sought to deflect him by further payments. In June 540 the most important city of the Roman East, Antioch, fell into Persian hands and was systematically plundered; many of its citizens were deported to Persia, where a new city, modelled on their own, was built for them. After a brief visit to the port of Seleucia, Khusro withdrew eastwards, demanding more gold as he proceeded. 34 The campaign of 540 was without doubt a huge success for Khusro, but it was not to be repeated. By the following year Belisarius had returned to the East from Italy and undertaken a counterattack into Persian Mesopotamia (Assyria), thereby forcing the king, then seeking to press his advantage in the Caucasus, to return to deal with the situation. Further Persian invasions of Mesopotamia in 542 and 543 made little headway, and in 545 a truce was agreed, bringing hostilities in the area to an end. In the north, particularly in Lazica, campaigning dragged on for another ten years, probably because the scope for gains was larger here than in the heavily fortified south, without achieving any decisive result. A truce was finally concluded here too in 557, paving the way for negotiations for a definitive peace. 35 Five years later, the two sides agreed to a comprehensive peace treaty, the terms of which are preserved in detail by the Roman historian Menander Protector. The treaty differed in two significant ways from the Eternal Peace. On the one hand, it more modestly proposed a duration for the peace of fifty years, and on the other, it laid down that the Romans were to pay a fixed sum (approximately five hundred pounds of gold) per year (initially in instalments covering several years) to the Persians. Justinian had evidently concluded that without such an annual payment, there was little incentive for the Persians to abide by any peace. It was a logical conclusion, but to many Romans, and not least his successor Justin II, his solution appeared dangerous and indicative of weakness. 36 Justin consequently embarked on an attack on Persia in 572, relying partly on an alliance with the Turks, the new power challenging Persia to the northeast, and partly on the Armenians, aggrieved at Persian attempts to enforce Zoroastrianism in Persarmenia. The Persians quickly gained the upper hand in the war, capturing the important border fortress of Dara. Under the emperors Tiberius (574–582) and Maurice (582–602), the situation stabilised and negotiations were pursued, but it was not until the Persian king Hormizd IV (578–91) was overthrown and Maurice gave military support to his son Khusro II (591–628) that the Romans were able to bring the war to a conclusion. 489 Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2006
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Geoffrey Greatrex (2005). Byzantium and the East in - Kaveh Farrokh

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