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

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The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian 563 and ended his days as a patrician, one of the highest dignities of the empire. 61 Justinian’s support for Harith and the Jafnids was well judged. His confidence in the dynasty may have been based in part on their obvious devotion to Christianity. For in this case, as frequently when dealing with peoples outside the empire, the emperor not only tolerated, but even actively supported, anti-Chalcedonian Christians. Indeed, through the intervention of Theodora, Harith was able to secure the appointment of two anti-Chalcedonian bishops for the eastern provinces in the early 540s; we know also of monasteries supported by the dynasty. 62 The promotion of Harith allowed Justinian to scale back Roman defences south of the Euphrates, where already in the fifth century Roman forts along the road from Sura to Damascus, known as the Strata Diocletiana, had started to be abandoned. Even further south, in the three provinces of Palestine, the Ghassanids proved valuable allies: either Harith or his brother Abu Karib, for instance, helped to crush a Samaritan uprising in 529. The mobile cavalry forces of the Ghassanids were better adapted to desert warfare, while the cost of the annual subsidies paid to them will have been considerably less than supporting all the soldiers previously stationed here. 63 In this case, therefore, Justinian refrained from seeking to incorporate a foreign people into the empire or from imposing orthodoxy on them. Nonetheless, the provinces of the East were subject to extensive reorganisation during the 530s and 540s in an attempt to achieve greater efficiency. As in Armenia, the emperor undertook to make sure that Roman law was observed throughout the region: he was particularly keen, for instance, to ensure that close-kin marriages in Mesopotamia, which continued to take place in the sixth century, should be stamped out. 64 But when it came to the arid steppe lands of the Strata Diocletiana, the emperor preferred a more cautious approach. The Jafnid rulers were accorded wide-ranging powers and collaborated successfully with the Roman administration for the most part. The city of Sergiopolis, dedicated to the martyr Sergius, who was particularly venerated by the tribesmen, grew in this period into a major pilgrimage centre, where Harith and his successors could meet with other phylarchs in November each year (Plate xxix). 65 The full wisdom of Justinian’s support for the Jafnids was revealed only after his death: both Justin II and Maurice, like many Romans suspicious of the Arabs, attempted to dispense with the aid of the Ghassanids, in both cases with disastrous consequences. 66 500 Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2006
Byzantium and the East in the Sixth Century Southern Arabia and the Question of Trade There was one further area, southern Arabia, in which the two powers vied for supremacy, relying in this case almost exclusively upon local allies. The outcome of the struggle here was unlikely ever to have any significant impact on the main frontier area in Mesopotamia, but its importance should not be underrated. The issue that sparked Justinian’s interest in the region was trade. From as early as the first century AD, large quantities of Roman gold and silver had flowed out of the empire to the East as the market for imported goods such as spices, perfumes, and silk expanded. 67 This last item grew to be of particular importance in late antiquity. As an indicator of social standing, it inspired strong demand and could fetch high prices. Trade in silk was tightly regulated: only certain designated officials, the kommerkiarioi, were permitted to buy it, and even they could not exceed a specified amount in the price they paid for it. Silk could be purchased only in designated foreign cities, moreover: ever since the reign of Diocletian, the Romans had insisted on limiting trade with Persia to a handful of border cities, a restriction maintained in Justinian’s treaty of 562. 68 The reason for all this regulation is not hard to perceive, for although silk was not actually produced in Persia, but rather in China and, from the early fifth century, in Sogdia, Persian merchants had established a complete monopoly in the provision of silk to the Roman Empire. This was clearly a very lucrative situation for Persian traders, and by extension the Persian state. 69 Around 530, however, an opportunity presented itself to cut out the middleman and cease benefiting the Persian treasury. Since the start of the sixth century, Roman interest in the Red Sea had been growing (Map 16, Ch. 20). In 498 a Roman dux, Romanus, had recaptured the island of Iotabe, at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba, and, as the chronicler Theophanes states, “gave it back to the Roman traders to inhabit under its own laws, to import goods from the Indies and to bring the assessed tax to the emperor.” 70 Roman traders became active in the Red Sea, dealing with both Ethiopians (also known as Axumites) and Himyarites (in modern-day Yemen) alike. One of our chief sources for Roman contacts with this region is the work of an Alexandrian merchant, Cosmas, known as Indicopleustes (the sailor to India). Despite his title, however, and the fact that he provides information on trade routes as far as Sri Lanka and even beyond, it is likely that 501 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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