43 De Bello Armenico
Although Theodosius II shared the legal interests of his aunt Galla Placidia, the decision to approve her proposal for the revision of Roman law and her provisions on the Jews were, in the court of Constantinople, linked more to contingency needs of realpolitik: given the good relations between the Council of Regency in Ravenna and Rua, a concession of this type would have convinced Galla Placidia to intervene diplomatically with the Huns, to prevent them from taking strange initiatives, on the occasion of the next imperial war against the Sasanians.
Now despite a rhetoric, which has its roots precisely in Ravenna and Mediolanum, convenient both for Honorious, to justify his political concessions, and for Athaulf, to found his policy of integration between Goths and Romans, in which the foederati are represented like uncultured people eager to civilize themselves, drawing on imperial culture, the reality is slightly different. The foederati, both for trade and military service in the imperial army, were partially Romanized, Christianized and spoke Latin more or less well: at the same time, the Romans pragmatically adopted many of their innovations in the fields of metallurgy and agriculture , which helped them adapt to the problems caused by climate change. [1] However, there is no doubt that a sort of technological subjection existed between the feudal elites and the senatorial class. Subjection that also existed between the Hunnic court and Ravenna, which undoubtedly facilitated both good relations and the Romanization of that people
The relationship between Constantinople and Ctesiphon was very different: for the
Pars Orientis, the Sasanians were before an enemy, a neighbor who is also present in a variety of suggestions, transits and cultural borrowings, which are reflected in the war decorations, in the pomp decorative and triumphal art which combines Roman stylistic typologies with external contributions: in a process of osmosis and creative imitation which does not invalidate the original characteristics of the two powers - equal but different -, on the contrary, stimulates them in the search for new forms and modes of expression , and which promotes mutual acceptance and mutual recognition. Influences and contaminations that are also based on the common Hellenistic tradition and which can be modeled on the basis of consonances and similarities reinterpreted and adapted to one's own languages. Just think of the adoption of the same symbols of royalty, the purple, the diadem and the spear and the use of a similar symbolism of solar and celestial emblems, signs of majesty and uranic excellence, which allude to divine protection over royalty. [2]
The same thing can be affirmed in art, not only in the artefacts of sumptuary craftsmanship, but also in those monumental forms of dynastic and imperial art and its triumphal iconographies. The Sassanid reliefs and their arrangement of figurative texts and epigraphic texts recall the Roman imperial models; at the same time, from the 4th century onwards, Sasanian influences became increasingly present in Roman art: the first, great example of this fusion is the arch of Galerius in Thessalonica. Its imposing structure and the iconographic tale that unfolds, set in its blocks, they guide the observer who goes under its arches and can look all around, to read the figurative sequences of Galerius' victory over the Persians, and of the tetrarchic institute as a whole, in a variety of snapshots which establish the most significant and emblematic scenes: the capture of Narseh's harem, the pursuit of the Persians beyond the Tigris river, the personifications of the Sasanian cities, the reception of a Persian delegation; the procession of Persian donors; the equestrian fight between Galerius and Narseh. The presence of an exotic animal such as the elephant then makes the scene even more glorious and full of meanings of victory and value, given that this iconographic choice is positioned within that symbolism of triumph, solidity and longevity: qualities attributed to these animals and therefore welcome and customary gifts from the king of Persia, even if depicted here as booty, which find ample representation in the iconography of processions, as can be seen, in the late 4th century, in the valuable workmanship of the ivory diptych of the Simmachi.
It is therefore an iconographic panegyric of subjects, divine and mythological personifications, symbols of victory and fortune, triumphal parades that celebrate the invincibility of Galerius and the imperial glory of the tetrarchy in the figures of the Augusti, Diocletian and Maximian, and of the Caesars, Galerius and Costantius Clorus, father of Costantinus then in his twenties. And presumably aware and proud of such grandeur of honors that shine upon him from his family, to whom he is strongly attached and whose responsibility he must feel to emulate their deeds and proven renown, exemplified in the triumph of this arc, which does not tell only one story, that of the war won against Persia, but it reveals the essential meaning of the history of Rome dominated by the tetrarchs, their virtues, the success of their mission and the invincibility of the emperor
semper et ubique victor. [3] Even this background of explicit narratives and a panoply of moral qualities, such as
clementia, concordia, virtus atque pietas, [4] certainly exert a magnetic force, not only on the anonymous observer but even more so on the son of one of the protagonists of the panel.
The same propagandistic approach occurs in the period of Constantinus in Rome: if on the one hand, with his conscious reuse of materials, styles, contributions and figurative tendencies from every part of the Empire, he tries to exalt his universality, both The providential eternity of the Empire, in the reliefs of Constantinus' campaign against Maxentius, with the use of the drill to generate chiaroscuro, with the frontal position of the Emperor and his larger proportions compared to the other protagonists of the story, are rhetorical devices derived from Sasanian art. If this Sasanian influence of art progressively tends to wane in the West, due to the neoclassicism brought forward by Honorius and Galla Placidia, to reaffirm Roman identity as a synthesis of diversity, it instead continues to thrive in the East, just think of the reliefs on base of the Obelisk of Theodosius or to the rich decorations of the Constantinopolitan basilicas of the time, with the extensive use of Sasanian decorative motifs, such as friezes of palmettes and pomegranate leaves, or symmetrical vegetal and geometric motifs. [5]
Persia therefore dominates the perception of the world around Theodosius II, in the needs of government and the defense of the eastern borders of the Empire, in the reception of stimuli and motifs that cross the two borders in an exchange of tastes, forms and artistic inspirations who coexist on the margins of the political awareness of their mutual antagonists. The monetary language of Sasanian propaganda is equally not immune to the adoption of motifs of pure Roman derivation, which confirm the permanence of Hellenistic influences, in a category of objects that legitimize the sovereign and perpetuate the image he wants to provide of himself to the people: Hellenistic-Roman iconographic typologies adorn the repertoire of Persian sealography of the 4th and 5th centuries, with hybridizations that place a Roman-inspired bust alongside Middle Persian inscriptions exemplified on a typically Zoroastrian religious lexicon. The adoption of the diademed helmet
(kamelaykion) as the imperial emblem, which we know from Anicius Severus that Honorius hated, is instead proof of the adoption of Sassanid royal symbolism by Rome. [6]
To this contamination of imaginaries, which made it easy for Constantinople to imagine Persia not as alien and different, but as an offshoot of the Empire, currently under a government not legitimized by history and by God, was added in the court of the
Pars Orientis , also a religious component, which was missing in Ravenna. If first Honorius, then Galla Placidia, despite being more or less devout Niceans, considered themselves protectors of all the citizens of the Empire, independent of their origins and religious beliefs, the position of Theodosius II was quite different: he was the protector of the Nicean Christians and this patronage also extended outside the imperial borders. The fact that in Armenia they had religious ideas different from those of Nicaea was considered an insignificant and negligible detail in Constantinople.
Among other things, that despite his indolence, much criticized by his uncle Honorius, who on the contrary was hyperactive, Theodosius was taking the war against the Persians with extraordinary and unexpected seriousness: of the organizational effort, we have two testimonies. The first is a document, in Greek and Latin, unfortunately anonymous, which dates back to 429 and which, although found in the Vatican archives, appears to have been written in Constantinople, entitled, rather inappropriately,
De Bello Armenico. [7]
Improperly, because it is not a chronicle, but a sort of strategic treatise on how to conduct the war with the Persians: on the one hand it is advisable to base the offensive on a combined tactic of surprise, speed and secrecy and to have allies capable of force the Sasanians to divide their forces across all their borders. On the other hand, the need for an 'aggressive defense' is supported based on the principle of responding to an enemy attack with a harsher counterattack and thus laying the foundations for an in-depth conquest of enemy territories. To implement both tactics, the author advises Theodosius to strengthen the
comitatus, the mobile field army that performs intelligence and police functions, very effective, aggressive and expansive in force, from both a military and political point of view .
The other testimony is in the large-scale resumption of the persecution against the Manichaeans. [8]The first emperor to decree the condemnation of this "sordid and impure sect recently arrived from Persia, to be destroyed from the root" was Diocletianus, in the edict of 296 entitled
De mathematicis, maleficis et Manichaeis. which in some respects is a sort of dress rehearsal for the subsequent anti-Christian persecutions. The main theme around which the entire edict revolves consists in the concept that a vetus religio cannot be supplanted by a nova religio, idea, daughter of the Diocletian conception, who considered himself not an innovator, but a restorer of the ancient state institutions, that only what has been established and fixed by the ancients and which has been repeated immutably for time has validity. Therefore it is absolutely not allowed for a new religion to replace one already in use, valid precisely because of its antiquity. Those who do not accept this and introduce new sects will be harshly punished. An interesting element, of a political nature, consists of the clarification that this outrage against traditional religion is all the more unforgivable since it comes from a country with which Rome has centuries-old enmity.
In the edict Diocletianus attributes immoral laws to Persia and the Manichaeans, which offended religious and moral customs
of the State and to undermine its order. Mani's disciples were also reproached for practicing magic and giving themselves up "to every kind of evil". The sect is therefore brought closer to the magic that originated from the Chaldeans and the Magi of Mesopotamia and Persia; his followers are now punished with the same punishments as magicians. Among Diocletianus' concerns there must have been that such subversive customs would undermine the order of Rome and the entire world. The envisaged sanctions are exposed through short and concise words at the end of the text and appear terrible: the leaders will suffer the harshest punishment, they will in fact be burned with their writings: the adherents who persevere will suffer the confiscation of their assets and the capital punishment; Roman citizens of high social rank will lose their assets and will be sent to the mines.
The anti-Manichean persecution will enter a new phase with the rise of Theodosius I, who with a law of 381 prohibits Manichaeans from the right to leave an inheritance (children will only be able to inherit if they have abandoned Manichaeism). Furthermore, the ban on assembly and assembly is affirmed, as is the right to burial. The extraordinary element of this law, which demonstrates, once again, the Manichean exceptionality, is its retroactive character (
Nec in posterum gigante huius emissae per nostram mansuetudinem legis forma praevaleat, sed in praeteritum etiam), contrary to the very principles of legality Roman. In 383, we find a law that prohibits the Manichaeans, together with other groups, from meeting, decreeing the expulsion for those guilty of having violated the aforementioned prohibition, while in 389, Valentinianus II, Theodosius I and Arcaduis enact a law that it affirms both the expulsion of the Manichaeans as well as the confiscation of their property and the removal of their right to leave inheritance.
Honorius, who had very other problems, wrongly underestimating the size of the Manichaean communities, which we know are well present in the African provinces, in Rome, where, but the testimonies are contradictory, it would appear that Manichaean monasteries similar to the Christian ones existed, and in Mediolanum, for which he had introduced a policy of de facto tolerance, also continued by Galla Placidia, while Theodosius II, taking up the vision of Diocletianus, considered them as natural allies of the Sasanians: which was absolutely not true, since even Ctesiphon the Manichaeans were persecuted as enemies of the state and true religion.
In February 429 Theodosius II resumed the decree of 389, further worsening the sanctions against the Manichaeans; then at the beginning of April 429, the emperor declared war on Persia, with the aim of defending the Armenian Christians, who to tell the truth had no particular problems with the new organization of Persarmenia, restoring Artaxias IV, who seems to have gone into exile in Constantinople, although some sources of the time, including Anicius Severus, hinted at the hypothesis that the guest at the court of Theodosius II was an impostor, and brought Catholikos Sahak back to his ecclesiastical seat. In reality, Constantinople's objective was to grab as much of Persarmenia as possible and, if things went particularly well, also of Mesopotamia.
The plan called for a double invasion: a Roman army of 30,000, led by Flavius Ardaburius Aspar would invade Armenia,
while the Hephthalites, allies of Constantinople, would have laid waste to the eastern provinces of Armenia; both due to the guilty unpreparedness of Bahram V, who thought that his concessions to Armenian autonomy had reassured Constantinople, and due to the ambiguous position of Marzban Veh Mihr Shapur, who did not want to fully commit himself to the war, things initially went well for Romans. The Sassanids received a disastrous defeat at Tigranocerta on 12 May 429, catching the Persian army unawares while they slept, probably due to the betrayal of some nakharar, so much so that Sparapet himself fell prisoner of the Romans and was dragged in chains to Antioch and end of June, they conquer Thospia.
Even the Hephthalites collect successes: although Roman historians, with their usual ethnocentrism, limit themselves to telling stories, citing Procopius for example
"They won three great battles and sacked dozens of cities"
without specifying anything more, archeology gives us some more indications; an excavation campaign, which lasted almost a decade, recently ended at the Persian site of Bandian, near the city of Dargaz where, in addition to the remains of a royal palace, with a throne room decorated in stucco with columns, inscriptions Sassanids Pahlavi and a large mihrab (arched niche), a Zorastrian sanctuary was found, with all decorations intact. The excavations showed how both complexes had been sacked and burned in 429, to be restored in the following generation by Peroz. [9]
Despite the successes achieved by the Romans and Hephthalites, problems began for the allies; in Armenia, the nakharar realize how the self-management regime wanted by Bahram V is preferable to paying taxes to Constantinople and begin to rebel en masse against the Roman army, effectively blocking its advance. [10] In the East, Bahram V decides to find a political solution to the Hephthalite problem. In 428, Theodosius had also sent an embassy to the Kidarites, but they had decided to refuse his request for alliance. From what philologists and archaeologists have reconstructed, it would appear that the Kidarites were synonymous with the Karmir Xyon ("Red Xionites" or, more controversially, "Red Huns") - a major subdivision of the Chionites (Xionites), along with the Spet White Xionites"). In a recently discovered seal with the image of a ruler similar to those on Kidarite coins, the ruler styled himself in Bactrian as "King of the Huns and Great Kushan Shah". [11]
The name of their namesake ruler Kidara, founder of their kingdom, may be cognate with the Turkic word Kidirti meaning "west", suggesting that the Kidarites were originally the westernmost of the Xionites and the first to migrate from Inner Asia. Chinese sources suggest that when the Uar were pushed westward by the Late Zhao state, around 320, from the area around Pingyang, they forced some Xionite clans to migrate westward, which was probably facilitated by climate change, which dried up the pastures of the Central Asia.
Contemporary Chinese and Roman sources suggest that, during the 4th century, the Kidarites began to invade the territory of Greater Khorasan and the Kushan Empire, migrating through Transoxiana into Bactria, where they were initially vassals of the Kushans and adopted many elements of Kushan-culture Bactria. The Kidarites also initially pressured the Sassanid Empire, but later served as mercenaries in the Sassanid army, under which they fought the Romans in Mesopotamia, led by a leader called Grumbates. Witness to this is Ammianus Marcellinus who tells the story
«On his left advanced the king of the Chionites, Grumbates, a man of average strength and with wrinkled limbs, but endowed with lively intelligence and famous for numerous and famous victories.»
The presence of Grumbates alongside Sapor II is also recorded on the occasion of the victorious siege of Amida in 359, in which Grumbates lost his son:
«Therefore, at the first light of day, the king of the Chionites, Grumbates, headed boldly towards the walls, accompanied by very agile bodyguards, to take over his work from his master. But a very skilled observer, seeing him approaching and by chance now under the fire of the arrows, launched a projectile from the crossbow which pierced the armor and the chest of the king's young son, who was close to his father's side and for his stature and beauty stood out among his peers."
Some of the Kidarites apparently became a ruling dynasty of the Kushan Empire, hence the epithet "Little Kushans". In theory, the Hephthalites were vassals of the Kidarites and had therefore declared war on the Sassanids without their permission. Probably, before taking measures against their rebellious subjects, the Kidarites bargained with Bahram V in a shameless manner, given that according to Persian sources they obtained a tribute of gold and precious robes and their king married a daughter of the Sasanian shah, but in the end , in October 429 they declared war on the Hephthalites, invading their territories.
[1] Phenomena that also occur OTL
[2] Consider, for example, the imperial insignia of Maxentius
[3] Always and everywhere winner
[4] Clemency, harmony, valor and piety
[5] OTL think of the "dismantled" basilica of San Poliectus
[6] The source of these reflections is a catalog of an exhibition from about ten years ago, which was held in Rome in the Baths of Diocletian, which concerned the Sasanians and the Silk Road in Ancient Rome
[7] The Armenian War... Obviously it is a made-up book
[8] Pretty much what happens OTL too
[9] OTL the Hephthalites did it all themselves!
[10] Did I tell you that ITL Armenia looks a lot like 1700's Poland?
[11] Always the catalog I mentioned before