[34], In 275 and 282 Aurelian and Probus respectively planned to invade Persia, but they were both murdered before they were able to fulfil their plans. [117][118][119][120] Meanwhile, the Avars and Slavs took advantage of the situation to overrun the Balkans, bringing the Roman Empire to the brink of destruction. [172][173], The sources for the history of Parthia and the wars with Rome are scant and scattered. [150] Use of complex torsion equipment was rare, since traditional Persian expertise in archery reduced their apparent benefits. Although initially different in military tactics, the armies of both sides gradually adopted from each other and by the second half of the 6th century, they were similar and evenly matched.[2]. As Frye states:[158]. [57], . [106] Another Roman victory at Solachon in 586 likewise failed to break the stalemate. [25], Conflict resumed shortly after the overthrow of Parthian rule and Ardashir I's foundation of the Sasanian Empire. He invaded Anatolia and sacked Sebasteia, but to take Theodosiopolis, and after a clash near Melitene the army suffered heavy losses while fleeing across the Euphrates under Roman attack and the Persian royal baggage was captured. [141] Everett Wheeler argues that "the Sassanids, administratively more centralized than the Parthians, formally organized defense of their territory, although they lacked a standing army until Khosrau I". [68] Attempting to remedy the deficiencies revealed by these Persian successes, the new Roman emperor, Justinian I, reorganized the eastern armies. 
[62], In 505 Anastasius ordered the building of a great fortified city at Dara. Roman sources reveal long-standing prejudices with regard to the Eastern powers' customs, religious structures, languages, and forms of government. [6], Parthian enterprise in the West began in the time of Mithridates I and was revived by Mithridates II, who negotiated unsuccessfully with Lucius Cornelius Sulla for a RomanParthian alliance (c.105BC). [74] The successful campaigns of Belisarius in the west encouraged the Persians to return to war, both taking advantage of Roman preoccupation elsewhere and seeking to check the expansion of Roman territory and resources. [154] Elephants were employed (e.g. These were absorbed by the central state over time, and by the 7th century the last buffer state, the Arab Lakhmids, was annexed to the Sasanian Empire. [36] After a brief period of peace during Diocletian's early reign, Narseh renewed hostilities with the Romans invading Armenia, and defeated Galerius not far from Carrhae in 296 or 297. The Parthian tactics gradually became the standard method of warfare in the Roman empire[145] and cataphractarii and clibanarii units were introduced into the Roman army;[146] as a result, heavily armed cavalry grew in importance in both the Roman and Persian armies after the 3rd century AD and until the end of the wars.
With both empires preoccupied by these threats, a largely peaceful period followed, interrupted only by two brief wars, the first in 421422 after Bahram V persecuted high-ranking Persian officials who had converted to Christianity, and the second in 440, when Yazdegerd II raided Roman Armenia. However, the conclusion of the second Roman civil war soon revived Roman strength in Asia. [27] In 238240, towards the end of his reign, Ardashir attacked again, taking several cities in Syria and Mesopotamia, including Carrhae, Nisibis and Hatra. During the 3rd centuryBC, the Parthians migrated from the Central Asian steppe into northern Iran. In addition to Byzantine sources, two Armenian historians, Sebeos and Movses, contribute to the coherent narrative of Heraclius' war and are regarded by Howard-Johnston as "the most important of extant non-Muslim sources". When the Roman and Parthian Empires first collided in the 1st century BC, it appeared that Parthia had the potential to push its frontier to the Aegean and the Mediterranean. [175] These were isolated attempts at approaching written historiography however, and by the end of the 4th centuryAD, even the practice of carving rock reliefs and leaving short inscriptions was abandoned by the Sasanians. A characteristic of the final phase of the conflict, when what had begun in 611612 as a raid was soon transformed into a war of conquest, was the pre-eminence of the Cross as a symbol of imperial victory and of the strong religious element in the Roman imperial propaganda; Heraclius himself cast Khosrau as the enemy of God, and authors of the 6th and 7th centuries were fiercely hostile to Persia. In 195197, a Roman offensive under the Emperor Septimius Severus led to Rome's acquisition of northern Mesopotamia as far as the areas around Nisibis, Singara and the third sacking of Ctesiphon. The RomanPersian Wars, also known as the RomanIranian Wars, were a series of conflicts between states of the Greco-Roman world and two successive Iranian empires: the Parthian and the Sasanian. By this point the Sasanian Empire had fallen to the Arab Muslim. With support from Maurice, Khosrau raised a rebellion against Bahram, and in 591 the combined forces of his supporters and the Romans defeated Bahram at the Battle of Blarathon and restored Khosrau II to power. [59], Finally in 504, the Romans gained the upper hand with the renewed investment of Amida, leading to the hand-over of the city. Battles between the Parthian Empire and the Roman Republic began in 54BC;[1] wars began under the late Republic, and continued through the Roman (later Byzantine) and Sasanian empires. Militarily, the Sasanians continued the Parthians' heavy dependence on cavalry troops: a combination of horse-archers and cataphracts; the latter were heavy armored cavalry provided by the aristocracy.
For it yields very little and uses up vast sums; and now that we have reached out to peoples who are neighbor of the Medes and the Parthians rather than of ourselves, we are always, one might say, fighting the battles of those peoples. Antony was again in Armenia in 33BC to join with the Median king against Octavian and the Parthians. Finally, in 64BC Pompey conquered the remaining Seleucid territories in Syria, extinguishing their state and advancing the Roman eastern frontier to the Euphrates, where it met the territory of the Parthians. [163] Prophetically, Cassius Dio noted their "never-ending cycle of armed confrontations" and observed that "it is shown by the facts themselves that [Severus'] conquest has been a source of constant wars and great expense to us. Belisarius took the field and waged an inconclusive campaign against Nisibis in 541. [8] In 6665BC, Pompey reached agreement with Phraates, and RomanParthian troops invaded Armenia, but a dispute soon arose over the Euphrates boundary. [140] In general, the Romans regarded the Sasanians as a more serious threat than the Parthians, while the Sasanians regarded the Roman Empire as the enemy par excellence. [17] War erupted in 58AD, after the Parthian King Vologases I forcibly installed his brother Tiridates on the Armenian throne. [128], Meanwhile, Heraclius formed an alliance with the Western Turkic Khaganate, who took advantage of the dwindling strength of the Persians to ravage their territories in the Caucasus. [102] In the spring of 578 the war in Mesopotamia resumed with Persian raids on Roman territory.
Neither side had the logistical strength or manpower to maintain such lengthy campaigns far from their borders, and thus neither could advance too far without risking stretching its frontiers too thin. [44] But the enormous cost of these victories weakened him, and he was soon deserted by his barbarian allies, leaving him vulnerable to the major offensive in 363 by the Roman Emperor Julian, who advanced down the Euphrates to Ctesiphon[45] with a major army. [130] Heraclius restored the True Cross to Jerusalem with a majestic ceremony in 629. Over the following decade the Persians were able to conquer Palestine, Egypt,[116] Rhodes and several other islands in the eastern Aegean, as well as to devastate Anatolia. On the other hand, the Parthians were inept at besieging; their cavalry armies were more suited to the hit-and-run tactics that destroyed Antony's siege train in 36BC. At the same time, the dilapidated fortifications were also upgraded at Edessa, Batnae and Amida. Procopius states that peace was agreed for seven years,[61] and it is likely that some payments was made to the Persians. [49] With both empires preoccupied by barbarian threats from the north, in 384 or 387, a definitive peace treaty was signed by Shapur III and Theodosius I dividing Armenia between the two states. This was because the construction of new fortifications in the border zone by either empire had been prohibited by a treaty concluded some decades earlier. The Romans recovered the Lazic forts, Iberia remained in Persian hands, and the Iberians who had left their country were given the choice of remaining in Roman territory or returning to their native land. [80] He soon withdrew in the face of an army under Belisarius, sacking the city of Callinicum en route. In the same year Lazica switched its allegiance to Persia and Khosrau led an army to secure the kingdom. [170] This attitude created intense suspicions of the loyalties of Christians living in Sasanian Iran and often led to RomanPersian tensions or even military confrontations[171] (e.g. [124] Following a lull in 623, while he negotiated a truce with the Avars, Heraclius resumed his campaigns in the East in 624 and routed an army led by Khosrau at Ganzak in Atropatene. The emperor seized the chance, and in 548549 combined Roman and Lazic forces with the magister militum of Armenia Dagistheus won a series of victories against Persian armies, although they failed to take the key garrison of Petra (present-day Tsikhisdziri). However, they maintained relations with Pompey, and after his defeat and death, a force under Pacorus I assisted the Pompeian general Q. Caecilius Bassus, who was besieged at Apamea Valley by Caesarian forces. [131], The devastating impact of this last war, added to the cumulative effects of a century of almost continuous conflict, left both empires crippled. They swiftly overran the Roman province of Syria and advanced into Judea, overthrowing the Roman client Hyrcanus II and installing his nephew Antigonus. They considered much of the land added to the Roman Empire in Parthian and early Sasanian times to rightfully belong to the Persian sphere.
[93] Finally, in 562, the envoys of Justinian and Khosrau Peter the Patrician and Izedh Gushnap put together the Fifty-Year Peace Treaty. [111] At the same time they won a string of victories in Armenia and systematically subdued the Roman garrisons in the Caucasus. Both sides did make conquests beyond the border, but in time the balance was almost always restored. Neither empire was given any chance to recover, as within a few years they were struck by the onslaught of the Arabs (newly united by Islam), which, according to Howard-Johnston, "can only be likened to a human tsunami". [63] Although no further large-scale conflict took place during Anastasius' reign, tensions continued, especially while work continued at Dara.
[98] At a cost of 45,000solidi, a one-year truce in Mesopotamia (eventually extended to five years)[99] was arranged, but in the Caucasus and on the desert frontiers the war continued. In exchange for peace, he was obliged to pay for the damage caused by Caracalla. [4][5][6] Ruled by the Arsacid dynasty, the Parthians fended off several Seleucid attempts to regain their lost territories, and established several eponymous branches in the Caucasus, namely the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia, the Arsacid dynasty of Iberia, and the Arsacid dynasty of Caucasian Albania. [21], Trajan's Parthian War initiated a "shift of emphasis in the 'grand strategy of the Roman empire'", but his successor, Hadrian, decided that it was in Rome's interest to re-establish the Euphrates as the limit of its direct control. Both sides attempted to justify their respective military goals in both active and reactive ways. The RomanPersian Wars have been characterized as "futile" and too "depressing and tedious to contemplate". [2] The Romans had achieved and maintained a high degree of sophistication in siege warfare and had developed a range of siege machines. John F. Haldon underscores that "although the conflicts between Persia and East Rome revolved around issues of strategic control around the eastern frontier, yet there was always a religious-ideological element present". In Judaea, Antigonus was ousted with Roman help by Herod in 37BC. [13] Mark Antony had sent Ventidius to oppose Labienus, who had invaded Anatolia. The Sasanians and the Roman Empire, "An Overview of the Sassanian Persian Military", "Excavations In Iran Unravel Mystery Of "Red Snake", "The Political History of Iran under the Sassanians", "The Army in the Late Roman East: The Persian Wars and the Defense of the Byzantine Provinces", "ByzantineIranian Relations Encyclopaedia Iranica", An Overview of the Sassanian Persian Military, "Death Underground: Gas Warfare at Dura-Europos", "Early Chemical Warfare Dura-Europos, Syria", "Buried Soldiers May Be Victims of Ancient Chemical Weapon", Excavations In Iran Unravel Mystery Of "Red Snake", http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/deportations, "LacusCurtius Cassius Dio's Roman History", "Eutropius: Abridgement of Roman History", "Joshua the Stylite, Chronicle composed in Syriac in AD 507 (1882) pp. [88] In 551 AD, general Bessas who replaced Dagistheus put Abasgia and the rest of Lazica under control, and finally subjected Petra after fierce fighting, demolishing its fortifications. [19], A fresh series of conflicts began in the 2nd century AD, during which the Romans consistently held the upper hand over Parthia.
In 530 a major Persian offensive in Mesopotamia was defeated by Roman forces under Belisarius at Dara, while a second Persian thrust in the Caucasus was defeated by Sittas at Satala. Negotiations between the two powers took place, but such was their distrust that in 506 the Romans, suspecting treachery, seized the Persian officials. The following year Avidius Cassius invaded Mesopotamia, winning battles at Dura-Europos and Seleucia and sacking Ctesiphon in 165. [60] In November 506, a treaty was finally agreed upon, but little is known of what the terms of the treaty were. [33] Between 258 and 260, Shapur captured Emperor Valerian after defeating his army at the Battle of Edessa. [113] Around the same time, the Persians completed their conquest of Mesopotamia and the Caucasus, and in 611 they overran Syria and entered Anatolia, occupying Caesarea. The Persians were weakened by internal strife proceeding from dynastic disputes and the Romans probably would have extended their conquests had Carus not died in December of that year. [177] The single most important source for Justinian's Persian wars up to 553 is Procopius. [160] The Roman and Persian border units were known as limitanei and marzobans, respectively. [84][85] (The war dragged on under other generals and was to some extent hindered by the Plague of Justinian, because of which Khosrau temporarily withdrew from Roman territory)[86] A five-year truce was agreed to in 545, secured by Roman payments to the Persians. According to R. N. Frye, it was under Shapur II that the Persian system was extended, probably in imitation of Diocletian's construction of the limes of the Syrian and Mesopotamian frontiers of the Roman Empire. [155] Recent assessments comparing the Sasanians and Parthians have reaffirmed the superiority of Sasanian siegecraft, military engineering, and organization,[156] as well as ability to build defensive works.[157]. Benefiting from their weakened condition, the Rashidun armies swiftly conquered the entire Sasanian Empire, and deprived the Eastern Roman Empire of its territories in the Levant, the Caucasus, Egypt, and the rest of North Africa. Despite the arrival of Roman reinforcements from Europe, he won another victory in 604, while Dara fell after a nine-month siege. 1-76", "Sixth Century Alania: between Byzantium, Sasanian Iran and the Turkic World", Wars of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RomanPersian_Wars&oldid=1098562528, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, After initial Parthian successes, war over Armenia, Ardashir's invasion of Mesopotamia and Persian defeat at the. Theophylact Simocatta is the main source for the reign of Maurice,[178] while Theophanes, Chronicon Paschale and the poems of George of Pisidia are useful sources for the last RomanPersian war. [179], Series of wars between ancient Greco-Roman and Iranian states. Continuing south along the Tigris, he sacked Khosrau's great palace at Dastagird and was prevented from attacking Ctesiphon only by the destruction of the bridges on the Nahrawan Canal. Despite victory[46][47] at the Battle of Ctesiphon before the walls Julian was unable to take the Persian capital and retreated along the Tigris. [91] The Romans failed to completely expel the Sasanians from Lazica, and in 554 AD Mihr-Mihroe launched a new attack, dislodging a newly-arrived Byzantine army from Telephis. The main sources of this period are thus Roman (Tacitus, Marius Maximus, and Justin) and Greek historians (Herodian, Cassius Dio and Plutarch). After his assassination, his successor, Macrinus, was defeated by the Parthians near Nisibis. An epidemic which was sweeping Parthia at the time, possibly of smallpox, spread to the Roman army and forced its withdrawal;[23] this was the origin of the Antonine Plague that raged for a generation throughout the Roman Empire. ", Frye (1968), 130131; Southern (2001), 243, This page was last edited on 16 July 2022, at 12:25. From the 4th centuryAD onwards, the Sasanians grew in strength and adopted the role of aggressor. In 540, the Persians broke the "Treaty of Eternal Peace" and Khosrau I invaded Syria, destroying the great city of Antioch and deporting its population to Weh Antiok Khosrow in Persia; as he withdrew, he extorted large sums of money from the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia and systematically looted the key cities. [11], The Parthians largely remained neutral during Caesar's Civil War, fought between forces supporting Julius Caesar and forces supporting Pompey and the traditional faction of the Roman Senate. He captured the Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, before sailing downriver to the Persian Gulf. [112], Phocas' brutal repression sparked a succession crisis that ensued as the general Heraclius sent his nephew Nicetas to attack Egypt, enabling his son Heraclius the younger to claim the throne in 610. The expense of resources during the RomanPersian Wars ultimately proved catastrophic for both empires. [9], The Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus led an invasion of Mesopotamia in 53BC with catastrophic results; he and his son Publius were killed at the Battle of Carrhae by the Parthians under General Surena;[10] this was the worst Roman defeat since the battle of Arausio. Among them the most important are the Greeks Agathias and Malalas, the Persian Muslims al-Tabari and Ferdowsi, the Armenian Agathangelos, and the Syriac Chronicles of Edessa and Arbela, most of whom depended on late Sasanian sources, especially Khwaday-Namag.
[121], During these years, Heraclius strove to rebuild his army, slashing non-military expenditures, devaluing the currency and melting down Church plate, with the backing of Patriarch Sergius, to raise the necessary funds to continue the war. The Persians seem to have been reluctant to resort to naval action. Failing to make progress against Parthian positions, the Romans withdrew with heavy casualties. In the following year he captured Bezabde and Singara, and repelled the counter-attack of Constantius II. [73], The Persians broke the "Treaty of Eternal Peace" in 540AD, probably in response to the Roman reconquest of much of the former western empire, which had been facilitated by the cessation of war in the East. Various vassal kingdoms and allied nomadic nations in the form of buffer states and proxies also played a role. That year an armistice was reached as a result of an invasion of Armenia by the Huns from the Caucasus. [81] Attacks on a number of Roman cities were repulsed, and Persian forces were defeated at Dara. [169] The Roman quest for world domination was accompanied by a sense of mission and pride in Western civilization and by ambitions to become a guarantor of peace and order. In 542 Khosrau launched another offensive in Mesopotamia, and unsuccessfully attempted to capture Sergiopolis. In 582, Maurice won a battle at Constantia over Adarmahan and Tamkhusro, who was killed, but the Roman general did not follow up his victory; he had to hurry to Constantinople to pursue his imperial ambitions. [90] The truce that had been established in 545 was renewed outside Lazica for a further five years on condition that the Romans pay 2,000lb of gold each year. [114] Having expelled the Persians from Anatolia in 612, Heraclius launched a major counter-offensive in Syria in 613. Finally, Phraates asserted his control over Mesopotamia, except for the western district of Osroene, which became a Roman dependency. Also, control of Armenia was given to the Romans. The Roman general Maurice retaliated by raiding Persian Mesopotamia, capturing the stronghold of Aphumon, and sacking Singara. Although Hadrian abandoned all of Trajan's conquests the trend was not to be reversed. Khosrau launched another offensive in Mesopotamia in 542 when he attempted to capture Sergiopolis. [107], The Persians captured Martyropolis through treachery in 589, but that year the stalemate was shattered when the Persian general Bahram Chobin, having been dismissed and humiliated by Hormizd IV, raised a rebellion. [54] Finally in 504, the Romans gained control through the renewed investment of Amida, which led to the fall of the city. [125] In 625 he defeated the generals Shahrbaraz, Shahin and Shahraplakan in Armenia, and in a surprise attack that winter he stormed Shahrbaraz's headquarters and attacked his troops in their winter billets. In 524525AD, Kavadh proposed that Justin I adopt his son, Khosrau, but the negotiations soon broke down. With the civil war over, Julius Caesar prepared a campaign against Parthia, but his assassination averted the war. However, unlike Persia, the Roman Empire ultimately survived the Arab assault, holding onto its residual territories and decisively repulsing two Arab sieges of its capital in 674678 and 717718. [71] Immediately after the Battle of Callinicum unsuccessful negotiations between Justinian's envoy, Hermogenes, and Kavadh took place. The Sasanians mainly used mounds, rams, mines, and to a lesser degree siege towers, artillery,[149][150] and also chemical weapons, such as in Dura-Europos (256)[151][152][153] and Petra (550-551). [3] The Romans and Parthians came into contact through their respective conquests of parts of the Seleucid Empire. [51] In 502AD, he quickly captured the unprepared city of Theodosiopolis[52] and besieged the fortress-city of Amida through the autumn and winter (502503). Khosrau, who now had to deal with the White Huns, renewed the truce in 557, this time without excluding Lazica; negotiations continued for a definite peace treaty. [66] Overt RomanPersian fighting had broken out in the Transcaucasus region and upper Mesopotamia by 526527. [31] Encouraged by this success, the emperor Gordian III advanced down the Euphrates but was defeated near Ctesiphon in the Battle of Misiche in 244. Khosrau I invaded and devastated Syria, extorting large sums of money from the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia, and systematically looting other cities including Antioch, whose population was deported to Persian territory. [18] Roman forces overthrew Tiridates and replaced him with a Cappadocian prince, triggering an inconclusive war. However, the Romans repulsed the great invasion of Syria and Anatolia by Pacorus and Labienus, and were gradually able to take advantage of the weaknesses of the Parthian military system, which, according to George Rawlinson, was adapted for national defense but ill-suited for conquest. [72] A Persian siege of Martyropolis was interrupted by Kavadh I's death and the new Persian king, Khosrau I, re-opened talks in spring 532 and finally signed the Perpetual Peace in September 532, which lasted less than eight years. Khosrau II used the murder of his benefactor as a pretext for war and reconquer the Roman province of Mesopotamia. CampbellHook (2005), 5759; Gabba (1966), 5173, Shahd (1984), 2425; Wagstaff (1985), 123125, DodgeonGreatrexLieu (2002), I, 5; Potter (2004), 232233, Julius Caesar's planned invasion of the Parthian Empire, PompeianParthian invasion of the Levant and Anatolia, "The restoration of the Cross at Jerusalem", "The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids", A Threat or a Blessing? The Augustan History is neither contemporary nor reliable, but it is the chief narrative source for Severus and Carus. [95], War broke again shortly after Armenia and Iberia revolted against Sasanian rule in 571AD, following clashes involving Roman and Persian proxies in Yemen (between the Axumites and the Himyarites) and the Syrian desert, and after Roman negotiations for an alliance with the Western Turkic Khaganate against Persia.
[62], In 505 Anastasius ordered the building of a great fortified city at Dara. Roman sources reveal long-standing prejudices with regard to the Eastern powers' customs, religious structures, languages, and forms of government. [6], Parthian enterprise in the West began in the time of Mithridates I and was revived by Mithridates II, who negotiated unsuccessfully with Lucius Cornelius Sulla for a RomanParthian alliance (c.105BC). [74] The successful campaigns of Belisarius in the west encouraged the Persians to return to war, both taking advantage of Roman preoccupation elsewhere and seeking to check the expansion of Roman territory and resources. [154] Elephants were employed (e.g. These were absorbed by the central state over time, and by the 7th century the last buffer state, the Arab Lakhmids, was annexed to the Sasanian Empire. [36] After a brief period of peace during Diocletian's early reign, Narseh renewed hostilities with the Romans invading Armenia, and defeated Galerius not far from Carrhae in 296 or 297. The Parthian tactics gradually became the standard method of warfare in the Roman empire[145] and cataphractarii and clibanarii units were introduced into the Roman army;[146] as a result, heavily armed cavalry grew in importance in both the Roman and Persian armies after the 3rd century AD and until the end of the wars. With both empires preoccupied by these threats, a largely peaceful period followed, interrupted only by two brief wars, the first in 421422 after Bahram V persecuted high-ranking Persian officials who had converted to Christianity, and the second in 440, when Yazdegerd II raided Roman Armenia. However, the conclusion of the second Roman civil war soon revived Roman strength in Asia. [27] In 238240, towards the end of his reign, Ardashir attacked again, taking several cities in Syria and Mesopotamia, including Carrhae, Nisibis and Hatra. During the 3rd centuryBC, the Parthians migrated from the Central Asian steppe into northern Iran. In addition to Byzantine sources, two Armenian historians, Sebeos and Movses, contribute to the coherent narrative of Heraclius' war and are regarded by Howard-Johnston as "the most important of extant non-Muslim sources". When the Roman and Parthian Empires first collided in the 1st century BC, it appeared that Parthia had the potential to push its frontier to the Aegean and the Mediterranean. [175] These were isolated attempts at approaching written historiography however, and by the end of the 4th centuryAD, even the practice of carving rock reliefs and leaving short inscriptions was abandoned by the Sasanians. A characteristic of the final phase of the conflict, when what had begun in 611612 as a raid was soon transformed into a war of conquest, was the pre-eminence of the Cross as a symbol of imperial victory and of the strong religious element in the Roman imperial propaganda; Heraclius himself cast Khosrau as the enemy of God, and authors of the 6th and 7th centuries were fiercely hostile to Persia. In 195197, a Roman offensive under the Emperor Septimius Severus led to Rome's acquisition of northern Mesopotamia as far as the areas around Nisibis, Singara and the third sacking of Ctesiphon. The RomanPersian Wars, also known as the RomanIranian Wars, were a series of conflicts between states of the Greco-Roman world and two successive Iranian empires: the Parthian and the Sasanian. By this point the Sasanian Empire had fallen to the Arab Muslim. With support from Maurice, Khosrau raised a rebellion against Bahram, and in 591 the combined forces of his supporters and the Romans defeated Bahram at the Battle of Blarathon and restored Khosrau II to power. [59], Finally in 504, the Romans gained the upper hand with the renewed investment of Amida, leading to the hand-over of the city. Battles between the Parthian Empire and the Roman Republic began in 54BC;[1] wars began under the late Republic, and continued through the Roman (later Byzantine) and Sasanian empires. Militarily, the Sasanians continued the Parthians' heavy dependence on cavalry troops: a combination of horse-archers and cataphracts; the latter were heavy armored cavalry provided by the aristocracy.
For it yields very little and uses up vast sums; and now that we have reached out to peoples who are neighbor of the Medes and the Parthians rather than of ourselves, we are always, one might say, fighting the battles of those peoples. Antony was again in Armenia in 33BC to join with the Median king against Octavian and the Parthians. Finally, in 64BC Pompey conquered the remaining Seleucid territories in Syria, extinguishing their state and advancing the Roman eastern frontier to the Euphrates, where it met the territory of the Parthians. [163] Prophetically, Cassius Dio noted their "never-ending cycle of armed confrontations" and observed that "it is shown by the facts themselves that [Severus'] conquest has been a source of constant wars and great expense to us. Belisarius took the field and waged an inconclusive campaign against Nisibis in 541. [8] In 6665BC, Pompey reached agreement with Phraates, and RomanParthian troops invaded Armenia, but a dispute soon arose over the Euphrates boundary. [140] In general, the Romans regarded the Sasanians as a more serious threat than the Parthians, while the Sasanians regarded the Roman Empire as the enemy par excellence. [17] War erupted in 58AD, after the Parthian King Vologases I forcibly installed his brother Tiridates on the Armenian throne. [128], Meanwhile, Heraclius formed an alliance with the Western Turkic Khaganate, who took advantage of the dwindling strength of the Persians to ravage their territories in the Caucasus. [102] In the spring of 578 the war in Mesopotamia resumed with Persian raids on Roman territory.
Neither side had the logistical strength or manpower to maintain such lengthy campaigns far from their borders, and thus neither could advance too far without risking stretching its frontiers too thin. [44] But the enormous cost of these victories weakened him, and he was soon deserted by his barbarian allies, leaving him vulnerable to the major offensive in 363 by the Roman Emperor Julian, who advanced down the Euphrates to Ctesiphon[45] with a major army. [130] Heraclius restored the True Cross to Jerusalem with a majestic ceremony in 629. Over the following decade the Persians were able to conquer Palestine, Egypt,[116] Rhodes and several other islands in the eastern Aegean, as well as to devastate Anatolia. On the other hand, the Parthians were inept at besieging; their cavalry armies were more suited to the hit-and-run tactics that destroyed Antony's siege train in 36BC. At the same time, the dilapidated fortifications were also upgraded at Edessa, Batnae and Amida. Procopius states that peace was agreed for seven years,[61] and it is likely that some payments was made to the Persians. [49] With both empires preoccupied by barbarian threats from the north, in 384 or 387, a definitive peace treaty was signed by Shapur III and Theodosius I dividing Armenia between the two states. This was because the construction of new fortifications in the border zone by either empire had been prohibited by a treaty concluded some decades earlier. The Romans recovered the Lazic forts, Iberia remained in Persian hands, and the Iberians who had left their country were given the choice of remaining in Roman territory or returning to their native land. [80] He soon withdrew in the face of an army under Belisarius, sacking the city of Callinicum en route. In the same year Lazica switched its allegiance to Persia and Khosrau led an army to secure the kingdom. [170] This attitude created intense suspicions of the loyalties of Christians living in Sasanian Iran and often led to RomanPersian tensions or even military confrontations[171] (e.g. [124] Following a lull in 623, while he negotiated a truce with the Avars, Heraclius resumed his campaigns in the East in 624 and routed an army led by Khosrau at Ganzak in Atropatene. The emperor seized the chance, and in 548549 combined Roman and Lazic forces with the magister militum of Armenia Dagistheus won a series of victories against Persian armies, although they failed to take the key garrison of Petra (present-day Tsikhisdziri). However, they maintained relations with Pompey, and after his defeat and death, a force under Pacorus I assisted the Pompeian general Q. Caecilius Bassus, who was besieged at Apamea Valley by Caesarian forces. [131], The devastating impact of this last war, added to the cumulative effects of a century of almost continuous conflict, left both empires crippled. They swiftly overran the Roman province of Syria and advanced into Judea, overthrowing the Roman client Hyrcanus II and installing his nephew Antigonus. They considered much of the land added to the Roman Empire in Parthian and early Sasanian times to rightfully belong to the Persian sphere.
[93] Finally, in 562, the envoys of Justinian and Khosrau Peter the Patrician and Izedh Gushnap put together the Fifty-Year Peace Treaty. [111] At the same time they won a string of victories in Armenia and systematically subdued the Roman garrisons in the Caucasus. Both sides did make conquests beyond the border, but in time the balance was almost always restored. Neither empire was given any chance to recover, as within a few years they were struck by the onslaught of the Arabs (newly united by Islam), which, according to Howard-Johnston, "can only be likened to a human tsunami". [63] Although no further large-scale conflict took place during Anastasius' reign, tensions continued, especially while work continued at Dara. [98] At a cost of 45,000solidi, a one-year truce in Mesopotamia (eventually extended to five years)[99] was arranged, but in the Caucasus and on the desert frontiers the war continued. In exchange for peace, he was obliged to pay for the damage caused by Caracalla. [4][5][6] Ruled by the Arsacid dynasty, the Parthians fended off several Seleucid attempts to regain their lost territories, and established several eponymous branches in the Caucasus, namely the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia, the Arsacid dynasty of Iberia, and the Arsacid dynasty of Caucasian Albania. [21], Trajan's Parthian War initiated a "shift of emphasis in the 'grand strategy of the Roman empire'", but his successor, Hadrian, decided that it was in Rome's interest to re-establish the Euphrates as the limit of its direct control. Both sides attempted to justify their respective military goals in both active and reactive ways. The RomanPersian Wars have been characterized as "futile" and too "depressing and tedious to contemplate". [2] The Romans had achieved and maintained a high degree of sophistication in siege warfare and had developed a range of siege machines. John F. Haldon underscores that "although the conflicts between Persia and East Rome revolved around issues of strategic control around the eastern frontier, yet there was always a religious-ideological element present". In Judaea, Antigonus was ousted with Roman help by Herod in 37BC. [13] Mark Antony had sent Ventidius to oppose Labienus, who had invaded Anatolia. The Sasanians and the Roman Empire, "An Overview of the Sassanian Persian Military", "Excavations In Iran Unravel Mystery Of "Red Snake", "The Political History of Iran under the Sassanians", "The Army in the Late Roman East: The Persian Wars and the Defense of the Byzantine Provinces", "ByzantineIranian Relations Encyclopaedia Iranica", An Overview of the Sassanian Persian Military, "Death Underground: Gas Warfare at Dura-Europos", "Early Chemical Warfare Dura-Europos, Syria", "Buried Soldiers May Be Victims of Ancient Chemical Weapon", Excavations In Iran Unravel Mystery Of "Red Snake", http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/deportations, "LacusCurtius Cassius Dio's Roman History", "Eutropius: Abridgement of Roman History", "Joshua the Stylite, Chronicle composed in Syriac in AD 507 (1882) pp. [88] In 551 AD, general Bessas who replaced Dagistheus put Abasgia and the rest of Lazica under control, and finally subjected Petra after fierce fighting, demolishing its fortifications. [19], A fresh series of conflicts began in the 2nd century AD, during which the Romans consistently held the upper hand over Parthia.
In 530 a major Persian offensive in Mesopotamia was defeated by Roman forces under Belisarius at Dara, while a second Persian thrust in the Caucasus was defeated by Sittas at Satala. Negotiations between the two powers took place, but such was their distrust that in 506 the Romans, suspecting treachery, seized the Persian officials. The following year Avidius Cassius invaded Mesopotamia, winning battles at Dura-Europos and Seleucia and sacking Ctesiphon in 165. [60] In November 506, a treaty was finally agreed upon, but little is known of what the terms of the treaty were. [33] Between 258 and 260, Shapur captured Emperor Valerian after defeating his army at the Battle of Edessa. [113] Around the same time, the Persians completed their conquest of Mesopotamia and the Caucasus, and in 611 they overran Syria and entered Anatolia, occupying Caesarea. The Persians were weakened by internal strife proceeding from dynastic disputes and the Romans probably would have extended their conquests had Carus not died in December of that year. [177] The single most important source for Justinian's Persian wars up to 553 is Procopius. [160] The Roman and Persian border units were known as limitanei and marzobans, respectively. [84][85] (The war dragged on under other generals and was to some extent hindered by the Plague of Justinian, because of which Khosrau temporarily withdrew from Roman territory)[86] A five-year truce was agreed to in 545, secured by Roman payments to the Persians. According to R. N. Frye, it was under Shapur II that the Persian system was extended, probably in imitation of Diocletian's construction of the limes of the Syrian and Mesopotamian frontiers of the Roman Empire. [155] Recent assessments comparing the Sasanians and Parthians have reaffirmed the superiority of Sasanian siegecraft, military engineering, and organization,[156] as well as ability to build defensive works.[157]. Benefiting from their weakened condition, the Rashidun armies swiftly conquered the entire Sasanian Empire, and deprived the Eastern Roman Empire of its territories in the Levant, the Caucasus, Egypt, and the rest of North Africa. Despite the arrival of Roman reinforcements from Europe, he won another victory in 604, while Dara fell after a nine-month siege. 1-76", "Sixth Century Alania: between Byzantium, Sasanian Iran and the Turkic World", Wars of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RomanPersian_Wars&oldid=1098562528, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, After initial Parthian successes, war over Armenia, Ardashir's invasion of Mesopotamia and Persian defeat at the. Theophylact Simocatta is the main source for the reign of Maurice,[178] while Theophanes, Chronicon Paschale and the poems of George of Pisidia are useful sources for the last RomanPersian war. [179], Series of wars between ancient Greco-Roman and Iranian states. Continuing south along the Tigris, he sacked Khosrau's great palace at Dastagird and was prevented from attacking Ctesiphon only by the destruction of the bridges on the Nahrawan Canal. Despite victory[46][47] at the Battle of Ctesiphon before the walls Julian was unable to take the Persian capital and retreated along the Tigris. [91] The Romans failed to completely expel the Sasanians from Lazica, and in 554 AD Mihr-Mihroe launched a new attack, dislodging a newly-arrived Byzantine army from Telephis. The main sources of this period are thus Roman (Tacitus, Marius Maximus, and Justin) and Greek historians (Herodian, Cassius Dio and Plutarch). After his assassination, his successor, Macrinus, was defeated by the Parthians near Nisibis. An epidemic which was sweeping Parthia at the time, possibly of smallpox, spread to the Roman army and forced its withdrawal;[23] this was the origin of the Antonine Plague that raged for a generation throughout the Roman Empire. ", Frye (1968), 130131; Southern (2001), 243, This page was last edited on 16 July 2022, at 12:25. From the 4th centuryAD onwards, the Sasanians grew in strength and adopted the role of aggressor. In 540, the Persians broke the "Treaty of Eternal Peace" and Khosrau I invaded Syria, destroying the great city of Antioch and deporting its population to Weh Antiok Khosrow in Persia; as he withdrew, he extorted large sums of money from the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia and systematically looted the key cities. [11], The Parthians largely remained neutral during Caesar's Civil War, fought between forces supporting Julius Caesar and forces supporting Pompey and the traditional faction of the Roman Senate. He captured the Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, before sailing downriver to the Persian Gulf. [112], Phocas' brutal repression sparked a succession crisis that ensued as the general Heraclius sent his nephew Nicetas to attack Egypt, enabling his son Heraclius the younger to claim the throne in 610. The expense of resources during the RomanPersian Wars ultimately proved catastrophic for both empires. [9], The Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus led an invasion of Mesopotamia in 53BC with catastrophic results; he and his son Publius were killed at the Battle of Carrhae by the Parthians under General Surena;[10] this was the worst Roman defeat since the battle of Arausio. Among them the most important are the Greeks Agathias and Malalas, the Persian Muslims al-Tabari and Ferdowsi, the Armenian Agathangelos, and the Syriac Chronicles of Edessa and Arbela, most of whom depended on late Sasanian sources, especially Khwaday-Namag.
[121], During these years, Heraclius strove to rebuild his army, slashing non-military expenditures, devaluing the currency and melting down Church plate, with the backing of Patriarch Sergius, to raise the necessary funds to continue the war. The Persians seem to have been reluctant to resort to naval action. Failing to make progress against Parthian positions, the Romans withdrew with heavy casualties. In the following year he captured Bezabde and Singara, and repelled the counter-attack of Constantius II. [73], The Persians broke the "Treaty of Eternal Peace" in 540AD, probably in response to the Roman reconquest of much of the former western empire, which had been facilitated by the cessation of war in the East. Various vassal kingdoms and allied nomadic nations in the form of buffer states and proxies also played a role. That year an armistice was reached as a result of an invasion of Armenia by the Huns from the Caucasus. [81] Attacks on a number of Roman cities were repulsed, and Persian forces were defeated at Dara. [169] The Roman quest for world domination was accompanied by a sense of mission and pride in Western civilization and by ambitions to become a guarantor of peace and order. In 542 Khosrau launched another offensive in Mesopotamia, and unsuccessfully attempted to capture Sergiopolis. In 582, Maurice won a battle at Constantia over Adarmahan and Tamkhusro, who was killed, but the Roman general did not follow up his victory; he had to hurry to Constantinople to pursue his imperial ambitions. [90] The truce that had been established in 545 was renewed outside Lazica for a further five years on condition that the Romans pay 2,000lb of gold each year. [114] Having expelled the Persians from Anatolia in 612, Heraclius launched a major counter-offensive in Syria in 613. Finally, Phraates asserted his control over Mesopotamia, except for the western district of Osroene, which became a Roman dependency. Also, control of Armenia was given to the Romans. The Roman general Maurice retaliated by raiding Persian Mesopotamia, capturing the stronghold of Aphumon, and sacking Singara. Although Hadrian abandoned all of Trajan's conquests the trend was not to be reversed. Khosrau launched another offensive in Mesopotamia in 542 when he attempted to capture Sergiopolis. [107], The Persians captured Martyropolis through treachery in 589, but that year the stalemate was shattered when the Persian general Bahram Chobin, having been dismissed and humiliated by Hormizd IV, raised a rebellion. [54] Finally in 504, the Romans gained control through the renewed investment of Amida, which led to the fall of the city. [125] In 625 he defeated the generals Shahrbaraz, Shahin and Shahraplakan in Armenia, and in a surprise attack that winter he stormed Shahrbaraz's headquarters and attacked his troops in their winter billets. In 524525AD, Kavadh proposed that Justin I adopt his son, Khosrau, but the negotiations soon broke down. With the civil war over, Julius Caesar prepared a campaign against Parthia, but his assassination averted the war. However, unlike Persia, the Roman Empire ultimately survived the Arab assault, holding onto its residual territories and decisively repulsing two Arab sieges of its capital in 674678 and 717718. [71] Immediately after the Battle of Callinicum unsuccessful negotiations between Justinian's envoy, Hermogenes, and Kavadh took place. The Sasanians mainly used mounds, rams, mines, and to a lesser degree siege towers, artillery,[149][150] and also chemical weapons, such as in Dura-Europos (256)[151][152][153] and Petra (550-551). [3] The Romans and Parthians came into contact through their respective conquests of parts of the Seleucid Empire. [51] In 502AD, he quickly captured the unprepared city of Theodosiopolis[52] and besieged the fortress-city of Amida through the autumn and winter (502503). Khosrau, who now had to deal with the White Huns, renewed the truce in 557, this time without excluding Lazica; negotiations continued for a definite peace treaty. [66] Overt RomanPersian fighting had broken out in the Transcaucasus region and upper Mesopotamia by 526527. [31] Encouraged by this success, the emperor Gordian III advanced down the Euphrates but was defeated near Ctesiphon in the Battle of Misiche in 244. Khosrau I invaded and devastated Syria, extorting large sums of money from the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia, and systematically looting other cities including Antioch, whose population was deported to Persian territory. [18] Roman forces overthrew Tiridates and replaced him with a Cappadocian prince, triggering an inconclusive war. However, the Romans repulsed the great invasion of Syria and Anatolia by Pacorus and Labienus, and were gradually able to take advantage of the weaknesses of the Parthian military system, which, according to George Rawlinson, was adapted for national defense but ill-suited for conquest. [72] A Persian siege of Martyropolis was interrupted by Kavadh I's death and the new Persian king, Khosrau I, re-opened talks in spring 532 and finally signed the Perpetual Peace in September 532, which lasted less than eight years. Khosrau II used the murder of his benefactor as a pretext for war and reconquer the Roman province of Mesopotamia. CampbellHook (2005), 5759; Gabba (1966), 5173, Shahd (1984), 2425; Wagstaff (1985), 123125, DodgeonGreatrexLieu (2002), I, 5; Potter (2004), 232233, Julius Caesar's planned invasion of the Parthian Empire, PompeianParthian invasion of the Levant and Anatolia, "The restoration of the Cross at Jerusalem", "The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids", A Threat or a Blessing? The Augustan History is neither contemporary nor reliable, but it is the chief narrative source for Severus and Carus. [95], War broke again shortly after Armenia and Iberia revolted against Sasanian rule in 571AD, following clashes involving Roman and Persian proxies in Yemen (between the Axumites and the Himyarites) and the Syrian desert, and after Roman negotiations for an alliance with the Western Turkic Khaganate against Persia.