When the people heard about Bahrain's expedition and his apppointment
of his brother as his deputy
to govern the kingdom,
they felt sure that this was an act of flight from his enemy and an
act of abandonment of his kingdom. They took counsel together
and resolved to send an embassy to Khaqan and to undertake that
they would pay him tribute, out of fear that he would invade their
land and would annihilate their own troops unless they showed
themselves submissive to him by handing the money over. Khaqan
heard about what the Persians had agreed upon, that they
would submit and show themselves submissive to him, so he gave
a guarantee of security for their land and ordered his army to hold
back. Bahram, however, had sent forward a spy to bring back to
him information about Khaqan; the spy now returned and told
him about Khaqan's doings and intentions. So Bahram marched
against him with the force accompanying hi m and fell on him by
245. This is the ancient, celebrated fire temple of
Adur-Gushnasp at Shiz, by or
near Ganzak or Ganjak, the Greek Ganzaka, to the
southeast of Lake Urmiya (to be distinguished from the Ganjah in Arran, in
Transcaucasia), in more recent times known as Takht-i Sulayman. In the next
century after this, Khusraw Anusharwan transferred the fire to a site in the
mountains of southern Azerbaijan less open to Byzantine attack. See on its
location, V. Minorsky, "Roman and Byzantine Campaigns in Atropatene,"
97-101; also Noldeke, trans. 100 n. ij Herrmann, The Iranian Revival, 113-18,
128-31; EP-, s.v. Shiz (J. Ruska and C. E. Bosworth).
96
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
night, killing Khaqan with his own hand and spreading slaughter
among Khaqan's troops. Those who escaped being killed were put
to flight and showed their backs. They left behind their encampment,
their wives and children and their baggage. Bahram exerted
himself assiduously in hunting them down, killing them, gathering
up the plunder he had seized from them and enslaving their
women and children, and returned with his own army intact. 246
Bahram had seized Khaqan's crown and diadem and had conquered
his country in the land of the Turks. He appointed a Warden
of the Marches ( Marzban ) 247 over these conquered territories,
providing him with a silver throne. A group of people from the
regions bordering on the land of the Turks that he had conquered
came to Bahram, submissive and offering him obedience, and they
asked him to demarcate for them the boundary between his and
their territories, which they would not then cross. So he duly
delimited the frontier for them, and ordered the construction of a
tall and slender tower ( manarah); this is the tower which Fayruz,
son of Yazdajird (n) [later] gave orders for its [rebuilding, and
it
was erected in a forward position on [the frontier of] the land of
the Turks. Bahram also sent one of his military commanders to
[865] Transoxania in the land of the Turks and instructed him to
fight
the people there. So he made war on them and wrought great
slaughter among them, until they promised submission to
Bahram and the payment of tribute.
Bahram now went back to Azerbaijan and then to his residence
246. Al-Dinawari, al-Akhbai al-tiwal, 56-57, gives
details of Bahrain's itinerary
as he marched to engage the "Turkish" army
through Tabaristan and the Caspian
coastlands to Gurgan, then across northern Khurasan via
Nasa to Marw. The battle then took place at Kushmayhan, a village in the Marw
oasis (see on this village, Le Strange, Lands, 400; Hudud al-alam, trans. 105).
As Noldeke commented, trans.
101 n. 2, there seems no reason to doubt the authenticity
of this location for the
battle, and Marquart equated this more or less exactly
with the site of the battle
between Wishtasp and the Chionites in the Ayadgat I
Zazeidn "Memorial of
Zarer," see his EranSahr, 51-52.
247. Marzban "protector of the frontier,"
Arabized as marz(u)ban, is used in
Sasanid administrative and military terminology from the
fourth century onward
for the military governor of such frontier provinces as
Upper Mesopotamia (the
commander here being based on Nisibin), Beth Aramaye,
and, as here, Khurasan.
See Noldeke, trans. 102 n. 2 ; Justi, Namenbuch, 197-98;
Eilers, "Iranisches
Lehngut im arabischen Lexikon," 219; EP-, s.v.
Marzpan (J. H. Kramers-M. J.
Morony).
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
97
in the Sawad [of Iraq]. He ordered that the rubies and other jewels
in Khaqan's diadem should be hung up in the fire temple of Azerbaijan,
and then he set off and came to the city of Ctesiphon. He
took up his quarters in the administrative headquarters [dar al-
mamlakah ) there. He sent letters to his troops and provincial
governors announcing how he had killed Khaqan and what he and
the Persian army had accomplished. Then he appointed his
brother Narsi governor of Khurasan, instructed him to make his
way thither and to establish his residence at Balkh, and ordered
for
him whatever he required . 248
Toward the end of his life, Bahram went to Mah for hunting
there . 249 One day he rode out to the chase, fastened tenaciously
onto a wild ass and pursued it closely. But he fell into a pit and
sank into the mud at the bottom. When his mother heard of that
accident, she hurried along to that pit, taking with her a large
sum
of money. She remained near the pit, and ordered that the money
should be paid out to whoever might rescue Bahram from the hole.
They excavated a vast amount of earth and mud from the pit, until
they had made a number of large mounds from this; but they were
never able to find Bahrain's corpse . 230
248. Balkh lay in the heart of Bactria, the early Islamic
Tukharistan, and must at
this time have been in the hands of a power like the
Kushans or their epigoni;
subsequently, it was a principal residence of the king of
the northern Hephthalites.
It is highly unlikely that any Sasanid control could have
been exerted at this time
as far east as Balkh; Marw was probably the
northeastemmost bastion of Persian
power. See Noldeke, trans. 103 n. 1.
249. The OP Mada-, i.e., Media or northwestern Persia, a
name that survived
into Islamic times as Mah, included in the toponyms Mah
al-Ba$rah • Nihawand,
and Mah al-Kufah - DInawar. See Le Strange, Lands, 190
and n. 2, EP-, s.v. Mah al- Ba$ra (M. J. Morony).
250. This story of Bahrain's end also appears, very
cursorily in al-Ya'qubi, Ta'r-
Ikh, 1 , 184, and al-Mas'udl, Muzuj, II, 190 - § 612, but
in detail in al-Dinawari, al- Akhbdi al-tiwal, 5 8, who says that the story of
Bahrain's death was still current in the area of Day-marj, the place where the
king was swallowed up (this lay near Hamadhan and was later famous as the site
of a battle in 584/1188 when the last Seljuq sultan of the East, Toghril HI,
defeated the 'Abbasid caliph Si-Nadir's forces; see Schwarz, Iran, 553). This
whole region of Mah or Media was a favorite one of Bahrain's, and he is said to
have had a splendid palace at Midharustan near Hulwan and a fortress near
Hamadhan (Le Strange, Lands, 191, 195). Nbldeke, trans. 103 n. 3, thought that
this tale of the maimer of Bahrain's death originated in an attempt to provide
an alternative explanation to his by-name Gur/Jur in the sense of "wild
ass," i.e., one from got in the sense of "pit, grave."
98
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
It is mentioned that, when Bahram returned to his realm from
his expedition against the Turks, he addressed the people of his
kingdom for several days continuously, urging them in his speech
to maintain their obedience and informing them that his intention
was to render circumstances easy for them and to bring them
a good way of life; but if they should stray from the straight way
of
righteousness, they would suffer treatment from him more severe
than what they had experienced under his father. The latter had
begun his reign over them with lenience and equity; but then
they, or at least some of them, had rejected that policy and not
shown themselves submissive, as servants and slaves should in
fact show themselves toward kings. This had impelled him into
harsh policies: he had beaten people and had shed blood.
Bahrain's return journey from that expedition [against the
Turks] was via the road to Azerbaijan; he presented to the fire
temple at al-Shiz the rubies and jewels that were in Khaqan's
diadem, a sword belonging to Khaqan encrusted with pearls and
jewels, and many other precious adornments. He gave Khatun,
Khaqan's wife, 251 to the temple as a servant there. 252 He
remitted
to the people three years' land tax as a thank offering for the
victory he had achieved in his expedition, and he divided up
among the poor and destitute a great sum of money, and among
the nobles and persons of meritorious behavior twenty million
dirhams. He sent letters to the distant lands with news about his
251. In Orkhon Turkish, qatun/khatun denoted the wife of
the Qaghan, bor-
rowed into Mongolian as qadun, but later it tended to
mean "noble woman" and,
eventually, by Ottoman times, little more than
"married lady, woman" in the
form kadin (a relationship noted by Noldeke, trans. 104
n. 2). It has traditionally
been considered as a loan word from Sogdian xwt'yn,
"wife of the lord or ruler," but from Paul Pelliot onward, doubts
have been raised over this. Pulleyblank, "The Consonantal System of Old
Chinese. Part II," 262-64, states that related forms are to be found among
the Inner Asian Altaic people of the T’o-pa, successors of the Hsiung-nu in the
early centuries a.d. G. Doerfer has pointed out the phonological difficulties
in the transition Sogdian khwaten > Old Turkish * khaghatun / qaghatun.
Instead, he posits an ultimate origin in the Inner Asian peoples of
Turco-Mongolian stock known to us from Chinese sources, perhaps from as far
back as the eastern Hsiung-nu. See Turkische und mongolische Elemente im
Neupeisischen. Turkische Elemente, II, 132-41 no. 1149; Clauson, Etymological
Dictionary, 602-63.
252. That is, as a manifestation of contempt for the
paganism of the captured
queen; cf. Noldeke, trans. 104 n. 3.
Holders of Power after ArdashTr b. Babak
99
dealings with Khaqan, in which he mentioned how reports had
reached him that Khaqan had invaded his lands, and how he had
extolled and magnified God and had depended completely on
Him, how he had marched against Khaqan with a guard of [only]
seven men from the nobility and three hundred cavalrymen from
the choicest warriors of his personal guard, via the Azerbaijan and
Caucasus Mountains road until he had reached the deserts and
wastes of Khwarazm, and how God had then tested him [in battle]
with a most successful outcome. He further mentioned to them
how much land tax he had remitted to them. His letter containing
this information was an eloquent and penetrating one.
When Bahram had first achieved the royal power, he had given
orders that the arrears of the land tax from previous years {al-
baqdyd ) and for which the taxpayers were still liable, should be
cancelled . 253 He had been informed that these arrears amounted
to seventy million dirhams, but had nevertheless given orders that
they were to be remitted. He also remitted one-third of the land
tax for the year in which he had acceeded to power . 254
It is said that, when Bahram fur returned to Ctesiphon from his
expedition against Khaqan the Turk, he appointed his brother
Narsi as governor of Khurasan and assigned him Balkh as his capital
[there ]. 255 He appointed as his vizier Mihr Narsi, son of Burazah
, 256
made him one of his
intimates and nominated him as
Buzurjfarmadhar . 257 He then announced to him that he was going
253. In Arabic administrative literature of the
fourth/tenth century, al-baqaya
"arrears of taxation from previous years" seems
to be dis tinguish ed from al-baqi
"taxation of the current year still
uncollected." See Bosworth, "Abu 'Abdallah al-
Khwarazmi on the Technical Terms of the Secretary's
Art," 135.
254. If the report is authentic, this concession was
presumably possible because
of the great amount of plunder taken from the Turks,- cf.
Ndldeke, trans., 105 n. 5.
255. See al-Tabari, I, 865, p. 97 and n. 248 above.
256. This paternal name is somewhat problematical.
NSldeke, trans. 106 n. 2,
unconvincingly connected it with place names in Fars.
Justi, Namenbuch, 70,
noted the Greek form Boraze for Hebrew Bigta, the name of
one of the seven
eunuchs who served King Ahasuerus as chamberlains in
Esther, i.10.
257. The fiamadai was originally, it appears, the steward
of the royal household
and then administrator of the royal estates, and finally,
by Sasanid times, the first
civilian minister in the state. The extended title of
wuzurg "great" ftamadai is
characteristic of the later Sasanid period, and this Mihr
Narseh |whose genealogy
al-Tabari subsequently traces back to pre-Sasanid times
(see I, 868-69, P- 104
below) appears as one of the first persons mentioned as
holding the office. See
IOO
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
to the land of India in order to get information about conditions
there and to find out by subtle means whether he could add part of
the Indian lands to his own territory, in order that he might
[867] thereby lighten some of the tax burden on his own subjects.
He
gave him (sc., Mihr NarsI) the necessary orders concerning all the
matters relative to his apppointment as regent up to the time of
his own return, and set off on the journey from his kingdom until
he reached Indian territory, traveling in disguise. He remained
there a considerable time, without any of the local people asking
at all about him and his situation, except that they were favorably
impressed by what they saw regarding him: his equestrian skill,
his killing of wild beasts, his handsomeness, and the perfection of
his form.
He continued thus until he heard that there was in one region of
their land an elephant, which had made the roads unsafe for travelers
and had killed a great number of people. He accordingly
asked one of the local people to direct him toward the beast so
that
he might kill it. This intention came to the ears of the king; he
summoned Bahram and sent an envoy to accompany him, who
was to go back to him with an account of Bahrain's actions. When
Bahram and the envoy came to the patch of dense jungle where the
elephant was, the accompanying envoy shinned up a tree in order
to see what Bahram would do. Bahram went forward to try and
lure out the elephant, and shouted to it. The elephant came forth
toward him, foaming with rage, trumpeting loudly and with a
fearsome appearance. When it got near, Bahram shot an arrow at it
right between the eyes, in such a way that the arrow almost disappeared
in the beast's head, and he showered arrows on it until he
Christensen, Sassanides, 114-16, 136, 265-66, 519-26; V.
J. Lukonin, "Political,
Social and Administrative Institutions: Taxes and
Trade," 737-38.
The wuzurgfiamadar has been seen by some scholars as a
forerunner of the early
Islamic vizier, the chief minister of the caliphs from
‘Abbasid times onward (for
whose name, wazii, some have sought a Persian etymology,
see below, although
more recent opinon favors an indigenous Arabic one — not
that this philological
question is particularly relevant anyway to the question
of continuity in function
and practice). See the discussion in D. Sourdel, Le
viziiat 'abbaside de 7 49 ct 936
(132 h 324 de l’Hdgize), I, 41-61, • and for a
reassertion of a Persian origin for the word, in MP wizlr (apparently attested,
however, in the opinion of Mr F. C. de
Blois, only as an abstract noun "decision,
judgment"), see Eilers, "Iranisches
Lehngut im arabischen Lexikon," 207.
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
IOI
reduced it to a sorry state. He then leaped upon it, seized it by
the
trunk and dragged it downward, which made the elephant sink
down on its knees. He kept on stabbing it until he got the upper
hand over it and was then able to cut off its head. He rolled it
over
on to its back and brought it forth to the roadside. The king's
envoy was meanwhile watching all this.
When the envoy returned, he related the whole story of
Bahrain's doings to the king. The king was full of wonder at
Bahrain's strength and boldness, gave him rich presents and questioned
him about himself and his background. Bahram told him
that he was one of the great men of the Persians, but had incurred
the wrath of the king of Persia for a certain reason, hence had
fled
from him to the king of India's protection. Now that latter mon-
arch had an enemy who had tried to deprive him of his kingdom
and had marched against him with a large army. The king,
Bahrain's patron, had become fearful of the enemy because of
what he knew of this enemy's might and the fact that the latter
demanded of him submission and payment of tribute. Bahrain's
patron was on the point of acceeding to the enemy's demands, but
Bahram dissuaded him from that, and guaranteed to him that the
affair would be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. The king's
mind became tranquil and confident in Bahrain's words, and
Bahram set out, prepared for war.
When the two armies encountered each other, Bahram said to
the Indian cavalrymen (asawiiah), 258 "Protect my rear,"
and then
258. This is the Arabic broken pi. formed from the sing,
aswdi/uswar, from MP
aswdr, "cavalryman," used specifically in
Sasanid times for the heavy, mailed
cavalrymen who formed the backbone of the army. It seems
originally to have
denoted a high military rank, the chief of a military
unit, but in Sisanid times
came to be applied to the cavalrymen in general. These
aswaran were certainly
ranked among what might be called the aristocracy and
landed gentry of Persia,
and in the fiscal reforms of Khusraw Anusharwan they were
one of the classes
exempted from paying the poll tax on account of their
great services to the state
(thus enumerated by al-Tabari, I, 962, p. 159 below,
where al-muqdtilah -
aswaran; in his equivalent passge, al-DInawari
specifically has asawiiah, see n.
62$ below). In the accounts of the battles of the Muslim
Arabs with the armies of
the last Sasanids, e.g., in al-Baladhuri's Futuh
al-buldan, the asawiiah emerge as
an €lite of mounted archers. See Lokkegaard, Islamic
Taxation in the Classic
Period, 17 1, and the detailed discussion in Widengren,
"Recherches sur le
feudalisme iranien," 170-76; and for later usage of
the term aswari, extending up
to Mughal and British Indian times as suwar, Anglicised
as sowar, see Eh, s.v.
Asawera (C. E. Bosworth).
102
Holders of Power after Ardashlr b. Babak
he led an assault on the enemy. He began to strike their heads
with blows that split the head down to the mouth; to strike another
in midbody so that he cut him in half; to go up to an elephant
and sever its trunk with his sword; and to sweep a rider off his
saddle. The Indians are a people who are not very skillful in archery,
and most of them fought on foot, not having horses; when, on
the other hand, Bahram shot an arrow at one of the enemy, the
shaft penetrated right through him. When the enemy saw what
was happening, they wheeled round and fled, without turning
aside to do anything. Bahrain's patron seized as plunder everything
in the enemy's camp, and
returned home rejoicing and glad,
in company with Bahram. As a reward for Bahrain's efforts, the
king bestowed on him his daughter in marriage and granted to him
al-Daybul, Makran, and the adjacent parts of Sind . 259 He wrote
out for him an investiture patent for all this, had the grant to
him
confirmed before witnesses, and gave orders for those territories
to
259. Daybul, the Arabized form of a possible original
something like Dewal, was
the great port of Sind in pre-Islamic and early Islamic
times, and the first city of the province to be captured by the Arab commander
Muhammad b. al-Qasim al-
Thaqafi in 92/711-12. Moses Khorenac'i (later sixth
century to early eighth century ?) mentions the district of *Depuhl, linking
it, as here, with Makran and Sind in general (see Marquart, EranSahi, 45). It
lay in the Indus delta region to the west of the river's then main channel, but
its location is still a matter for conjecture since an identification with the
archaeological site Bhanbore is by no means certain. See S. Qudratullah Fatimi,
"The Twin Ports of Daybul. A Study in the Early Maritime History of
Sind," 97-105; EP, s.v. Daybul (A. S. Bazmee Ansari).
Makran is the coastal region of what is now Pakistani and
Persian Baluchistan.
Whether it embraced the region known from Sumerian and
old Akkadian texts as
Magan, in the OP inscriptions Maka (where it is described
as a satrapy of Darius
the Great), and also from Akkadian texts as Melukhkha,
has called forth varying
opinions. Recently, de Blois, on the evidence of the
texts of two Elamite tablets
from the so-called Persepolis fortification tablets, has
argued that Maka denotes
the region called in Middle Iranian, Syriac, Armenian,
and Arabic sources, from the third century a.d. onward, Mazun = 'Uman; see his
"Maka and Mazun." 160-67.
Whatever the truth, Greek historians of the time of
Alexander call Makran
Gedrosia; and the region appears in the Naqsh-i Rustam
inscription of Kerder as
Mkwl'n. Despite the reported pretensions of early Persian
monarchs to control it,
as here with Bahram Gur, Makran probably remained always
within the Indian
rather than the Persian political and cultural sphere, in
Bahrain's time under the
influence of the Brahman kings of Sind. See Hudud
al-'dlam, trans. 123, comm.
373; Marquart, op. cit., 33 - 34 ; Le Strange, Lands,
329-3°; EP, s.v. Makran (C. E. Bosworth).
Holders of Power after Ardashlr b. Babak 103
be added to the Persian lands, with their land tax to be paid to
Bahrain. Bahram then returned [to his homeland] rejoicing. 260
After this, Bahram sent Mihr Narsi, son of Burazah, on an expedition
against the Roman lands, at the head of a force of forty
thousand warriors. He ordered him to make for their supreme
ruler (' azfcn ) and discuss with him the question of the tribute
and
other things, tasks that only a man of Mihr Narsl's caliber could
undertake. Mihr Narsi then marched off with this army and materiel,
and entered Constantinople. He played a notable role there,
and the supreme ruler of the Romans made a truce with him. He
returned homeward having achieved all that Bahram had desired,
and the latter heaped honors unceasingly on Mihr Narsi. 261
His name was sometimes rendered in a "lightened" (
mukhaffaf )
form as just Narsi, and sometimes people would say Mihr Narsih.
260. Naturally, there is no question of the historicity
of these fabulous Indian
adventures of Bahram, which appear, however, in other
Arabic sources such as Ibn Qutaybah, Ma'dtif, 660-61 (detailed account, clearly
based on the same source as al-Tabari); al-Mas'udi, Muni;, H, I9i-§6i2
(describes Bahrain's secret mission to the court of King Shubrumah, probably to
be identified with the Gupta monarch Chandraguptall, r. 376-415); Hamzah
al-I§fahani, Ta’rikh, 49 (very brief mention); and Tabari-Bal'amI, trans. n,
122-25.
261. This is a cursory mention of the war with Byzantium
that broke out in 42 1
shortly after Bahrain's accession. It ran counter to the
general trend in Byzantine-
Persian relations of the period, which had been one of
peace since the treaty of 384 between Theodosius n and Shabtir m. It seems to
have been provoked, on the one hand, by the violent persecution of Christians
within the Persian lands that broke out at the beginning of the new reign (see
n. 242 above), and, on the other hand, by Byzantine attempts to use Christian
missionary activities in order to secure the allegiance of Arab tribes of the Syrian
Desert fringes and by the Byzantines' sheltering of Christian converts from
those fringes under Persian control.
The war was ended by a peace treaty in the following
year. It promised religious
freedom for Christians of Persia and for Zoroastrians in
the Byzantine lands; each
side was prohibited from accepting and sheltering Arab
allies of the other side if
these Arabs should rebel; and the Greeks were to pay an
annual tribute, ostensibly
for the defense of the pass at Darband against the
barbarians beyond the Caucasus,
but which contained no territorial changes to the
boundary between the two
powers. See J. B. Bury, A History of the Later Roman
Empire from Arcadius to
Irene (393 a.d. to So o a.d.), I, 304-305; idem, History
of the Later Roman Empire
from the Death of Theodosius to the Death of Justinian
(a.d. 39 s to a.d. 363), 1 , 4- 5; Labourt, Le Christianisme dans V empire
perse, 118; Christensen, Sassanides, 281; Frye, "The Political History of
Iran under the Sasanians," 145; Z. Rubin, "Diplomacy and War in the
Relations between Byzantium and the Sassanids in the Fifth Century a.d.,"
679—81; G. Greatrex, "The Two Fifth-Century Wars between Rome and
Persia," 1-14.
104
Holders of Power after Ardashlr b. Babak
He was Mihr NarsI, son of Burazah, son of Farrukhzadh, son of
Khurahbadh, son of SIsfadh, son of SIsanabruh, son of Kay Ashak,
son of Dara, son of Dara, son of Bahman, son of Isfandiyar, son of
Bishtasb . 262 Mihr NarsI was held in high honor by all the kings
of
Persia because of his fine education and manners, the excellence
of his judgment, and the contentedness and tractability of the
masses of the people with him. He had, moreover, several sons,
who approached him in worth and who fulfilled various offices for
the monarchs that almost reached his own office [in rank and
importance]. There were three of them who had reached an outstanding
position. One was Zurwandadh , 263 whom Mihr NarsI
had intended for religion and the religious law. In this sphere he
attained such a leading position that Bahram Jur appointed him
Chief Herbadh (Hirbadhan Hirbadh), a rank near to that of Chief
Mobadh. The second was called Majusnas, who remained in
charge of the department of the land tax all through the reign of
Bahram Jur, the name of his rank in Persian being Wastra’i’ushan
Salar . 264 The third was called Kard[ar], supreme commander of the
army, the name of his rank in Persian being Rathashtaran Salar ;
265
this is a rank higher than that of al-Isbahbadh and is near to that
of
al-Arjabadh . 266
262. Mihr Narseh's Arsacid descent, in fact linking the
first Arsacids with a
Darius of the Achaemenids and then with the legendary
kings of early Persia (only detailed here and in the Sprenger ms.), shows that
scions of the previous, fallen dynasty could nevertheless rise to high office
under the Sasanids; cf. n. 84 above.
263. Following here the version of this name preferred by
Noldeke from the
Sprenger ms., set forth in his n. e, instead of the
text's Zarawandadh; the name
Zurvandad is, in fact, attested, see Gignoux, Noms
propres sassanides, no. 1091.
The name would then mean "given by Zurvan,"
i.e., by the deification of time put
forward by some heretical (?) Zoroastrian circles,
erecting it into a guiding principle for the universe as the father of both
Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, hence above all gods and men. See R. C. Zaehner, The
Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism, 236-47 (his chapter here being more
manageable than his exhaustive work, Zurvan, a Zoroastrian Dilemma, Oxford,
1955).
264. Following the form reconstructed by Noldeke, in n. g
for the text's
Ras.t.r.ai w.shan.s.lan, i.e., Wastaryoshan-saldr. The
title would then be that of
"head of [the class of] cultivators."
265 . Following the form reconstructed by Noldeke in n. i
for the text's As.t.ran
s.lan, i.e., Arteshtaran-salar. The title would then mean
"head of (the class of]
warrors." Cf. for this and the preceding note, Noldeke,
trans. no n. 4.
266. For the exalted title of argabadh, "commander
of a fortress," see al-Tabari,
I, 815, p. 6 and n. 15 above.
Holders of Power after Ardashlr b. Babak 105
Mihr Narsl's own title of rank was in Persian Buzurjfarmadhar,
which means in Arabic "supreme vizier" (wazfr al-wuzaia
’) or
"supreme executive" ( ra’is al-ru’asa’). He is said to
have come
from a town ( qaryah ) called Abruwan 267 in the rural district of
Dasht-i Barin 268 in the province of Ardashlr Khurrah. He had lofty
buildings erected there and at Jirih, in the province of Sabur, because
of the contiguity of that and Dasht-i Barin, and he constructed
there for himself a fire
temple, which is said to be still in
existence today, 269 with its fire still burning to this present moment.
It is called Mihr Narsiyan. In the vicinity of Abruwan he
founded four villages, with a fire temple in each one. He set up
one
of these for himself and called it Faraz-mara-awar-khudaya, meaning
[in Arabic] "come to me, O my lord," 270 with the aim of
showing
great veneration for the
fire. The second one was meant for
Zarawandadh, and he called it Zarawandadhan. The third was for
Kard[ar], and he called it Kardadhan; and the last was for Majushnas,
and he called it Majushnasfan.
271 He also laid out three
gardens in this region: in one of them he planted twelve thousand
date palms; in another, twelve thousand olive trees; and in [the
third] garden, twelve thousand cypress trees. These villages, with
the gardens and the fire temples, have remained continuously in
the hands of his descendants, who are well known till today, and it
has been mentioned that all these remain in the best possible
condition at the present time.
It has been mentioned that, after he had finished with Khaqan
and the King of the Romans, Bahram proceeded to the land of the
267. The text has 'b.r.wdn, but the form of this name is
uncertain. It may
possibly be the Artuwan of al-MaqdisI, Ahsan al-taqasim,
as 8, in the list of the
towns and districts of Sasanid Persia attributed to
Qubadh (I), son of Fayruz, or the Arduwal/Arduwan of Yaqut, Buldan, I, 149, as
a small town of southwestern
Persia.
268. The "plain of Barin" was a district of
southwestern Fars whose urban
center was in Islamic times Ghundijan. See Noldeke,
trans. in n. 4; Le Strange,
Lands, 260, 268, 294; Schwarz, Iran, 68-70.
269. When "today" and "at the present
time" were, is unfortunately not known.
270. With feminine forms in the Arabic: iqbali tiayya
sayyidati, nai, "fire"
being a feminine noun. Cf. Ndldeke, trans. in n. 7.
271. These names of estates or places in -an demonstrate
connections with their
founders or developers (the -an being originally a
genitive pi. ending) and were
especially notable in Iraq during early Islamic times for
the names of estates,
canals, etc.; e.g., Go Masruqan, Not Artashirakan, Nahr
Suran.
io6
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
blacks, in the region of Yemen, 272 and fell upon them, wreaking
great slaughter among them and taking large numbers of captives
before returning to his kingdom. Then followed his death in the
manner we have described. There are differing views on the length
of his reign. Some say that it was eighteen years, ten months, and
twenty days, others that it was twenty-three years, ten months,
and twenty days. 273
[Yazdajird II]
Then there succeeded to the royal power after him Yazdajird,
son of Bahram Ju.r. When the crown had been placed on his head,
the great men of state and the nobles ( ashiaf ) came into his presense,
invoked blessings on his
head, and congratulated him on
his accession to the royal power. He replied to them in pleasant
terms and mentioned his father, his virtues, how he had behaved
toward the subjects, and how lengthy his sessions for them (sc.,
for
hearing complaints and receiving petitions) had been. He told
them that if they did not experience from him just what they had
been used to experience from his father, they should not condemn
him, for his periods of withdrawal from public gaze at court were
only for some aspect of public good for the kingdom and to trick
enemies. [He went on to say] that he had appointed Mihr NarsI,
the son of Burazah, his father's aide, as his vizier, that he would
272. The bilad al-sudan would be the regions of the Horn
of Africa and East
Africa adjacent to South Arabia, but the story that
Bahram penetrated to there is
quite legendary, and may have been influenced by the
Persian expeditions to Ye-
men in the later sixth century, see al-Tabari, I, 948ff.,
pp. 239ff. below.
273. Bahram V Gur's reign was 420-38. His name appears on
his coins as (R’M§-
TRY) WRHR’N, i.e., (Ramshahr) Bahram See on his coins
Paruck, Sasanian Coins, 62, 363-66, 447-48, Plates XTV-XV, Table XII,- Gobi,
Sasanian Numismatics, 49, Table IX, Plate 9; Sellwood, Whitting, and Williams,
An Introduction to Sasanian Coins, 21,116-18; Malek, "A Survey of Research
on Sasanian Numismatics, "23s.
The other Arabic sources on his reign include Ibn
Qutaybah, Ma'drif, 66 1; ai-
Ya'qubi, Ta’iikh, I, 183-84; al-DInawari, al-Akhbar
al-tiwdl, 56-58; al-Mas'udi,
Muruj, n, 190-93 - §§ 612—14; idem, Tanblh, 101, trans.
144; Hamzah al-Isfahani, Ta’rlkh, 49; Ibn al-Athlr, Kamil, I, 401-406. Of
Persian sources, see Tabari- Bal’ami, trans. II, 118-26. Of modem studies of
his reign in general, see
Christensen, Sassanides, 274-82; Frye, "The
Political History of Iran under the
Sasanians," 144-46, 178; EP, s.w. Bahram (Huart-H.
Mass6) and Sasanids (M. J.
Morony); Eh, s.w. Bahram V Gor (O. Klfma), Bahram V Gor
in Persian Legend and Literature (W. L. Hanaway).
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
T07
behave with them in the best possible maimer and would lay
down for them the best of ways of conduct, and that he would
unceasingly humble his enemies but continuously behave with
mildness and benevolence to his subjects and his troops. 274
Yazdajird had two sons, one called Hurmuz, who was ruler over
Sijistan, and the other called Fayruz. It was Hurmuz (II) who
seized the royal power after his father Yazdajird's death. Fayruz
fled from him and reached the land of the Hephthalites [al-
Hayatilah ). 275 He told their king the story of what had happened
between him and his brother and that he had a better right to the
throne than Hurmuz. He asked the king to provide him with an
army with which he could combat Hurmuz and gain control of his
father's kingdom, but the king of the Hephthalites refused to respond
to his request until he
received information that Hurmuz
really was a tyrannical and unjust king. He said, "God is not
pleased with injustice, and He does not let the works of those
174- Christian sources nevertheless describe Yazdagird n
as a savage persecutor
of the Christians, both within his kingdom proper (with
records of many martyrs
in Mesopotamia) and also in Armenia, where his edict of
449 imposing Zoroastrianism on Armenia and Georgia provoking the revolt there,
mentioned in n. 277
below. Jews also suffered when in 4S4-55 Yazdagird
forbade the observance of
their Sabbath, and later the Persian authorities are said
to have closed all Jewish
schools. See Noldeke, trans. 114 n. i, Labourt, Le
Christianisme dans l’empiie
perse, 116-30,- Christensen, Sassanides, 283-89, Lang,
"Iran, Armenia and
Georgia," 520-21, Neusner, "Jews in Iran,"
915-16; Asmussen, "Christians in
Iran," 942.
275. Hayaplah is the Arabic broken plural of Hayfal,
correctly # Habtal. This
last seems originally to have been a dynastic name, with
forms of it appearing in,
e.g., Byzantine sources ( Hephthalitai ) and Chinese ones
[Ye-tai-i li-to ), the Greek form corresponding to the Sogdian nominative pi.
see W. B. Henning
"Neue Materialen zur Geschichte des
Manichlismus," 17 n. 2. At the time of
Fayruz/Firuz's flight to the land beyond the eastern
frontiers of the Sasanid realm
(i.e., in 457), the Kidarites were still ruling in
Bactria and Gandhara, but were about to be replaced there, in the second half
of the fifth century, by the Hephthalites ( J. Harmatta places the Hephthalite
attack on the Kidarite territories in Transoxania in 466). The Hephthalites did
not apparently arrive in a sudden wave from the Inner Asian steppes, but had
doubtless been infiltrating into Transoxania, Bactria, and the northern fringes
of Khurasan for some time. It was to these that the fugitive Firuz was able to
appeal for the help that enabled him to gain his father's old throne. See
Noldeke, trans. 115 n. 2, Moravcsik, Byzantinotwcica. I. Die byzantinischen
Quellen der Geschichte dez Turkvdlker, 69-70, Sinor, "The Establishment
and Dissolution of the Turk Empire," 298-99, E. V. Zeimal, "The Kidarite
Kingdom in Central Asia," 124-26, B. A. Litvinsky, "The Hephthalite Empire,"
138-39.
io8
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
committing it prosper; under the rule of an unjust king, a man
cannot succeed properly in any enterprise or practice any trade
successfully except by injustice and tyranny likewise." Then,
after
Fayruz had made over al-Talaqan to him, he provided Fayruz
with an army. 276 Fayruz advanced with it and gave battle to his
brother Hurmuz, killing him, scattering his forces, and seizing
control of his kingdom.
The Romans had been dilatory in forwarding to Yazdajird, the
son of Bahrain, the tribute they used to pay to his father. Hence
Fayruz sent against them Mihr Narsi, the son of Burazah, with an
army and materiel such as Bahram had originally sent against
them for that purpose (sc., of exacting tribute), and Mihr Narsi
secured the imposition of his master's will for him. 277
276. There was more than one Talaqan in the eastern
Persian lands and their
fringes. See Noldeke, trans. 1 16 n. i ; EP-, s.v.
Talakan (C. E. Bosworth and J. R. Lee).
The Talaqan intended here is most likely the one in what
was the later mediaeval
Islamic province of Guzgan, at a site now unknown but
somewhere in the vicinity
of modem Maymanah in northwestern Afghanistan. At the
time of the Arab inva-
sions of Bactria/Tukharistan, it had a local (Iranian?)
ruler of its own. Less likely to be the Talaqan mentioned here is the one
beyond Balkh and toward Badakhshan. See Yaqut, Buldan, IV, 6-8; Le Strange,
Lands, 423; EP-, art. cit., sections 1 and 3.
The mention here of the cession of Talaqan to the
Hephthalites implies that the
Sasanid territories never extended as far as the Oxus.
277. This was the war launched by Yazdagird II in 439
soon after he had
achieved the throne. It caught the Roman empire at a
critical moment when its
North African provinces had just been invaded by the
Germanic Vandals and when the Huns from Inner Asia were pressing on the Balkans
and eastern parts of the empire.
As al-Tabari implies in his mention of the arrears of
tribute, there were
financial reasons behind the outbreak of war, the
Byzantines' refusal to contribute
to the cost of defenses in the Caucasus to keep out
barbarians pressing down from
the north, as well as continuing disputes over the
allegiance of Arab tribes in the
Mesopotamian frontier region, which had caused the war
with Yazdagird I twenty
years previously (see n. 261 above). The war was terminated
by the commander of Theodosius II's eastern army, the Stiategus Anatolicus,
coming to an agreement
with Yazdagird, essentially on a basis of retaining the
status quo, and with the
additional proviso that neither side should erect new
fortresses in the frontier zone
between the two empires. See Noldeke, trans. 116 n. 2;
Stein, Histoiie du Bas
Empire, I, 291; Frye, "The Political History of Iran
under the Sasanians," 146;
Rubin, "Diplomacy and War in the Relations between
Byzantium and the
Sassanids in the Fifth Century AD," 68xff. ;
Greatrex, "The Two Fifth-Century
Wars between Rome and Persia," 2-14.
In addition to this war against the Byzantines, Noldeke
notes, trans. 113 n. 4,
that Yazdagird II was involved in several other wars
during his reign,unmentioned by the Arabic sources but known from Greek, Armenian,
and Syriac authors. The emperor suppressed with difficulty a revolt of the
Christian princes of Armenia jsee n. 274 above), the battle of 451 between the Persians
and Armenians leaving behind the memory of a host of slain Armenian martyrs
whose deaths are commemorated by the Armenian Church to this day. Yazdagird
also repelled an invasion of the Huns through the Caucasus that had penetrated
to Darband and Shirwan, and, most importantly, he engaged in strife with the Kidarites
or their supplanters, defeating their king in a battle near Marw al-Rudh. It
was probably in the course of this last campaign on his eastern frontiers that
Yazdagird subdued the local ruler of $ul or Ch6l in the vicinity of Gurgan (see
on $ul, al-Tabari, I, 874, pp.
H2-t3 and n. 290 below) and founded there a town,
Shahristan-i Yazdagird, whose exact location is unknown.
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
109
According to some authorities, Yazdajird's period of royal power
was eighteen years and four months, but according to others, seventeen
years . 278
[Fayruzl]
Then there succeeded to the royal power Fayruz , 279 son of
Yazdajird (II), son of Bahram fur, after he had killed his brother
and
three [other] members of his family. There was related to me a
report going back to Hisham b. Muhammad [in which] he said:
Fayruz prepared for war with the resources of Khurasan and called
upon the men of Tukharistan and regions neighboring on it for
support , 280 and marched against his brother Hurmuz, son of
Yazdajird (n), who was at al-Rayy. Both Fayruz and Hurmuz had a
common mother, called Dlnak, who was at al-Mada’in governing
that part of the kingdom adjacent to it. Fayruz captured and -
278. Yazdagird H's reign was 438-37. His name appears on
his coins as (KDY)
YZDKRTY, i.e., (Kay) Yazdagird. See on his coins Paruck,
Sasanian Coins, 63, 366-67, 430-52, Plate XV, Table X3H: G6bl, Sasanian
Numismatics, 49, Table IX, Plate io; Sellwood, Whitting, and Williams, An
Introduction to Sasanian Coins, 21, 119—21; Malek, "A Survey of Research
on Sasanian Numismatics," 236.
The other Arabic sources on his reign are Ibn Qutaybah,
Ma'atif, 66 1; al-Ya'qubi,
Ta’rlkh, 1, 184; al-Dinawari, al-Akhb&r al-tiwal,
38-39; al-Mas'udl, Muruj, n, 193- 94 “ §§ 613-16; idem, Tanbih, 101, tr.
144-45; Hamzah al-I$faham, Ta’rikh, 49; Ibn al-Athfr, Kamil, I, 407. Of Persian
sources, see Taban-Bal'amI, trans. n, 127- 28. Of modem studies of his reign in
general, see Christensen, Sassanides, 282-89; Frye, "The Political History
of Iran under the Sasanians," 146-47, 178; El 2 , s.v. Sasanids (M. J.
Morony).
279. In Pahlavi, Peroz, NP Peroz/Firuz, literally,
"successful, victorious." See
Noldeke, trans. 117 n. 3; Justi, Namenbuch, 247-5 1;
Gignoux, Noms propres
sassanides, no. 739.
280. That is, the Kidarites or Hephthalites of Bactria.
no
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
imprisoned his brother. 281 He displayed just rule and praiseworthy
conduct, and showed piety. 282 During his time, there was a seven-
year-long famine, but he arranged things very competently: he
divided out the monies in the public treasury, refrained from levying
taxation, and governed his people to such good effect that only
one person died through want in all those years.
He then marched against a people called the Hephthalites, who
had taken over Tukharistan. At the outset of his reign, he had
strengthened their power, because they had helped him against
his brother (sc., Hurmuz). 283 They allegedly practiced sodomy,
hence Fayruz did not deem it permissible (or: it was not deemed
permissible) to leave the land in their hands. 284 He attacked the
Hephthalites, but they killed him in battle, together with four of
his sons and four of his brothers, all of whom bore the title of
king.
The Hephthalites conquered the whole of Khurasan, until there
rose up against them a man of Fars, from the people of Shiraz,
281 . The Arabic sources on the civil war include Ibn
Qutaybah, Ma'arif, 66 1 ; al-
Ya'qubi, Ta’rikh, 1 , 184; al-DInawari, al-Akhbai
al-tiwal, 58-59 (the most detailed account); al-Mas'udi, Muruj, II, 195 - §
617; Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, I, 408. Of Persian sources, see Taban-Bal'ami, trans.
II, 127-28.
282. kdna yatadayyanu, reflecting the fact that, in the
civil warfare between the
two brothers, Firuz had the support of the Zoroastrian
priesthood. Subsequently in
his reign, he enforced harsh measures against the
Christians and Jews of the em-
pire. See Noldeke, trans. 118 n. 4; Labourt, Le
Chiistianisme dans V empire peise,
130; Christensen, Sassanides, 290-92. Reflecting the
state of affairs in the middle
of the fifth century, i.e., at this time, al-Mas'udi,
Tanbih, 193, trans. 147-48, places the Chief Mobadh at the head of the social
hierarchy in the state, just below the king himself. See Christensen, op. cit.,
265, 290.
283. At the time of his first war with the powers of the
eastern lands, Hruz's
enemies there were probably still the Kidarites, who
controled Balkh, as they were likewise the Persian ruler's foes in his second
war of 467, in the opinion of Zeimal, "The Kidarite Kingdom in Central
Asia," 125-26, and see n. 275 above. It would thus have been natural for
Firuz to have sought aid from the Kidarites' enemies, soon to replace them as
the dominant power in Transoxania and Bactria, the Hephthalites, and equally
natural that he should fall out with his erstwhile allies once the formidable
power of the Hephthalites was firmly established just across his eastern
frontiers.
284. This accusation laid against the Hephthalites is
also in al-Baladhuri, Futuh,
403, cf. Noldeke, trans. 120 n. 1. In the Shu'ubiyyah
controversies of the third/
ninth century within the Islamic caliphate, the Arabs
asserted that it was the
Persians, and especially the Khurasanians, who had
brought the vice into the
central lands of the caliphate.
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
hi
among whom he was a chief, called Sukhra . 285 Sukhra went forth
with a band of followers, like a volunteer fighter and one seeking
a
heavenly reward for his action, until he encountered the ruler of
the Hephthalites and expelled him from the land of Khurasan. The
two sides now disengaged and made peace; all those members of
Fayruz's army who had not by then perished and had been made
captive — men, women and children — were repatriated. Fayruz
had reigned for seven years . 286
Another purveyor of historical traditions other than Hisham 287
has stated that Fayruz was a man of limited capability, generally
unsuccessful in his undertakings, who brought down evil and misfortune
on his subjects, and the greater part of his sayings and the
actions he undertook brought down injury and calamity upon
both himself and the people of his realm. During his reign, a great
famine came over the land for seven years continuously. Streams,
qanats, and springs dried up; trees and reed beds became dessicated;
the major part of all tillage and thickets of vegetation were
reduced to dust in the plains and the mountains of his land alike,
285. The form of the name is uncertain, but it appears to
have been a family
name rather than one of an individual; at all events,
Sukhra clearly represented a
powerful family of the Shiraz region. In al-Tabari, I,
877-78, 880, pp. x 16-18, 120 below, and see n. 298, he is linked with the
great family of Qarin and his genealogy given back to legendary Iranian times.
See Noldeke, trans. 120 n. 3.
286. There were actually three wars of Flruz with the
powers of the East; in the
first two he made no headway, while the third campaign
ended in the supreme
disaster of his death. In the first campaign, Firuz may
have been taken prisoner and later released in exchange for a ransom, paid in
part by the Byzantines, on the
evidence of the history attributed to Joshua Stylites,
The Chronicle of Joshua the
Stylite, tr. W. Wright, 8. He was certainly captured at
the end of the second cam-
paign, and his son Qubadh/Kawadh, the future king, had to
spend two years in the
East as a hostage until sufficient ransom money could
finally be raised. The third
and last campaign was undoubtedly against the
Hephthalites proper, who had by
now overrun Transoxania and Bactria and were pressing
southward over the Hindu Kush into northern India, where there were to appear
in Indian chronicles as the "White Huns." See Litvinsky, "The
Hephthalite Empire," 138-39. Al-Tabari, or his source, was not able to
distinguish these three campaigns, but conflated them into one calamitous war
that destroyed the Persian king him self and left his country tributary to the
Hephthalites for several years.
287. According to Noldeke, trans 12 x n. 1, this new
authority for Firuz's reign is
Ibn al-Muqaffa', who is indeed cited in Ibn Qutaybah's
'Uyun al-abhbar as "the
author of the Kitab siyar al-'Ajam" for Firuz's
d6bdcle with the Hephthalite king
Akhshunwar, see al-Tabari, I, 874ff., pp. ii3ff. below.
1 12
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
bringing about the deaths there of birds and wild beasts; cattle
and
horses grew so hungry that they could hardly draw any loads; and
the water in the Tigris became very sparse. Dearth, hunger, hardship,
and various calamities became general for the people of his
land. He accordingly wrote to all his subjects, informing them that
the land and capitation taxes were suspended, and extraordinary
levies ( na’ibah ) 288 and corvees ( sukhrah ) were abolished, and
that
he had given them complete control over their own affairs, commending
them to take all possible
measures in finding food and
sustenance to keep them going. He wrote further to them that
anyone who had a subterranean food store (matmurah), a granary,
foodstuffs, or anything that could provide nourishment for the
people and enable them to assist each other, should release these
supplies, and that no one should appropriate such things exclusively
for himself. Furthermore, rich and poor, noble and mean,
should share equally and aid each other. He also told them that if
he received news that a single individual had died of hunger, he
would retaliate upon the people of that town, village, or place
where the death from starvation had occurred, and inflict exemplary
punishment on them.
In this way, Fayruz ordered the affairs of his subjects during that
period of dearth and hunger so adroitly that no one perished of
starvation except for one man from the rural district of Ardashir
Khurrah, called Dih. The great men of Persia, all the inhabitants
of
Ardashir Khurrah and Fayruz himself considered that as something
terrible. Fayruz implored his Lord to bestow His mercy on
him and his subjects and to send down His rain (or, assistance,
ghayth) upon them. So God aided him by causing it to rain.
Fayruz's land once more had a profusion of water, just as it had
had
previously, and the trees were restored to a flourishing state. 289
Fayruz now gave orders for a town to be built near al-Rayy and
called it Ram Fayruz; another town between Jurjan and the Gate of
288. See for this meaning, Glossarium, p. dxxxiii.
289. Firuz employs here what would have been called, in
an Arabian context,
istisqa’, "offering up pleas, prayers [to God] for
rain," and this is in fact the very
term used here by al-DInawari, al-Akhbai al-fiwal, 5 9,
in his account of Firuz's
measures to relieve the famine and dearth and to restore
fertility. See EP-, s.v.
Istiska’ (T. Fahd and P. N. Boratav).
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak 1 1 3
Sul and called it Rushan Fayruz ; and a third one in the region of
Azerbaijan, which he named Shahram Fayruz 290
When Fayruz's land had revived and his kingly rule there was
firmly established, when he had inflicted condign violence on his
enemies and subdued them, and when he had completed the
building of these three towns, he set off with his army for
Khurasan, with the aim of making war on Akhshunwar, king of
the Hephthalites. 291 When news of this reached Akhshunwar, he
290. Firuz's building activities are also recorded by
al-Dinawari, al-Akhbar al-
tiwal, 59-60, and Hamzah al-I?fahani, Ta’rlkh, 50 (in the
latter source, as far as
Hind!). Ram Firuz is mentioned by the Arabic geographers,
but they are uncertain
whether it was the predecessor of the mediaeval Islamic
city of Rhagae/Rayy or a
town near it, as al-Tabari states here. See Yaqut,
Buldan, IV, 283; Schwarz, Iran,
744 -45 . The "Gate of $ul" guarded the ancient
corridor for peoples from the steppe passing via Dihistan and Gurgan on to the
Persian plateau. The Sul in question is possibly the §ul or Chul known as a
family or tribal name,- Marquart, ErdnSahr, 5 1, 73, connected it with Turkish
chol, "steppe, desert," regarded skeptically by Barthold, Four
Studies on the History of Central Asia. III. A History of the Turkmen People,
87-88. Von Gutschmid, however, in his "Bemerkungen zu Tabari's
Sasanidengeschichte," 736, preferred to connect Sul with the Qaghan of the
Western Turks known in Chinese sources as Su-lu and the Arabic ones as Abu
Muzahim, r. 717-38. De Blois adduces the MP name for "Sogdian," sulig
( sughdi > sughli > suli). Whatever the origin of this name, the local
rulers of Sul are certainly described as "Turks" at the time of the
first Arab probes into Gurgan and Dihistan, i.e., in the mid-first/seventh
century; see al-Baladhuri, Futuh, 335-36. But the family of these rulers must
gradually have bcome Islamized and integrated into Perso-Islamic life and
culture. A $ul (Er-) Tigin was a leading commander under the caliphs
al-Mu'ta$im and al-Wathiq in the first half of the third/ninth century (al-
Tabari, ED, 1194, 1313), and the family produced several scholars and a dibs in
Arabic, most notably Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Yahya al-Suli (d. 335/947) (see El 2
, s.v. al-$ull [S. Leder]).
The Sasanids constructed walls across the coastal plain
of Gurgan between the
Caspian and the inland Elburz mountain chain to keep out
the barbarians, including Firuz himself (al-Tabari, I, 895, p. 152 below) and
Khusraw Anusharwan (Ibn Rustah, Kitdb al-a’laq al-nafisah, 1 50, tr. 173). Rushan
Firuz seems, however, to be the wrong appellation for Firuz's foundation in
Gurgan, since certain other sources place this in the district of Kaskar on the
lower Tigris (see Noldeke, trans., 123 n. 2). Later, at I, 894-95, pp. 150-52
below, al-Tabari mentions Khusraw Anusharwan's stone defenses in the regions of
the §ul and the Alan region of the Caucasus, his quelling of the §ul people and
his settling them at the (already existing?) Shahram (- Shahr Ram) Firuz. This
last is most likely the correct name for Firuz's foundation in Gurgan,
especially as there seem to be no other mentions, apart from the one here of a
Shahr Ram Firuz in Azerbaijan. See NSldeke, trans. t23 nn. 1-3.
291. It is not immediately obvious whether this is a
personal name or a title; the
Khushnawaz of Firdawsi and other Persian sources looks
like an attempt to mold
this into an intelligible Persian name. Noldeke, trans.
123 n. 4, connected the
name Akhshunwar with the Kougchas, king of the Kidarites
in ca. 485, mentioned
by the Byzantine historian Priscus (see on this Greek
rendering, Moravcsik, Byzantinotmcica, II, 165-66), and this was followed up by
Ghirshman, who adduced a coin of FIruz's with the counterstamp of a ruler
called Akun, which he connected with Kougchas; see his Les
Chionites-Hephtalites, 87-88. The name looks like a distinctly Iranian one, and
certainly not a Turkish one, and Henning put forward the view that it was a
title, which should be read as \kh.sh.n.dar - Sogdian ’xS’wnd'i "power
holder"; see his "Neue Materialen zur Geschichte des
Manichaismus," 17 n. 2. Widengren, however, saw no need to amend the w of
the
ending of the name, and suggested that it represents
Sogdian ’xS'wnw’r "power
bearer"; see his "Xosrau AnoSurvan, les
Hephtalites et les peuples turcs. Etude
prdliminaire des sources," 75 n. 1.
1 14 Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
was stricken with terror. It is mentioned that one of Akhshunwar' s
retainers offered up his
life for him and told him, "Cut off
my hands and feet and hurl me down in Fayruz's way; but look
after my children and family." He intended by this, so it has
been
mentioned, to trick Fayruz. Akhshunwar did this to the man, and
threw him down in Fayruz's way. When Fayruz passed by him, he
was distressed at the man's state, and asked him what had happened
to him. The man informed him
that Akhshunwar had done
that to him because he had told Akhshunwar that he would be
unable to stand up against the Persian troops. Fayruz accordingly
felt pity and compassion for him, and ordered him to be carried
with him. The man told Fayruz, by way of advice, so it is alleged,
that he would show him and his followers a short cut, which no
one had ever previously used, to get to the king of the
Hephthalites. Fayruz was taken in by this trickery, and he and his
troops set off along the route the mutilated man had told him
about. They kept on floundering through one desert after another,
and whenever they complained of thirst, the man would tell them
that they were near to water and had almost crossed the desert.
Finally, when the man had brought them to a place where, he
knew, they could neither go forward nor back, he revealed to them
what he had done. Fayruz's retainers said to him, "We warned
you
about this man, O King, but you would not be warned. Now we
can only go forward until we encounter the enemy, whatever the
circumstances may be." So they pressed ever onward; thirst
killed
the greater part of them, and Fayruz went on with the survivors
against the enemy. When they contemplated the state to which
they had been reduced, they appealed to Akhshunwar for a peace
Holders of Power after Ardashlr b. Babak 1 1 5
agreement, on the basis that he would allow them freely to return
to their homeland, while Fayruz would promise Akhshunwar,
with an oath and an agreement sworn before God, that he would
never in the future mount raids against him, covet his territories,
or send against him an army to make war on them. Fayruz further
undertook to establish a boundary between the two king doms,
which he would not cross. Akhshunwar was content with these
promises. Fayruz wrote for him a document, properly sealed and
with his obligations guaranteed by professonal witnesses.
Akhshunwar then allowed him to depart, and he returned home.
However, once Fayruz arrived back in his kingdom, overweening
pride and uncontrollable
rashness led him to renew the war
with Akhshunwar. He led an attack on Akhshunwar, despite the
advice of his viziers and his close advisers against this, since it
involved breaking the agreement; but he rejected their words and
would only persist in following his own judgment. 292 Among
those who counseled against this course of action was a man
called Muzdbuwadh (?) who was especially close to Fayruz and
whose opinion Fayruz used to seek out. When Muzdbuwadh perceived
Fayruz's firm determination, he set down what had passed
between him and the king in a document, which he asked Fayruz
to seal. 293
Fayruz now set off on his expedition toward Akhshunwar's territory.
Akhshunwar had dug a great trench ( khandaq ) between his
own and Fayruz's territory. When Fayruz came to this, he threw
bridges across it and set up on them banners which would be
guiding markers for him and his troops on the way back home, and
then crossed over to confront the enemy. When Akhshunwar
came up to their encampment, he publicly adduced before Fayruz
the document with the agreement he had written for Akhshunwar,
and warned him about his oath and his undertaking; but
Fayruz rejected this and only persisted in his contentiousness and
292. The narrative emphasizes Firuz's personal
responsibility, as the breaker of
his oath, for the ensuing catastrophe; but as Noldeke
skeptically observes, if Firuz
had been victorious, all mention of his oath-breaking
would have been tossed
aside!
293. That is, so that the record should be clear, that he
had opposed Firuz's
planned attack and was thus in no way responsible for die
consequences.
1 1 6 Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
squaring up to his opponent. Each one of them addressed his opponent
in lengthy speeches, but in the end, they became enmeshed
in the toils of war. Fayruz's followers were, however, in a weakened
and defeatist state because of the agreement that had existed
between them and the Hephthalites. Akhshunwar brought forth
the document Fayruz had written out for him and raised it up on
the tip of a lance, calling out, "O God, act according to what
is in
this document!" 294 Fayruz was routed, mistook the place where
the standards had been set up [as markers], fell into the trench,
and
perished. Akhshunwar seized Fayruz's baggage, his womenfolk,
his wealth, and his administrative bureaus ( dawawinuhu ). The
Persian army suffered a defeat the like of which they had never
before experienced.
There was in Sijistan a man of the Persians, from the people of
the district of Ardashir Khurrah, who had insight, strength in battle,
and bravery, and who was called Sukhra. 295 He had with him a
detachment of cavalrymen. When he received the news about
Fayruz, he rode off that same night, traveling as far as he could,
till
he came up with Akhshunwar. He sent a messenger, announcing
to him his intention of making war and threatening him with
destruction and ruin. Akhshunwar dispatched a mighty army
against Sukhra. When the two sides met, Sukhra rode out against
them, and found them eager for battle. It is said that he shot an
arrow at a man who had ridden out to attack him,- the arrow struck
the latter's horse between the eyes and became almost totally
sunk in its head. The horse fell down dead, and Sukhra was able to
capture its rider. Sukhra spared his life, and instructed him to go
back to his master and inform him about what he had seen. The
(Hephthalite) troops went back to Akhshunwar bearing with them
the horse's corpse. When Akhshunwar saw the effects of the arrow
shot, he was amazed, and sent a message to Sukhra, saying,
"Ask
whatever you want! " Sukhra told him, "I want you to
return to me
the government exchequer ( al-dlwan ) and to release the captives:
The king did that. When Sukhra had taken possession of the
294. That is, bring down upon FIruz the stipulated curse
for his breaking the
agreement he had made with Akhshunwar.
295. Presumably the Sukhra mentioned by al-Tabari, I,
873, pp. no-n above,
as from Fars, Ardashir Khurrah being the district in
which Shiraz lay.
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
117
exchequer and had secured the release of the captives, he extracted
from the exchequer records a certified statement of the monies 296
that Fayruz had had with him, and then wrote to Akhshunwar
that he was not going to leave without this money. When Sukhra's
determination became apparent to Akhshunwar, he purchased his
freedom (i.e., from the threatenings of Sukhra, by handing over the
missing money).
Sukhra was able thus to return to the Persian land after rescuing
the captives and after getting hold of the exchequer, with the
money and all the contents of the treasuries that had been with
Fayruz, now given back. When he arrived back to the Persians,
they received him with great honor, extolled his feats, and raised
him to a lofty status such as none but kings were able to attain
after him. He was Sukhra, son of WIsabur , 297 son of Z.han, son of
Narsi, son of WIsabur, son of Qarin, son of K.wan, son of ’b.y.d,
son
of ’w.b.y.d, son of TIruyah, son of K.r.d.n.k, son of Naw.r, son of
Tus, son of Nawdhar , 298 son of M.n.shu, son of Nawdar, son of
Manushihr.
296. Reading, with the Sprenger ms., thabat (or thubut],
"certification, record,"
as in n. b, for the text's buyut.
297. For Wihshapur, as in Noldeke, trans. 127 n. 1.
298. Text, N.w.d.ka. The Addenda, p. dxci, refer back to
the name Tus, son of
Nawdharan, in al-Tabari, I, 601, amended there by the
editor from the form in the
Bundahisbn and the Shah-namah, the name Nawdhar being in
Persian legendary
history the son and successor of king Manuchihr, killed
by Afrasiyab. See Noldeke, Das iianiscbe Nationalepos, 8-9; Yarshater,
"Iranian National History," 373, 404, 43 S . The Nadtara/Nawdhar
were, in fact, one of the great princely houses of legen- dary history,
figuring in the Avesta. From the time of WiStaspa onward — apparently through
WiStaspa's marriage connection with Hutaosa, of the Naotara — the Naotara were
reckoned as the royal house, now prominent in the national epic. See
Christensen, Les Kayanides, 23-23; Yarshater, op. cit., 413, 460- 6i; and on
the family name, appearing in the Avesta as the eponymous epithet naotairya-,
see Mayrhofer, Die altiianischen Namen, no. 228, regarding it as of uncertain
origin.
This impressive genealogy for Sukhra, going back to mythological
times, indi-
cates the importance of the family and places it as one of
the great Arsacid families, that of Qaren or Qarin, which was to survive the
Islamic conquest of Persia and play a role in Islamic history for some two
centuries further. Qarin, son of Sukhra, received from the Sasanid monarch
lands inTabaristan, the Wanda-UmmldKuh in he hinterland of Amul, and in early
Islamic times the Qarinid principality may have been centered on Firrim. The
most famed representative of the line in the Islamic period was Mazyar b.
Qarin, then only a recent convert to Islam, who rebelled against the Tahirid
governors of Khurasan in the caliphate of al-Mu'ta$im and was executed in
223/840, with the line disappearing from history after this point. See
al-Tabari, IE, 1268-98; Noldeke, trans. 127 n. 2, 438 Excursus 3; £/*> s.v. Mazyar
(V. Minorsky); EP-, sv. Karinids (M. Rekaya).
n8
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak
Another authority knowledgeable about the historical narratives
of the Persians has mentioned the story of Fayruz and
Akhshunwar in similar terms to what I have just recounted, 299
except that he has stated that when Fayruz set out and headed
toward Akhshunwar, he appointed as his deputy over the cities of
Ctesiphon and Bahurasur — the two royal residences — this person
Sukhra 300 He related: The latter was called, on account of his
rank, Qarin, 301 and used to be governor of Sijistan as well as of
the
two cities. Fayruz came to a tower ( manaiah ) Bahram fur had
constructed in the zone between the border of the land of
Khurasan and the land of the Turks in order that the latter should
not cross the frontier into Khurasan — all this in accordance with
the covenant between the Turks and the Persians providing that
each side should renounce transgressing the other's frontiers.
Fayruz likewise had made an agreement with Akhshunwar not to
pass beyond the tower into the land of the Hephthalites.
[After reaching the tower,] Fayruz gave orders, and had fifty
elephants plus three hundred men linked together, 302 and had it
(sc., the tower) dragged forward, while he came along behind it. He
intended by means of this to assert that he had ostensibly kept
[879] faith with Akhshunwar regarding his agreement with him. 303
Akhshunwar got news of what Fayruz was up to in connection
with that tower. He sent an envoy to Fayruz with the message,
"Desist, O Fayruz, from what your forefathers abandoned, and
don't embark on what they didn't attempt to do!" Fayruz took
no
notice of his words and Akhshunwar's message left him unmoved.
He began to try and tempt Akhshunwar into a direct military
299. In this version, Firuz's enemies in the East have
become not Hephthalites
but Turks, and Firuz's offense consists in advancing
beyond the tower that Bahram Gur had set up as a boundary between the two
powers. Cf. Noldeke, trans. 1 28 n. 3 .
300. Al-Dinawari, al-Akhbai al-tiwal, 60, has Shukhar for
this name and also
states that FIruz was accompanied on the expedition by,
among others, the Chief
Mobadh.
301. Noldeke, trans 128 n. 4, notes that Greek sources
also tend to attach family
or clan names, associated with great offices in the
state, to the offices themselves.
302. The Cairo text, n, 96, has fa-suffida "were
linked together," with the same
meaning as the Leiden text's fa-dumida.
303. That is, by not leading the attack on Akhshunwar
directly from the front of
his troops.
Holders of Power after Ardashir b. Babak 1 1 9
engagement and summoned him to this, but Akhshunwar kept on
holding back and showing an aversion for this, because the Turks'
method of warfare consists for the most part in trickery, deceitfulness,
and stratagems. Furthermore, Akhshunwar ordered a trench
to be dug behind the lines of his own army, ten cubits wide and
twenty cubits deep. He had light branches of wood laid over it and
then had it covered with earth. Then he retired with his troops to
a
spot not too far away. Fayruz received news of Akhshunwar's
departure from his encampment with his troops, and had no doubt
that this meant Akhshunwar's withdrawal and flight. He ordered
the drums to be beaten, and rode out at the head of his troops in
pursuit of Akhshunwar and his followers. They rushed forward
impetuously, heading directly toward that trench. But when they
reached it, they rushed blindly on to the trench's covering. 304
Fayruz and the whole mass of his army fell into the pit and perished
to the last man. Akhshunwar wheeled round to Fayruz's
encampment and took possession of everything there. He took
captive the Chief Mobadh, and among Fayruz's womenfolk who
fell into his hands was Fayruzdukht, 305 his daughter. Akhshunwar
gave orders for the corpses of Fayruz and all those who had
fallen into that trench with him to be retrieved, and they were
laid
out on funerary structures [al-nawawis ]. 306 Akhshunwar sent for
Fayruzdukht, wishing to join with her in sexual congress, but she
refused. 307
304. The Addenda, p. dxci, suggest reading the text's
'ala ghima’ihi [ghima' -
"roof made of reeds and earth" as 'ala *,
amayat Ul , "erroneously." Cf. Glossaiium, p. CCCSCII.
305. Literally, "daughter of Firuz"; cf. Justi,
Namenbuch, 250, and Gignoux,
Noms propres sassanides, no. 761. As Noldeke, trans. 130
n. 2 notes, her true name would not be known outside the royal harem and its
circle of attendants.
306. In conformity thereby with the Zoroastrian practice
of exposing corpses to
the air rather than inhumation. The nawavns would be
hastily assembled, tempo-
rary structures for dealing with large numbers of the
slain, corresponding to the
more permanent dakbmas or "towers of silence."
307. Noldeke, trans 130 n. 3, notes that this is a
distortion of the apparent truth,
meant here to emphasize Persian royal pride. According to
Ps.-)oshua Stylites,
Chronicle, trans. 15-16, the victorious Aldishunwar took
Flruz's daughter into his
harem, and she gave birth to a daughter who subsequently
married her own pater-
nal uncle Kawadh, son of FIruz ; the king's daughter was
obviously not given back with any other royal womenfolk.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar