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The Roman-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Greco-Roman world and various Persian empires that started during the late Roman Republic in 92 BC and was carried over to the Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire lasting until 627 AD.

Origins

The conflict lasted for over seven centuries. The Persian Empire was projected through the Parthian and later, Sassanid dynasties. For the Greco-Roman world, the conflict encompassed the Roman Republic, Roman Empire, and Byzantine Empire. Roman desire for territory to expand their Empire and systems, and for buffer zones between them and various kingdoms, barbarians, other empires, and those strongly unwilling to submit to them urged their attentions to the East. The Persian Empire had previously been seen as the ever present rival to Western civilization in the Greco-Persian Wars. Neither side was ever able to dominate the other. Towns, fortifications, and provinces were sacked, captured, destroyed, and changed sides frequently. Neither side had enough strength and logistics to maintain strategic offensives with grand and decisive results, and neither was weak enough to be defeated or subdued. All of the energy exuded over the seven centuries amounted to nothing for either side as the Muslim Arabs conquered the war-exhausted Persian Empire and the Near Eastern and North African territories of the Roman Empire soon after the end of the Roman-Persian conflict.

Roman Republic vs Parthia

The first military action was Lucullus' invasion of the Kingdom of Armenia in 92 BC, allowing further unprovoked penetration into Mesopotamia by Pompey. In the Battle of Carrhae (53 BC), Roman commander Crassus fought an army of Parthian horsemen under Surena. Crassus was killed, his command mostly annihilated, and the rest captured resulting in a decisive Parthian victory. Julius Caesar was planning Eastern operations larger in scope than Crassus, but fell to assassin daggers before his plans could come to fruition, it is believed by many that he was one of the few who would have been able to pull it off. Mark Antony gave realization to Caesar's plans and carried them out in 36 BC launching an invasion into Persia, but lacking the fallen leader's skill, lost half of his men in the mountains of northwest Persia and during his winter retreat through Armenia.

Roman Empire vs Parthia

Emperor Augustus negotiated a peace with the Parthian Empire which lasted for about a century until the conflict resumed during Trajan's reign. Trajan's armies reached the Persian Gulf in 115. He captured Ctesiphon in Mesopotamia in 116. Ctesiphon was captured five times throughout the conflict and remained an important focus of power since it was the Parthian and Sassanid capital.

Roman Empire vs Sassanid Empire

When the Parthian Empire ended, there was no reduction in the conflict since the Sassanids were even more aggressive and stronger than their predecessors due to their more centralized state.

Shapur I, "King of Kings" of Persia, launched numerous offensives into Roman territory. He invaded Mesopotamia but was driven back in the Battle of Resaena (243). Encouraged by the success, Emperor Gordian III launched an invasion into Persia but was defeated near its capital in the Battle of Misiche (244). Responding to Roman incursions into Armenia, Shapur I resumed hostilities and defeated the Romans at the Battle of Barbalissos in 253 allowing him to take and plunder Antiochia. In 259 he then captured Emperor Valerian I after crushing his army in the Battle of Edessa. The new Persian ruler Shapur II launched a campaign, intending to regain lost territories, recapturing Armenia but unable to take the fortress in the Siege of Singara (344) ending his unsuccessful campaign. He launched his 2nd campaign in 359 which was more successful ending in five Roman provinces being ceded to the Persians. Emperor Julian the Apostate's army of 90,000 was unable to take the Persian capital in the Battle of Ctesiphon (363) and he was killed the same year in the Battle of Samarra during a difficult retreat north.

Byzantine Empire vs Sassanid Empire

As the Western Roman Empire fell to barbarian control, the part of the Greek East, the Byzantine empire, continued the conflict against the Persian Empire.

Anastasian War

Emperor Anastasius I led the Byzantines against the Persian forces under King Kavadh I during the war that lasted 502-506. Eager for Persian expansion, Persian king Kavadh I entered the Byzantine territory of Armenia in summer 502. He quickly captured the unprepared cities of Theodosiopolis and Martyropolis without resistance. The fortress-city of Amida was taken only through siege, immobilizing the Persians during autumn and winter. Theodosiopolis was recaptured by the Byzantines. In early 503, Amida finally fell and the year saw much warfare without decisive results. The Byzantines attempted an ultimately unsuccessful siege of the Persian-held Amida while Kavadh laid siege to Edessa with the same results. Finally in 504, the Byzantines gained the upper hand with the renewed investment of Amida leading to the hand-over of the city. However, this surrender was far from decisive and the Persians were far from beaten. But no more fighting occurred during the next two years since an invasion of Armenia by the Huns from the Caucasus caused an armistice. In late 506, a truce was finally agreed upon on terms such as the Byzantines paying subsidies to the Persians for the maintenance of the fortifications in the Caucasus and Martyropolis being restored to the Byzantines again.

Iberian War

The war was fought from 526 to 532 between the Byzantine Empire and Persian Empire over the country of Iberia. After the Anastasian War, a seven-year truce was agreed on, yet it lasted for nearly twenty years. Kavadh I tried to force the Christian Iberians to become Zoroastrians even though they were already under Persian rule. The Roman side could not keep from interfering against the Persians. By 526, indecisive fighting broke out in the Transcaucasus region and upper Mesopotamia. Following emperor Justin I’s death in 527, Justinian I ascended to the imperial throne. Kavadh tried to make peace with the new emperor by attempting to have Justinian adopt his son Khosrau I. Justinian refused and sent his generals Sittas and Belisarius into Persia in which they were initially defeated. However, Belisarius proved to be an able and effective commander. In 530, he led the Byzantines to victory over the much larger Persian force through his superior generalship in the battle of Daraa. Belisarius’s forces faced two consecutive defeats in the same year and 531 causing his dismissal. Kavadh died shortly afterwards and the Eternal Peace agreement, which lasted 10 years, was signed on September 532 on the terms of all Roman land lost under Justinian's rule to be returned and the Byzantines to pay heavy tributes in exchange for peace. The country of Iberia remained in Persian hands. The newly ascended Persian king Khosrau I was interested in stabilizing his internal position for the time being.

Persian invasion 540-545

As the Byzantine general Belisarius was winning his campaigns in the west, in 540, the Persians broke The Treaty Of Eternal Peace and invaded Syria, and attacked and destroyed the great city of Antioch. They also attacked the key cities of Mesopotamia and Byzantine Armenia. Belisarius was quickly recalled by Justinian I to the East to deal with the Persian conquest, while the Goths in Italy, who were in touch with the Persian King, rose in rebellion. Belisarius took the field and waged a brief, inconclusive campaign against them. He eventually managed to negotiate a truce in 545(aided with the payment of the large sum of 5,000 pounds of gold), in which the Persians agreed not to attack Byzantine territory for the next five years.Justinian then sent his general back to Italy with an inadequate force.

Lazic War

The Lazic War lasted from 542 to 562, with the fighting lasting until 557 due to a five-year truce. The Fifty Years Peace finally brought an official end to the war in 562. The war was fought between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Persian Empire for control over the kingdom of Lazica in the country of Colchis. The Byzantines sought the kingdom of Lazica as a barrier against Persian advance from Iberia to the Black Sea. The kingdom was a satellite state of the Persian Empire, but was also devoted to the Christian faith. Persian Emperor Khosrau I intended to either convert the inhabitants to Persian religion or replace them with Persian inhabitants so the Lazic king, Gubazes II, sought Emperor Justinian I for protection. Among the battles, the Lazic capital Archaeopolis was attacked three times by the Persians with the final one being a successful capture, but they were repulsed by the combined force of Byzantine and Lazic forces which occupied it until the end of the war. As the five-year truce was coming to an end, Khosrau I sent an ambassador to Constantinople to renew the truce, due to a general stalemate and weariness. What amounted was a more permanent peace and various treaties, such as Lazica was to remain under Roman rule, the Persians were to prevent any peoples from coming toward Roman territory from the Caucasus, and both sides were to not impede on each others tribes or neighbor nations, as well as refraining from border fortifications and easing the strictness on diplomacy and trade between the two empires. A beneficial military outcome for the Byzantines was preventing the Persian Empire from gaining access to the Black Sea.

The last campaign

In 591 The Persian King Hormizd IV was murdered by a usurper, Vahram Cho'bin. His son, Khosrau II, appealed to the Roman Emperor Maurice for aid and in return agreed to cede territories including much of Transcaucasia. In 602 Maurice was murdered by the usurper Phocas, when Heraclius revolted resulting in civil war. Khosrau II seized the excuse to attack the Byzantine Empire. The war initially went the Persians' way, partly because of Phocas' brutal repression and the 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. In 622, Heraclius transported his army through the Aegean sea and unexpectedly defeated the Persian army in the decisive battle of Issus (622). In 624, Heraclius counterattacked through Transcaucasia and following the failure of a combined Persian-Avar-Slavic attack on the Roman capital of Constantinople in 626, was able to gain an advantage. He sailed from his besieged capital through the Black Sea to attack Persia in the rear, winning numerous devastating victories with some support from the Khazars and other Turkic troops. The last action of the centuries' long conflict was the second Battle of Nineveh between Rhahzadh who commanded the army of Khosrau II and between Heraclius. The culmination of this counterattack was a defeat of the Sassanid army on the plains of northern Mesopotamia on December 12, 627. Persia accepted Heraclius' peace terms the following year. This brought victory over the Georgians and Persians and ensured Romano-Byzantine predominance in western and eastern Georgia as it was before this war began and until the Arab invasion of the Caucasus.

Aftermath

When Byzantine armies approached the Persian capital Ctesiphon, the Persian aristocracy deposed Khosrau II by having him assassinated. His successor Kavadh II made peace with Heraclius by restoring all the empire's former territories. The exhausted Sassanid dynasty never recovered from the war. The Sassanids were further weakened by economic decline, heavy taxation from Khosrau II's campaigns, religious unrest, rigid social stratification, and increasing power of the provincial landholders. During the early Muslim conquests soon after, the Arab armies conquered the sinking state through numerous invasions during the Islamic conquest of Persia. During the Byzantine-Arab Wars, the exhausted Byzantine Empire's southern provinces in Greater Syria and North Africa were also lost during the Muslim conquest of Syria, Egypt and North Africa. The Byzantine capital Constantinople survived two Arab sieges in 674 and 718, haulting further Arab incursion into Europe. Ironically, a combined Persian and Roman army fought against an Arab army under Khalid ibn al-Walid at the Battle of Firaz, but they were both defeated.

References

• John Warry, Warfare in the Classical World. New York, Barnes & Noble Books: 2000

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• Ancient history
• Wars involving the Roman Republic
• Wars involving the Roman Empire
• Wars involving Persia