Khusrau (Xosrov) I King of Sasanian Empire [60522]

  General Notes:

http://www.rpi.edu/~holmes/Hobbies/Genealogy/ps31/ps31_266.htm

SECOND WAR WITH ROME (Byzantium). Hostilities began in the Caucasus with Persian victories in Iberia and Mesopotamia (527\endash 528) (See 527\endash 31 ). Belisarius defeated Persia at the Battle of Daras (528) but was himself defeated at the Battle of Callinicum (531). The war ended with the death of Kavad. Khusrau, the crown prince, engineered the execution of Mazdak and his followers as heretics (531) and then succeeded his father, Kavad.

KHUSRAU (Chosroes) I ANUSHIRVAN ("of the immortal soul"). After putting down a revolt and concluding formal peace with Byzantium, Khusrau undertook a series of great reforms. A fixed land tax and a head tax were instituted, which improved efficiency and equity while increasing state revenues. Irrigation and communications were improved, and new agriculture was encouraged. The army was restructured, with the state supplying equipment and salaries to the poorer nobles, the dehkan (knights). The empire was divided into four great administrative districts under a military governor (spahbad). Toleration was granted to Christians, and learning was patronized. When the Athenian Academy was closed in 529, philosophers found refuge with Khusrau.

WAR WITH ROME (Byzantium). Disturbed by the policy of Justinian, Khusrau invaded Syria and sacked Antioch (540) (See 540\endash 62 ). A treaty was struck but denounced when Khusrau extorted money from Byzantine cities. The Persians campaigned successfully in Lazica (ancient Colchis, southwest of Iberia), making it a province (541). Khusrau's unsuccessful siege of Edessa (544) led to a five-year truce which was broken when the Byzantines invaded and eventually retook Lazica (549\endash 555). A fifty-year peace was concluded with the Byzantines in 561 in which Lazica was recognized as Roman in exchange for an annual payment in gold to the Sassanians.

Allied with the Turks of Transoxiana, Khusrau finally brought an end to Hephthalite power.

WAR WITH ROME (Byzantium) (See 572\endash 91 ). The attempt to impose Zoroastrianism on the Armenians caused a revolt that encouraged the emperor Justin II to break the peace. Syria was ravaged by the Persians, and peace was negotiated with the co-emperor Tiberius (574); after renewed hostilities in Armenia, an uneasy truce was struck when Khusrau died (579) and was succeeded by his son, Hormizd IV.

Ref: The Encyclopedia of World History (<http://www.bartleby.com/67/274.html)>
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Khosrau I (531-579) was the greatest of all Sassanid monarchs. He started his reign by restoring property seized during the Mazdakite excesses, and carried out the reforms Kavadh planned but never had time to implement. He streamlined the government and reorganized the army. Most important was a fairer tax code, which appraised land according to its yield, situation, and type of crops grown on it. The system worked so well that it was continued by the Arab administration after the fall of the empire. He also revived the mystical majesty of his office, filling his court with luxuries that Ardashir could hardly have dreamed of. He topped his palace with the largest iwans ever constructed and made a golden crown that was so heavy that it had to be suspended on chains to keep it from breaking the royal neck.

Khosrau's reputation as an enlightened and just ruler was great, and known in foreign lands. When Justinian closed down the philosophy school in Athens, the last Neoplatonists immigrated to Persia. They hoped to find in Khosrau a true philosopher-king, a political ideal which Confucius and Plato had unsuccessfully searched for in their day. Unfortunately the philosophers found orthodox Zoroastrianism even less to their taste than orthodox Christianity, and they decided to go back to Greece. Khosrau took pity on them by inserting a clause into a later peace treaty with Justinian, giving them the right to return and ensuring that they would not be molested for their paganism or their temporary pro-Persian behavior.

The "eternal peace" promised in the first treaty between Khosrau and Justinian only lasted for seven years, until 539. Khosrau's forces seized and sacked Antioch, won battles in Roman Mesopotamia, and advanced all the way to the Black Sea. But in Justinian the Eastern Roman Empire had a leader of equal caliber. Since most of his armed forces were busy elsewhere, Justinian chose to fight a defensive war in the Middle East, but Khosrau was never able to hold onto any Roman territory for long. Over twenty years of on-and-off fighting followed, until a fifty-year peace accord was signed in 561. In the end the only Persian conquest was one of the Georgian states, Iberia (really an annexation, it had been a Persian satellite since 364); the other Georgian state, Lazica, remained in the Roman orbit.

On other fronts Khosrau did better. Early in his reign he stopped paying tribute to the White Huns, who had recently grown too weak to enforce their will on Iran. Around 553 another warlike barbarian people, the Turks, appeared in Central Asia. Khosrau married their chief's daughter and persuaded them to join him in an attack on the White Huns. The Turks were more than happy to destroy the nomads living in the lands they wanted for themselves. Once their old enemies were gone the Persians advanced their frontier to the Oxus, loudly proclaiming the victory as their own. In 575 a naval expedition across the Arabian Sea conquered Yemen, making Persia the most influential power in Arabia.

<http://xenohistorian.faithweb.com/neareast/ne08l.html>


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khosrau_I


Khosrau I (also called Khosnow I, Chusro I, Khusro I, Husraw I or Khosrow I, Chosroes I in classical sources, most commonly known in Persian as Anushirvan, Persian: meaning the immortal soul), also known as Anushiravan the Just ( ÚÇÏá , Anushirav or ÏÇÏ�Ñ , Anushirav) (Born c. 501, ruled 531\endash 579), was the favourite son and successor of Kavadh I (488\endash 531), twentieth Sassanid Emperor (Great King) of Persia, and the most famous and celebrated of the Sassanid Emperors.
He laid the foundations of many cities and opulent palaces, and oversaw the repair of trade roads as well as the building of numerous bridges and dams. During Khosrau I's ambitious reign, art and science flourished in Persia and the Sassanid Empire reached its peak of glory and prosperity. His rule was preceded by his father's and succeeded by Khosrau II 's (590\endash 628) whose reign came to be considered the dark age in the history of the Sassanid Empire.


Early life

According to early historical sources, Khosrau I was Kavadh I's third son through a hephthal princess Newandukht , granddaughter of Hephthal III , commonly called Turandot His mother endeavored to ascend him to throne, then expatriated his half-brother, Kavoos, first son of Kavadh I, to Mazandaran. After proclaimed as heir apparent , he appears to have had a major influence over his father Kavadh I of Persia and helped him in the worst situations during the later years of his rule[1]. He was apparently also behind many of his father's decisions.[2]

According to the Roman Historian Procopius of Caesarea , Kavadh I tried to have his third son Khosrau adopted by the Eastern Roman emperor Justin I in the mid-520s.This is the first time that Khosrau is mentioned in the sources. After Romans and Persians had failed to reach an agreement about the adoption, a new war began in 526 which was to last until 532 .

Conquests

At the beginning of his reign Khosrau I concluded an "Eternal Peace" with the Roman Emperor </wiki/Roman_Emperor> Justinian I </wiki/Justinian_I> (527 </wiki/527>-565 </wiki/565>) in 532, who wanted to have his hands free for the conquest of Africa </wiki/North_Africa_during_the_Classical_Period> and Sicily </wiki/Sicily>.[citation needed </wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed>] But (according to Procopius </wiki/Procopius>) his successes against the Vandals </wiki/Vandals> and Goths caused Khosrau I to begin the war again in 540.

He invaded Syria and sacked the great city of Antioch , deporting its people to Mesopotamia , where he built for them a new city near Ctesiphon under the name of "Khosrau-Antioch" (Veh Antiok Xusro) or "Chosro-Antioch": the account of Procopius in his De bello Persico ii reads as[3]

" Xusro I founded a city in Assyria , in a place that was a day's march away from the city of Ctesiphon ; he named it 'Xusro's Antioch' and settled all captives from Antioch there, for whom he even had a bath and a hippodrome built and whom he provided also with other comforts. For he brought along the charioteers and musicians from Antioch and other Romans . Moreover, at public expense he took more care in catering for these people from Antioch than was customary for captives, and (he did so) for their entire life, and gave orders to call them 'the royal ones' so that they would not be responsible to any magistrate but the king alone. When one of the other Romans had escaped and managed to seek refuge in Xusro's Antioch and when one of the inhabitants claimed that he was a relative, the owner was no longer allowed to remove this captive, not even if one of the highest ranking Persians happened to have enslaved the man. " During the following years he secured the defection of Lazica and fought inconclusively in Mesopotamia .

In 545, an armistice was concluded, but in 547 the Lazi returned to their Roman allegiance and the Lazic War resumed, continuing until a truce was agreed in 557. At last, in 562, a peace was concluded for fifty years, in which the Persians left Lazica to the Romans, and promised not to persecute the Christians

, if they did not attempt to make proselytes among the Zarathustrians ; on the other hand, the Romans had to pay annual subsidies to Persia.

Meanwhile in the east, the Hephthalites had been attacked by the Turks ). About 560, Khosrau I united with them to destroy the Hephthalite Empire. In 567 he conquered Bactria , while he left the country north of the Oxus to the Turks. Many other rebellious tribes were subjected. About 570 the Himyarite dynasts of Yemen , who had been subdued by the Ethiopians of Axum , applied to Khosrau I for help. The Emperor Khosrau sent a fleet with a small army under Vahriz </wiki/Vahriz>, who expelled the Ethiopians. From that time till the conquests by Islam , Yemen was dependent on Persia, and a Persian governor resided here. In 572, Armenia and Iberia rebelled against Persia with Roman support, beginning a new war in which Khosrau I conquered the city of Dara on the Euphrates in 573, but after a largely unsuccessful incursion of Anatolia in 576 he was heavily defeated by the Romans in a battle near Melitene . He sued for peace in 579, but while negotiations with the Emperor Tiberius II (578\endash 582) were still going on, Khosrau I died and was succeeded by his son Hormizd IV (579\endash 590).

Religious tolerance

Khusrau married Kayen of the T'etalats'ik' [60523] [MRIN: 551616964], daughter of Xak'an King of the T'etalats'ik' [60524] and Unknown.