The Rise of the White Huns

[Practical Lobster]

The Eftal Shahs

Here goes nothing.

An Eftal Shah

The fall of the Sassanian regime was not necessarily unexpected.

The emergence into the historical record of the peoples the Greeks called the Hephthalites, and the Persians came to call Eftal, came at a time of great upheaval, famine and ethnic and religious conflict in the Sassanian Empire. Despite a scarcity of historical record, we see that they waged on and off war with the Sassanian Shahs, and in time would break out onto the Iranian plateau, raiding and pillaging. Latter Sassanian Shahs paid them exorbitant tribute.

Their culture was not wholly unfamiliar to the Iranian civilization - they worshiped similar divinities, a syncretic faith which seems to be based on fire-worship but also Buddhist and Hindu conceptions of divinity - indeed they often tolerated and patronized Buddhist worship. From their capitals at Balkh and later Piandjikent, they asserted a dominion which was primarily established by their willingness to settle the lands they conquered. Since the middle of the fifth century, the Eftal had won major victories against the Sassanian Empire, gaining a foothold on the Iranian plateau that would become permanent.

The latter Sassanian Shahs were generally placed on the throne with the aid of “Tokharian” nomads. Firuz himself, the last Shah, was originally granted his throne by these nomads. However, he would, after gaining the throne, turn against the Eftal, temporarily driving them back and putting an end to the incessant raiding that had characterized their arrival in Iran. However, it was not to last.

In 484, in the province of Khurasan, Firuz was defeated in battle and slain after riding into an ambush. “Cudgel-armed and swift” warriors rode down his retinue and seized many of his family, killing the Emperor, and capturing a column of war elephants some of whom would see action at the later siege of Edessa, among other places. A succession crisis followed, with various Sassanian royals attempting to seize the throne. One of them, Kavad, was aided by the Eftal, but shortly after being placed on the throne, he reneged on his promises to pay the “barbarians” – trusting that his own troops would be sufficient to repel the Eftal and restore the Iranian Empire to its former glory.

They were not. Despite a few inconclusive battles near Spahan, Kavad was chased south towards Sostar, where he was captured and executed and the Eftal King Akhshunwar rode into Ctesiphon as a conqueror, becoming in time the Shah of Iran. At first, the regime was essentially one of plunder. Ctesiphon and many of the Mesopotamian cities were sacked. Fortresses such as Nisibin surrendered to avoid a massacre and Baktrians, Sogdians and Kidarites among others were transplanted into newly founded garrison cities. Emulating the practices of settled conquerors proved a remarkably successful practice which would lead to a long-lasting dominion.

From Susa, the new Shah Akhshunwar I would rule in the style of an Emperor.

Roman-Eftal War

Anastasius Dicorus, the Roman Emperor at the time, was struggling to manage the affairs of state. The dilapidation of many of the major eastern fortifications, and the lack of a fortified base such as Nisibin presented many logistical challenges to any General assigned to the Persian frontier. Ongoing sporadic warfare in the Isaurian mountains and religious challenges combined to threaten to undermine the Emperor much as they had his predecessor, Zeno.

The Roman Empire appeared strong, but in truth was in many ways a paper tiger, one which had not been capable of responding to the vacuum established by the fall of the Sassanian Empire. Cursory diplomatic relations had been established, and a Hephthalite ambassador had arrived in Constantinople, where the Emperor tried his best to overawe the “barbarian” with the splendor of the Imperial City. Contemporary Byzantine records indicate that the Hephthalite was impressed, and it seems that the Emperor decided to respect a continuity of sorts – treating the new “Shah” Akhshunwar as merely the founder of a new dynasty of Persian kings.

It would not last. By 499, Syriac records show that the Eftal were raiding in force into Syria and Orsoene. Roman reprisal was swift, and a Roman army under the elderly Flavius Patricius scored several major victories, even investing Nisibin for a time, before the Eftal armies rode north and enveloped the Roman army at the battle of Saokoros. Despite the slow Eftal response, Nisibin held out long enough that it mattered little. Despite the fall of such cities as Dura and Anat to Roman sieges, the battle of Saokoros would force the Romans to retreat.

Saokoros was a major turning point in Roman history, though few would recognize it at the time. There were other armies, and other generals. But in the meantime, Edessa and Hierapolis would fall, and a series of inconclusive engagements such as the famous battle of Samosata between General Aerobindus and the Eftal Prince Kosnavaz would prolong the war until 503, when peace would finally be agreed upon. The war had been far more costly for the Romans than for their Hephthalite foes – Saokoros and Samosata alike represented major blows to Roman manpower - not blows that couldn't be absorbed by one of the most prosperous and powerful states in the world, but blows nonetheless.

Seven years later, when the war resumed, the political situation had changed in ways less than favorable to the Romans - but yet paradoxically, under able leadership, the Romans triumphed. The Balkan provinces had been denuded of manpower they critically needed, and a Bulgar tribe called the Kutrigurs had settled along the Roman border. Meanwhile the blond-haired Gepids were raiding into Moesia with relative impunity. Despite a series of punitive actions against the Gepids, the Romans were shaken – and forced to commit additional forces to the Balkans from the east. Yet this time against the odds, the Roman General Vitalian, a half-barbarian beloved by his troops was able to score a major victory and retake Edessa - though not many of the other cities lost.

The Eftal and Persian aristocracy blamed their defeats for unknown reasons on the Christian populations of Mesopotamia. A series of vicious pogroms marked the first of many. Despite a series of rebellions, including the notable Insurrection of Ctesiphon, (511) the Eftal prevailed, settling Kidarites, Sogdians and their own people throughout the region in an effort to prevent further rebellions.

Vitalian

With Anastasius’ funding, Vitalian oversaw massive reforms to the defenses of the territory, and the construction of new walls to replace a series of dilapidated fortifications. However, a year later, in 512, a cabal of Thracian generals and bureaucrats, increasingly uncomfortable with Anastasius’ Miaphysitism, approached the General, and helped him gain the acclamation of his troops. Vitalian marched west. The Thracian troops marched on Constantinople and invested the city, preventing a rapid response – and allowing Vitalian to win a few early battles against loyal troops in the East.

However, the Syrian Marinus, and trusted ally of Emperor Anastasius, refused to join the rebels. A Monophysite, and a famous tax reformer, the Emperor placed him in command of the fleet, a task he performed admirably at – preventing Vitalian from crossing into Europe and ensuring that the siege of Constantinople by the Thracian allies did not cut off the capital’s vital Egyptian food supply. However, the Constantinopolitan mob, knowing that they were besieged, broke into open rebellion nonetheless.

Areobindus, a distinguished General who fought in the Hepthalite wars, was proclaimed Emperor by the mob. Most sources seem to agree that this was against his will – and also that the mob was unaware of Vitalian’s march, the flow of people and information in and out of the city being tightly controlled by Marinus. Anastasius managed, in a public appearance to calm the mob – but Areobindus could not be found, and a subsequent riot saw Anastasius struck in the head by a roof-tile. The Emperor retired to the palace, and Marinus, now in charge of the city for all intents and purposes, put down the riot which called for his head with a massacre.

Administration

As mentioned before, it was the willingness of the Eftal to settle which ensured their dominion. Buddhist missionaries from China reported “A people scattered in foreign countries, the masters of scores of strongly walled cities and towns, a thousand thousand lords. They are tent dwelling as well, and move with changing seasons.”

While the rule of the eastern Eftal was decentralized, with many rulers in that region acting as absolute kings, the western regions, and the Sassanian provinces were ruled by a centralized bureaucracy based out of Susa. Patronizing temples to the “Holy Fire, Ahura Mazda, Mitra, and Visnu” the Shah spent his time alternating between riding from place to place, touring the regime and meeting with his vassals and governors, and residing in the administrative capital at Susa.

The flaw with this system was evident in the Hepthalite-Roman wars, where it took the Eftal a remarkably long period of time to muster their armies – far eastern princes had be cajoled into sending assistance, and the Shah himself was sometimes difficult to track down. However, the Eftal armies enjoyed remarkable superiority over the Romans in the field, and had inherited quality auxiliaries and siegecraft from the Iranians.

With the collapse of the Iranian state, the aristocracy and priesthood alike had fallen. The religion of the Magi was poised to undergo drastic changes, as the Eftal brought both their own unique version of Iranic paganism, and Buddhist and Hindu settlers into Iran and Mesopotamia. The great monasteries of Arghan and Sat-Sabuhr were built by Akhshunwar’s successor Toramana, as was the library at Mosil.

By the reign of Shah Toramana, parts of the Arabian peninsula were swearing fealty to the Eftal, notably the city of Mazun – representing the continuation of Iranian pre-eminence over the trade routes of the Persian Gulf.

A treaty between the Gupta Emperor Narasimhagupta Baladitya and Akhshunwar is credited as establishing clear defined borders between the two dynasties. Our Hindi sources describe a series of spectacular defeats of the “Hunas” – but little can be confirmed, save that an additional two hundred war elephants were sold to the Hunas in exchange for a series of Huna fortresses in the Hindu Kush – representing the focus of Akhshunwar’s policies on westward expansion rather than into the Indian subcontinent.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Consolidation in the Latter Migratory Era

Aging

Akhshunwar, after the Insurrection of Ctesiphon knew he was not long for the world. A hard drinker and a hard fighter, he was known to his contemporaries as a man of short stature and broad shoulders. The Greek historians reported he was attractive, light-skinned and “not hideous.” But in his old age his rule became increasingly tyrannical, especially over the Iranian bureaucrats, who came to fear his notable wrath.

He favored his nephew, Toramana, over the husbands of his many daughters. Not a single one of his sons lived to adulthood. His religion was the traditional shamanic paganism of his peoples, but it would seem he gave little credence to faith beyond the ritualized practice of it. He adopted Zoroastrian rituals and styles as part of his rule, beginning the assimilation of his people that was already beginning early in his reign.

His legacy would be one of conquest. With the Western Roman Empire a forgotten memory shattered by the Goths and the Sassanian dynasty defeated, the Eastern Roman Empire remained the last tenuous link to the classical world, and cracks were showing in its armor. The great cities of the Hellenic east still stood, but cultural and social transformations begun in the late Roman era would ultimately lead to a fundamentally new world. European economic decline continued unabated and the Roman populations in the west were slowly coming to accommodate their new Germanic overlords.

The fall of the Sassanian dynasty by contrast was the collapse of an inefficient feudal regime into an efficient but highly exploitative one, one based on plunder and a mere replacement of the upper aristocracy with a new one. The division of societal roles was not wholly dissimilar to that of Gothic Italy - the Eftal forming the role of a culturally different warrior caste that adopted parts of Persian culture while maintaining a distinct identity even as they settled. The major difference was the transplanting of eastern societies into the Mesopotamian basin, a move which primarily was implemented to replace famine and massacre reduced populations that had been neglected due to climate changes and the often violent sacks of the initial Eftal invasion, as much as it was to create a loyal population base in the heart of an unruly region.

Arabia

The Banu Lakhm, the prominent Arabian allies of the Sassanian regime survived the fall of their patron Empire. Their ruler was a clever and effective leader, Abu Ya'fur ibn Alqama, who had seized power in a coup d’etat several years earlier.

Al-Hirah, the Lakhmid capital, was a fat and wealthy city perched on the banks of the flood-swollen Euphrates. Opulent churches and gardens made the city famous for having, as one Arab poet put it “the façade of paradise itself” – and indeed Al-Hirah was heavenly, wealthy from trade and the blessing of the Sassanid Empire.

It was also a tempting target for a young Shah looking to expand his power. Toramana, new-made Shah, appointed by his uncle Akhshunwar, was a cautious and prudent man, a warrior of some renown, but more scholarly and intelligent. By the time he ascended the throne in 516, the Eftal dominion had been established for almost thirty years. Many young Iranians had grown up under the rule of the Eftals, and the ethnic makeup of Mesopotamia had changed.

The Christians still enjoyed a sizable plurality, an ever-restless population which felt they had more in common with the Syriac peoples to their north than their Eftal overlords, but followers of Manichaeism, Buddhists, Zoroastrians and many others had begun moving in. A melting pot of cultures and beliefs, the land of the Tigris and the Euphrates was fraught with tensions under Eftal rule – but the dynamic, warlike people who ruled it were not shy about suppressing dissent.

And the Banu Lakhm, were far too close to home in the eyes of Toramana. He sent his cousin, Kosnavaz, south with a “great host with dragon banners and cloth-of-gold” in the words of the anonymous Arabian poet who wrote “The Sack of Al-Hirah” in truth, it was a relatively small force – Toramana was, as he would be for much of his reign, preoccupied with subduing rebellious eastern tribes whose chiefs were discontent with the idea of becoming “satraps.” It also was a force of primarily Persian auxiliaries, with only a small elite cadre of the veterans who Hellenistic historians called the “Hephthalite Companions.”

The battles were swift. Kosnavaz, famed taker-of-walls, was reportedly first through the gates. This seems uncharacteristic of him, but some later historians speculated that Toramana was attempting to kill his cousin, who in another life might have been Shah, and that the Lakhmid expedition was never meant to truly succeed. At any rate, it did succeed.

Al-Hirah, the Garden of Paradise itself, was put to a brutal and uncompromising sack. Many slaves were taken, and the great churches were looted. Abu Ya'fur was put to the sword, as was his entire family. According to our Christian sources, Kosnavaz at that point, after bathing in blood for three days, had a vision of God, rebuking the Prince for his cruel actions against His holy flock. And thus Kosnavaz was struck blind and seven days later died an unrepentant man. Or, more likely, Kosnavaz simply fell ill, or was assassinated by soldiers loyal to Toramana.

The destruction of Lakhm in the short term was a great boon, for it replenished the Eftal coffers, which were still largely maintained by plunder - as was the loyalty of many Eftal troops. However, it was a reflection of Toramana’s refusal to understand the subtleties of the politics of the state he now ruled – a tributary, patronized Lakhm regime might have provided a powerful buffer. As it was, the now ruined region was open to raids by Bedouin – the pagan caravan raiders of the interior had new, more appealing targets, and the Eftal were unprepared to deal with them, especially after a resurgent Roman Empire was growing more aggressive in the West…

Roman Revenge

Vitalian had almost all the advantages in 513. He needed only to use them – and he managed to quite well. The delay in crossing over to Europe merely gave him time to consolidate his hold on the East, and by 514, Marinus’ fleet was in open mutiny after having not received pay, Anastasius I was dead of a festering infection, and the mob would eventually get their wish – the heads of both the Syrian and the Emperor on stakes after grisly mob executions which would set the tone for Roman regime change for years to come.

Vitalian arrived in Constantinople at the head of a veteran army, well-trained and well-disciplined, and no sooner had he finalized his status as Emperor than he rode north to break the Gepids – and did so with great success. Upon his return to the capital, he was granted a marvelous triumph. Little did he know that his victories would only give the Bulgar-Hunnic successor states which were forming a vacuum to further establish their power in.

By 518, Vitalian had completed, ironically, the centralized taxation system begun by Marinus, increasing state income and using it to outfit new armies and repair some of the devastation inflicted by the previous round of warfare with the Eftal – as well as a new line of forts in Moesia and Thracia. New legions of the comitatenses were raised, and he felt confident enough to order reprisal raids into Orsoene, even as he began eying with suspicion the Goths to the west, whose power and unity seemed to be growing under Theoderic.

Toramana (516-532)

Despite low-intensity conflict along the Roman border, Toramana’s reign is largely regarded as a peaceful one. He rarely settled long enough to see the results of his building projects, but they were impressive – bringing a Baktrian style into vogue. His main efforts were focused on creating satrapies out of the nomadic tribes across Sakastan and Baktria, where many of the Eftal had settled, subduing rebellious Christian elements with a mixture of tax breaks and vicious reprisals, and finally, towards the end of his reign, Armenia, where he sought to build new fortresses to guard against Roman incursions, and negotiated a marriage alliance with a local Alan leader.

While he was sympathetic to the Buddhist populations, and founded many monasteries and libraries, Toramana was also seemingly sympathetic to all religions – perhaps due to the amount of privileges he was forced to grant the commissions, he founded an enormous Zoroastrian temple in Komish, and a series of Manichaean temples in the Mesun region.

Toramana had no children, but he had “adopted” a close friend of his, Khauwashta, who would succeed him. Khauwashta, half-Kidarite by birth, and either a Buddhist or a Buddhist sympathizer, was not as easily accepted by the nobles, many of whom were prejudiced against Buddhists, and some historians have mused that one of the reasons for Toramana’s frequent state visits between the satrapies was to ensure that the young Khauwashta could make personal friendships with some of those who he would one day have to rule.


Up next: A Look to the West

 

[Practical Lobster]

A Look to the East

By the time of Chounu Qagan, the Rourans were a people on the decline. Their hegemony was failing. To their north, a people called the Tujue, or Turks, were growing in strength, subverting Rouran authority, driving their allies and confederates south with incessant warfare. These new “Celestial” Tujue were powerful, adaptable, and numerous. Already they were driving what remained of the Gaoche tribes south, where the displaced Gaoche were coming into clashes with a people that the Chinese called the I-ta, and the Greeks called the Hephthalites.

Attempts by the Eftal satrapies to funnel these migrations constructively tended to lead to violence. As a emi-nomadic people the I-ta or Eftal were still more adept at handling these migrations than their Persian counterparts, frequently incorporating them into the military apparatus as mercenaries. The Eftal were already a polyglot mix and had little compunctions about alliance with these new migratory peoples. The Gaoche in particular, composing much of what remained of the Xiongnu, were something of distant linguistic and cultural cousins to the Eftal. While some of these migratory tribes were allowed to give their loyalty to the Eftal Shah or individual satraps and serve alternately as mercenaries or auxiliaries, many were either annihilated or redirected back towards the Eurasian steppe.

The Tujue, or Kokturks as they would come to be known, would present a growing threat to the Eftal Empire, but only with the benefit of hindsight could they have been prevented from rising. In 526, the Rouran sent ambassadors to the Eftal court at Balkh, pleading for aid. In the vacuum caused by the Eftal migrations the Turks had grown strong, incorporating into their hegemony many disparate peoples. It is unclear if the Satrap of Balkh sent any aid, but it unlikely, since by 549, the Rouran hegemony would be properly broken, and the Celestial Turks would seem, at least by the records of Chinese historians, to have taken their place, driving the Rouran south.

The fall of the Rouran was a slow affair, as many such tribal conflicts were. It was not the effect of any one decisive war but rather the effect of migrations – migrations that would spur on another wave of refugee peoples – Iranic tribes scattered south or west, movements which would precipitate even greater migrations amongst the Slavs and Bulgars. In certain cases, these migrations provided fresh steppe manpower to the ever outnumbered Eftal Shahs. In many other cases however, they offered threats and opportunities to the eastern satraps, satraps who gained more delegated power due to the magnitude of the threats facing them and became increasingly independent despite attempts at centralization.

A Look to the West

In the year 519, Theoderic the Great lay dead, and in his wake it was uncertain what would become of his Kingdom. Nominally a part of the Roman Empire, he had toed a careful line between autocrat and custodian, playing different roles for his various subject populations, and a different role for the Roman Emperor than either. But now he was buried with all the splendor befitting a king.

It was not look after that Eutharic, his son-in-law was crowned. An Ostrogothic aristocrat, he had been onetime Consul in Rome. His marriage to Amalasuntha had been one of clever political maneuvering – an attempt to unite East and West Goths together under one crown. He was invested with the title of Magister Militum by Emperor Vitalian not long after his crowning, in an attempt to shore up the allegiance of his Gothic “ally.” Eutharic was not, however a tolerant man, but an Arian through and through, famous for siding with even Jews over the Roman Chalcedonian Catholics.

He kept his wife’s Romanophilic tendencies in line, ensuring that their children were fostered among various Gothic nobles. Despite Vitalian’s increasingly overt attempts to curry favor with him, he gave every indication of wanting to rule as a sole King, not as a subordinate of an Emperor. And it soon became clear why Vitalian had been cozying up to him.

Despite ongoing low-level conflict with the Eftal Shahs in the East, Vitalian was increasingly confident that the threat from the east was less important than reclaiming the West, and further had been able to secure with a very low tribute even a cessation of that level of violence. Vandal North Africa made an appealing target, and despite Zeno’s proclamation of eternal peace with the Vandals, the recent persecutions of Catholics in the region, not to mention what appeared to be the utter collapse of Vandal rule in the face of Berber invasions meant that the time to strike, if ever, was now.

After all, all reports seemed to indicate that the Eftal were preoccupied, and the Vandal realm seemed to be collapsing. An unwarlike king named Hilderic had taken the Vandal throne, and all reports indicated that the Igherman people the Romans called Gaetuli were raiding and slowly gaining control of the region. Vitalian hoped to strike while Hilderic was distracted with matters in the interior.

It is unclear to what extent these were the ambitions of the Thracian Emperor himself, and to what degree these were the ambitions of his nephew, Ioannes who Vitalian planned to give command over the operation, despite his relative inexperience. Perhaps to offset this inexperience, subordinates such as Bessas, a Gothic officer who had distinguished himself in the East with Vitalian. Whatever the situation, planning quickly fell flat as Eutharic flatly denied the Roman Empire the bases he would need in Sicily to carry out such an operation. Eutharic reportedly feared that the bases were part of a plan by the Romans to wrest Sicily from his control. This would turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Cautious voices in the Imperial administration counseled wisely against attempting to strike without nearby ports from which to do so, and Vitalian became increasingly wary of the Gothic regime – especially after the Roman Senate sent letters to Constantinople pleading for an intervention. With the schism of Emperor Anastasius resolved, many of the Roman population increasingly felt that they were a people occupied, and that the Goths were eroding their influence. Some of these conspiratorial letters were intercepted, leading to a series of executions in 522, including that of the philosopher Boetius and his two sons and the near-dismantling of the Senate. All this cemented the idea in Vitalian’s mind that invention in Italy to bring back a pro-Roman regime would be a prerequisite to any intervention in North Africa.

And further, with all immediate threats seemingly resolved, Vitalian felt comfortable sending forth his nephew…

A Look to the South

The relative era of peace in the East lead to great prosperity. Many of the urban areas which had been damaged in the early Eftal sacks showed signs of recovery – particularly Ctesiphon and Al-Hira, now called Khishiwan and settled by a mixed population of Eftal Xiongnu and Arabs – a sign of the new reality of Persia. The famed gardens would recover by mid-century, and Khishiwan or Al-Hira, whichever one chose to call it, would become a great center of Nestorian Christianity once more.

The trade with India was a great boon – with the advent of relative peace, goods could flow through Mesopotamia once more, and some of the great east-west highways of commerce were restored. The Eftal were not a particularly mercantile people, and indeed allowed affairs on the Arabian peninsula to continue much as they always had – with Arabian, Hindi, and Persian merchants plying their goods, and only the faces of the tax collectors having truly changed, so to speak. Tax collection under the early Eftal Shah was not always efficient or well ordered, and as such local merchants often made exorbitant profits.

However, this was still a world in flux. Trade lanes went either through the Eftal Shah, or the Aksumite Kings who dominated Himyar – a situation which brought the Iranians into direct competition with the Aksumites. While the historical record of this region is spotty, it seems around the year 525 the Hadhrami, a mercantile people themselves, threw off the Himyar, and thus Ethiopian yoke with the aid of Iranian money and mercenaries. It is highly probable that this was the act of the local satrap of Mazun.


[Unfortunately for the Romans, a lot of Justinian's famous generals are butterflied in this timeline from actually gaining overall command of armies. Vitalian is a different sort of Emperor and rather into nepotism. So we get an earlier, and potentially less ably planned attempt at reconquest.]

 

[Practical Lobster]

The Gothic Wars and another look into the east

What I know all you Romanophiles have been waiting for: The Gothic Wars

[for the buildup to these wars, check the prior page]

The plan for the invasion of Italy was mostly that of the Germanic general Bessas, who landed in early 523 with some seven thousand men in Sicilia, and in a rapid campaign seized control of the territory, with the exception of well-fortified Panormus, which was held by determined soldiers under the Gothic noble Witiges. Despite being blockaded and surrounded, the city refused to submit, and a series of determined assaults did not dislodge the defenders. Roman naval superiority however, ensured that Bessas felt comfortable dispatching most of his forces under an officer named Julian, who crossed the strait and took Rhegium after a brief siege and moved to link up with Ioannes.

Despite Bessas’ struggles, Ioannes landed at Hydruntum and marched quickly north towards Neapolis with an army of twenty thousand men, nearly a third of which were elite imperial cavalry, including Alan mercenary archers. Along the way he gained the surrender of isolated Gothic garrisons, and successfully linked up with Julian.

Meanwhile, the magister militum of Illyria, Coutzes, Vitalian’s son, marched on Salonae. Some distance out from the city, he engaged a small force of Gothic cavalry and was mortally wounded while riding in the vanguard. The army fell back in disarray and was brutally mauled on its retreat to Doclea. The Gothic advance force allowed time for Ostrogothic Illyricum to prepare for a long war and raise significant forces, including Langobard mercenaries.

Ioannes did not run into determined resistance until he arrived at Naples, which refused to surrender despite only a minimal Gothic garrison. The citizens themselves rose up and manned the walls, giving Eutharic an entire winter to raise an army. After Naples’ surrender it was put to devastating sack, a sign of things to come. It was not until late 524 that Panormus finally surrendered and was similarly devastated.

The Ostrogoths had raised large forces, and the aging Liberius, an important Roman official under Theoderic counseled the citizens of Rome, at Eutharic’s request, to not welcome the invading easterners. The Goths, he said, had preserved the institution of the Empire and defended Italy – it was Vitalian, a usurper in the East, who sought to undermine what had been built.

Ioannes lacked enough troops to encircle Rome, and he knew it. Despite the city being depopulated, it was vast and not easily besieged. Further, Eutharic had now arrived with an advance force of some six thousand men, with tens of thousands more en route – he contested Campania with his horse and garrisoned the city of Capua, bringing in great reserves of grain and ensuring the walls were in good repair. After Ioannes crossed into the flat coastal region of Campania, his inexperience in commanding such a large army was already showing – further, much of the force was newly raised and inexperienced – a far cry from the veteran troops along the Thracian and Iranian frontiers, who were capable of creatively interpreting poor orders. The Roman army performed poorly in a series of indecisive skirmishes, and Eutharic brought his entire army together and marched on Naples.

Ioannes avoided engaging Eutharic’s superior force, retreating to Naples and ensuring that he could be supplied by sea even as the Gothic siege lines closed around the city. After an abortive sally attempt which did great damage to the Gothic foot but was nevertheless unsuccessful, he settled in for a long siege, waiting for his uncle to send aid.

Illyrium, however, was actually not as much of a disaster as first feared. Witiges, the Gothic commander, had a decent force, but it was heterogeneous and nowhere near as discipline as the Imperial troops. Now under the command of the Isaurian general Leon, the Roman army smashed Witiges over the course of a three day battle and marched into Illyrium, destroying Salonae and reducing many of the fortifications in the region. However, Witiges rallied his forces and prevented further advances.

Liberius arrived in November as ambassador of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Constantinople, where he presented terms – the Romans could retain Sicily, in exchange for a tribute. These negotiations failed. Vitalian had tasted a few victories and was perhaps unaware of Ioanne’s failures. He ordered Leon to land at Ancona and proceed inland towards Ravenna. Despite having a relatively small force, Leon did so, and enjoyed early successes, taking the still densely populated urban region south of Ravenna.

Eutharic rushed north, with Ioannes in pursuit. However, in truth, Ravenna had a strong defensive position and he was not unduly worried. Noting Ioannes’ pursuit, he delayed his march north, turned about and engaged the Romans. Ioannes was defeated, and his forces retreated south in poor order. In the north, Leon besieged Ravenna while a detachment of the Roman fleet blockaded it by sea, but the Roman campaign was collapsing.

By 525, the Roman-Gothic war was seeming increasingly untenable to the Roman court in Constantinople, and many advised the Emperor to renew attempts at negotiations. Despite Leon’s capable leadership and a series of victories in the north, the Roman campaign represented a massive loss of blood and treasure for seemingly little gain – and indeed the death of any notion that the Eastern Romans still ruled in Italy. And yet the bloodshed continued. Two Roman armies still operated in Italy, one small but effective, the other large and wildly unsuccessful.

Around this time, Vitalian recalled Ioannes, leaving Bessas in overall command of the Italian war. As Ioannes departed, an additional five thousand veteran comitatenses arrived from the east. The war was far from over.

Legacy of the Gupta

The failure of nomadic states to penetrate the Indian Subcontinent is not a universal trend in history. The Aryan peoples seemed to have arrived by invasion. The Greeks and the Saka also left their mark on the Indus river valley and sometimes even further into the continent. However, the Middle Period of Indian History, marked by the ascension of the Gupta in 320 C.E. represents both the period of Magadha dominance of the Subcontinent and also a period of intellectual flowering and economic prosperity uninterrupted by invaders from the North.

It was the Gupta who annihilated and incorporated the Saka into their empire, and prevented the Sveta Hunas from ever truly establishing a foothold in the region, and this breathing space allowed northern Indian culture to flourish. Indian scholars developed the concept of zero. The legacy of the Gupta was one of mathematic and scientific advancement, but also literary and philosophical splendor – the remarkable tolerance of the Gupta monarchs – like the Maurya before them - allowed the development and coexistence of a remarkable number of competing religious and philosophical traditions. Despite local communal violence and the frequent endemic warfare of the era, under Gupta patronage the arts and sciences thrived.

The enduring influence Gupta architecture can be still seen from Aden to Kalingga, in Gandhara and Ceylon. Trade cities such as Mahathitha grew splendid in this era, taking in trade from Arabia and Iran, China and Indonesia. One awestruck Iranian Buddhist began his famous travel narrative with the lines “In white-harbored Thambapanni sits Mahathitha, the seat from which all goods flow...”

Even as the Gupta waned and splintered, the great entrepot cities such as Sopara and Kottura became true powerhouses, and Indian traders, primarily Pallava, continued to spread across the world, settling in the growing city-states of Sumatra and Tarumanagara and Sailendra. In the west, Persia and Arabia began to see a small but growing diaspora of Indian merchants from the Vakataka Kingdom. These merchants would go on to establish scattered trade posts across the African continent. Indian traders sailed as far as Madagascar, bringing back giant lemurs and vast flightless birds for the wonder of their local Rajas’ courts. Later in the 7th century, Hadhrami traders would establish the first trading ports on the island, but by then the megafauna of the island were all but extinct. But still, the impact of these new markets should not be underestimated – this was the beginning of a transformative era for the Indian Ocean, a golden age which would continue even after the collapse of the Gupta into a succession of warring states.

Touba Wei and the Bodhisattva Emperor

The “Northern Wei” were at this time a people in utter collapse. Rebellions and internal division were only compounded by the rule of a weak Emperor, Xiaoming. This was not a time for a weak Emperor either. The Rouran, displaced from their traditional homeland by the Tujue, were riding south in increasing numbers, pillaging as they went. The Xiongnu General Erzhu Rong was responsible for managing this incursion, but failed utterly to match the threat, and he and his clan suffered grave losses.

In 524, Angui Qagan moved into the region at the head of what remained of the Rouran confederacy. Over the next three years, they would conquer much of the Wei state. The death of the Wei Emperor, Xiaoming only further exacerbated the anarchy. This period of chaos would only benefit the Southern Liang, whose generals took the opportunity to expand their territory northwards, driving back the Wei over the course of the next five years. They managed to take a few notable victories and secure several major cities, but ultimately it was the Rouran who benefited the most - becoming the new rulers over the region after the collapse of the Wei.

The Liang, ruled by Emperor Wu, known as the Bodhisattva Emperor was a kind and lenient man, a lover of Indian culture by all accounts, who greatly patronized Mahayana Buddhism and was largely beloved. However, he was also weak, overly kind to his relations and his subordinates, unwilling to punish dissent or rebellion. And thus, by expanding the Liang dynasty's power over the north, he also gave increasing power to his generals and administrators, who frequently chose to exploit their position for personal gain.

If the Liang could endure would remain to be seen.

[There will be a lot of White Huns in the next update. Don't fear!]

 

[Practical Lobster]

Gothic-Roman war

The dream of Italy refused to die. While Bessas advanced north on Rome with a reconstituted army, Leon fought a battle of delay against the bulk of Eutharic's forces. With a mere six thousand men, the wily Isaurian commander retreated to the coast and evacuated - landing again in the south, and retreating slowly back towards Bessas. As he went, he encouraged his soldiers to pillage to feed and sustain his army, which had been under considerable stresses due to frequent small-scale engagements. His incursion left a significant region of northern Italy devastated, and a bloody swathe across the South.

Bessas and Leon linked up in late 525, and after a series of skirmishes, finally brought Eutharic to battle. The Gothic army had been bleeding away for some time. Eutharic had been forced to siphon away much of his infantry to provide garrisons for cities in the north, and where the Romans seemed to have more than sufficient reinforcements, he did not. Nevertheless, he finally met the Romans in battle outside Cumae, and there the two armies fought for "a day and a night, till exhaustion claimed them".

Contemporary accounts of the battle seem relatively unreliable, especially on the Gothic side. What can be understood is that neither side won the total victory both had hoped for. Eutharic had intended to drive the Romans into the sea, and perhaps even reclaim Sicily and Illyrium. The Romans had hoped to entirely change the tide of a war they knew themselves to be slowly losing. While Leon's Thracians distinguished themselves in the fighting, as did the Byzantine cavalry, Bessas retreated back along the coast, while Eutharic besieged and sacked Cumae and Naples.

Through 526, the war showed no signs of stopping. The Romans seemed to have regained a measure of their famous stubbornness, refusing to give up what Italian possessions they still had - and knowing that Eutharic lacked sufficient soldiers to reclaim them. It was only in 528 that peace would finally come - a peace that recognized the borders as they had become. Dalmatia, Sicily, and the region of Apulia and Calabria remained Roman.

Back in Constantinople, Vitalian had been suffering. The war aged him immensely, and with every reversal he was worn down. By 529, Vitalian named his son, Bouzes, Co-Emperor. Taking the ruling name Zeno Augustus, the new Emperor would oversee the affairs of the East, raising one of the Imperial bodyguards, a young man named Belisarius with whom he had found favor, to an important command of a wing of cavalry in the East.

Despite these losses, the fortunes of the Empire remained apparently strong. Trade had suffered, perhaps, but the Eastern Mediterranean remained prosperous even as Italy burned at the hands of the Goths and Romans, and Africa crumbled under the mismanagement of Hilderic (who in 530 would be assassinated by his own nobles). The Italian wars did not come to effect Imperial defense greatly either - the Roman army was bloodied but not overstretched, and it was still one of the most effective fighting forces in the world.

But the world, it would seem, was changing...

The Eurasian Steppe and Persia

By 527, Shah Toramana was increasingly aware that his life was coming to a close. He settled down finally, ruling in Susa, as Akshunwar did towards the end of his life. Ever the builder, Toramana constructed an enormous palace outside of the city gates, in which he would live the rest of his life surrounded by gardens and "every sensuous delight the mind might conceive of."

Our Armenian sources indicate that Khauwashta was made "Commander in Chief, or Spatavad, of the whole Shahdom" - and indeed, Khauwashta seemed to have absolute power in Toramana's waning days. Though he expressed Buddhist convictions, beliefs that seem to have stemmed from his mother, Khauwashta was also a warlike man, not inclined to cowardice.

While Toramana lost focus on the affairs of state, Khauwashta took control of affairs in the East. The Gaoche and other tribes had not abated their pressure on his satraps, passing over the Gozan river in force, passing through the region of Xvarezm in great numbers. Khauwashta, with a great host of Eftal cavalry drove them back once and for all in 528, making "corpses of many and slaves of others" after his victory. The closure of this southern route once and for all spelled the disastrous end of the Gaoche confederacy, one-time allies of the Rouran.

Many of the peoples of the Gaoche confederacy, the notably the Xasar, Shipan, and Sahu continued their westward drive, a movement which would . The stronger tribes, with older roots in the region, notably the Uighur and Khirgut remained, many striking treaties and intermarrying with the Eftal peoples of the region. Strict borders were difficult to enforce, even in victory.

What would emerge from this was a Xasar-Sahu migration up north around the Caspian sea, where they would cross the Rav [IOTL Volga] by 534, into the lands of the Hunno-Bulgarian and Slavic tribes they found there, displacing many of them and precipitating a mass exodus. This exodus would take time to gather steam, of course - and many of the eastern Bulgar tribes found themselves assimilated into the growing ranks of the Sahu.

While Khauwashta managed the East with remarkable skill, winning the loyalties of the satraps and overseeing a reform of the system by which land was apportioned. The various nomadic tribes under the Eftal banner, the settled peoples, and the various landed aristocrats of Persia and Baktria alike had varied, often competing claims, and these claims led to frequent communal violence which often organized itself along religious or ethnic lines. Khauwashta's reforms were not always welcomed, but the "Royal Apportion" as it became known was ultimately by most measures a successful policy, reducing violence. It helped, of course, that Khauwashta had the strength of an army to enforce his degrees - as he did on several occasions, including during the famous insurrection at Bamiyan.

Even as the eastern regions were brought under strict royal control, the west was becoming more chaotic. The Satrap of Mazun, one Arhaxorai, was now openly backing the Hadhrami rebellion and essentially in a state of open war with Axum and her Himyarite client regime. This had every potential to drag the Romans into open conflict with the Eftal, especially as certain tribes among the Eftal who had settled in the West had begun raiding in force into Syria once more, despite half-hearted attempts by Toramana to reign them in. These raids across Syria were rarely successful - determined Roman reprisals by contrast were, and this strained the situation to the breaking point.

Further exacerbating the situation in 532 the Hadhrami, with the help of Arhaxorai, successfully drove the Christian Himyarite ruler and his followers into exile. Occupying the whole of Yemen, the spice routes were once again effectively under Persian control - the Hadhrami Malik was a vassal of the Eftal Shahs in all but name. This situation did not last - Hadhrami was poised to preside over a South Arabian golden age - but yet for the time it merely confirmed to the Romans that their position in the Orient was gravely imperiled.

Transformations

The third decade of the sixth century CE was a calm before the storm across the eastern world. In Eftal Iran, it was a time of economic prosperity and also seething turmoil beneath the surface. The local Iranian nobility rose up in a series of failed rebellions before finding a new place in society, turning inwards and becoming self-reflective. Unlike the Insurrection of Ctesiphon and the Christian uprisings of previous decades, the uprisings of the nobility had a heroic, hopeless quality to them. They would become immortalized in poetry and the growing Persian literary movement. The melancholy achievements of these noble poets would become the beginning beautiful epic tradition, particularly as the differences between Eftal and Iranian slowly began to dissolve, and increasing Eftal influences became apparent within the work of the great poets.

Shah Khauwashta ruled a polyglot Empire which frequently was decentralized and inefficient, but had a powerful military. However, being a man "blessed with the multitude of virtues, chief amongst them foresight" it was the military which he sought to reform, breaking apart the organization along tribal lines which so long had defined it. He would let the satraps use their tribal retainers to enforce order, but Khauwashta was a King of Kings, and he needed a military bound more directly to the state than to the lines of tribal coalition. However, while many historians, especially the Roman sources, emphasize the scope of reforms it is unclear how the traditional Eftal army, or the forces which battled Peroz in the fifth century actually were organized. Further, almost all of our Iranian sources are focused on the land reform and changes to the tax code and a series of national urban building projects centered around the Persian Gulf - leaving open questions about the degree to which the military reform was simply a result of organic changes in the emerging Eftal-Iranian society.

The period of Buddhist patronage continued apace, but tolerance of almost all faiths continued. The Eftal had little desire to enforce their religious convictions on others, and one of the Shah's prominent generals was a Nestorian Christian who took name of Thomas.

The Roman Empire, under the reign of Zeno II (Vitalian having died in 533) was on a very different trajectory. Monasticism and factionalism was on the rise, and the Empire was in an uncertain state despite appearing quite strong. Defeats in Italy had sounded the death knell of a united Empire. The Gothic successor state under Eutharic would slowly abandon all pretension to Imperial status, ruling as an elected King, raising his son as a Goth, and doing little to mend the division between the Romans and the small military elite that ruled them. Africa was similarly left to its own devices - despite having gained a base from which to attack, it seems that Vitalian did not have the motivation to plan such an enterprise. Zeno, in another time might have attempted it, but his would be a reign focused on internal politics and on the East.

In Constantinople, the beating heart of the Empire, the Blue and Green factions retained powerful influence at court, and religious controversy consumed much of the Emperor’s attention. His father had risen to power as a preserver of Orthodoxy, and Zeno maintained that tradition in spite of difficulties and occasional rumors of insurrection. But Syria and Egypt were growing apart from the Empire, and frequent persecutions did little to endear them to Constantinople.

Further, the two superpowers of the East were on a trajectory that would inevitably bring them into conflict. The Eftal interventions in Arabia posed a threat to Roman trade, and in 536 Belisarius, now responsible for the Roman armies of the East, convinced Zeno that the Eftal were weak - and that a successful military campaign into Persia could provide the prestige he needed to sew up the divisions within the Roman state.

He could not have known that a far greater storm was coming.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Changes and Plague


Africa

As the Vandal Kingdom collapsed, in 534 Hilderic was overthrown by one Huneric. Where Hilderic's policies had been favorable to Chalcedonian Christians, Huneric was an Arian through and through, and this lead only to more bitter hostilities between the ruling Vandals and their Roman and Moorish subjects - and further, Huneric was forced to put down a rebellion by Hoamer, Hilderic's cousin. Between 534-537 near anarchy reigned in North Africa, an anarchy which disrupted trade and lead to some level of food scarcity in the remaining great urban centers of Italy.

The exact timeline becomes very uncertain however - but it clear that by 537 Huneric was dead in a battle against one Gharmul, and a Mauri "Rex" named Tamesus (Tamenzut) was ruling over a vast swathe of territory ranging fromSufetula. While some historians have categorized this as a migration of the Berber peoples, that is a not a wholly accurate characterization. While certainly there were movements of people and semi-nomadic tribes, this was also a series of rural and urban uprisings which lead to the overthrow of the Vandals and the replacement of the Vandal elite with a rural Mauri one - while the urban character of changed little.

It is a tribute to how Romanized Africa was that during the collapse of the Vandalic Kingdom to the Berber invaders, the Mauri peoples preserved much of the Roman culture of the region. Latin was still the language of the urban dweller, regardless of ethnic background. Latinized forms of Berber languages gained traction, particularly in the Kingdom of Thagaste, while inscriptions from the the Mauritanian Kingdom ruled by one Masuna show that the written language was perhaps almost exclusively Latin. The urban-rural division in Africa remained strong, but was increasingly blended. The Vandals, by contrast became an increasingly isolated people under ever greater pressure to Romanize and abandon their traditional heritage.

Certain Romanized kingdoms developed out of Mauri tribal groups - this was an era of petty kings whose territories were uncertain, with borders that frequently shifted. In certain areas, Vandal settlers still held sway as well, although these areas rapidly shrank and assimilated. By 550 there was little trace of the Vandals in Africa - and petty Roman regimes ruled by duces had emerged on their island territories as well.
The Christian Mauri ruler Amesghin the Greater would eventually form a degree of hegemony over many of the petty Kings - his capital at Hippo Regius became a regional center of commerce, religious scholarship and grand public works. Contemporaneously, Isemrases, his brother ruled over a Carthage tenuously recovering from pillage. It might have recovered too, if it was not for the Great Plague.



Eftal-Roman War (537-542)

Veteran Roman armies, under highly capable commanders such as Leon the Isaurian, Flavius Belisarius (Master of the Soldiers of the Orient), and the Armenian Hovnan prepared a multiple pronged attack. The actual declaration of war was ostensibly a response to a recent cross-border raid by Eftal tribesmen, but in truth the war had been long in planning, and the attack when it came was well-coordinated, seeking to demolish the relatively weak Eftal grip over their northwestern satrapies.

Hovnan struck into his native Armenia, and then further on into the region the Eftal called Adurbadaghan and the Greeks called Atropatene, marching south through the mountain passes where the Eftal were light on the ground. Despite an attempted ambush, his troops pushed inwards,conquering with ease much of Armenia and finally coming to Naxcavan, but the large, well-fortified city resisted all attempts to claim it, and harassing raids stressed Hovnan's supply lines. Within a year the Armenian would be retreating in disgrace, but he would try again on several occasions - but by then his foes were prepared, and the cities and mountain passes of Armenia well fortified.

Leon detached from his own army a force which put Edessa to siege, while Belisarius marched towards the interior - aiming to put to siege high walled Nisibin. The wily Isaurian was out of his element in conventional siege warfare however - and knowing this he struck south at Zeno's order, meeting up with Belisarius' main force, of which he would command the right flank. The Roman Magister Militium had been eagerly reforming the army - raising new elite cataphract-style units to combat the traditional Eftal superiority of horse, hiring on mercenary Alan and Bulgar archer cavalry.

It was a shockingly different Roman army which met Shah Khauwashta outside of Nisibin one under one of the greatest of the later Roman commanders. But Khauwashta was a capable general in his own right, and had his own corps of brilliant, able officers, veterans of many battles. Instead of battle however, Belisarius arranged a meeting, and the two men conferred in neutral ground between the opposing camps. At a tent established in the middle of a dry flat battleplain, the two legendary figures of history spoke at length. We have no record of the meeting between these two, but we do know that it came after a series of vicious one-on-one duels, of which the Roman champions emerged supreme.

At the second day, both sides displayed against each other, and some pitched cavalry skirmishes were fought. The evening saw a second conference between this time subordinate commanders. Both men were stalling for time. By the third day, Leon had arrived with reinforcements, bringing the two armies to rough parity in numbers. A cavalry charge by the Romans lead to the a decisive victory in the battle of Nisibin, but Belisarius could not follow up on his triumph - the Roman cavalry had taken severe casualties, and the main body of the Eftal horse was intact. Belisarius was unable to put Nisibin to siege, knowing its defenses to be far too well-maintained to be assaulted while the Eftal could still harass him.

The two armies would not meet again until 538. A year of maneuver culminated in the battle of Amphipolis, where this time Khauwashta won a decisive victory. The Eftal histories report the Shah personally slew Leon with his own lance, while the Romans report no such occurrence, merely that Leon was wounded and succumbed to infection over the next week. The Eftal took Zeugma and pressed onwards, aiming perhaps for Antiokheia - to split the Roman Empire wide open. But it was not to be. Belisarius successfully prevented the Eftal from penetrating too deep into Syria, and fresh Roman armies captured most of Sirakan and pressed on towards Mosul, where the Eftal Satrap Thomas barely repulsed them.

The next few years would see a gradual recovery of lost Eftal territory. Armies of local leaders who prized the relative autonomy they enjoyed under Eftal rule joined up with their coreligionist, the Eftal Thomas, and ensured that the Romans acquired no long-term gains in the region. Thomas even pushed as far as Manzikert before he was defeated by General Bessas, returned from Illyria with fresh manpower. "Fighting at Manzikert" would become a Greek expression for a snatching victory from the jaws of defeat for centuries to come. Thomas would be subsequently slain at the battle of Sewan during a disastrous retreat, but the pendulum would eventually swing back in favor of the Eftal.

The Egyptian Plague (540-542)

The Egyptian Plague would come to encompass the entire Mediterranean. According to Syriac historians, it was Egyptian grain ships traveling to Constantinople which brought the plague there. At its devastating peak, the disease is said to have killed thousands by the day in the Queen of Cities alone. All the great maritime urban hubs declined precipitously in population, from Hispania to Italy, to Africa to Syria. Mesopotamia, it would seem, was also effected, although to a lesser degree.

The disruptions to agriculture and trade, the depopulation of major agricultural regions and the uncertainty of the times saw twofold responses - a spike in the already increasing trend of Christian monasticism, and bread riots in the capital. These riots were put down in no small part due to the Emperor Zeno's willingness to work with the Blues, and the casual effectiveness with which he dispatched Imperial troops against them when that proved only partially effective.

Military camps were no less effected than urban populations, and the Roman state had only a fraction of their original manpower to draw upon - numbers that would not recover for some time. The Eftal found themselves forced to increasingly rely on nomadic forces, their Persian auxiliaries being depleted. Ultimately, millions would die. The urban, Roman societies of the Mediterranean would take a blow which they would perhaps never recover fully from.

In North Africa and Asia Minor particularly, but also in many other regions, apocalyptic predictions and preachers reigned supreme, and their influence would not go away for some time, despite attempts by the Romans to reign in such talk in their own lands. By contrast in North Africa such apocalyptic and messianic religious thought was often encouraged by the sometimes heterodox Mauri kings, with long-lasting implications on the philosophical traditions of the thinkers there.

The plague would recur for some time throughout the Mediterranean. At no other time would it be nearly as devastating, but these "aftershocks" frequently correspond with additional periods of urban decline in Roman history. In no small part the Egyptian Plague would come to define the subsequent half-century to come.

Conclusion of the War

Khauwashta himself fell victim to the plague, but ultimately recovered. Nevertheless weakened, he left an veteran Eftal commander named Switamei in command of his army while he recovered - only for Switamei to fall ill mere weeks later. The aging commander died within a day, and his nephew Arshvadata, an Eftal-Baktrian, took overall command.

Meanwhile, Iashe, Khauwashta's wife, was increasingly forced to assume the responsibilities of power. It was somewhat unprecedented that she would act in her husband's name, but women were not without powerful positions in the Eftal social hierarchy - particularly in spiritual matters. Despite Shah Khauwashta's recovery he continued to delegate power to his wife, to the point that he would ultimately name his daughters husband, Akhshunwar, as his successor at Iashe's request.

The plague put an end to active campaigning to a great degree, but the war did not formally end until 542, when peace was signed. Both sides were bloodied. Osrhoene and Adurbadaghan, Armenia and Mesopotamia were in ruins, and the plague had hollowed out many of their urban centers as surely as the general pillaging annihilated the granaries which those same urban centers depended on after the plague induced agricultural collapse.

Both the Eftal and the Romans, however, had little trouble settling their veteran soldiers on vacant plots of land. Communities of Alan mercenaries took up residence in Syria and many more Xiongnu and Baktrians came to live along the Euphrates. Many of them in time took up the Nestorian Christianity of their newfound homeland.

If there was any victor from this conquest it was the Hadhrami. Their Red Sea trade remained open to the Romans, in defiance of attempts by the Eftal to close it. The Hadhrami state prospered, as did coastal cities under their patronage - this was the beginning of a period of great expansion in growth. With foreign trade came foreign ideas and foreign wealth. Roman and Hindi merchants lived side by side in its teeming streets, and the red-sailed trade vessels of South Arabia plied incense to foreign ports as far away as China and Madagascar (which they came to call Al-Komr).

 

[Practical Lobster]

The Crumbling Giants


Slavic Migrations


It was in 548 that the Antes finally crossed over the Danube in force, but it was perhaps not more than a larger example of an ongoing trend prevalent over the past decade. The Antes had long been a people known to the Romans. In earlier, more peaceable times they had been an ally of sorts, settled along the river and given occasional gifts in exchange for keeping the border secure from the Bulgars. Until 540, this was a task the Antes had succeeded at admirably - but the Romans had been forced to reduce their regular payments due to budget shortfalls, the Bulgars were being driven westward, and the Antes, clan by clan, raiding party by raiding party, were finding the Danube border ill fortified and poorly garrisoned. The Romans were stretched thin, and the majority of the forces they did have were emplaced to watch the waning Gepid Kingdom.

The Antes raiding parties were small and mobile, groups of lightly equipped men ahorse or on foot. Their raids were disorganized - and indeed the Antes were not even a unified people, being a mix of Iranic and Slavic tribes under the nominal hegemony of a common King named Idariz. Their tendency to take the Thracians as slaves only further damaged an already critically depopulated province. Soon, various groups of raiders and brigands marginally loyal to the Roman regime were squatting in captured forts in Scythia Minor and Moesia Inferior, and despite the best efforts of the Roman commander Julian, a veteran of the Gothic War, several of these fortresses were not recaptured - rather treaties were re-negotiated.

The favorite Roman practice of divide and conquer was used here, and it was not without short-term benefits. These new petty warlords provided settlers in a region ravaged by plague and their own deprivations, and were cheerfully willing to keep Idariz from re-asserting dominance over them.
But by 547, the Antes were on the warpath in a semi-unified form. The "foederati" were just as quick to betray the Romans and allow their kin to cross into Roman territory. Meanwhile, another related people, called by the Romans the Sklaveni, crossed the Danube at Sykibid, plundering Thrace and Dacia. The walls of the city of Serdica had been allowed to fall into ill repair, and the city was subjected to a five day sack. The Antes made it as far as Hadrianopolis before Belisarius, recalled to Constantinople by Emperor Zeno II lead an army out and repulsed them, killing Idariz in the thick of the battle. But despite consistently strong Roman performances on the field of battle, the Balkans were now a sieve. The Diocese of Thrace was breaking open.

There was simply no room for the Slavic tribes to retreat. In 550, it was the Kutrigurs under Samur Khan who now filled the role Attila once played - driving the barbarians to the gates. The deployment of an additional Roman army stemmed the tide somewhat, but a group the Roman historians call "White Sklaveni" defeated it in battle in 551. After this, Belisarius fought a long holding action - capably preventing the Balkans from being penetrated south of an imaginary line stretching from Hadrianopolis to Doclea, and reasserting Imperial authority over much of the Balkans. However, the constant stress of campaigning and a lack of reinforcements took its toll both on the army and Belisarius. The Emperor's increasingly unrealistic demands to reclaim the Danube fortifications further exacerbated the situation, but the General fought on heroically on through 553, when he passed away under unclear circumstances, falling from his horse never to rise.

His replacement, one Flavius Hadrianus would enjoy mixed success. Despite being popular as a commander, he was a Monophysite, and also prone to personal scandals and insubordination. Under Hadrianus, the Romans lost their tentative control over the Sklaveni territories.

By 556, the Langobards, which under the rule of Emperor Vitalian had been "given" jurisdiction over Pannonia had also subjugated the Gepids and brought them under their crown as allies. However, their King, an aged but charismatic man had other ambitions, and the Empire's imperiled situation allowed him great leeway to act as he saw fit with tacit Imperial consent from the regional governor. Ostensibly protecting the Empire from the depravity of the Sklaveni, Audoin sent armies south, battling the Sklaveni and also ensuring that what was once Roman Illyrium was now his own personal fief, occupied and defended by his own troops. That local leaders did not object overmuch is a sign of the collapse of Imperial authority in the Balkans.

In 558, Samur Khan and his Kutrigurs crossed over the border themselves, subjugating what remained of the Antes. However, this proved to be perhaps the saving grace of the Romans - despite initial failures in repelling the Kutrigurs, they were ultimately repulsed against the Danube, and the border fortifications recovered. Despite this success, Illyrium was not wholly reclaimed - an exhausted Zeno signed a treaty allowing Pannonia and Dalmatia to remain under Langobard rule, and the northern Balkans were heavily depopulated.



Transformations Continued

Sogdia and Baktria, the twin crossroads of cultures were in a period of great growth. The "Thousand Cities" were not ravaged by plagues and warfare as Mesopotamia was - accustomed to low level tribal raiding, and well defended by their Eftalid overlords, Sogdia in particular blossomed artistically and culturally, entering a golden age which mirrored that of India in time and place. Buddhism and the veneration of Hindu deities (with Sogdian names) became more commonplace, and with the patronage of the Eftal Shahs, those religions overturned the traditional Zoroastrianism of the Sogdian mercantile elite.

It was an era typified by the construction of beautiful viharas and temples, of beautiful paintings and great works of Buddhist philosophy. Further south in Baktria, Balkh grew into a city of famous opulence, her merchants traveling far afield with their carvans. Not far from the wealthiest commercial hub of the eastern Eftalid Empire, Piandjikent became a great palace city, famed for its opulent frescoed walls and sublime gardens. Ruled by the Satrap of Balkh, Queen Iashe's brother, it was said to have far surpassed Susa in beauty and decadence.

Across the Gozan river, which the Greeks called the Oxus, the Iranian peoples of Xvarazm did not perhaps welcome their overlords with open arms, but these were people not dissimilar from the Eftal - both had the same heritage, worshipped similar deities, and paid tribute to the Satrap in Piandjikent. They relied on their Eftal cousins for defense against the migrations which periodically came down from the steppe, and to that end, high walled fortresses, designed by Baktrian architects were constructed along the Gozan and leased to local dihqan (lords) and their retainers to guard.

The Celestial Tujue were growing in power on the horizon, but they had not yet come into contact with the Eftal in any violent way. The two powers enjoyed aimiable relations - nephews of the Tujue Qagan were fostered in Pianjikent, and one of the Satrap's sons, Ezwarhran, was married to a Tujue noblewoman. They preserved and protected the trade routes which wound through their territories, making a great deal of profit from this mutual security and respect. The latter half of the sixth century CE was a safe one for merchants, in contrast to the turbulent wars and upheaval of the first fifty years.

The other region which truly prospered was that of the Persian gulf, a region where few Eftal lived - a small ruling class of Eftal controlled a major route of trade, often with the help of Arabian mercenaries and Kidarite settlers. Temples to gods such as Mahadeva and Mithra were patronized heavily in this region, indicating the decline of Ahura Mazda and orthodox Zoroastrianism as ever more complex heretical, local traditions developed, incorporating new deities and spirits, and frequently accepting the concept of reincarnation - an idea which had been growing for some time. The Persian gulf was rich in poetry and art, sculpture and architecture. Like the East, it was a place where philosophical and scientific traditions could mix, but here also new agricultural activities - it is around this time that citrus plants began to be cultivated in Mesopotamia in large quantities. They would come to be an important ingredient in much of Iranian cooking.

Indian Ocean trade brought much wealth to the region. It was between 550-650 that the trading cities of Pangani, Rapta, Msasani, Shanga, and many others were founded in East Africa by Arabic, Persian, Marathi, and Tamil merchants and adventurers, often with the backing of the Hadhrami, who benefitted greatly from the new flow of ivory, slaves, gold, and spices. Even Javanese merchant vessels reached the Island of the Moon in this time period - by 600, there was a flourishing international trade across the ocean, financed by Persian and Arab merchants.



The Alans, the Armenians and the Loyalists

The Eftal-Roman wars were fought with large numbers of Alan mercenaries, but the Alans were a people under pressure. Their traditional homeland, across the Caucasus, was under threat by the Sahu tribal confederacy, an Iranic group who drove the Alans further south each year. By 546, they had reached the breaking point, and streamed through the Caucasian Gates - at first as a trickle of refugees, but eventually as a military force - into Armenia and Lazica. Aligning themselves with an opportunistic Abasgian prince, they conquered Lazica and many of the river valleys of Iberia.

Their attempt to penetrate Armenia and thus the Eftal Shahdom ended at the battle of Kumyari, when the Armenians repulsed the Alans relatively single-handedly. Since the early sixth century, Armenia's local lords, the naxarar, had enjoyed essential total autonomy within their region. When the Eftal had broke the back of the Sasanian Empire, they had not settled Armenia or even done more than acknowledge it as a vassaldom. However, within the past twenty years leading up to Kumyari, the Armenians had slowly been asserting their independence against a distracted Eftal regime. After the Eftal-Roman war, and the devastating plague which had effected their isolated mountain communities only lightly, they began to push their limits.

Kumyari was that limit. The Eftal had sent aid, of course, but it had been so late in coming that it had been irrelevant, and shortly thereafter the Eftal were driven out in a concerted uprising, lead by one Anastas Varazhnuni. Khauwashta now was forced to respond to this uprising of the Armenians - one which Anastas characterized in the language of religious war, rallying his people. He defeated Shah Khauwashta at the battle of Surenapat, and a second, primarily Iranian army in the battle of Xram, an ambush which saw the Satrap of Adurbadagan slain. By 552, the Armenian Kingdom was acknowledged as independent at the treaty of Dvin. Khauwashta, in spite of his legacy of economic prosperity and military reform, would see his legacy primarily defined by two unsuccessful campaigns - the stalemate against the Romans and defeat against the Armenians cemented his position in history, and overwrote his early victories on the steppe.

Retreating home battered and beaten, Khauwashta was incapable of preventing his own son-in-law, Akhshunwar, from overthrowing him with the assistance and complicity of his wife, Iashe, whose role in the coup would alternately be exaggerated or denied depending on the history one reads. Either way, Khauwashta's legacy would finally be an inglorious one, in spite of his many accomplishments. He was slain in 553 while hunting outside Susa. Akhshunwar II would not be crowned until a year later, after being forced to flee the capital by the "partisans of Khauwashta", he retreated to Pianjikent, where he raised an army of Sogdian and Xionite auxiliaries, gained the allegiance of the eastern Eftals, and rode back on Susa.

The loyalists were a mixed group, a scattering of Eftal and Persian aristocrats. Akhshunwar enjoyed broad support, no doubt to the clever scheming of his mother-in-law and the humiliation of Khauwashta in battle. Although Khauwashta's younger half-brother, Nijara led the loyalists, he failed to act decisively enough in this instance, and had never had any expectation of gaining the throne, nor was he willing to attempt to claim it once Akhshunwar did. This confusion of his intent doomed his movement from the beginning.

When Akhshunwar marched on Susa, Nijara and Khauwashta's loyalists fled. They attempted to find sanctuary in Ctesiphon, but the Satrap there kept the gates closed to them, and indeed sallied forth from his walls with his retainers, scattering the loyalists. Defeated, the loyalists retreated to Khishiwan, where they hoped to gain the loyalty of bedouin mercenaries and carry on a long war. But it was not to be. Akhshunwar proved to be a capable commander and an excellent politician - soon the local cities had turned against the loyalists, and to avoid an hopeless siege the loyalists fled into Arabia, reaching first Tayma, where they stayed for a few months, and then Yathrib.

This period is seen as the first low point in Eftal history, despite the blossoming of commerce and culture in the east and south. The loss of Armenia was a minor blow, perhaps more the confirmation of a long-established truth, and the migration of the Alans was a defeat for Roman interests just as much as Eftal interests - both sides had lost control over parts of the Caucasus they regarded as part of their hegemony. The Romans, of course, would send try to send forces to recover the territory of their lost vassals, but these forces were small and many of the most competent Roman generals were long past their prime. They ultimately settled for acknowledging the Alans as an ally, and making diplomatic overtures to the new Armenian state.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Akhshunwar II - (554-557)

Shah Akhshunwar II would ultimately, in spite of his remarkable charisma and savvy, fail to hold the Eftal Empire together. The first blow to his attempt to establish his legitimacy came mere months after his coronation. The Satrap in Piandjikent died, his only child by all accounts a "child in mind, slow to speak and slower still to comprehend" Akhshunwar thus appointed a new Satrap from his own household, a friend of his named Pharashapha to the position, but the local Eftal refused to acknowledge that fact, and Pharashapha was forced to go east with an army.

The new-made Satrap did not last a year after his arrival. He was overthrown and the forces under his command seem to have mutinied not long before. The east was quickly lost to Akhshunwar, and seemed to quite quickly rally around a new figure named Mihiragula. What we know of Mihiragula was that he was an Eftal, born somewhere in Sogdia. What is notable about him is the meteoric rise he enjoyed, seemingly becoming quite quickly a presence in the East. His earliest possible mention is as a young standard-bearer in the army of Khauwashta.

Akhshunwar traveled those territories still loyal to him, much as his predecessor Toramana had. He gained many allies in this way, and rallied a great number of men to his banner, but not so many as he had hoped. In a curious move, he seems to have tentatively embraced Christianity as a means of cementing his support amongst the economically powerful Mesopotamian cities. Knowing that the East was lost to him, he couched his hopes on the support of both ethnic Persians and Christians. Amongst the former he enjoyed modest success, and the latter were wary of the reprisals they might have suffered for aligning themselves with a lost cause, but many of the Nestorians among the Eftal flocked to his banner.

Soon, Mihiragula was on the warpath - gathering Tujue and Huna mercenaries and his own corps of war elephants, he marched west, gathering his own allies. In early 557, he marched through Gilan, and then struck south towards the royal capital at Susa.

The stage was set for a decisive battle, and it nearly transpired in Ahmatan. But ultimately, Akhshunwar refused to engage, beginning a long retreat which would see Susa fall after mere skirmishing. The true decisive battle would happen at Zabe on the Tigris, after Akhshunwar's tribal affiliates refused to retreat further. It would be quick but bloody, an affair in which Mihiragula gave no quarter to those who fought alongside with Akhshunwar. The usurper himself was captured and executed in a particularly grisly manner, the details of which no two historians seem to agree upon.

And thus Shah Mihiragula took the mantle of the Empire upon his shoulders.

"Primary Source"

From The Life of Kaosha, a text of unknown authorship, translated

Nijara, the loyalist of Khauvashtha had been given by his wife a beloved son by the name of Kaosha, who grew into a man of Persian features and accent. Nijara was a worshipper of fire, but his son was a mystic, and spent the latter days of his youth in a vihara at until the reign of Axsunavar the Usurper, when he joined his father in the house of the sons of 'Aus. His father was ill then, wounded at Tesifon, and would perish soon after. Ill-fortuned was Nijara indeed!

From there Kaosha took his companions southwards, saying to them "let us seek a fortune in this country, let us not wait for the one whose dominion is boundless to find us. Surely he shall murder us all if he comes upon this sanctuary." And so his men made themselves caravan guards and journeyed south under arms to old Marib, and further on to Aden, which was in those antique times subservient to the Hadhramaut.

The Malik of Aden did welcome them in secret, and give to them many lavish gifts. Khauvashtha is said had been an ally of his. With these gifts they lived in ease and the eyes of the world were not upon them, a blessed thing for hunted men. What a refuge is Aden! There they Kaosha came to meet the Teacher who called himself Sattiga, and the two became inseparable companions, the Krishna to his Arjuna.

When the Malik did make war upon the people ofSaylaq and the Habash in the country of mangroves, he sent Kaosha against the barbarians, and Kaosha set himself upon Saylaq and upon its taking made a ledger of the people there, accounting their numbers and their cattle. The ones the Hellenes called the Avalites were richest among them, and he aligned himself with their cause, striking down Abraha, who was King in Habash, and winning great victories and loading ships with plunder, which he sent to Aden as signs of his victory.

Then he marched south along the coast, and deep into the heartland, bringing low the cities he found there. He made himself a Shah of the barbarians, sitting at Amud, and giving lands to his followers.

A Shah in Africa

Our understanding of the Horn of Africa and the surrounding regions is prejudiced by the descriptions of the Greeks and the Arabs, who described a land of small cities, fractured and chaotic at the best of times. To the northwest was Axum, a state on the decline but nevertheless powerful in its own right as a local trade power. To understand Kaosha's peculiar campaign we can trace the history back to a single account, an anonymous history upon which most other accounts were subsequently based and embellished. What is clear is that the fragmented Cushitic peoples were brought under the unified sovereignty of the exiled Eftal prince and his retainers, who had seemingly been serving as mercenaries in the army of a local Adenite chieftain until they decided to strike out on their own.

Kaosha's army was a small, mixed group. Persian and Eftal aristocrats with fine equipment rode alongside South Arabian mercenaries and brigands. It was at its core a profit seeking mission - conquest for plunder and perhaps the potential for long-term wealth, if Kaosha was successful. Their enormous successes can be attributed to the disunity of the region and the relative decline of Axum. In any other period they would have been a mere footnote in history.

Most of the cities he would have found were quite different from what later historical accounts would describe. The Greek historian Maurianus gives us descriptions of urban areas that resemble the large cities of the Eastern Mediterranean - archeological evidence does not point to such a thing being plausible. Rather it would seem that the typical "barbarians" of the region were nomadic pastoralists, keeping herds of cattle and frequently engaging in low-level tribal conflicts. Kaosha's conquest of the region he called Awalastan generally ignored or made treaties with the nomadic peoples, conquering a few interior cities and many coastal outposts. These outposts were typically very small, trading cities traditionally bound up in the tribal structure of Somalia. But this was a rich country, wealthy in incense, gum, and spices as well as entrepot trade, and thus the conquest undoubtedly made Kaosha and his followers incredibly wealthy.

There was perhaps another motivation, however, one only hinted at in the early texts, and elaborated upon in the work of Maurianus, where the "heathen prophet" takes on a major role. One way or another, this religious impetus would feature prominently in Kaosha's actions and in archeological records of a temple to "the limitless great God" constructed in the city of Amoud. What Sattiga preached was it seems an Arabian influenced form of Shaivism, an iconoclastic pursuit of ecstatic unity with the divine impulse, and it was this which gave unity to Kaosha's small band of followers. On the other hand, the native peoples still worshipped gods not dissimilar to those of the pagan Hadhrami - temples and statues to the god Ilmuqah feature heavily in this period, and it seems probable that Kaosha and his Arab allies gave sacrifices to these traditional pagan gods as well, so as to better cement his legitimacy.

 

[Practical Lobster]

The fifth Eftal Shah

The end of the Akhshunwarid Dynasty and the ascendency of Mihiragula marks the beginning of the end of the chaos and transition which marked the reign of his predecessors. He maintained relative peace along the long, steppe border by choosing to continue to honor pacts made with the Celestial Tujue. This period of peace allowed for trade of both commerce and ideas with China and India.

The Gupta continued to preside over a golden age of art and culture even as their Empire collapsed and was reduced to a still-potent but much reduced regional power along the Ganges. Their decline paved the way for the era of the Kalachuri and the Vakataka along the coast, now freed from Gupta influence. Stone-cut Takasashila, still a great center of learning and Buddhist civilization was freed from the Gupta Empire in this period by an uprising which saw Gandhara ruled from Purushapura once more. The ruling dynasty, called the Johiyava Rajas seems to have had good relations with the Eftal, exchanging hostages and trade. The Johiyava developed a reputation as a warrior people and as patrons of Hinduism, and from time to time feuded with the Rai dynasty to their south and the Arjunayanas.

Meanwhile, the Western borders were far less peaceful. The Roman Empire was holding itself together but at increasing expense, her population only just beginning to recover from the plague. The Bulgar Samur Khan and the Langobard King Alboin were both now technically "allies" of Emperor Zeno, but the Balkans had not come under this great of a threat since the days of the Goths - and the Imperial diplomats were working overtime, trying to sew tensions between the patchwork confederations of tribes at their gates. This was perhaps far more successful than swords had been - the Utigurs invaded the territories of their kin and the resulting war would distract both parties. Meanwhile, certain nobles amongst the Langobards were elevated in status and formally given large estates in Dalmatia, a move intended to direct their loyalty more directly towards the Empire.

Seeking to restore the East to some measure of stability, the Roman Emperor began to work with King Anastas of Armenia, bringing order to the Caucasus and putting an end to Alan raids. The Emperor's niece married the son of King Anastas, and the Empire financed a joint fortification project.

Fearing that Armenia would fall into the hands of the Romans, Mihiragula had no choice but to begin to prepare for war. A successful war against the Romans would also solidify his legitimacy as Shah, and even an unsuccessful campaign would allow him opportunities to conveniently dispose of those who might still be loyal to Akhshunwar II. Striking secret pacts with the Alans and also a confederation of Arabian tribes, the Kindah, who would oppose the Banu Ghassan, Mihiragula went to war with the Romans in 559, not giving the Empire any time to catch its breath after the bloody wars in the Balkans.

Mihiragula set forth from Nisibin, and unlike his predecessors, he was triumphant, capturing Hierapolis and Edessa and striking into the very heart of the Empire.

To look at the reasons for his successes, it may help to look at the reasons previous Eftal Shahs failed. Akhshunwar was ruler of a vast territory only recently conquered, and his tribal army was not able to translate successful field battles into major gains of territory. Khauwashta faced a capable Roman army under a group of brilliant commanders. Mihiragula, by contrast, had a well-established state and a capable army, veterans of warfare on the eastern steppe. Many of the men under him had fought under Khauwashta as well, and Mihiragula was, if not a warrior like Khauwashta, a tactician and a statesman who could bring together the disparate peoples under his command into an effective fighting force.

Meanwhile, in the south Kindah would see few successes in their raids - they were on the decline by the late sixth century, but managed quite capably to disrupt the overland caravan trade between the Roman world and Arabia - concentrating this trade in the hands of the southern Arabians and their associated maritime city-states.

Third Eftal-Roman War

The Roman state, despite its exhaustion refused to give up without a fight. The eastern frontier troops proved ineffective at stopping the incursion of Mihiragula, despite their successes in preventing further Alan incursions into Asia Minor. The Eftal army enjoyed a series of easy victories and captured or extorted tribute from many cities in Syria and along the Euphrates. Then, Mihiragula swept south and met the Romans in battle at Pagrai. Here, the Roman army was utterly destroyed and the Eftal given "free license to do what they would with the whole of the Orient."

Antiokheia, a city in decline ever since the 526 earthquake, was taken shortly after Pagrai, a short siege ended by Iranian siege engineers. Mihiragula presided over a devastating sack, wherein many relics and great works of art were either captured or destroyed, and the city's already declining population massacred. Riding north, Mihiragula earned through diplomacy and overwhelming force the submission of the Cilician plain and crucially, the city of Tarsus.

A Roman army under the command of one of Hadrianus' former subordinates, Serenos, was sent into Asia Minor with a fresh army, veterans of the Balkan wars mixed with raw recruits. Serenos took a northerly route, hoping to link up with an Armenian army and force Mihiragula to commit troops further north, ideally granting time for the Romans to retake Syria. However, this plan failed. King Anastas was defeated by a General named Hiramaosha at the battle of Zarisat, and when the news reached Serenos he stalled, allowing Mihiragula to meet him in battle outside of Caesarea and, with that triumphant victory, Asia Minor lay open to the Eftal.

By spring 561, the Eftal had raided as far as Nikaia, devastating the Anatolian plateau and wreaking havoc. Around this time, Zeno II was deposed in a coup orchestrated by one Kallinikos, a Greek military officer who had served with distinction in a time where few officers had. Ruling as Flavius Callinicus Augustus, he was an active Emperor, spending much of his time personally ensuring the defenses of cities in Asia Minor. Still, it would take Kallinikos time to truly command the apparatus of state - having come to power in a coup, he was forced to move carefully and establish himself as a defender of Christendom from the pagan hordes, no matter how nuanced the reality of the situation was.

What he could not do is save the Orient. Mihiragula rode south, leaving Hiramaosha to oversee the raiding of Asia and vex the reformed Roman field armies there. Hiramaosha proved more than capable at this task, but ultimately was slowly forced back by Kallinikos, who personally led the Roman armies and pushed Hiramaosha back to Caesarea. Damascus fell easily, and after a long siege, Jerusalem was taken in January of 562.

The shock throughout the Roman world was immense. As one Roman playwright wrote, "Holy Jerusalem has fallen! Weep for all the generations of Christians, weep for the martyrs. The Hun have destroyed the object of all our vows. The Heavenly City lies destroyed." Exaggerated tales of massacres were spread, but in truth it seems that the region was not heavily depopulated, in contrast to the annihilation of Antioch - although the Patriarch was, according to our Greek sources, killed, and many holy relics taken as trophies of war.

Mihiragula, after erecting a great monument to his victory, praised both Shiva and Mithra for delivering him the victory, but his language was not one of religious war. The victory monument lists Jerusalem as one of many cities taken, and while he must have known the effect its conquest would have on his enemies, for him his war was an explicitly political one. By contrast, Kallinikos was whipping the Roman Empire into a religious frenzy. The heathen was at the gates, the vicious Huns stood poised to annihilate the very Empire.

Mihiragula would reach as far south as Gaza before turning north once more. Egypt, despite not having large armies at its disposal, was a tough nut to crack in the best of times, and attempts by the Eftal to encourage a popular uprising seem to have enjoyed little success.

Of course, the Eftal possessed no way to cross into Europe, and by the time Mihiragula linked up with Hiramaosha (leaving his new conquests under the often-feeble control of Persian garrison troops and new made local administrators), the Shah was on the back foot. Attacking deep into the Asia Minor three more times between 562 and 565, each time was met with less success - the Roman war machine remained capable and despite a series of brutal famines, there was no rioting in Constantinople or the provinces, and the Romans enjoyed victories as often as they suffered defeats.

A Roman embassy in 565 nearly achieved peace, but for Mihiragula's confidence in his ability to push on. Nearly his entire reign had been spent at war, and he had, at least on paper, enlarged and restored the Eftal Empire. Reincorporating Armenia as a vassal state after her King's crushing defeat and conquering the Orient had assured him of his invincibility. The tribute he demanded was crushing and utterly unrealistic, and Mihiragula expected to retain all of his tremendous territorial gains. Unwilling and quite likely politically unable to concede Jerusalem or allow the Empire to be severed and drained of all her incomes, Kallinikos had little choice but to fight on.

Mauri Africa and the Goths - the Western Mediterranean

While what remained of Rome burned, her heirs rose in power and prestige. Their merchants re-established old trade links and it seems that the coastal cities were some of the quickest to recover, even as the tribal kingdoms of the far interior began to decline and desiccate. Patronizing great philosophers and artists, the Mauri Kings also took to the increasing trend of monasticism, founding many new desert monasteries.

Isemrases II, King of Africa and Mauritania (r. 552-574) ruled a semi-feudal patchwork of tribal cities. Much of his reign was preoccupied with maintaining this status quo while also attempting to expand the paltry fleet at his command. Over his reign he would deal with six separate rebellions, the most famous of them seeing Tingis sacked. In the final of these rebellions, in 566, many tribes of the Gaetuli were enslaved and annihilated en masse for their role in assisting the rebels, finally establishing the dominance of the settled, Latin speaking coastal tribes.

Famously, Isemrases patronized the great artist Maisara, whose work began a revival of Roman art and architecture in the region, characterized by a unique Berber flair. Romano-African merchant ships could be seen in all the ports of the Mediterranean, and the city of Lilybaeum, despite nominal Roman rule, enjoyed a great resurgence as Berber traders set up shop. Sicily as a whole benefitted enormously from this Mauri "renaissance", and the Prefect of Sicily, a Greek by the name of Maurice enjoyed a close relationship with Isemrases, viewing the Africans as a counterweight to the Goths.

The Goths under Athalaric, the arrogant son of Eutharic, was enormously popular with his nobles because he lived as they lived, drank as they drank, and ultimately, died as they died, drinking himself to death six years after taking the crown in 548. By contrast, his father Eutharic's long life had been a distinguished one. But despite having beaten back the Romans to a mere toehold in Italy and fought long and hard against the Franks, he nevertheless ruled an increasingly divided state, his Goths forming a military aristocracy which, after the depopulation of Italy from war and plague, was totally entrenched, and slowly becoming Romanized.

Concurrently, the work of Cassiodorus helped bridge the divide between Roman and Goth, while also promoting a resurgence of classical thought. One of the notable philosophers of the period, his work would ultimately have a long-lasting impact. Founder of schools and monasteries, it was not until the short reign of Athalaric that he achieved high office, and shortly after Athalaric's death he disappears from the historical record into a quiet life of contemplation.


Edit: I just wanted to promise this is not becoming an Eftal-wank.

 

[Practical Lobster]

"Primary Source"

From the accounts of Khinjila [1] "The Peoples of the North and East"

From the city of Kasyar caravans come into the broader territory of the Ashina, who call themselves Celestial Turk, and are ruled by one Arslan Kaghan. Over that city is set no man in power, save the Khagan, but he has a minister in the city whose name is Niriryam, and from that source all power flows. Over the cities of the caravan road Niriyam has hidden strength, speaking with the voice of the Khagan. Kasyar is his home because it is the greatest of these cities which support the movement of caravans, and upon the border with our nations. It is home to many of the Sugd but also a thousand other peoples of the world.

Arslan Khagan is a victorious man. His father defeated the indolent peoples who called themselves Ruru[2], and Arslan has made peace with them, and they rule uneasily over a broad country in the south that was once the lands of Wei. The Ruru, once refugees, have become strong and arrogant in their hold, and rule from the city of Pinchayinj. Their ruler, whose name is Poulomen Teifa Qagan holds in his heart little desire to adopt the manners of the conquered Han, but it is vast territory he holds, and much of it he holds only weakly, with the aid of allies and federates. To his south is an empire of much wealth, but he cannot strike against it in strength, and this vexes him.

If one were to travel north from Kasyar, as a peerless and predatory bird might, over the rugged mountains and dry country without oases, one would come to the lands of the Qangli, who are federate to the Ashina as the Xionites were federate to Akhshunwar, but they keep kinship and are the "blacksmith slaves" of the Ashina. They have a great city which is Tarban, and there they trade with the Xvarezm, Sugd and our nations. There they have built a great ensemble of Buddhistic temples and great monuments, but there are also temples to the God of Mani, and regardless of where they prey the Qangli venerate Heaven still.
To the northwest of the Qangli are the lands of the Asvha, the newcomers, who are cousins of the Sahu and worship Surya[3] and Siavash. The Asvha are far-ranging and ride finer horses than their neighbors, but are federate to the Khagan of the Ashina nonetheless. They wear great conical hats and keep retainers as we do. When a great man of their tribe dies, he is buried with statues of his companions, that they might in some form preserve him. When they raid it is against the Xasar-Sahu, and they do this with the permission of the Turks. The Asvha do not push overmuch the Xasar, for the Xasar are perhaps four times again[4] more numerous than they, and rule a broad country of many waters.

The Xasar[5] are a people of many tribes, and their Khagan is named Itemei. Their ruling clan is the Sahu, but there are many Turks among them as well, and many Xiongnu, and many who were once Gaoche. The Sahu worship the countless gods, among them Anahita and the Moon. Their priests are women. Their subordinates worship the Sky and the Rain. As a people they are said to be great lovers of music and war, and take to these tasks in equal measure, training their children with fierce games of skill to be peerless with bow and sword when they come of age. They have no great love for the Eftal, for many of their kin died against the might of Khauwashta Shah of Shahs and his companions, but in truth they have no great love for any people of the world.

[1] One of the few (possibly) ethnically Eftal Historians of the period, little is known about him, except that he lived in Farghana, which was in his lifetime an autonomous tributary of the Eftal, and seems to have been part of an embassy of sorts.

[2] Or the Rouran Khaganate.

[3] Asvha would certainly not have called the Sun by the name of Surya. While their origin is unclear, they are an Iranian tribal people which emerged after the collapse of the Gaoche and Xiongnu.

[4] This is likely utter conjecture on the author's part, but the Xasar-Sahu Confederacy was certainly much larger than the Asvha alone, and was slowly but surely moving its way westward, causing a wave of displacements amongst the Sklaveni and Bulgar peoples.

[5] It should be noted that the Xasar-Sahu and OTL's Khazars, despite similar names have relatively little in common, both in ethnic makeup and origin.

565-568 In the Balance

Mihiragula had not managed to make a peace on the terms he wanted, but by the summer of 565, nothing seemed to be going against him. A rebellion in Judea had been beaten, just barely, by the Persian auxiliaries stationed there. One of his most trusted companions, Ariasb, ruled the Orient from Damascus, leading a small but veteran force of Eftal cavalry in continual attacks against the Arab allies of the Roman Empire. The Banu Ghassan, now cut off their allies, were crumbling. The Alans had begun raiding in force into Pontus, and he still held Caesarea. The past years had seen devastating raids into Roman territory, but also continual reversals.

Emperor Kallinikos was a capable commander, easily defeating Hiramaosha in both of the two occasions they had met in pitched battle. His legions were less adept at stopping prolonged raiding however, but the noose was closing. The Romans were hemming in Mihiragula, and the Eftal had been unable to take many cities in Asia Minor - disciplined Roman infantry and grain shipments from Egypt preserved the urban population, despite endemic rural famine and the devastation of Eftal raids.

After a year of further raids, in 566, Mihiragula decided it was time to force Kallinikos to battle. The Eftal track record against the Romans in pitched battles was historically excellent. Field engagements, even if they had not been decisive or war-winning, frequently resulted in the depletion of Roman manpower and might free him up to carry the war further westward.
The two armies maneuvered for several months until finally, Kallinikos took the bait and moved to intercept Mihiragula near the city of Mokissos. The commander of the Roman vanguard, one Athanasius, fell on Mihiragula's camp in the earliest hours of the morning, and despite a spirited defensive holding action by the Gilani mercenaries, Mihiragula was forced to arrange his forces in relative disarray and confusion. The Romans had managed, against the odds, to leave him blind as to their approach until it was too late for Mihiragula to take command of his army. The Eftal were forced to react to new events, rather than decide their own strategy.

Both armies were ponderously large. Kallinikos had brought three separate forces together to intercept the Shah, and Mihiragula commanded a vast field army which even at the best of times required individual initiative from his commanders to work in concert. As the Eftal forces arrayed and countered the Roman attack, the remainder of the Roman army arrived and drew up for battle. Kallinikos brought his cavalry down on the Eftal flank, scattering the Persian and Baktrian cavalry. Mihiragula might have attempted to sound a retreat, but the his experience with Akhshunwar II and also the relative disorganization of his forces reminded him that any retreat could be a disaster.

So the Eftal fought on.

"Batzas, the Emperor's brother-in-law, took a spear in the thigh, and fought on until he was dragged from his horse. His bodyguards recovered him with great losses, while the Prince of the Hephthalites brought forward the lances of his companions and made a great charge against our right. When the lances were broken and lost the Hepthalites with their cudgels and their axes bled our legions hard." - Dioscorus of Sardis

It is unclear who the Prince of the Hephthalites was in this context, as Mihiragula had four sons of roughly similar ages, but it probably Varhran, the most martial of them. What is clear is that the Eftal and Romans both broke each other's flank and the two armies began to slowly pivot around a central axis, until a large contingent of Bulgar mercenaries aligned with the Romans began pillaging the Hephthalite camp, and in the confusion were caught by a significantly smaller force of Persian infantry and massacred. After this, the Roman army retreated, and the Eftal were too disorganized to follow up on their (admittedly qualified) victory.

The situation in Asia Minor was ultimately unchanged. Despite the large size of the battle, it seems that almost every unit on both sides was present at later engagements. The Battle of the Camp, as it became known, was indecisive, and the two brilliant tacticians in overall command seemingly had only a limited impact in the actual engagement.

The next two years would see further raiding and pillaging. The Roman armies were depleted of manpower, and in 567, Mihiragula would sack Ikonion, Sozopolis, and Pessinous, but he did not get to hold them for more than a few months. Pessinous massacred the garrison left behind, and a Roman army recaptured Ikonion and Sozopolis. Kallinikos waged a defensive war which saw a battle outside Ankyra go in his favor, and 568 saw the Romans take Caeserea back. The Eftal were pushed out of Asia Minor, and the Romans rejoiced.

Meanwhile, a Roman fleet arrived at Laodikea in Syria, and the Christians there overthrew the small Persian garrison and resisted a siege by Ariasb. Unable to gain the city's walls with his unreliable levies and unwilling to force his few Eftal and Kidarite horsemen to dismount and attack the walls, Ariasb was forced to tolerate the loss and send petitions to the Eftal commander at Nisibin for aid and reinforcements. But reinforcements were few on the ground, a sign of the toll caused by the continual warfare.

The Homefront

Mihiragula had spent only two years out of the first ten years of his reign inside the de jure borders of his Empire. Two of his sons, Vinayaditha and Faganish, seem to have ruled in his stead. Our Persian historians record that Vinayaditha was a scholarly man, an administrator, and patronized Iranian artists and philosophers. It is perhaps for this reason that he is regarded favorably, while Faganish gets little mention and is often characterized as a drunken and incompetent child. However, the Eftal historian Khinjila reports that Vinayaditha was a coward who let his wife run the affairs of state, not unlike Khauwashta, and praises Faganish and Varhran for their "manly virtues". The fourth son, Toramana, receives little note in the historical record, save that he was raised among the Turks and married a woman of Turkic royalty.

Despite these disputes, trade and tax revenue seem to have declined under the "Rule of Sons" as this era is often known. War with the Romans hurt trade and the Hadhrami and the Kaoshid Shahdom benefited immensely from this, becoming the gateway for Roman-Indian trade. A small border conflict with some of the cities of the Tarim Basin and the Shah of Farghana further exacerbated the situation.

This was, however, the beginning of the Eftal Golden Age. Economic hardship aside, many of the famous Persian artists, philosophers, and mathematicians patronized by Vinayaditha would revolutionize their fields. Formerly of aristocratic families but denied their traditional role, these scholars would go into Buddhist and Christian monasteries or local courts and palaces, and there produce great works. A joint Eftal-Persian culture was being born, a true synthesis of the two peoples.

 

[Practical Lobster]

War and Aftermath
Ariasb, the de facto governor of Palestine and Syria, would receive no relief. Rebellion, not of the Christian majority but rather the Jewish minority in Galilee, further aggrivated an already collapsing situation. Urgent letters were sent to Mihiragula, but without joy. Jerusalem fell late in 568, and Caesarea fell early in 569. While it is unclear just how many Jews participated in the rebellion, what is clear is that the Christian population was as likely to see vicious reprisals as the small Iranian garrisons. This period of communal violence was particularly directed against the urban, Hellenized population, and the rebellion itself was more opportunistic than motivated by a desire to escape Iranian rule - the Jewish population believed, quite accurately, that the Eftal were losing, and that simultaneously the Romans were too weak to regain their lost ground.

By the summer of 569, much of Palestine was lost, and Ariasb chose to concentrate on holding Syria. He retook Laodikea and, riding south to Tyros, began fortifying it and many of the other Christian cities of Lebanon for a siege. Compared to the bitter, hostile reception the Eftal typically received, the population of Tyros welcomed Ariasb with open arms, our Iranian sources report. It was, however, a ruse. Ariasb and his retainers were murdered in their beds, and with that blow, uprisings in Syria became general. While many among the Syrian population were not overly pleased with Roman rule, the Eftal were old enemies, and had done little to ingratiate themselves with the occupied populace, preferring to loot and pillage the countryside and occupy the cities, levying tributes from them not dissimilar to Roman taxes. As such, in the wake of these rebellions, the Eftal were forced to commit additional forces, and Mihiragula was incensed.

Shortly thereafter, the Shah, by way of one of his companions, engaged the Jewish leaders in negotiations, agreeing to recognize their small state in exchange for peace and their support. It is clear that Mihiragula still had notions of incorporating Roman Syria into his Empire, and his reprisals, motivated chiefly by the death of his companion and friend, when they came, were swift and brutal. His philosophy seems to have been that fresh settlers from the East were always available.

Kallinikos, meanwhile, attempted to invade Cilicia. After taking many of the fortified places of the rocky uplands, he descended east into the plains and there Mihiragula met him in another battle, and this time was triumphant, scoring the decisive victory he had long hoped for. The Roman infantry were massacred and Kallinikos barely escaped with his life. The Battle of the Pyramus River, as it became known, was yet another in a long list of catastrophic battles for two Empires which could ill afford them.

Mihiragula's army was a shadow of the force that had begun the war. Eleven years of bloodshed had weakened his core of retainers, and there were simply not fresh Eftal warriors to replace them any longer. Mercenaries and Persian auxiliaries both cost money, and the latter were of often unreliable quality. In 570, Mihiragula sought peace, and this time, Kallinikos agreed. Increased threat of Slavic migration and Bulgar raids seem to have played as much of a factor as any, and Mihiragula finally abandoned his hold on Syria, settling for a reduced conquest which nevertheless brought much of the Euphrates under formalized Eftal control, including the cities of Edessa and Samosata. Further, a great sum of wealth was paid to the Eftal Shah.

The "Rule of Sons" was only saved by this large influx of wealth - wealth which allowed the Eftal dynasty to continue its patronization and give some measure of relief to the mercantile class. With the end of the war, trade experienced a brief revival as well, but the damage to the Eftal Shahdom had already been done, and it was unclear if the Shahs could recover. Mihiragula found himself a peacetime ruler now, a position he was unaccustomed to. His sons, meanwhile, had grown accustomed to the power and status they enjoyed in the long absence of their father, and relations at court were strained to say the least.

Kallinikos, meanwhile, moved south and put down the Jewish rebellion with ruthless efficiency, restoring Jerusalem to Christian rule for the first time in many years. The Emperor spent several months in the city, treating it as an extended pilgrimage before returning to Constantinople victorious. The Empire was restored.

Culture and Society

It was in this time that the differences between the Eftal and the Iranian aristocracy truly started to become minor. Like so many conquering nomadic peoples before them, the Eftal were losing their distinct culture. Few enough of them were truly nomads now in any case - the Eftal had become landholders, distinct from their subject peoples such as the Kidarites who in many cases had not abandoned their cattle-herding lifestyle.

The Eftal had always been willing to dwell in cities and adapt to the lifestyle of settled peoples and this willingness was part of what would see their unique identity and customs begin to disintegrate. Unlike some of his predecessors, there is no indication Akhshunwar II or Mihiragula bound their heads in the traditional Eftal style. The new Eftal dressed no differently than their settled Iranic subjects, and generally adopted their languages with ease.

It was in religion that the Eftal imparted the greatest changes to society. The Eftal firmly entrenched their own particular sorts of Sogdian inspired Buddhism and Shivaist Hinduism throughout the eastern part of their domains, and granted Buddhism a foothold as far west as Mesopotamia, although there many of their settlers ultimately became Nestorian Christians. Zoroastrianism would undergo, if not decline, significant changes.

Those in urban centers, particularly the artisan and merchant classes, were some of the first either accept Buddhism or begin worshipping Mahadeva, but the aristocracy and the bureaucracy, by the time of Khauwashta was following suit. The cult of Zurvan remained prevalent and powerful, and even Mazdakism remained - although slowly but surely it lose ground, becoming a series of isolated, cultic communities. Traditional Zoroastrianism would become the faith of the rural peasant, appealed to in times of domestic upheaval and rebellion. The paganism of the Eftal however, would never truly die out. Mithra and other such gods would find their place among the Buddhist teachings most popular in the Eftal Shahdom.

The willingness of the Eftal to settle many conquered peoples or tribal federates in their territory, often very far afield, was a practice as old as the Middle East, but the Eftal used it to great effect. Many of the migratory peoples who came against them ultimately found themselves living alongside their conquerors, and these migrations would have a profound impact on the culture and demographics of places like Mesopotamia, creating a new aristocracy out of settled Turkic and Iranic peoples, subordinate to the Eftal and a critical supply of manpower which contributed to the enduring legacy of the Eftal as these transplanted peoples gradually found themselves identifying with their new overlords, becoming "Eftal" in spite of their varied origins.

The meaning of the word Eftal thus became an expansive one, a broad term for all the formerly nomadic peoples who came to settle across what had once been the Sasanian Empire. And thus the Eftal would endure long after the collapse of the great Eftal Shah, as both a visually distinct ethnic group and a reliable source of soldiers and mercenaries, even as they culturally assimilated into the majority population. However, as time went on, even the visual distinctions would fade - intermarriage with the locals had always been a part of the Eftal strategy for rulership.

Vultures Circling

In the aftermath of the Gupta Emperor Narasimhagupta Baladitya seizing much of the Hindu Kush from the "Sveta Huna", the Eftal had never been capable of reclaiming it. The land of the Kamboja was simply beyond their reach, high mountain passes unsuitable for cavalry. In another world they might have passed into India through those passes, but no sooner did the Gupta collapse than another dynasty had arisen to fill their place, and they were dynamic and powerful.

The Johiyava represented a blend of cultures and traditions. Fearsome warriors, famed for their cavalry and archers, their regime in Purushapura might have paid a small annual tribute to the Eftal, but they were independent in law as well as fact, even if they gave lip-service to the notion of being yet another satrap, they were a native Gandharan dynasty, and they did not allow the Eftal to extend their dominion south into the subcontinent.

Vexed in their own attempts to expand south, the Johiyava would ultimately come to make their mark on Baktria as one of the many vultures circling the Eftal Empire, waiting for a sign of weakness. By 575, they were raiding the Eftal in turn, and the once mighty Shahdom was having considerable trouble stopping the horsemen, warriors of the Asvaka clan, and their lightening attacks out of the mountains. Despite not enjoying the official sponsorship of the Raja Anandakumara, they were nevertheless protected once they entered the Hindu Kush, and thus proved a major thorn in the side of the Satrap of Balkh.

Piandjikent sent an embassy to the Raja, and when it was ill received, there was little the Satrap could do but raise additional retainers and hope to keep the situation under control. Shah Mihiragula sent additional soldiers, primarily Iranian mercenaries, but that appears to be the extent of his involvement.

The Asvha, an Iranian nomadic group not dissimilar from the Eftal, meanwhile had begun raiding into Xvaresm, taking the great wealth in livestock of the pastoralist peoples there. While their raids were ultimately of little consequence in the grand scheme of things, it is certainly symptomatic of the times and perhaps also deteriorating relations between the still-expanding Gokturks and the Eftal Shahs.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Splinterings

Mihiragula died in 572, succeeded by his son Varhran, who was not his eldest but was perhaps the most like him of his sons. It might seem remarkable to some observers that this choice did not lead to civil war or conflict, but the Eftal laws of succession tended to permit no objection to the Shah's choice, and Varhran was given many offices shortly before the death of his father, offices that allowed him to consolidate his power.

Vinayaditha, Mihiragula's eldest son is the only one to remain in the historical record, a noted traveler and patron of the arts and sciences, presiding over the blossoming of art and culture in western Persia which would continue roughly until the end of the century. He spent his final years (it would seem he died relatively young) retired in the Vihara of Syarzur.

Varhran was not a capable administrator, though he seems to have been beloved by the Eftal elite. Inscriptions and monuments from his reign praise a variety of pagan gods, chiefly Mithra, who seems continually favored by the Eftal, but also "the fellowship in dharma, the gift of the dharma" and other Buddhist ideas - ideas which, co-opted by the Eftal Shahs, provided an ideological framework in which their polytheism could still endure.

Varhran was incapable it would seem, of maintaining the carefully orchestrated centralization of his predecessors. Increasingly the far-flung satrapies of his Empire were autonomous in all but name, and he was incapable of reigning in the Johiyava raiders. The plunder won by the various clans of the Johiyava served to allow Raja Anandakumara to increase his own power by extracting a tribute or tax upon the loot, and in time it was the Raja's own clansmen who were coming down from their mountain strongholds to take caravans. While the Johiyava did not leave a detailed record of their history, their stele record Anandakumara's "victories" in great detail, praising the gods for his conquests - conquests which seem to have in truth amounted to raids, but raids that nevertheless had a great disruptive effect on trade. The Kidarites were granted a tributary sort of sovereignty over the regions of Sakastan and Kerman in this time, an attempt to guard against the raids of the warlike clansmen of the Hindu Kush.

In 574, Eftal histories mark an attack of Piandjikent by a Turkic clan. An unimaginable event a few decades ago, the defeat of the Satrap of Sogdia left the region open to Turkic invasion. A Qa'an named Tulan, of unknown origin struck deep into the heart of the region, seemingly with the consent of the Gokturks, and though he was ultimately repulsed, even in defeat he sparked a great migration of refugees towards the safety of the west. It was around this time that the government in Susa began granting their vassals and Satrapies increased powers designed to curb perceived anarchy in the East.

Much of this newfound autonomy was because Varhran was struggling with affairs in the West - attempting to reform the tax code and bring in new revenue from trade. These attempts would be broadly unsuccessful, in no large part because Varhran had little understanding of mercantile affairs, and left his reform programs to cronies whose policies would have depressive effect on trade (while lining their own pockets) and lead to simmering resentment among the Iranian merchants of the Persian gulf. Ultimately, faced with declining revenue, Varhran turned to state-sponsored raiding of Rome, perhaps eager to relive his glory days as a cavalry commander rather than a Shah.

By 576, the Asvha seem to have been given the region of Xvaresm to rule as a vassal - a not uncommon arrangement similar to that struck with the Johiyava and the petty Shah of Farghana. Subsequent records would call the region, or perhaps merely the territory immediately to the north, around the Aral sea, Asvhastan, a name that seems to have stuck for some time.

This loss of prestige and central authority was by no means total. Although history records riots in the Mesopotamian city of Sumra, the West was relatively calm, although the Satrap of Edessa began raiding Syria and Asia Minor once more in the early 580's, and other border tribes followed suit not long afterwards. The notable efforts of atribal warlord named Heshana are first recorded in this time, during a period of relative anarchy in both the Eftal and Roman Empires where such independent figures could prosper. Although the East began to assert additional autonomy in the face of nomadic incursions, this autonomy also seems to have been largely successful in enabling the preservation of at least nominal Eftal authority in the region. Some of the eastern satraps might have been emboldened by newfound kingly powers, but they still used those powers to preserve the status quo, by and large.

Migrations

The Balkans, long depopulated, were saved from invasion during the Eftal-Roman war by adept diplomacy and clever trickery - Roman garrisons were made to seem far larger than they actually were, and the Roman army engaged in frequent patrols, giving the illusion of strength.

But in truth, such strength simply no longer existed. The devastated eastern regions of Anatolia were no longer available for mass recruitment, and Syria and Thracia were similarly depopulated by constant war. Paltry Roman garrison troops were the only reinforcements Emperor Kallinikos could expect if the barbarians crossed the Danube in force - the main body of his army was concentrated in the Orient, and when his advisors informed him that the situation in the Balkans was deteriorating, he was forced to deplete the army of the Orient to bring the Roman forces in the Balkans up to respectable levels.

Vitalian and Zeno had been willing to acknowledge the Langobards as Imperial allies in Pannonia and Dalmatia, and despite their best attempts to preserve the uneasy balance of power, the Langobards had only grown in strength, and when Audion, their loyal ally died in 568, the certainty of Langobard fidelity vanished overnight. Alboin, his son and heir, was a different, more ambitious figure even than his famously ambitious and successful father. To say that Alboin could not be relied upon to be a reliable Roman ally was an understatement.

Countless allies flocked to the new king's banner. What remained of the pagan Gepids were cowed by force into serving Alboin, and the Sklaveni and many Iranian Bulgar tribes were willing to work with him. With the Xasar-Sahu wreaking havoc on the steppe, the Khans knew their time was running out. Being on the other side of the ancient Roman fortifications looked to many disparate peoples to be the best way to avoid subjugation under the Xasar yoke.

And thus Alboin openly invaded his former allies, striking a devastating opening blow to an already devastated Empire. The Roman commanders generally refused to give him the field battle he desired, but the Langobards proved adept at besieging and taking Roman fortresses nonetheless. Certain cities, such as Thessalonica, Athens, and Corinth did not fall, but the hinterlands were nevertheless taken, and cities such as Sardike and Stoboi suffered sacks from which they did not quickly recover. In many cases the already small Greek populations, much diminished by constant raids and pillaging, were subsequently massacred, making way for Hunnic and Slavic settlers. The Langobards generally were less brutal in their conquests, but they displaced many Greeks nonetheless.

Kallinikos, who had originally based his claim to the Roman throne on his ability to push back the barbarians, was forced to respond - and yet his response came slowly, perhaps owing to his exhaustion after years of uninterrupted campaigning. He stalled, trying to raise additional forces to counter the Langobards and their countless allies. Despite a few early successes, which gave his men hope that he would repeat his great victories in the East here, he slowly retreated back towards Adrianople in the face of Alboin's army. At Adrianople, however, he fought a major battle against the Langobard King and won. His numerically inferior but disciplined veteran forces fought their way out of an encirclement by the enemy Bulgar cavalry and saved the day - but at a terrible cost. In the confused barbarian rout that followed, Kallinikos was knocked from his charging horse and suffered a terrible blow to the head.

Our Greek sources report the Emperor was not quite the same afterwards. His sub-commanders were forced to intercede, and though many of them were capable and experienced, they lacked the Emperor's personal charisma, and the tide of the barbarians was simply too great. They would ultimately retire to Constantinople, using the Roman fleet to ensure that the Peloponnese would not be taken, and reinforce the garrisons of many yet-untaken coastal cities.

Alboin never attempted to besiege Constantinople himself. After his defeat at Adrianople, he seems to have lost the confidence of his many allies, allies he desperately needed. The coalition he had designed was splintering, carving out their own autonomous tribal states. His own Langobards received the lion's share of course, choice lands in Thessalia, Macedonia, and Epirus, but his Slavic vassals would prove far more unruly in the north than he could have intended. The Kutrigurs themselves now ruled an expansive, wealthy territory on either side of the Danube and their Khan did not acknowledge Langobard superiority at all.

The long term ramifications of this invasion were huge. While the long-established, populous cities of the East proved relatively more invulnerable to Germanic and Slavic invasion than their western counterparts, and the Langobardi contented themselves with ruling the interior, the cultural heart of Hellenic civilization was forced to shift further East. The general devastation of the very center of Hellenism would mark the true "end of antiquity" and the emergence of something new. What the new era would bring was as of yet unclear, but it seemed certain that it would not be peaceful.

Two regions of the Empire were relatively unspoilt by war - the Diocese of Asia, and the Diocese of Egypt. Both were wealthy and ancient, heirs to far older traditions than that even of Rome, and both had avoided the worst of conflicts that had brought their neighbors to unprecedented lows. Egypt, however, had the unique distinction of being essential to the feeding of Constantinople- so essential to the continued function of the Empire was the province that the military and civil offices of the province were often combined - as indeed they were under the Prefect Anastasios, an old comrade-in-arms of Emperor Kallinikos, who was also the commander of the armies of the Diocese.

Despite the alienation the Miaphysite majority of Egypt had experienced under past Emperors, Anastasios proved to be a capable administrator and diplomat, finely attuned to the religious views of his majority populace. More than any religious council, he managed to reconcile the Miaphysites to a degree through clever negotiations and a willingness to give Miaphysite leaders positions within his administration. In no small part, Anastasios' negotiations and political savvy prevented the province from breaking into outright rebellion when the Eftal had invaded, despite a series of devastating riots in the countryside, riots only put down with the use of brutal force.

However, in 572, these riots occurred again, this time breaking out into open civil war. A massacre of Roman administrators in the province cut off the grain supply to Constantinople yet again during a time of crisis. The great cities of the Mediterranean were forced to buy vital foodstuffs from Berber merchants who made exploitative profits selling North African grain during the time of unrest. The government in Constantinople was forced to dispatch additional soldiers to Egypt, and dissent was brewing in the ranks.

The Anatolian army, having gone without pay for some time, erupted into open rebellion shortly thereafter, acclaiming one of their own sub-commanders, Constantine, as Emperor. Kallinikos, who seems to have been a mere figurehead after Adrianople, nevertheless maintained the fanatic loyalty of his forces in Constantinople and much of the fleet as well. Constantine, like Vitalian before him, was forced to consolidate his hold on Anatolia, but was unable to cross the Bosporus and take the Imperial capital. He was enormously fortunate, and perhaps crafty, in that the Eftal were too distracted to take advantage of the chaos in the Roman Empire, and his forces moved into Syria, wresting much of the devastated province of Oriens from Kallinikos' prefect there, Julian Menas.

The Emperor's advisors, however, began to see which way the winds of change were turning. In the night, they fled south with much of the fleet, arriving in Egypt, where Anastasios welcomed them hospitably. However, the Emperor did not live long after his flight, and seems to have passed away two years later, in 574 - and a final blow to his legitimacy came early in the same year, when Constantine finally was welcomed into Constantinople, having built his own fleet and pushed the Imperial fleet out of the Aegean, at least. Constantine seems to have had little desire to remain in Constantinople - he clearly had ambitions to retake the Balkans, but those came secondarily to restoring the supply of grain to the capital cut off when Kallinikos fled to Constantinople.

Anastasios ultimately would, at the urging of the late Emperor's staff and advisors, take on the mantle of Empire, but favored the Greek title of Autokrator. Ruling out of Alexandria, he secured Crete and Cyprus, and Palestine to his regime, but Anatolia and parts of Syria, as well as what remained of Greece, were lost to him. Constantine attempted to march south into Palestine in 575, and indeed, made it as far as Gaza before he was repulsed, and Anastasios never attempted a similar invasion, although he did take Damascus and Phoenicia back in the aftermath of Constantine's failed invasion. The two regimes regarded themselves warily across the Mediterranean, in time referred to by historians as the Anastasian and the Constantinian Roman Empires.

Constantine, for his part, barely held on to his throne in the aftermath of his failed invasion of Palestine. Despite a near-mutiny of his forces, and a rebellion in what remained of Roman Syria, he managed to retain control of the apparatus of state, and both Emperors were forced to acknowledge each other's dominion for the time being. No sooner than tentative peace was signed than Constantine was forced to march into Pontus to deal with Alan incursions there, a task he would only be partially successful in, due to minimal manpower and a small budget.

Almost none of the Emperor Constantine's reign would be spent in Constantinople, a city which declined in population during this period, failing to recover from the Egyptian Plague even in an era when many of the other cities of Asia Minor finally did so. It must be stressed this is due in no little part to the role which Anastasios played - maintaining an indefinite grain embargo cost the city dearly. Constantinople, like Thessalonica many other Roman cities, continued in unchecked decline as the Romans lost their influence in the Balkans and around the northern rim of the Black Sea. While these massive cities were still well-defended (Constantinople in particular famed for her land walls) and large compared to the urban centers of the West, they nevertheless suffered and lost much of their former prestige.

A Look to the West

Sicily, meanwhile, under the Prefect Maurice, at this point severed ties with Constantinople. It seems, from various Roman historians and inscriptions left in the city of Panormus, that Maurice began ruling with the title of Dux, and paying a small tribute to the Mauri Rex in Africa. Maurice, a capable administrator and general, is recorded as having defied a Gothic attempt to reclaim southern Italy, with no small assistance from the Mauritanians, who by 570 had truly begun projecting military power outside of their holdings in Africa.

The Gothic Rex Theodoric II was killed in this war, beginning a period of fifteen years known as the "Regency" where his infant son was raised by his wife, Matasuntha, and she seems to have exercised relative power over the regime. It was, by all accounts, a peaceful era. The young Rex, Alaric, was betrothed to a Frankish princess from the age of five onwards, and the Ostrogoths and Franks solidified their border - something that cannot be said for their Hispanic cousins, who waged a series of bloody borders wars against the Franks, contesting the ownership of the city of Narbo and its hinterlands.

Matasuntha's regency was a time of peace and increasing Romanization. Gothic aristocrats with ever more Romanized names become more and more common, and despite religious differences, Italy in the late sixth century was a peaceful region recovering from the devastation of plague and war. With Berber grain, depopulated cities began to experience a revival. Between 575 and 590 was a period of uninterrupted prosperity, and though Rome might have been a shadow of her former glory kept aloft only by the Papacy, a traveler to sixth-century Ravenna or Milan might well have thought that the Roman Empire had never fallen.

[In response to the comments, Glad everyone still likes what's happening and sorry, Abe, the poor Jewish state was doomed from the outset - it barely even got to be a state before Kallinikos got at it again.

As for the next update, Constantine tries to retake the Balkans from the Lombard yoke, a look what's going on in Africa, and maybe some more India. Haven't quite decided yet.]

 

[Practical Lobster]

Next post, and well... it's a big one. Didn't get to many of the things I'd like to cover, and didn't cover others in nearly as much detail. I'm going to need to go back and fill in some of the blanks, and also I think it's about time I make a map about what's going on.

Kaosha's Legacy and African Trade Revisited

Alone of the regions impacted by the Eftal, the Eastern shore of Africa remains shrouded in myth. Although the late sixth century is the era in which the region which would become known as Awalastan came into its own, its true founding is obscured by local history of questionable authenticity. From the city of Amoud, Kaosha Shah changed history, but the narratives of his life are of unknown authorship, although his followers might have claimed that Sattiga, the "Teacher" wrote them.

Kaosha came into his own against a backdrop of rising Hadhrami and declining Axumite fortunes - and thus it can be little surprise that almost until the end he remained aligned with the Malik of Hadhramwt and his interests, and fought Axum, or "Harsha" at every turn. His armies enjoyed qualitative superiority over the locals, and he made great use of that - his elite band winning triumphs over much larger armies time and again, even until his death. Kaosha ultimately broke the tribal society that governed the rural hinterlands, creating a hydraulic empire based upon urban developments. It was no easy task, but it was an impressive legacy.

But this period of glory could not last. Kaosha had a son, Nijara, named after his grandfather, whose rule would be not that of a holy figure but rather a secular ruler by all accounts. Taking power in 575, Nijara was a young man born into a society that would have been utterly alien to his ancestors, a fascinatingly bizarre mix of Persian and Arabian rites, all overseen by the now decrepit figure of Sattiga, and his "limitless divine" to which the Shah and his retainers paid tribute. Indian travelers and merchants, often heterodox themselves, nevertheless found the world of Nijara Shah an incredibly strange one. Awalastan was a land of scattered entrepot cities dominated by control of water and a small, privileged cultic elite, and though it was in the midst of transformative flux and radical centralization, the trends begun here would carry resonance across the African continent.

Further south, the same merchants who patronized Awalastan were founding colonial ports. Increasingly these Arab and Hindu merchants were settling down, building temples to their gods, but more importantly, infrastructure to regulate and promote commerce with the tribes of the interior. Ivory and gold, jewels and spices would make these merchants (and to a lesser degree the tribal groups they aligned themselves with) incredibly wealthy - especially the Arabs, who opened this new market up to the insatiable desire of Egypt and by extension the entire European West.

It was a polyglot land, a land settled by Arabian pagans and Jews, Buddhists and Hindus who crossed the black water. The polities that would eventually develop would be Indianized to varying degrees, but their language would co-opt words most liberally from Arabic, and their culture would be an unrecognizable synthesis of ideas from across the world. By the mid-seventh century, they would call themselves Savahila, and their city states formed a coalition of interlinked, truly global and cosmopolitan trade powers in a region otherwise filled with petty kings focused on regional interests. Across the sea ruled the Rajas of Shakilava, on the island the Arabs called Al-Komr, and the Hindus called Karnara. Their rule was not absolute, but a hegemony of tribes. They farmed rice and many fruits adjusted well to their tropics, and traded wood and precious metals.

Migrations and Consolidation

It is difficult, for various reasons, to discuss the existence of states in the Balkans. While there were certainly monarchs, most notably Alboin of the Langobards and the Khan of the Kutrigurs, the Slavic and Gepidae tribes tended to raid and move as they chose, with little regard for these hierarchies. Alboin's own Langobardi had established the rudiments of a centralized, almost proto-feudal state, their warriors providing garrisons for the Roman cities they conquered and taking for themselves land grants, but this did not prevent the Slavs from raiding, both into what constituted Roman territory and also north on occasion, into Gothic Italy. While many tribes, notably the White Sklaveni and Vaioniti, were willing to serve Langobard interests, many others did not.

To his north, Khan Bayan ruled over the Danube forts, but it seems under his rule they fell into a state of relative disrepair. In contrast to Alboin, who seems to have ruled as a settled lord after the initial invasion, the Kutrigurs kept many rich pasturelands and their Khan and his warriors remained mobile. Many of the Slavic tribes were forcibly made vassals of the Kutrigurs, including the Dragoviti and Marvatsi. With these vassals, Khan Bayan was able to successfully push south and sack Adrianople, which at the time was still Roman city loyal to Constantine. The path now lay open to Constantinople as well - but such a siege was beyond the capacity of the Kutrigurs, who like the Langobards were more concerned with solidifying their power.

Further, the Pannonian provinces of the Langobard patrimony were under attack at this same time - the Avars exploited the power vacuum to great effect, subduing those Germanic and Slavic peoples they found residing in a broad swath of territory west of the Carpathians. A scattering of Langobardi federates were defeated at the Battle of the Tisia River were the only major opposition they faced - Alboin was too busy fighting in Macedonia to react quickly to their incursions, and the Avars and their allies raided as far as Aemonia before they were turned back. They took ancient Tarsatica and Siscia as well, and after Khagan Anakuye made a pact with the Kutrigur Khan, King Alboin realized the threat might well be a mortal one. He and his warriors turned north, but after an indecisive campaign he was forced to return south. He would winter his troops in Dyrrhachium during the notably hard winter of 576, and the next summer he would attempt to negotiate with both his fellow warlords, with limited success. In the end he would be forced to concede the loss of Pannonia, and it was perhaps not the blow the histories seem to make it out to be - refugees fleeing the Avars were quickly and easily incorporated into his army, and despite his failed campaign, his army swelled with their numbers. These new recruits, despite their mixed origins, would prove far more loyal than the tribal "vassals" who prided themselves on relative independence.

As Alboin licked his wounds, he would find that there was no rest for him - the Emperor Constantine and a small but veteran force would land at Thessalonike, from there planning to strike at the very heart of the Langobard threat, before Alboin's consolidations turned to renewed aggressive campaigning. The Emperor was a battle-tested companion, and following in Kallinikos' footsteps he was willing to lead armies personally. Winning easy early victories, he secured the Thermaikos Bay and Demetrias. In his wake, Alboin laid siege to Thessalonike, but was unable to take it - the city was well defended and supplied by ship.

Zvonomir, a slavic warlord of indeterminite origin meanwhile attacked the previously unmolested Peloponnese. Landing by way of a small group of ships in Achaea, he burned and pillaged his way across the lightly-defended region. His raid would become a more permanent victory, as he came to reside in the city of Patrae. A sizable company of Bulgars allied with him, and when Constantine dispatched troops to repulse Zvonomir's raiding party, they found themselves outnumbered and unable to do more than hold what territory had not yet been lost - notably the city of Corinth.

If 577 saw only minor victories for Constantine, 578, according to our Roman historians, was a year of triumphs. Reportedly, he won a crushing victory over the Langobardi and Slavs, retaking Thessalia and much of Makedonia, before marching north and defeating Bayan Khan at the battle of Trimontium. The Khan retreated to Sardike, which Constantine besieged, along with Adrianople in the south. It seemed the tide had turned. The Bulgars were in chaos, and indeed Bayan Khan, according to our Roman historians, committed suicide not long after, being replaced by his cousin Kubrat, who was "as savage and warlike a man as any, a pagan who burned churches and slaughtered priests." This portrait of him seems inaccurate, perhaps informed more by the hatred of the Romans than any truth, but at any rate, Kubrat rallied the Bulgar army and forced Constantine south - but the Emperor did not attempt to retreat to Thessalonike, still besieged by Alboin, but rather towards Constantinople. From there, the Bulgars hemmed him in.

The next three years would see Constantine forced to devote attention to the rest of his Emperor. The siege of Thessalonike dragged on, and despite Bulgar raids which came within sight of Constantinople, the city was never seriously threatened. Zvonomir was finally forced to flee Patrae, but he would return a year later, in 581, this time perhaps for good. He defeated the local Roman commander and captured Corinth after a short siege - unlike his previous incursions, Zvonomir was now concerned with long-term occupation - he looted far less and instead appointed trusted commanders to oversee the various towns and cities he captured, and petitioned Alboin to accept him as a federate ally, a petition which was accepted.

In 582, Constantine returned with a larger army, and met the Bulgar Khan in battle at Arkaidioupolis. He had spent his reign wisely - naming his younger brother Ioannes co-Emperor, giving him broad authority to organize the defenses of the East and indeed administer his portion of the Empire, restructuring the tax system and levying new tariffs on valuable eastern commodities imported from Eftal territories. However, for all this work, Khan Kubrat seems to have made better use of his time, and the Bulgar army that met Constantine was prepared and indeed significantly larger than the Roman force.

Arkaidiouspolis was a crushing blow to the Empire. Constantine was defeated after his cavalry was routed and the infantry surrounded, and indeed the would-be Emperor was captured. The terms of his release were crippling, and though the Emperor had little intent to actually abide by them, the whole of Thrace was lost save Constantinople and its environs, and the Emperor was forced under duress to confirm the Bulgar Khanate's right to a broad and expansive territory. Humiliated, Constantine returned to Constantinople, only to be murdered there. According to legend, the act was done by a frustrated mob, and even by the vicious standards of the Constantinopolitan mob, it was a brutal one.

No sooner did Emperor Anastasios hear of his rival's capture than he launched a renewed invasion. Sending the Prefect of Syria, Julian, in command of a large army, Ioannes retreated before him, but ultimately would lay an ambush for Julian, defeating the Prefect and scattering the Anastasian forces with a small but elite force. After a hasty truce was established, Emperor Anastasios would have to confront the inferiority of his officer corps and army, who despite having lost far fewer battles than the beleaguered, often understrength units of Constantinians, also lacked that critical experience. A few units of Anastasios' army might have seen action, but many were freshly raised Egyptian levies.

Collapse

The latter raids of the Eftal Shah were not as ambitious as those of later eras, and mostly served to further devastate an already devastated region. Apart from a single major campaign in 582 between the competing Roman Empires, major military engagements were rare, but vicious back-and-forth raids and counter-raids were commonplace, but the Eftal Shahdom in the east had reached a state of terminal decline. Most notably, it seems that the satrap Sogdia began minting independant coinage sometime around 583, and these coins refer to "Shah Tarkhsuna" who seems to have been totally independent. Tarkhsuna was of Eftal origin, but he married into the Sogdian merchant class, and employed many Turkic mercenaries in his various wars against the Qangli and later the Gokturks.

The newly emerging eastern powers were very fluid in their borders. Tarkhsuna captured much of Baktria after defeating Varhran in battle in 585, only to himself be deprived of at least a portion of his conquests by the aggressively expanding Johiyavan clansmen. The Asvha as well continued their expansion, striking into the Iranian heartlands. While the Kidarites maintained the at least nominal fiction of obedience to the Eftal, their own semi-autonomy and relative unwillingness to assist Shah Varhran meant that it was no more than a fiction.

And Varhran had other worries. Smelling weakness and seeking to fulfill his own Imperial ambitions, the satrap of Pars, Akhshunwar Malkha rebelled with the help of the local Persian aristocracy and his own coalition of loyal Eftal tribes. A distant relative of Akhshunwar I's dynasty, he won followers by promising a return to the glory days. Moving north, he captured much of the Mesun province and its satrap, whom he captured and kept as an honored "guest" in comfortable confinement.

Varhran rushed back from the East to confront the newest rebel claimant to the throne, but he was too late. Susa had already fallen by the time he arrived. Seeing which way the wind was blowing, he fled north with a core group of loyal guards and retainers but was captured and executed. While this may appear an uncharacteristic move from a heroic warrior-king, Varhran's portrayal as such was an attempt by certain Eftal and Persian historians to characterize him as the last capable Shah, and while he was undoubtedly a warrior, we know little of the actual state of his army beyond that it was defeated but a year earlier in Sogdia.

Akhshunwar Malkha, however, would prove to be not a restoration of the old days, but rather the final nail in the coffin. Formally taking power in 587, his claim to be a restoration of the old dynasty was not taken seriously. The nature of Eftal power was, in this moment of sudden crisis, revealed to be not, as Akhshunwar had assumed, based entirely on dynastic prestige and historical legitimacy so much as clever coalition building and oftentimes personal loyalty, and Akhshunwar does not seem to have had the loyalty of the many tribes and ethnic groups beyond his immediate region. His ascendency is marked by near total anarchy as pretenders emerged from the woodwork across "his" Empire.

If Akhshunwar is to have a positive legacy, it should be known that his portion of the Empire does not seem to have suffered unduly. While much of the northern and western parts of the Empire suffered from war and migrations, the cities of the Persian Gulf remained a prosperous manufacturing hub, and this, more than anything, allowed Akhshunwar to maintain a larger army and retain more Turkic mercenaries than his competitors.

One of the pretenders, an Eftal Christian by the name of Isaiah emerges onto the historical scene for a time as a conqueror who united much of northern Mesopotamia behind him. His greatest victory came with his capture and sack of Tesifon in 590. However, as Nestorian Christian, his appeal was simply not widespread, and he failed to unite the Empire behind him, and he died in 591 and his dominions would be absorbed by the satrap of Arbayestan, who, despite remaining under the authority of Akhshunwar had sufficient power to refuse all requests of the Shah in Susa.

Much of the north broke away under another pretender who ruled from Afrahrot, whose name was Huvishka Prajana. A devout Buddhist, his reign was marked by massive donations to temples and monasteries, constant proselytizing, and also a series of major urban construction projects. His Shahdom encompassed the whole of the Caspian sea, and having at his disposal a vast force of Gilani mercenaries, his own conquests united much of northern Persia. Across the Empire, satraps began asserting their independence where these pretenders could not reach.

Over time, these varying pretenders would gradually morph into successor states, characterized primarily by their intensely personal nature - rarely did these smaller kingdoms outlive the deaths of their leaders. While often various satraps did pay some form of allegiance to the government in Susa, the existence of pretenders and powerful de facto independent satraps served to divide loyalties and create chaos.

Heshana - a Shah in Syria

Since around 582, a tribal Eftal warlord named Heshana had come to increasing prominence as a brigand and mercenary. Raiding the retreating army of Julian in the service of Ioannes, eventually Heshana broke that contract and began to gather Bedouin and Eftal, Christians and Pagans, horse thieves and professional soldiers to his banner. Of mixed origin himself, a descendent of the Gaoche and Eftal only on his mother's side, as the anarchy grew he managed to begin taking cities, turning a profitable business of raiding into the more profitable business of conquest.

With the collapse of the central Eftal state into civil war, he grew more brazen, taking Edessa itself, and the next year, Samosata. An expedition in 585 lead by a general of Anastasios' army was repulsed by the wily commander, who began minting coins calling himself Shah and striking deep into Roman and Eftal territory quite indiscriminately. Fortune seemed to favor him - his victories he attributed to Mithra, but they are an excellent example of just how much power a charismatic leader with proven success could amass.

By 587, he had taken Nisibin, the major fortress-city left massively undermanned in the wake of Shah Isaiah's conquests. Despite an attempt by the Shah to retake it, the fortress did not fall a second time, and Isaiah found it more profitable to continue his expansion in Mesopotamia. Shortly thereafter, Heshana gained the loyalty of Alan mercenaries settled in the area, and with these newfound allies, the stage was set for further conquests. Experience fighting Anastaios convinced him that the Roman Empire was an easy target, and despite his still relatively small force, Heshana was confident that he could succeed where Mihiragula had failed.

 

[Practical Lobster]

A short post detailing some of the more recent changes in the Balkans and the Eftal realm.

Consolidation Continued

The Lombards and Bulgars took very different approaches to rulership of the vast territory they found themselves holding in the wake of the Roman collapse. Twenty years into their reign, these differences were become more and more marked. While the Langobards took to their position as settled rulers with increasing ease, the Bulgars seem to have had greater difficulty adapting their regime to one of settlement and permanent conquest.

King Alboin had often referred to himself by the title of Doux, and it seems this did not change after his conquests. Acting the part of a Germanic king to his nobles and a Roman provincial governor to the Greek population was essential to his regime, as was maintaining the urban power structures in the regions which he ruled over. In the countryside, he might have apportioned to his loyal soldiers large grants of land, replacing the rural aristocracy wholesale, but his approach to the cities was a temperate, moderate one. After initial sacks, largely carried out by his slavic allies, he restrained his troops. Having grown up in Dalmatia, surrounded by Romans, speaking both Greek and Latin as well as his own tongue, he chose to present himself as a defender of Roman traditions, rather than a conqueror.

While it is unclear to what degree the locals bought into this, they were nonetheless complicit. Roman officials became his tax collectors and governors. His tribal vassals were managed as federate allies, encouraged not to overstretch the bounds of their demesne, and though they were often unruly, he did his best to make them understand that their conquered territory was a grant of land from the King to them - oftentimes resorting to force when diplomacy failed.

Demographics were simply on the side of the conquerors here. Unlike the Eftal conquest of Persia, this was not a nomadic people impressing their will upon a vast settled population - the Germanic people might have been uprooted, or come as refugees in some cases, but the lands they moved into were often made vacant by the Slavic invasions of previous decades, and where they were not, the Germanic peoples tended to live alongside the Greek population, although violence did break out on the communal level often enough.

Alboin was concerned also with making a fleet. His long siege of Thessalonike, and frequent Roman naval operations convinced him that he would not have true security without one. It was for this reason that he began hiring Greek shipbuilders and sailors to outfit a new fleet, and though the small naval force did not actively contest the Aegean against the far more formidable Roman fleet, its mere existence was part of the actively shifting balance of power.

The Bulgars, by contrast, seemingly had little interest in fleet-building, nor in settling down. Their society was at least partially a nomadic one, and though they now found themselves the garrison-masters of cities, it was often their slavic subjects who were called upon to fill the role of town guards and low-level administrators. The Bulgar regime was based more upon plunder than taxation, and for this reason and many others, they were often willing to raid into Lombard territory as well as what remained of Roman lands. While they were not afraid to attack Constantinople's suburbs, the city itself intimidated them, a people still relatively unfamiliar with siegecraft.

The Khan of the Kutrigurs (who by 590 was Khan of the whole Hunno-Bulgar Confederation) settled in the city of Adrianople, but the Hunno-Bulgar allies of his regime remained nomadic, and though he might have had ambitions of an ever-greater dominion, his power was limited by their limitations. The extent of Bulgar settlement never extended too far beyond good pastureland. Even as his slavic subjects slowly began to assimilate into the Greek world that they now lived in, and his own people began to consider settling down, they remained relatively aloof and distinct from the conquered people.

And yet for all of this, Khan Kubrat was the one who craved Roman acceptance, making their recognition of his conquests a key term in the peace treaty they had arranged, being named an "Archon" over a vast territory, much of it actually in the hands of the Langobards. The wealth, power, and order of the Empire impressed him. Beautiful churches and cathedrals, elaborate villas and palaces, even devastated and ruined by his pagan invaders still did strike him. The "God of the Greeks" had once owned many great things, and his victories over the soldiers of that god served merely to confirm the relative greatness of his own pagan gods, notably Tangra, the great God of the Sky.

A Realm Divided

Even as Persian philosophers charted the motion of the stars, designed ever more advanced mathematics, and created great works of literature, their world was falling apart. The adoption of Indian numerals developed under Gupta patronage lead to the development of algebra, and revolutions in medicine lead to the repudiation of the Greek system of humors. The writing of these great thinkers however, stops short in many cases of true revolutions in medicine and science because of the spontaneous collapse of the civilization which patronized them.

This was an era of mercenaries, hired from amongst the Gilani and the Turks, the Alans and the Arabs. A multitude of Eftal tribes sought mercenaries as a way to augment their forces, frequently offering plunder as the greatest incentive for service, and in turn these Eftal tribes would serve local leaders in exchange for pay, middlemen in the destructive wars that ravaged Persia.

The Turks in particular joined the warring with great enthusiasm. Numerous and exceptionally warlike, they were the most prized of the mercenaries that served alongside the Eftal. Primarily Buddhists and Tengrist pagans, after their service many tribes would settle across Persia, further altering the demographics of the region. By contrast, the Indian-influenced Persian Gulf would see the increasing triumph of Mahadeva as a sole God, often with Mithra and other Iranic gods described as aspects of him. Divorced from his Indian context, this version of Shiva would become uniquely Eftal, clad in a lion's skin and a radiant sunburst halo, holding a cudgel and spear in his more warlike aspect, or cross-legged in meditative bliss in his more mystical interpretation.

The personal god of Akhshunwar Malkha, Mahadeva would gain great popularity after the Shah entreated his companions subjects to swear their devotion to him, one of the only cases of a mass conversion in the history of the typically cosmopolitan and pluralistic Eftal Shahdom. For a time too, Akhshunwar was seen as triumphant over the other pretenders - Isaiah was crushed quickly (leaving Mesopotamia much reduced in his wake) and Huvishka Prajana was on the retreat. However, in a mere moment, Akhshunwar undid all his progress by attempting to bring the Satrap of Arbayestan more firmly under his control.

The Satrap, named Yaghar, rebelled, and, holding much of Mesopotamia, was capable of raising an impressive army, sustained by the plunder gained from his savage defeats of Isaiah and a comprehensive and devastating pillage of Ctesifon from which the city never truly recovered. Akhshunwar's campaign to unseat Yaghar was halted by an invasion of Turkic and Gilani mercenaries loyal to Huvishka Prajana. Yaghar was independent for a time before ultimately he was murdered by a jealous male lover, at which point his wife, Roshana, commanded the lover put to death and indeed ruled the satrapy between 594-597. Her brother, Sheskh, turned out to be a brilliant commander and quite capable of scoring major victories both against Akhshunwar and later Persarmenia, which he subdued and added to his sister's dominion. Sheskh's legacy would long outlive that of his sister, as he left monumental inscriptions to mark his victories, and after his sister's death in childbirth, declared himself formally a Shah. His other great legacy would be as a persecutor of Christians, and although many of the claims made against him seem exaggerated with the benefit of hindsight, he did not allow them to hold office or fight in his armies. He was recorded as being present at one of Akhshunwar's early mass conversions, but it is unclear what his actual religious beliefs were.

In the core territories of Shah Huviskha, the Persian intellectual revolution continued. His demesne around the Caspian sea was untouched by war, even as he sent mercenaries south to plunder and cause chaos in the territory of his enemies. He married one of his daughters to a scion of the Asvhastani Shah, and his personal rule was characterized by leniency and mercy (if hypocrisy, considering the devastation he inflicted upon those territories not under his control) and his propaganda often couches his various wars in the language of "spreading harmony" - a significant change, considering that no previous Eftal ruler, no matter how religious, had really bothered seeking religious ethical justification for their war.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Heshana Shah

Heshana's conquests left him with a small territory, but one which was only barely centrally organized. A charismatic leader of men, Heshana was characterized by handsome features and personal bravery, but his prowess did not extend to governing the territories he gained - he was merely the king of bandits, and aspired to little greater than that status. Cities such as Edessa were made tributaries of a mobile horde, not incorporated into a greater state.

Heshana might have been called Shah, but there is little evidence that he himself had that idea. Clever administrators, including Narsai bar Aprem, who held an indeterminate role as some sort of second in command, were behind the organization of his regime from the early days. But these were not bureaucrats, but rather murderous brigands with slightly more ambition than average - men such as Narsai established their position by force and kept it by adeptly maintaining the fiction of a centralized monarchy until it became a reality. By making the extortion of major cities along the Euphrates into a "tribute" Heshana's dominion was solidified. Coins could commemorate victories, such as the 585 victory over the Prefect of Syria, or the 587 taking of Nisibin, the great armories of which, when opened to organized plunder, armed and equipped Heshana's forces to a relatively more uniform and high standard.

After Nisibin, Heshana's standing forces numbered perhaps eight thousand - a paltry force, but almost entirely mounted, and under a commander who understood well how to utilize those forces to stunning effect. The "Shah of Osrhoene" was perhaps the weakest and poorest of the Eftal successor Kings, but his army was capable and, with the establishment of an organized system of taxation, no longer merely dependent on plunder for their loyalty.

Local tyrants, recruited from Heshana's direct companions, were placed over small regional commands, given small retainers of soldiers. It was Narsai who had the notion to ensure that these retainers were ethnically mixed and lacked kinship, ensuring both the spread of an Eftalized version of Persian (the language of Heshana's closest companions) as a lingua franca even amongst the Arabs and Alans, and that the only functioning tribal loyalty was to Heshana's own people, regardless of background or language of birth.

There might have been some dissent in the ranks but for the continued profitability of Heshana's conquests and his willingness to divide the loot generously. Disorder only became an issue as conquest and the river of plunder which had made rich men of Heshana's followers began to dry up. For these reasons as well as titanic ambition, Heshana began to contemplate raids on the Roman Empire itself. At first, these raids represented little more than a continuation of the Eftal-Roman border raids, but they would grow from there, particularly as certain marginalized Arab tribal groups unaffiliated with the Romans found common cause with him and began to turn on the Romans and Ghassanids.

The fall of Syria

Julian Menas was still in charge of the Diocese of the East, and despite numerous failures and reversals he had just barely maintained his position. He had connections and was an amiable, scholarly man, with a bookish, thin face. He had the loyalty and close personal friendship of many in Anastasios' military, and the Emperor in Egypt feared to remove him, knowing that Julian Menas, another of Emperor Kallinikos' former friends, had every bit as much legitimacy to the Imperial mantle as he did - which was to say little. As such, the Emperor did not ask for his resignation, even when Constantine wrested the entire region from him, or Ioannes ambushed and destroyed nearly the entire Imperial army.

Rather, he wrested military command from him, undoing the reforms of Kallinikos and making Julian Menas merely a governor of the province rather than a prefect with broad extraordinary powers. If Julian objected to this change it is unknown, but a loyal companion of the Emperor, Proklos of Damascus, was given overall military command, and surviving letters between Emperor and General indicate that Julian's command had deteriorated significantly from its paper strength, and not truly recovered. Fresh soldiers were raised to fill the gaps, and Proklos set about constructing a series of border fortifications along the border with Cilicia, still occupied by Ioannes' forces and locked in an uneasy truce.

After a period of a few months, Julian was summoned to Alexandria, and there he seems to have lived out his life in relative comfort with his family and young children. His replacement for governor of Syria was an Egyptian bureaucrat named Bonus, and with the perceived threat taken care of, Anastasios felt that he could rest easy.

Unfortunately, he could not. Heshana's raiders were moving into Syria in force by the spring of 590. Despite overtures to the Banu Ghassan for assistance, the traditional buffer state was enfeebled by on-and-off war with the Bedouin of the interior - Proklos was on his own.

However, the Emperor's companion was, unlike his predecessor, quite capable. A strong, barrel-chested Greek, he won the loyalty of Julian's men and gave Heshana hell as the Eftal warlord attempted to break into Syria, blunting the advance totally. After this unexpected reversal, Proklos marched north and besieged Edessa. The city held however, and despite a few months of siege and internal chaos (the locals reportedly attempted to massacre Heshana's men and give the city to Proklos) Heshana endured. A few weeks after the worst of the rioting, Proklos retreated, and Heshana's men rallied and harassed the Romans as they fell back southwards. Reportedly, there were also a series of massacres in Edessa, and the city remained significantly reduced in size for some time to come.

The reason for Proklos' retreat remains unclear. Heshana was on his last legs, a nomadic raider bound up in the defense of a walled city that seized even the narrowest opportunity to try to murder him. But the warlord would endure. Proklos would never again have such a good opportunity to end the threat and expand the Anastasian half of the Roman Empire. The following year, Narsai travelled south, uniting a group of Arab clans in a coalition against the Banu Ghassan and their Roman allies. Lead by the Banu Kalb, this coalition scored a few minor victories against Proklos' forces and formed a major distraction.

In 592, Palmyra and Bostra, both long diminished from their historical apogees, were taken by Arab raiders. Proklos was personally distracted by Heshana's resurgent campaigns, and his lieutenants were incapable of stopping the invasion. Shortly thereafter Al-Jabiyah fell and the Ghassanid King, Al-Mundhir, fled to Alexandria where he would live out the rest of his life with his family. With the fall of Al-Jabiyah, the traditional residence of the Ghassanid kings, the multitude of Arab tribes could raid with impunity - as could Heshana.

However, Heshana's plan assumed that Emperor Ioannes in Asia Minor would be too distracted with the deterioration of the Balkans to intervene. And it was true that much of the Roman army was away, including the Emperor, who, breaking from the trend established by his predecessors preferred to not take the field, and indeed after his victory over Julian Menas would never again lead an army in person. However, despite the absence of the main body of the Roman army, a small expeditionary force under the Cilician comtes Baduarios with some six thousand men, most of them mounted, struck into Heshana's territory. His force was small, largely because most of the soldiers in Asia Minor were guarding against the Alans and thus not prepared for an expedition to Syria.

Marching through Syria, Baduarios encountered an Anastasian ambush near Issos and repelled it in good order, opening the entirety of Syria to him. Antiokhea opened its gates to him, as did the coastal cities along his route. Then, Baduarios, his lines of supply secured, swept south and endeavored to cut off Heshana from Osrhoene. Heshana was forced to ride north and deal with this new threat, barely persuading his Arab allies to accompany him north. Hujr, their leader, had his own ambitions, but was temporarily willing to concede that the threat Baduarios posed was too great to ignore.

Both the Arab and Eftal cavalry rushed north, reaching the wealthy regional hub of Apamea in the midst of a scorching summer. There, Baduarios intercepted them, and though he was repulsed after some initial skirmishing, he left Apamea well garrisoned and well-supplied, and the city refused to surrender. Baduarios retreated into a nearby well-watered valley, and from his base in the hills struck at Heshana's siege. The Shah's men lacked siege equipment and, as a mostly mounted force, found their attempts to capture the city futile. Narsai and Hujr agreed that the best course of action would be to ride into the hills and deal with the Roman field army, but Heshana refused. Baduarios was a capable commander, he argued, and there could be any number of ambushes waiting for them in the hills.

While Heshana stalled, Baduarios persuaded another Roman force stationed at Kaiseria and numbering some five thousand, to march on Edessa. This army had a corps of engineers and was lead by Hypatios the Black, a veteran of the Roman defense of Thessalonike. By the time a rider managed to inform Heshana, Edessa itself was under siege.

Heshana was forced to act quickly. Leaving Hjur to besiege Apamea, he rode into the hills to confront Baduarios. His vanguard appeared to be nothing but a scout party, and the Romans descended on it in ambush - allowing Heshana to in turn surround the Roman forces. This would prove to be a costly victory for Heshana however - perhaps one in every four of his own men died, but the Cilician general was himself slain. The surrendered Romans were executed and their arms, horses, and armor were looted.

Heshana then rode into Orshoene with all haste, slaughtering the supply columns and outriders which maintained Hypatios' forces. Combined with a fortuitous outbreak of disease, Hypatios' forces starved and died far quicker than the garrison of Edessa, which this time had no issues with the much-diminished civilian population. When Heshana's victory came, it was total, although Hypatios himself would escape west to the town of Dolikhe before he would be captured and ransomed back to the Emperor.

These victories proved the critical flaw with the divided Roman Empire. Had Anastasios and Ioannes merely worked together, Heshana's small force and the even smaller forces of his Arab allies could never have triumphed - but instead the two Empires only acted independently and occasionally fought, harassed each others efforts, and most importantly did not coordinate their attacks but rather went up against Heshana one at a time with far inferior manpower. As such, in the aftermath of his triumphs Heshana was capable of capturing the whole of Syria, raiding with impunity into Cilicia and finally in 593 taking Melitene and Anazarbos. Meanwhile, his Kalbid allies, with the help of a second force commanded by Narsai and now equipped with their own corps of Persian engineers, effected the capture of Damascus.

Anastasios however, was not slow to respond to this new invasion. His fleet was capable of supplying the coastal cities such as Tyros indefinitely, and Kaiseria and Gaza underwent new fortification projects - the riches of Egypt proving more than capable of providing fresh soldiers for their defense. However, the interior was all but lost it seemed - and despite a Roman punitive attack on Al-Jabiyah which leveled the city, the raids continued, and Damascus remained out of the Emperor's reach. Further, the Emperor's recruitment of fresh troops was stymied by his fear of the Miaphysite population of Egypt rebelling against their primarily Orthodox leaders who no longer had the rest of the Empire to call upon for support. Anastasios maintained an uneasy balance but his attempts to mend the schism fell short of the endorsement of the Coptic church seemingly demanded of him.

Johiyava and Sogdia

Anandakumara Raja died peacefully in his sleep at the age of fifty six, in 595. He was succeeded by his son Visvajita, whose first act as Raja was to kill his brother Pulindaka. According to the Eftal historians, Pulindaka attempted to organize a coup against his dying father and take power with the help of a clan of Turkic mercenaries - but Visvajita, being informed by Pulindaka's barber, struck first, summoning his brother to court at sword-point and having him executed. However, Kudhipasri, Pulindaka's son, fled south and became a great warrior-prince among the Kidarites.

If this story is true is immaterial. Kudhipasri in particular seems wholly invented, What it represents is far more important - the Eftal fears. Ambitious Turkic mercenaries attempting to play Kingmaker. Dynastic disputes leading to exiled sons who carve out their own states. Even the power and prestige of the court Visvajita rules over is a source of anxiety for the anonymous Eftal writer, who was a companion of Tarkhsuna Shah, the warlord who ruled Sogdia. Tarkhsuna both paid Turkic mercenaries to fight the Johiyava and also paid tribute to the Gokturks. His kingdom was squeezed between those two powers, and Tarkhsuna saw no escape, choosing the distant confederacy of the Turks over becoming a satrap of the aggressive power on his doorstep.

His son and heir Gokharna, however, was perhaps more clever than Tarkhsuna. Aligning himself with the Asvha through marriage, Gokharna was able to assert greater independence against the Turks. Though he would still pay a tribute to the Gokturks and the Johiyava, the reign of Gokharna was one of peace backed up by force. Only once did the Johiyava provoke him to war - in 596, and that war would prove devastating. The Johiyava fell back into their mountains and when Gokharna pursued, they destroyed his army and after a year long siege captured Balkh and made vassals of many of the Baktrian tribes. Visvajita forced the Shah to pay an enormous tribute for the first five years of his reign.

However, on the domestic front, Gokharna overcame this inauspicious start. Piandjikent was restored to its former glory, and peace was good for prosperity and trade. The silk road reopened, allowing goods to flow from the Rouran Khaganate in northern China to Persia. There, the Rourans had begun to settle down and co-opt the traditional Chinese system of governance, patronizing Buddhist monasteries and beginning bureaucratic examinations which were at first shunned by the indigenous aristocracy but slowly accepted as a method of advancement. These examinations required familiarity with traditional Confucian and Buddhist texts, and were somewhat different than those of the Liang dynasty in the south.

 

[Practical Lobster]

And, we're back...

Sheskh's Vision

Shah Sheskh after Roshana's death in 598 ruled at first in an uncertain position. While he was Shah in his own right, acclaimed by his soldiers and quickly the primitive bureaucracy of his satrapy-cum-kingdom, he was also considered by some to be merely a regent for his young nephew Toramana. It was an arrangement which would not last. Sheskh had many sons and was married to an Armenian noblewoman, and had already proven himself energetic, capable, and ambitious. It should be no surprise that the child Toramana died, all-too-conveniently, before his first birthday. By 599, Shah Sheskh ruled in his own right one of the wealthier successor kingdoms. A year later he would make his own son, Khauwashta, his successor and subordinate Shah in his own right.

However, Sheskh also ruled a regime splintered by religious controversy. His Armenian subjects, whom he relied upon for military support, belonged to the miaphysite Church, a church which had increasingly broken away from Rome and forged its own path. This provided the Armenian people and aristocracy a kind of proto-nationalism based around a unique religious and linguistic identity, and made them insubordinate at the best of times. Thus Sheskh was opted to arrange, often with veiled threats, the taking of numerous young noble hostages to raise among the Eftal, a move which forestalled any threat of rebellion, and integrated his own tribal aristocracy with that of the Armenians.

The city of Huniyag, close to war-torn Asoristan but far enough north to avoid being raided, became Sheskh's base of operations for renewed war with Akhshunwar Malkha. The two kingdoms had previously concluded an uneasy peace under Roshana, but sensing weakness, Sheskh abandoned his sister's treaty and rode south, scoring major victories at twin battles in Kaskar and Karka. Both victories showcased Sheskh's capability for fighting sweeping battles of maneuver, wherein his Eftal cavalry, backed by Turkic archery and Armenian heavy armor, managed to isolate and massacre Akhshunwar's forces in detail. The cities along the Persian gulf surrendered quickly afterwards, which left only Susa, the royal capital.

Akhshunwar made preparations for a siege. He sent letters to the Kidarites begging for aid, and to the various satraps and tribes of the east. However, his Eftal companions defected en masse, and his Turkic mercenaries, unwilling to die for a ruler they had no personal stake in, surrendered Akhshunwar to Sheskh in 600. The mercenaries themselves would be handsomely rewarded and then sent far away at once, to counter raids engineered by Huviskha.

For even as these battles were being fought, Huvishka Prajana, ever the opportunist, took Shahrizor and much of central Persia. More than a mere King, he began to proclaim his right to the entire Eftal Empire, which he swore solemnly to restore. This left Sheskh in a difficult position. Huvishka Prajana and Akhshunwar Malkha could both tie themselves by blood to Akhshunwar I and his dynasty, and while the Eftal might have often cared more for personal merit, Sheskh had begun to fear that the vast number of Eftal who had defected to him were not truly loyal. A majority of them had kept to the worship of Mahadeva much as Akhshunwar had patronized and designed it, and this only exacerbated Sheskh's paranoia.

Executing Akhshunwar Malkha had given Sheskh an empire, but managing the complex and geographically distant state which he inherited was no mean feat. One of the greatest challenges he would face was a series of Zoroastrian-inspired uprisings of the common people, based around ridding the country of foreigners and preparing for the "Great Renovation" when evil would be driven the world by the forces of good. These uprisings, lacking the support of either the mercantile or aristocratic classes of Persian society (which were by and large merged with the Eftal by this point) had little hope of true success but were nevertheless devastating to the countryside and necessitated strong measures to put them down. Meanwhile, the Kidarites, lead by a man named Vinduyih, made a pact with Shah Huvishka and the Johiyava Raja and began raiding into Pars, driving a not insignificant portion of the wealthy population to flee towards the coasts, where the high-walled trading cities renovated and patronized by Toramana and Khauwashta almost a century ago offered superior protection from rural rebellion and banditry. Cities such as Mihirapat and Ram swelled in population but ultimately were forced to close their gates against the influx of refugees. Many who were turned away from the gulf cities fled across the gulf to Hatta or Mazun, where the local petty Shahs welcomed them with open arms and often recruited them for their feuds with the Hadhrami.

Sheskh lead the campaigns to put down the rebels, and did so with relative ease. Along the way he confiscated significant amounts of land, either abandoned by fleeing aristocrats or the peasant rebels, distributing it to those Eftal who had once been loyal to Akhshunwar, hoping to win them over with kingly generosity. However, the Kidarites proved a far greater challenge. Sheskh was incapable of pinning them down in a pitched battle, and he would die anticlimactically in a skirmish, where the Kidarite cavalry managed to attack the camp of his vanguard. Dying in 604, he left a dangerous situation for his son and heir.

Back in Huniyag, Khauwashta wasted little time attempting to assert his authority. He rode south to the royal palace at Susa and was quickly declared full Shah. He sent envoys east and made an unfavorable peace with the Kidarites, offering them a large tribute to curtail their raiding. Then, he gathered what forces he could and prepared for Huviskha's move. Huvishka had been wintering in Kermanshah, building up his own military. Sheskh's legacy was a state which was "hollow" - a vast crescent shaped territory from Armenia to Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf. Huviskha by contrast controlled a contiguous, well-defended territory shielded by mountains on many sides.

Shah Huviskha's army was perhaps the largest raised since the legendary campaigns of Mihiragula, though few of his men had fought in them. His forces, despite a core of Eftal cavalry and Gilani footmen, were bolstered by his Avshastani allies and Turkic, Alani, and Balasagani mercenaries. Commanded by Huvishka's experienced son, Khingila, the swifter elements, the Turkic and Avsha cavalry broke out onto the plains of Mesopotamia, wreaking havoc and interrupting Khauwashta's attempts to muster forces from his far flung provinces. The army Sheskh had led against the Kidarites had largely melted away as well - the Turkic mercenaries defected en masse, just as Sheskh feared they would. Khauwashta was left with a relatively small force, and within a year of Sheskh's death Khauwashta personally controlled little more than the cities along the Persian gulf and Susa.

However, Khauwashta had inherited his father's skill in warfare and diplomacy. He succeeded in making Akhshunwar Malkha's companions his own, and retained the loyalty of the Armenian lords, whose raids would open an additional front and cause Huviskha no end of headaches on the homefront. Riding up the Tigris, he defeated Khingila in battle outside of Dastkart, and then again at Hulwan, his heavy cavalry punching through the center of Shah Huviskha's line and causing the "Universal Ruler in Fellowship" to flee the field. After this unacceptable display of cowardice, it was only a matter of time before the edifice came crumbling down. Many of Huviskha's Eftal allies deserted, the Avsha returned home, and the Turkic mercenaries murdered their former employer, only to find that Khauwashta was not as lenient as his father had been. He did not take the Huviskha's Turkic mercenaries into his service but rather massacred them, riding them down wherever he could find them and subjecting them to grisly punishments.

"This act, more than any, won him the friendship of the common man of Iran, who had long suffered at the hand of the Tujue..." one Eftal historian writes. However, this historian, flatters Khauwashta. Khauwashta would ultimately employ many Turks in his own army as well, settling them in certain depopulated regions of Persia much as his ancestors had settled Xionites and Gaoche, hoping that in time they would become loyal reserves of manpower indistinct from the Eftal warriors they served alongside.

By 605 Khauwashta ruled a "unified Empire, united in the fellowship of the Dharma and the patronage of the God", pardoned Huviskha's son Khingila for his "treason" and sent him to live out his days in a monastery. From the first moment he returned to Susa, Khauwashta tried to imitate the manner of the old Eftal Shahs, acting as if he had always been Shah, and that the war he fought against Huviskha was that of a rightful monarch suppressing a rebel. The world, however, would show how false that truly was. This was not a return to the old days. Distinct regional identities had had a generation to develop in the absence of a central authority not present since Mihiragula and the Reign of Sons. Khauwashta ruled a lesser territory than his predecessors, an Empire stripped of much of its periphery.

More crucial than the loss of the periphery was the development of regional identity. Buddhism was powerful and influential in the east and north, especially in the region the Greeks called Hyrcania, in but also in Sogdia and the satrapies around the Caspian. Further, the Gilani had served in important positions in Huviskha's government, but did not in Khauwashtas, and this would be a source of simmering resentment. Trade and industry flourished anew in the south, where Eftal and Persian identities were the most blurred - but this synthesis of culture excluded the Persianized but fundamentally different Eftal culture in Mesopotamia, Shahrizor, and the Iranian plateau. The "northern" Eftal were commonly more traditionally pagan and sometimes Christian. They had mixed with far more tribal groups from outside the traditional "White Huns" and lived a more traditional lifestyle, maintaining their cavalry traditions which the Gulf Eftal had begun to lose in their "decadent urban" lifestyle.

Armenia, though now tightly bound to the Eftal Shahdom, was similarly independent in their identity - and indeed had been even during Mihiragula's reign. Khauwashta granted them exceptional privileges and autonomy, as he did to the Kidarites when Vinduyih finally acknowledged his overlordship. Both regions maintained their own vassal Shahs, making Khauwashta little more than first among equals in the periphery of his regime. Concerned with the internal politics of his realm, Khauwashta would also never incorporate Osrhoene or Syria into his state, though monuments from his reign claim that Heshana paid him a magnificent tribute on several occasions.

The Sahushah - Statebuilding on the Steppe

The Sahu clan which came to give their name to the Sahu Shahs was, as mentioned before, a polyglot group. The Xasar-Sahu confederacy's sole commonality was being defeated by the first Khauwashta generations ago, and subsequently breaking out onto the Eurasian steppe, taking the Rav [IOTL Volga] and Don river plains and driving the Hunno-Bulgars and Avars west into conflict with the settled peoples they found there. But from there, the Xasar-Sahu would not merely pass into history like so many of their predecessors. Rather, they began to found something more enduring.

The Sahu, like the Eftal before them, were not opposed to urban settlement. Indeed they patronized it, modeling their new cities off a mixture of imported Persian style and the indigenous Greek designs which they encountered around the Crimea. Much trade flowed up and down the Dnieper, Volga, and Don rivers, and though their urban project began as merely a series of trading posts, these posts began to blossom into true cities, the largest of them being Tangravata, built over the ruins of the Greek city of Tanais. These cities were small affairs, often dingy and dirty, but the blossoming of the Sahu urban tradition was well underway by 590. Their subjugation of the Crimean Goths and the Greek population provided them with skilled builders as well, and allowed them to lay tariffs upon the traditional trade of the region - and from the "Sahu River Tolls" came a level of wealth which allowed the Sahu to further centralize and assert their dominion.

Slaves, amber, lumber and grain flowed south, and this trade with Constantinople and the cities of the Caspian sea benefitted all parties. By ensuring relative peace in the regions of their dominion, they imitated the success of the Silk Road, only with the added benefit of riverine transport. While Sahu dominion was often loose and chaotic, involving vicious tribal conflicts with their confederal allies and subjects, it also successfully imitated the Eftal style of statebuilding. The fortified palace city of Apaxauda (near to IOTL Sarkel) in particular gave the state a permanent, central hub, a place where six months out of the year petitioners could go and seek audience with the Sahu Shah.

Traditionally considered the founder of the Sahu state, Shah Ayadhar cultivated a level of detachment from the other tribal lords who might have considered themselves his peers. One way in which this was achieved was by cultivating foreign relations and forbidding his allies from doing the same. During the glory days of Huviskha's monarchy, the Shah bragged of sending missionaries to Apaxauda, where they remained and founded a monastery. Ayadhar had an embassy in Constantinople, where he sent several of his sons to serve as mercenaries, and raided the Alans, supposedly at the behest of Emperor Ioannes. These raids would ultimately prove beneficial to the Sahu, pressing the Alans out of excellent grazing land, but forced more of the Alans to cross into the Caucasus and, though these refugees were much reduced in number, desperation would force them to attack the weakening Roman state.

Huviskha's propagandistic tale of spreading Buddhism seems to have not been false, but the Greek and Gothic peoples of the Crimea certainly were unimpressed by these Eftal missions, and some of the Turkic peoples among the Xasar-Sahu already worshipped their own synthesis of Buddhism which incorporated their own deities. Ayadhar's attempts to unify his people under a single faith seem to have been flawed - Manichaeans, Pagans of many backgrounds and Christians each made up a significant minority, and the Christians in particular were vital to the western half of his trade.

Shah Ayadhar is almost a mythic figure, only corroborated by the existence of his name in the records of many settled peoples around the same time. But his successors would step out of myth into history as a peoples located on the crossroads between civilizations. Administering the great rivers, the Sahu Shahs would be the conduit for a cultural exchange which would fundamentally change the character of the eastern Slavic peoples.

The West and Romanization

The succession of capable African Kings continued with Tamenzut (574-607) and then his son, Idirases. Tamenzut came to the throne inheriting a unified, powerful state with mercantile and hegemonic ambitions. Over his reign, he forged agreements which provided security for the Roman populations of the various western Mediterranean islands in exchange for a series of trade agreements which brought the urban Roman population in Africa prosperity.

When the Prefect of Sicily died of old age, in 602, he sent Idirases as his representative to Syracuse. Maurice had been an able friend of the Mauri, and had repulsed two Gothic invasions, but he had left almost nothing to account for his succession. He had two daughters, the younger of whom was unmarried, but he had left no indication of who should follow him. Immediately, Maria, the eldest daughter, and her husband Cometas sought to take the title of Doux of Sicilia, but Maurice's second-in-command and foremost general, Isidorus rebelled with the loyalty of most of his military. Idirases fled to Lilybaeum, and shortly thereafter returned to Syracuse, this time with a not insubstantial military and fleet of his own.

After a convoluted intrigue described in great detail by the Roman historian Martinus, Cometas was murdered, Maria married Idirases, and Isidorus fled to Naples, and then on to Ravenna, where he offered his loyalty and troops to the Gothic King Recared in exchange for support in being made Doux of Sicily. Recared rode south and met with Idirases. The two men reportedly despised one another, but a compromise was reached - Idirases would be Doux of Sicily, but would abandon all claims to the southern Italian cities Maurice had controlled. The entire Pennisula fell under the control of the Goths.

Apart from small Berber garrisons, the Roman cities under Berber rule, either in Africa or abroad continued much as they always had. Local governors paid taxes to a Rex, but there was no attempt to impose any sort of foreign settlement. In a sense, the Roman Empire continued in north Africa as well as Egypt and Asia Minor.

The trend of re-Romanization was also evident in Hispania. King Gesalec, the Gothic King of Hispania, ruled a territory that had been much reduced from its heydey. A series of battles had cost his predecessors all of Gaul beyond a few isolated coastal cities, and his father, Athanagild, had lost the rest shortly before his death. At the dawn of the seventh century, he was preoccupied with putting down rebellions, particularly in the south where the Roman population defied him, with, he suspected, assistance from the new Mauri King after he had wed an Ostrogothic Princess, an attempt at uniting the two realms in the face of Frankish aggression.In 608, he went to war with the Frankish King Clothar, who came south after a series of successful campaigns in the north against his various brothers, and, despite being by most accounts an uninspiring monarch and a coward, Gesalec won a major victory - keeping the Franks north of Pyrenees for the time being.

After this victory we can trace a significant change in policy. Increasingly, Gesalec chose to describe himself as the protector of Hispania from the northern barbarians. Realizing, perhaps, that he needed to keep the Romans on his side, he sought to bridge the gap between the Arians and the Chalcedonian Romans, trying to present himself as more Romanized than his rivals, drawing on the works of the Roman philosopher Cassiodorus whose effect on the Ostrogoths had been profoundly stabilizing. While he would never convert to Nicene Christianity (and indeed could not, if he wished to maintain his throne) he did patronize Nicene monasteries and the renovation of many Roman churches.

 

[Practical Lobster]

It's back guys! And Soverihn is totally right. THE RIDE NEVER STOPS.


Rome holds the line

In 596 Anastasios' Empire signed a peace accord with the Heshana Shah and his Arab allies, acknowledging the territorial losses in exchange for a token yearly tribute - acting as if the Shah was a Roman ally rather than a conqueror, softening the blow to his prestige even as he acknowledged the impossibility of retaking Palestine or Syria at this point. The Autocrat of Egypt knew where his core territories lay, and they were along the rich banks of the Nile, not war-torn Syria. The periphery could be lost, but it would only be temporary - nomadic rulers rose and fell all the time. He could regroup and sweep back the whole Empire that was rightfully his in a period of his foes weakness.

It would never happen. Anastasios died a year later of a disease linked by historians to the Egyptian Plague of 540, and his son, Theodotus took power. A mystic with Miaphysite leanings, Theodotus was profoundly distracted from worldly affairs, regularly fasting to the point of incredible weakness and spurning the attention of women, especially his famously manipulative wife, Maria. He was not popular with the military or the bureaucrats, but the Coptic religious establishment and the common people tended to hold him in high esteem, and both bureaucrats and military alike quickly learned how easy it was to administer affairs without him. However, against the wishes of the military, Theodotus re-affirmed the peace with Heshana, leaving Emperor Ioannes to face the Arabo-Eftal hordes alone.

Around 599 there was an attempted coup attempt by a cabal of ranking Greek officers, but it was foiled by Theodotus' guards and a prominent court faction who had been profiting excellently from Theodotus' detachment from the world. The aftermath of this coup attempt was a vicious purge of many of the higher-ranking officers in the Alexandrine military, leaving the Egyptian empire in even worse shape than before.

Meanwhile, Constantinople was at this point a shadow of its former glory, but it was still a great city, the greatest in the Balkans, and there were indications it might recover - trade with the Sahu provided cheaper grain than had once been available, and with relative peace between Romans and Bulgars, people had begun to return. It remained well-fortified. Ioannes invested great sums in restoring the Anastasian wall, a possible first line of defense against attack. Further, by retaining an army in Constantinople, he kept a dagger pointed at the Bulgar Khaganate's heart. This allowed him to negotiate a treaty with Khan Kubrat which ceded a series of coastal cities including the port of Heraclea back to the authority of Roman administrators, gaining more through diplomacy than his predecessor had with arms. Twenty years of peace in the Balkans benefitted Rome as much as it did Kubrat, whose attempts to order a state composed of so many chaotic and multicultural elements were often difficult.

The Romans thus turned their full focus against Heshana, abandoning their dreams of recovering the Balkans. Ioannes settled a massive band of Alan refugees, lead by a man named Vanyuk in Cappadocia and the western parts of Roman Armenia, regions heavily depopulated by Mihiragula's savage warfare and Heshana's raiding. These new Alanian settlers deeply angered the Roman populace, but Emperor Ioannes had few options. His own manpower was depleted, and the Alanians were willing and excellent soldiers, capable of more than holding their own against the Eftal raids.

With these fresh troops, he sent the Isaurian commander Dioskoros against Heshana, and the general circumvented the Eftal defenses in Cilicia, striking at Melitene. Edessa, still notionally Heshana's capital, was perilously close, and the Eftal warlord rushed back with a large force of Arab and Eftal cavalry. After a period of indescisive skirmishing, both men realized neither was willing to commit to a potentially costly engagement, and Dioskoros settled in to the siege of Melitene, using Alan raiders to guard his baggage train and keep Heshana from encircling his forces. After thirty three days of siege, the city fell when the Romans within the city rose up against the small Eftal garrison and butchered them.

From Ioannes' standpoint, this was the sort of vital symbolic victory he'd been looking for. The Emperor quickly made peace. Seeing that there was now a dagger pointed at Edessa, Heshana decided to move his court to a more southern and defensible location. Emesa, once a holy city of the Sun, became his new capital. Heshana valued its strategic central position from which he could watch over his Arab vassal-allies and also reside further from the frontier. He now had many subordinates, including an excellent raider in Hujr ibn Wa'il, and, perhaps seeking to temper their ambitions he encouraged them to raid from the uplands of Cilicia into Asia Minor, and these raids, while sometimes countered by Alan horsemen, nevertheless had the effect of pushing the Roman population further towards the larger cities and safer lands of the west, placing ever greater strain on the agriculture of the region.

This shift in population would further contract and centralize the rump Empire. While the Empire's tax revenues remained strong, a critical lack of manpower forced the Ioannes to rely more and more on Sahu and Alanian mercenaries. The now aging Roman general, exhausted by the struggle of holding together his regime against this shifting tide, would take little aggressive action. The Balkan peninsula's loss was all but acknowledged - and while many Romans would dream of a reconquest, it would not come in the life of the beleaguered Basileus. Ioannes would pass away in 607, succeeded at first by a nephew of his, Justin, who would die a few days into his reign.

A pause for breathing

The reign of Khauwashta, son of Sheskh, and his brother Mihiradata was characterized by a remarkable period of peace and internal unity. The sole threat in Khauwashta's reign would prove to be the Gokturk Khaganate, but even they preferred stability along the major overland trade routes, and the brief interruptions of that trade would prove sufficiently costly to their incomes that ultimately in 609, the two states signed an "eternal peace" accompanied by an exchange of hostages.

The burden of ruling even the much diminished Eftal Empire was high. Many of the peoples within it had become accustomed to relative autonomy or dreams of independence. The Eftal had always been somewhat decentralized by nature, never quite giving up their nomadic notions of loyalty, but it was unique to see the many conquered peoples of their empire pressing for increased influence at court. The tradition structure, wherein Eftal tribal loyalties ruled, was disintegrating. Much of Khauwashta's reign was characterized by elaborate ritual and these attempts to distance himself from his subordinates with increasingly elaborate court ceremony.

Khauwashta's brother Mihiradata was indispensible to the regime. Where Khauwashta cultivated semi-divine aloofness, especially to his various vassal Shahs, Mihiradata provided a personal touch, touring the expanse of the Empire so as to hear petitions and address local grievances. Further, he commissioned a series of fortresses in Mesopotamia, knowing that with Osrhoene lost to Heshana their borders were remarkably weakened. Nasibin and Dara had long been the fortified frontier of the empire, but now both cities were in the hands of an oft-unreliable vassal.

Around the Persian Gulf, the wealthy merchant potentates who had been supporters of Akhshunwar Malkha continued to grow both in number and in wealth, and their mystic religion endured even if it took on a uniquely Persian dualism. Ahuramazda and Mahadeva become synonymous in the new cult. The reunification of the Eftal Shahdom made trade safe, and there was sufficient food imports from Mesopotamia to support significant urban growth of the cities there, and allowed many of the refugees who had fled from the Iranian plateau during the wars to remain and find work amongst the urban artisan class. Khauwashta properly recognized these merchants and artisans as indispensible and loyal supporters, rewarding the most important of them with positions in the local government, and making their relatives part of his bureaucracy.

The Avars
Emerging into the historical record as an organized state in the last twenty years of the sixth century, the Avar Khaganate has unclear origins. The communities of Pannonia maintained close contact with the Roman Empire until the loss of the Balkans, but also with the Germanic world of the Franks, and at this crossroads of cultures, the Avars left their bloody mark. Much like the Sahu, the Avar Khagan was part of a relatively small but militarily powerful tribal elite, with various federated tribes, some nomadic, others settled, beneath him. Unlike the Sahu, the Avar displayed little interest in settling down or city-building. They were far less influenced by the Eftal or even the Bulgars.

The Avars were an entirely nomadic people, moving seasonally with herds. The conquest of the Germanic and Roman peoples within Pannonia brought them a permanent base from which to launch attacks, as well as the sort of long-term wealth that could be extracted from a sedentary population, but little more. Their economy was entirely based around plunder and exploitation, but they were experienced warriors and quite capable of maintaining such a system. Their Khagan, Anakuye, lead near-constant raids, pressing south into Illyria and also Italy and the Germanic tribes to their north.

Italy in particular was a profoundly appealing target for them. Striking south, they wreaked havoc along the Po valley, at first in small, disorganized bands, mixed companies of Slavic and Avar warriors. The wealthy monasteries of the region, benefitting from decades of patronage by the Ostrogothic Kings were prime targets, as were the wealthy rural manors populated by a motley mix of Gothic and Roman aristocrats - by this point near unrecognizable in their minimal distinctions. The high-walled cities were at first ignored, but in time as the plunder of each expedition seemed only to increase, the Avars penetrated Italy in greater force, prompting a response by the King.

The Avar invasion of Italy in 604 was reportedly a force of some six thousand cavalry, disparate raiding groups drawn together and reinforced by a central core of the Khagan's companions. Cautious but believing the odds to be in his favor, the Gothic king Recared assembled what forces he could at short notice - still perhaps double what the Avars had raised, with his own large contingent of cavalry. They met the Avars not far from Placentia.

The Khagan was ready. Slaughtering the scouts of the hastily assembled force, he reached the Gothic Rex's camp at dawn, but finding it well fortified and the Goths prepared, he refused to attack. Instead, he arrayed the bulk of his horse in three columns and allowed the Goths to sally from their camp and attempt to drive him off. When they did, their heavy cavalry charged his center, which loosed arrows and retreated, allowing the other two elements to envelop the Gothic cavalry and bleed them badly before being forced to retreat by the Gothic infantry, who formed solid defensive formations "bristling with spears in all directions".

Anakuye 's cavalry archers harassed these formations, but to little effect. Frustrated and hoping that the Goths had been weakened by the arrow volleys, he sent his best cavalry into the center of the Gothic force, where they broke through the Gothic formation and wreaked havoc. Despite being a prepared line of infantry, the death of King Racared and the Avars totally outflanking the semicircular Gothic formation caused the Goths to break hard. The Avars rode down almost the entire force, taking thousands of captives, many of them aristocratic, and killing almost as many, and plundering the camp for additional supplies, armor and equipment.

After Placentia, the Gothic nobility was nearly annihilated. Chaos in the one prosperous realm followed, especially after the ambitious Doux Isidorus in Naples persuaded the local populace to back a bid of his for power in Italy. With the decline of Roman prestige in the East, perhaps he even had Imperial ambitions. Though he had a small force, he needed little more to complete a swift reunification of the southern half of the Pennisula, and from there marched on Rome, where the Senate welcomed him with open arms - here was a fellow Roman, a liberator, and a Nicene Christian. In Rome, as in many cities, the Romans fell upon their Gothic garrisons and slaughtered them when Isidorus arrived outside the gates. Thin on the ground in Southern Italy, the Goths had little recourse. The only response from Ravenna, was to send a prominent member of the royal family, Alaric, with three thousand men. While by some accounts this force actually outnumbered the troops available to Isidorus, it was nowhere near what would be required to besiege Rome, and when Isidorus sallied out, he put the levied force to rout.

Meanwhile, one of the Khagan's nephews, Bati Apsih, rode south and opened negotiations with Isidorus. The era of Gothic Italy was all but over. The peninsula would be in time divided between the Berbers, Romans, and Avars.


(And that's the way the news goes. Stay tuned for even more stories of civilized people being defeated by warlike hordes. Also does anyone have any areas they'd particularly like to see visited?)

 

[Practical Lobster]

The Great Raid

Shah Heshana fell sick in early 617. An adventurer who had carved out his expansive levantine dominion at the expense of one of the most powerful Empires in the world, he would be lucky to die in his sleep, surrounded by his extended family. And yet as his death loomed ever closer, his closest followers became nervous. His Eftal-born wife Natigaya had borne him a son, now seventeen years of age - a year older than when Heshana began his career as a bandit. Named Syavush, the boy showed promise. And yet the Eftal had no law governing succession, and Heshana seemed loathe to speak on the matter. His illness robbed him of his voice and quickly vultures moved in.

Standing in Syavush's way was the aging but brilliant administrator Narsai bar Aprem, a childhood companion of Heshana's and, when his friend was away, the de facto ruler of the state. Narsai favored a cousin of Heshana's, a captain in the Shah's army by the name of Nanivadh for rulership. He approached Nanivadh and brought him before the Shah, seeking to have the young man named co-Shah before Heshana passed away. He was unsuccessful. On his arrival at many-templed Emesa, the Shah had already passed away, and Natigaya had outmaneuvered him. Marrying Syavush to a daughter of Hujr ibn Wa'il, her son now had the acclamation of his father's polyglot army. According to the Roman historians, he quickly won their allegiance and love through a dramatic display of mourning and two months of lavish funeral games. Happening contemporaneously with a vast expansion of Emesa into a proper royal capital, it was not long before the plunder-laden coffers of the Shahdom began to strain. Coupled with an extravagant tribute to the Eftal in the east, the situation could not last.

It was Narsai who brought this to the young Shah's attention. Further, their truce with the various Roman states would not last forever. The past twenty years of Theodotus' reign had seen Heshana's Eftal cheerfully end their tribute without a response while the Emperor's corrupt advisors blundered from mistake to mistake. From the opulent palace-city of al-Jabiyah, Hujr could see an opportunity, and the two aging advisors set aside their differences and recommended that the young Shah cement his reign with the prize of Egypt.

It was not improbable that Narsai had ulterior motives. A failed campaign by Syavush might see the boy dethroned in short order, paving the way for Nanivadh to summarily take power. Further, whatever intelligence Narsai had suggested that the remaining orthodox elements of the army were distinctly displeased with the state of affairs in the capital.

Over the years since Theodotus' purge, they had not had any reason to love their Autocrat, and they had in secret appealed to Basileus Justin that he come south and liberate Egypt from the Monophysite Theodotus. Justin however, had more conservative ambitions, and saw in Egypt much potential risk and a sink for soldiers he could ill afford. While the soldiers did not turn to the pagan Syavush or the heretic Arabs for aid either, their poor performance in the invasion of Egypt is easily explained by a combination of poor leadership and low morale.

The army Theodotus assembled to stop Syavush's march on Egypt was a mixed bag. The core of his force were veterans but hugely apathetic to his regime. His rather more loyal native Egyptian soldiers were still not wholly impressed by him, and he was forced to command the force in person for lack of trustworthy commanders who wouldn't alienate even further some part of his army. His wife accompanied him as well, much to the derision of his men.

By the time Syavush marched on Egypt, the situation would have been unrecognizable to Anastasios. The Roman coastal cities, even the great fortress of Gaza, fared very poorly. Their new constructions and defenses were torn down by trained siege engineers. While Syavusha' s force had a strong component of light cavalry recruited from Arabia and the western Eftal and Alans, his infantry resembled in dress and equipment the Romans they so commonly fought. In his latter years, Heshana and Hujr had even trained a unit of elite heavy cavalry in the manner of Cataphracts.

Theodotus would meet Syavusha at Pelousion. The Nile was not due to flood for some time, and at the advice of one of his few trusted generals, Eudoxios he allowed Syavusha to take the city and cross the river. The autocrat wagered that a swift, decisive battle would be preferable to a protracted campaign. Showing confidence in this situation would raise the morale of his troops and rumor had it that Syavush had prepared for the long haul, bringing a vast supply train across the desert at great expense. Both men had wagered everything.

The Romans collapsed with remarkable swiftness once battle was joined. The veteran Greeks on Theodotus' left were outmanuevered by Hujr's swift cavalry and suffered grievous losses. As Syavush brought up his heaviest cavalry he personally lead a charge straight at Theodotus' command, but it was blunted and the young Shah barely escaped with his life. Some historians, most typically those who seek to paint Narsai as a scheming and disloyal subordinate have claimed this was part of a plan to secure the throne, but in any event Syavush survived, and it was Theodotus who would be betrayed. Eudoxios led his contingent, primarily Egyptian, from the field in good order without even engaging. A legate by the name of Paulos followed suit, taking the cavalry from the field and allowing the Eftal cavalry to surround Theodotus' remaining forces.

The collapse of the Roman line was inevitable. Soon after, the collapse of Roman Egypt followed. Syavush's army plundered up and down the Nile, and Eudoxios surrendered Alexandria without a fight, having negotiated lenient terms for the treatment of the Egyptian people. These terms were at least partially followed, but in many cases they were not. The wealth of the city, especially what remained of its famous library, was taken back to Emesa to further enrich the capital. The Patriarch fled to Cyprus, but many of the common people were not so lucky. It would take a further two years to finish mopping up all resistance, at which point Syavush left all of Egypt in the hands of Hujr and rode north to Emesa.

As opposed to Syria and Palestine and the general Eftal practice of settling their kinsmen in conquered territory, Syavush, perhaps feeling overstretched, simply levied taxes upon the already plundered territory. Garrisons were established, and cleverly Syavush ensured that these were drawn from various rivals of Hujr, preventing his aging father-in-law from exercising effective military control of the province in the most subtle way possible. The newly-minted Shah of Egypt and Syria had enriched himself and proven a force to be reckoned with - and yet his vast new territory would prove tough to hold. Even those Arabs and Eftal under his command who worshiped Christ were rarely considered anything but heterodox, and the majority of Eftal and Alans were still various forms of "pagan" in the eyes of the Copts. Syavush, in the tradition of the Eftal Shahs, was tolerant of all faiths, if sometimes ignorant of their particulars.

Red Sea trade and the Savahila

Perhaps the greatest value to maintaining control of Egypt lay in controlling one of the two major trade lanes between orient and occident - and the only lane not within the hands of the often chaotic Eftal Shahdom. In the era of Anastasios and Theodotus, Egypt had remained wealthy on both its own produce and this elaborate trade network, stretching from the Cushitic city states of Savahila in the far south and Al-Komr (Madagascar) to the remaining trading centers of the Mediterranean.

Chief among the cities of Savahila was white-walled Shangani, a federate of Awalastan. Awalastan was in the year 600 still ruled by the enigmatic Nijara Shah, an on-again off-again rival of the hegemonic Hadhrami power in the south. From time to time the Awali would patronize Makkah and al-Ta'if in their raids on Hadhrami caravans or try to incite rebellion amongst the Jewish population of Aden, as it was generally to the profit of all to avoid open war. Through the sixth century, both powers recognized their part in the complex network of trade which brought profit to both - allowing the Hadhrami to maintain their narrow hydraulic hegemony and the Awalastanis their wars against Axum. But by the third decade of the seventh century, this balance would change.

Despite their incredible early successes under Kaosha, Awalastan in 630 was a state on the decline, pressured by the more numerous and agriculturally prosperous Axumites, and slowly cut out of their share trade by the more savvy Hadhrami merchants. Cities such as Amoud and Shangani would prosper, but they would do so as clients of Axum or the Hadhramut. The great cosmopolitan libraries and universities Amoud would later become known for would develop under the patronage of Hadhrami merchant families, not the insular, warlike cult of Sattiga's interpretation of "Mahadeva". And yet the cult's influence would nevertheless endure in the martial spirit of the peoples who dwelled outside the city's walls, enough that Awali mercenaries became highly prized in the armies of the "civilized" states nearby.

The power vacuum left by the collapse of Awalistan would serve the interests of the Eftal Shahs in distant Susa, whose machinations and concurrent reduction of taxes on merchants saw the oversea lanes decline, leading towards the rise of the Banu Thaqif, who in 624 conquered the pilgrimage site of Makkah in the name of a god/goddess our Persian sources call Alilat or Mihir. Dominating both overland trade and pilgrimage, they became fabulously wealthy and more brazen, striking deep into Hadhrami territory on raids for slaves and plunder.

The Thaqif would in time become allies of Syavush's Shahdom to the north, a pact which would only further strengthen their overland trading network. Poets patronized by the Thaqif, including the famous ibn Sakhr would travel north into Palestine, bringing Arabic poetry into vogue in the garden courts of al-Jabiyah, a place ibn Sakhr would compare to heaven itself. It was the beginning of the end of centralized Hadhrami hegemony. As the Eftal began to withdraw their patronage, even the long-monopolized trade in Arabic spices began to slide under the control of petty, local powers. The Malik became more and more a figurehead for influential local families jockeying for influence between the great powers, and the potential wealth of the Savahila cities rendered cities such as Shangani more important entrepots in any case. The Hadhramut Kingdom would not fall so much as peter out, replaced by a more competitive and decentralized system which did not bring the same degree of royal revenue, but enriched a larger percentage of the population at the expense of military power projection.

In the far south, in cities such as Rhapta, Tanga, Kintradoni, and Mzishima, (the last two roughly OTL Mombasa and Dar es Salaam) Indian culture was spreading much as it had through Southeast Asia, Baktria, and to a lesser extent eastern Persia. In time the Arab and Indian merchants had allowed a loose but nevertheless enforced caste system to develop, separating themselves from the indigenous peoples, who themselves had long had distant links to the peoples of Southeast Asia. Ruled by local oligarchs, the "Malikiya" these city-states would prosper and develop into a loose confederation of sorts, lead by a Mzishima merchant named Citrasena.

Across the sea, in an island called by its inhabitants Izao Riaka (but by the Arabs Al-Komr) the Austronesian peoples had prospered - trade had allowed them to develop a far more complex agricultural package on the islands. Cattle and citrus fruit allowed a more balanced diet but only contributed to the deforestation of the island and the near-elimination of its megafauna, who among other things were traded as novelties to the courts of potentates in far away Susa and Pataliputra. It was an era of population growth and prosperity, but with this prosperity came consolidation. One tribe was becoming predominant: known as the Sakalava, the people of the long valleys, they had been fierce raiders in the time before the coming of the foriegners across the great water. The Sakalava had long been the bane of the more prosperous highland tribes, but in time would prove to benefit most from the introduction of cattle and, from this prosperity would overrun most of the highlands, establishing a loose hegemony and tribute from the scattered other tribes. As part of this tribute came slaves, and thus the Sakalava found their way into the world of global trade developing around them. Young men of the Merina tribe found their way as far as Sopara, where they formed the elite bodyguard of the Raja there.

 

[Practical Lobster]

The Sahu revisited

In the north, the Xasar-Sahu state was in the beginning of a golden age of sorts. Ayadhar's semi-mythic legacy of statebuilding had become a centralized reality. Cities such as Apaxauda and Tangrabat which once had been little more than fortified trade hubs now hosted significant urban populations, fed by the bounty of the Don and Volga rivers expanded by royal irrigation projects. In the half-century after Ayadhar's death in 598, the Sahu became more and more capable of exerting their influence on the various steppe peoples and the Greek colonies beneath their hegemony, transforming tribute to direct administration. Part of the secret of this dominion lay in the influence of Persian merchants, who in time would become colonists and no small part of the urban makeup of these new cities.

But what was the trade that so enriched the Sahu, and allowed them to construct these great cities and monasteries? In no small part it was a blossoming slave trade, as the eastern Slavs were transported south to work estates in Egypt, Asia, and Mesopotamia. Decades of near-constant war had left even the most populous regions depopulated, and also at least among the Eftal had created a new victorious aristocracy in dire need of laborers. And thus the vast steppe and forests of Eastern Europe became an integral part of the growing Eurasian trade network.

While the more mercantile Greek colonists of the Crimea remained and prospered from this arrangement, living in harmony with these relative newcomers as they had for centuries, the Crimean Goths fought back. After the Kutrigurs went south, the Goths had enjoyed relative independence from both the Romans and the steppe tribes. This situation was not to last. Shah Qarajar rode south in 618 and, with the help of Roman engineers he besieged and took fort after fort from the Goths, massacring or selling them into slavery en masse. By 624, the Sahu Shah had appointed a "satrap" over the region out of his own family, and the region was subdued. The Gothic population would slowly merge into that of the Greek colonists and would never again trouble the Sahu.

The Sahu, like the Eftal, were a tolerant people, but Buddhism prospered under their patronage to a far greater extent than Christianity. Despite the traditional staying power of Christianity, and its resilience to persecution, the Sahu remained part of the Indo-Iranian world, and part of a worldview which was more Eftal than Roman. The philosophies of the Indian subcontinent, adapted for the steppe, allowed Anahita, Mihir and other Iranic gods to retain their traditional places of importance. While some important subjects, of the Sahu were Christian and Manichaean, neither of these religions would be able to gain the patronage of the tribal elites whose carefully structured alliances and river tolls dominated Sahu society. Christianity remained the faith of the influential Greek minority and some of the remaining Alan tribes.


Rise of the Universal Ruler - a tale of two Rajas

Maharaja Visvajita of Purushapura had every reason to feel content with his legacy. The past few decades had seen the Johiyava expand their power by leaps and bounds. The wily Eftal warlord Gokharna had passed away, taking an unlucky arrow in the eye fighting the Qangli Turks. He had died instantly, and in his wake the Gandharan Johiyava had only pressed their power further into Baktria, arriving at a sort of natural limit to their westward expansion. In 602, Sabuhrakan had fallen into their sphere of influence, and in the years that followed his brother had taken the cities along the Hari river, most notably Pusang.

And yet this period of peace and prosperity bred complacency. Along the Gangetic plain, a new power was rising. The scattered, fragmented states of the Indo-Gangetic plain would become slowly unified by a new, ambitious ruler named Rajyavardhana who styled himself as Chakravartin, or Universal Ruler. Tracing his origin back from one of many petty Rajas, his rise to power was meteoric. Through shrewd alliances he found himself the Maharaja of Pataliputra, displacing a feeble Gupta ruler whose territory barely extended beyond the capital, but his real capacity lay in military tactics, leading a small army to victory after victory. By the age of eighteen he had conquered Gauda and Kamarupa. By twenty he had unified the petty states of the Ganges and made Sakala on the Indus his westernmost frontier.

His rise was unprecedented in Indian history. Empires rose and fell across the subcontinent, but rarely had one ascended so quickly. While many of his contemporaries were quick to attribute Rajyavardhana's victories purely to his own greatness, the truth is rather more complex. Rajyavardhana was a talented and capable commander and an adept ruler, whose personal charisma did wonders for his power. But he also was able to hijack and restore the failing Gupta state, and many of his nearby rivals were relatively small, and did not band together against him until it was too late. Any notion that Rajyavardhana could not be defeated is little more than an illusion. After his meteoric rise he had trouble sustaining his momentum. His state further would live in the shadow of the more prosperous Gupta, and he spent little time attempting to revitalize the economy, preferring to remain constantly on some grand conquest or other.

The Chalukya would be his true rival, and despite early successes, here Rajyavardhana would meet his match. Maharaja Pulakesi ruled a large empire straddling the Deccan, and after Rajyavardhana's conquest of Gujarat in 622, he was spurred into action. The remarkable chain of conquests ended. In 625, the "Universal Ruler" limped back to Pataliputra and would never again mount another campaign into the Deccan. Four years later, he would march on Takasila, one of the great cities of the Johiyava. An aging Visvajita met him in battle, and despite what our Eftal sources describe as an uninspired strategy, Visvajita was able to wear down Rajyavardhana with mercenary Turkic and Eftal horse-archers and finally charge home with his own fierce cavalry. The intercession of Rajyavardhana's elephants saved his army from a rout, driving off the Johiyava cavalry. In yeas following this battle, Sindh and Punjab fell into his grasp, but Takasila remained in the hands of the Johiyava.

The Chakravartin was wounded in battle however, and the last ten years of his reign (until 639) would prove tedious to a man whose life had been warfare. He was said to have travelled his Empire extensively, and given up some of his more martial inclinations, but he would ultimately die relatively young, leaving a vast and unwieldy Empire for his young nephew (having never had children of his own.) On account of the influence of his sister, he was a great patron of esoteric gurus which he encountered on his travels, and patronized both Buddhists and Vedanta scholars heavily.

Replacing the Gupta as he did, Rajyavardhana is often seen as the transition point between periods in Indian history, a conqueror emblematic of the Imperial era to come. And yet for all his rapid campaigns, and his reunification of the Indo-Gangetic plain, little changed culturally or socially as a result of his reunification. Since the Saka there had been no great flow of foreign culture or ideas into India. The Eftal had only a passing impact on the vast subcontinent. Those changes happening to India amounted to a bloody restoration of the Gupta-era status quo, except on the coasts - coasts which remained on the periphery of his river-valley focused Empire. If one was to look at the world as Rajyavardhana saw it from his death bed, one would barely see the new India that was to come.

(And that's the way alternate history version of Harsha happens. A restoration of the Gupta Empire in a sense, but ultimately less interesting, if only because the "Sveta Huna" never penetrated the subcontinent. Instead you have a Hindu dynasty projecting power out of Afghanistan and India remains rather more insular and rather less feudal that IOTL. But society is seriously changing along the coasts, and we've successfully butterflied the rise of feudalism and also the Islamic invasions, which should only do good things for the prosperity of India.

Y'all may have started noticing that part of this timeline is a reaction to how many "no Islam, Christianity spreads everywhere" timelines exist. Ideally I'm going to try to avoid wanking any single religion in this timeline, and especially not some of the weird syncretic cults I've made up. In the next post we'll look in depth at Nestorian Mesopotamia and Egypt under her Eftal-Arab conquerors, where Christianity still remains strong. But for the foreseeable future, it doesn't look like Christianity is going to make it to the steppe in force.)

 

[Practical Lobster]

A Less Universal Ruler

Rajyavardhana Maukhani's early death left an empire likely to collapse, except for one fortuitous factor - he had a nephew, fifteen years old, residing in one of the royal centers of authority, Kankyakubja. Named Visnuvadhana, the boy was quickly elevated by the court bureaucrats to authority. Having been groomed for authority for a young age, there were few obstacles to overcome in the matter of succession. However, rebellions on the periphery would consume his early reign.

Two important leaders, Janasriya and Govindahagda, ministers placed in overall authority over Kamarupa (Assam) and Vanga (Bengal) respectively sought to rebel. Haritiputa, a general in Rajyavardhana's army, was placed in command of the force sent to put down the rebellion. Initially, Haritiputa had great success through covert means, stalling the rebellion until he could secure a betrayal which saw Govindahagda deposed and murdered. However, Haritiputa's attack up the massive Brahmaputra river would be met with less success.

Despite some seventy thousand men, thousands of war elephants, and perhaps two thousand riverboats, his forces bogged down in the immense floodplain and in an indecisive two year siege of Guyahati. The siege would be commemorated in a great epic poem, "Guyahati" which became part of the Kamarupan history and held the foreign-born Janasriya as a national hero of sorts. Without a decisive battle and with Janasriya not falling to intrigue, victory was impossible. Finally, with news of the Maharaja of Valabhi declaring himself independent, the army was recalled and peace signed. Kamarupa would remain beyond the fold of the new Empire.

Haritiputa's fate is unclear. Some sources record he did not survive the immense siege, while others say he was executed shortly thereafter in a palace intrigue. Whatever the case, a new commander named Damodara rose to command shortly thereafter, and lead a significantly reduced force south through Malava, "obtaining the submission of many cities there" and finally leading a campaign through Gujarat that lead to Valabhi being brought back under the at least nominal control of the Maukhani Empire. However, cities like Valabhi were rich from trade with Persia, Africa, and Arabia, and as such could use their wealth to buy influence with local governors. This ensured that the Satraps of Gujarat were frequently able to rule as Rajas in their own right. In such coastal cities the rules governing caste and proper behavior were considerably looser than inland - and the cosmopolitan foreign traders who resided in them saw a very different world than those who travelled to say, Pataliputra.

It is also notable that Visnuvadhana claimed a lesser title than Emperor. He ruled as a Maharajadhiraja, but never aspired to the same divinely-mandated rulership his father did. Perhaps as a consequence of his weaker reign, dominated in his youth by ministers and scholars, he often saw himself as a student rather than a patron, far into adulthood. Whatever his early inclinations, he seems to have never found enlightenment, for in 631 launched a campaign into the Punjab with great success at restoring borders eroded by Samantayava, the latest Johiyava Maharaja. At the culmination of this campaign, he wed Samantayava's sister, Karmavati in a grand ceremony at Takasila. This decision granted the Johiyava a protector and secured Punjab against raids from the north.

The Crossroads of Civilization

For centuries, the Middle East was the birthplace of numerous religions. Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Judaism and Christianity all had their foundations within the broad region which, by the year 620 was entirely under the broad banner of "Eftal". From Baktria, where Sveta Huna clansmen languished under the Johiyava, to Egypt, where the Arabs and Eftal were busy establishing a new empire, the arrival of the Eftal had permanently upended the dynamic of religious belief in the region. Through their conquests, they brought the religious traditions of their steppe home to the East in force, and more than that, they brought a certain tolerance that allowed a melting pot of faiths to grow.

Out of this melting pot came many scholars. It was, at first, primarily the province of Christians and Buddhists, two faiths far more inclined to missionary work than Eftal paganism or Zoroastrianism. The Hindu mystics would come later as well, their ideas complicating an already rich religious framework. A Buddhist missionary, Sonuttara of Vattaniya, is often hailed as the forerunner of the western Buddhist tradition, a tradition which grew out of the direct competition between the emerging Buddhist monastic communities and the traditional Zoroastrian classes. Arriving in 540, he spent some twenty years proselytizing, and his writings, notably "The Characteristics of Wisdom" and "The Noble Dialogues" would inform Buddhist missionary work for years to come. The latter was vital as it was one of the first writings to contemplate how to blend the Persian and Buddhist religious mindset - something that would be invaluable to latter scholars.

This, among other things, allowed Zoroastrianism to decline or be subsumed. The veneration of traditional Iranic dieties continued, of course. Little effort was made to stop Eftal from worshipping Mitra, or to put out the sacred fires. As such, despite the growth of these religious movements, the decline of Zoroastrianism frequently cited by many scholars could well be called an illusion. The faith of the elites transformed, but at a local level Zoroastrianism endured in many different folk traditions that were sufficiently well-respected by the elites as to avoid persecution. And where Zoroastrianism could not endure, it changed.

With this growing tolerance and the decline of Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism enjoyed an upsurge in popularity again, and without persecution it made inroads into Mesopotamia, its traditional heartland, and into Syria as well. The gnostic religion had a distinct appeal to both certain marginalized local groups but also many of the Alan and Turkic tribes who had been settled in the region. The great Manichaeist preacher Sabrishu (544-591) was notable for spreading the religion, but would ultimately be murdered during the Sack of Tesifon, while fleeing the advancing armies of Shah Isaiah. After this period, the "Religion of Light" would slowly begin to lose popularity in Eftal lands, ultimately being relegated to the steppe. Its ideas would endure however. Sabrishu's disciples would travel far and wide, many reaching courts in Africa and beyond, where they would go on to introduce eastern ideas further into the west than any of their rival creeds.

Mahadeva began as an Indian god, a name of Shiva. By 550, his rapid popularity among the Eftal elite was readily apparent. Like Mitra, Mahadeva appealed to a certain warlike eastern sensibility, but unlike Mitra, Mahadeva-worship also had certain universal elements, imported wholesale from the traditions of the Upanishads. The Persian philosopher and mathematician Arash was one of the first indigenous converts, and much like Buddhism, Mahadeva worship was willing to tolerate polytheism, allowing it to subtly inform the religious traditions of the Eftal and become accepted by the even the most traditionalist Eftal. It was, of course, Shah Akhshunwar Malka who brought this religion into mass acceptance, but its endurance can be attributed to an underlying cultural foundation which could easily accommodate Mahadeva as a supreme being and a path to moksha.

However, the proliferation of Indian philosophies, of reincarnation and nirvana/moksha was a consequence less of philosophers and rulers than it was of mass preachers laying the groundwork. Asceticism was an alien concept to the peoples of Persia, but very familiar to the Eftal, who had long provided safe haven to traveling mystics in Central Asia. This patronage was on the level of local tribal/clan groups, not royal support, but allowed these missions to continue on a grand scale, reaching even Arabia, where Persian and Indian ideas enjoyed a vogue under Hadhramut patronage. Mahadeva in particular found root in Awalastan and Arabia, and even after its practitioners were driven out or persecuted, Indian philosophy would leave a profound effect on the region, influencing the heterodox monotheistic cults which would grow in subsequent decades, and the sanskritized Savahila states, where Buddhism would predominate.

Ascetics were also more familiar in Mesopotamia, a populous and strongly Nestorian region, and Armenia, a Iranic but nevertheless Christian country. While Armenia was able to benefit from Eftal distraction and tolerance, and thus remain rather peripheral to the horse-lords to their south, Mesopotamia early on inherited the off-and-on persecution of the Sassanian regime. This persecution was however uncharacteristic of the Eftal, who had Christians among their ranks in any case, and therefore slowly came to an end as the Eftal divorced themselves from the Sassanid rulers whose position they had usurped. Many Eftal would come to embrace Christianity.

If any one region is to be considered a melting pot however, it should be Mesopotamia. The Nestorian Christians had long been persecuted, creating long lists of martyrs and hardening their congregations against adversity. In the aftermath of the great Egyptian Plague of 542, and even before the region was settled by many eastern peoples. Rouran, Turks, and Baktrians were relocated to the region throughout the Eftal era, part of a series of great exoduses and resettlements. Tengri, Mithra, and Buddha became as venerated as Christ for many elements of the population, and yet the long-suffering Christians of the region saw this not as a threat but as an opportunity. They began to proselytize openly, and for the next century would do so with the support of the Eftal. Christianity spread into the heartland of Iran much as Buddhism did, albeit without the same state support. Notably, some of the local saints who would become popular on the Iranian plateau had curious similarities to local religious practices - a process which it should be noted was by no means exclusive to Christianity.

It was not until the reign of Khauwashta son of Sheskh that the first royal-sponsored religious debates took place. At the Shah's winter palace near the Gulf city of Ram-Ardashir, the debate was held between the Nestorian Bishop Elisha of Bavel, the Syriac Buddhist monk Bhedhisho, and a group of various Zoroastrian and Indian mystics, most notably the rail-thin ascetic Khalinga of Argan, one of the earliest Iranian Advaita devotees and a traveler and historian who spent much of his time in Balkh. While such debates had happened before in satrapal courts and in the latter days of the Reign of Sons, they began again under the renewed tolerance ushered in by Khauwashta.

This debate, and those which occurred before and subsequently, rarely caused direct upheavals in the religious framework of the Eftal world. But, by encouraging these traveling holy men to travel, they reinforced the patchwork intermingling of various faiths on a very local level, and helped offset to some degree the growing regionalization of the Eftal world. The Caspain sea coast would remain a great center of Buddhism, Mesun the beating heart of Mahadeva worship, and Arbayestan the center of Nestorian Christianity, but hard lines never managed to establish themselves - even if among various Eftal or Turkic groups (in and of itself a blurring distinction) religious beliefs often fell along tribal lines. The most important element of this blurring however, was the spread of "eastern" culture westwards, carried by the earliest Eftal whose worlds were shaped by Baktrian and Soghdian dress, food, and societal organization. The version of Indian culture that spread west was one rooted in the interpretations of these earlier Iranian peoples, and this is an important distinction to make, and necessary to understand how Zoroastrianism was in many cases pushed aside or subsumed, while Christianity fared better.

(Continued - the Western Crossroads)

In the Syrian state carved out by Heshana however, the religious situation was rather different. Here the Indian thought that had so influenced the eastern Eftal was all but absent, and unlike among the Sahu, eastern missionaries were met with little success. Like Armenia, Syria and Egypt had their own long-established Christian tradition, and here, at the periphery of the Eftal conquests, the natives were less inclined to abandon their own creeds. Plague and war had provided inroads for conquerors to establish themselves. Steppe paganism flourished in Osrhoene, where many warlike clans had settled in some of the very first waves of Eftal invasion. The Eftal Sun-God [perhaps called Huareh] had a particularly strong worship in this region, and provided the basis for the religion of Heshana and many of his close tribal affiliates. Along with a number of other pagan deities, these beliefs remained strong but in the absence of an organized belief system had little effect on a deeply Christian region.

Instead, Heshana's whirlwind conquest and his son's taking of Egypt had little impact on the average Roman citizen. The Christians were treated little differently than before, save that those belonging to heterodox sects were not persecuted, and Jews especially found their situation improved. The Eftal deeply respected the Hellenistic learning they encountered, preserving it where possible, and copying many of the more notable texts for private libraries. Their Arab allies had a similar fascination - many of them were Christians as well, or Jewish. What differentiated the Eftal conquerors was the way that, despite having become Persian in many regards, they did not abandon their culture wholly, using their identity to remain separate from those of the conquered peoples. Rather, they assimilated more Arab ideas, developing a love for poetry and the garden palaces favored by the tribal elite.

However, the true benefactor of the Eftal conquest was in some ways Egypt. Freed from the Roman yoke, Coptic Christianity was free to evolve without the threat of persecution. Decentralized local governance by tolerant administrators more concerned with regular tax than religious orthodoxy allowed Egypt to become a hotbed of Christian theological debate.

As long as these debates did not progress to rioting or communal violence, they were encouraged by the Eftal, who in 625 would found a new fortress city, Hvarapat, on the eastern bank of the Nile. Populated by Arabs and a mixed group of Persian colonists and merchants, the new city would not immediately take off - rather it would remain most importantly a secure base of operations for campaigns to suppress dissent, such as the violent uprising by a former Coptic officer named Paulos, who briefly claimed to be "Basileus." By 627 however, he had been chased south and would ultimately flee to unhappy exile in Axum.

Certain cities, like Emesa and Hvarabad became Eftal strongholds in a region largely apathetic to their new conquerors, and the temples to Mithra and the Sun built there, were built in a distinctive Helleno-Iranian style remain a testament to the unique culture of the western Eftal. And yet the Shahs in Emesa never fell into the growing Indian cultural sphere, even as they remained part of the cosmopolitan Eftal world.

(here we go. India begins to stabilize, Hvarapat is an alt-Fustat of sorts, only without Islam it is as much Christian city as a vaguely pagan one. I think we should expect to see Khalinga again, and I'm very eager to get us back to Berber Africa as you guys might have noticed. Up next we'll also return to the Balkans and the Avars.)