Eternal peace

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The agreement that the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian and the Persian Great King Chosrau I concluded with each other in 532 is called Eternal Peace .

prehistory

In 502, after a long period of peace, another war broke out between the Persian Sassanids and the Romans; after fierce fighting without a clear winner, an armistice limited to seven years was concluded in 506 (see also Roman-Persian Wars ). Due to the improved Roman-Persian relations in the meantime, this ceasefire lasted until around 526. But towards the end of the reign of Emperor Justin I , the conflict broke out again; in major field battles - 528 at Thannuris (and Mindouos ), 530 at Dara , 531 at Kallinikon - both sides had each been victorious once. But since the beginning of his sole rule in the summer of 527, Emperor Justinian had repeatedly made offers of peace to the Persians, and when Chosrau I was elevated to the position of the new Persian Great King in 531 , both sides began serious peace negotiations. In autumn 532 an agreement was reached.

The contract

Many ancient historians assume that Justinian only sought a short-term peace with the Persians in order to be able to turn with all his might against the Vandals and Goths who had founded their empires on the soil of the former Western Roman Empire . But the basic character of the "Eternal Peace" - this term is not only found in the contemporary historian Prokopios of Caesarea (Bella 1,22,17), but also in the preamble of the Codex Iustinianus (1,27,2 pref.) - speaks against this assumption. It was apparently about Justinian to achieve a workable, for both parties permanently acceptable agreement.

In contrast to the case of the Peace of 562, which was concluded 30 years later and of which we are informed in detail thanks to Menander Protektor , not all provisions of the Eternal Peace are known. But Prokopios, Agathias and Johannes Malalas can be seen the essential points:

  1. The Romans paid the Persians a one-time transfer fee of 11,000 pounds of gold; in return the Sassanids dropped all demands. The sum was substantial, but only corresponded to about half of the annual tax revenue from Egypt - given the envisaged one-off payment, the financial burden on the Roman treasury was therefore limited.
  2. The Romans kept the controversial fortress Dara , but no longer used it as the headquarters of the dux Mesopotamiae , the commander of the northern Mesopotamian border troops. Apparently the comitatenses that could have carried out an attack on the Persian Nisibis were withdrawn from Dara, but not the defensively oriented limitanei .
  3. The zones of influence of the two great powers in the Caucasus region were redefined; so the Sassanids renounced their claims to Colchis , and the Romans and Persians exchanged some fortresses that had been captured during the fighting.
  4. According to Agathias (Historien 2,31,4) the Romans also undertook not to bother the pagan Neoplatonic philosophers around Simplikios and Damascius , who had fled to the Persian Empire in 531, if they should return to the Roman Empire . Justinian may have asked for the men to be extradited.
  5. Finally, Malalas (18.76) claims that the foedus of 532 even contained a regular alliance between the emperor and the great king; both sides have assured each other of support against attacks from third parties. It is unclear whether this message is true.

The consequences

Initially, both sides benefited from the agreement. Chosrau, who had only become king against considerable opposition, could now calmly turn to the stabilization of his rule. Justinian celebrated peace with the Persians as a great achievement; and even if the treaty with the Sassanids, as I said, hardly served only to have the hands free to concentrate on the West, the "Eternal Peace" was undoubtedly a prerequisite for the great successes of the imperial troops in the following years.

At first, relations between the Romans and the Sassanids remained peaceful; sometimes they even cooperated. Justinian obviously trusted so much in the Persians' loyalty to the treaty that he increasingly neglected the defense of the Roman eastern provinces - this was then bitterly avenged in 540 when Chosrau decided to break the peace: The great king invaded Roman Syria and conquered some important places , above all Antioch on the Orontes , one of the most important cities of the empire. The Romans were shaken and disappointed because of the breach of treaty - what followed was a long, bloody war in which, since 541, there was again fierce fighting for Colchis / Lazika. The hopes Justinian had placed in the Treaty of 532 had not been fulfilled.

literature

  • Henning Börm : Prokop and the Persians. Investigations into the Roman-Sasanid contacts in late antiquity . Stuttgart 2007, pp. 299-307 and 326-332.
  • Geoffrey B. Greatrex : Rome and Persia at War, 502-532 . Leeds 1998, pp. 216f.
  • Ekaterina Nechaeva: Seven Hellenes and one Christian in the Endless Peace Treaty of 532 . In: Studies in Late Antiquity 1 (2017), pp. 359–380.