Sizabulos

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Sizabulos (or Silzibulos ) was a khagan of the Eastern Turk Kaganate in the second half of the 6th century. He ruled in Sogdia from about 552 to 575/76 .

Sizabulos is the Greek form of the name of this Turkish ruler. In research he is often equated with the Istämi (also Istami, Iştämi or Istemi) known from the later Orkhon runes , who was a powerful ruler of the Western Turks, but this is not an unequivocal equation. According to the report of the late antique historian Menander Protektor , to whom we owe most of the information, Sizabulos was at least the most powerful of the Turkish rulers in Sogdia. The Greek name Sizabulos is possibly a paraphrase for the title Syr-Yabgu . Theophylaktos Simokates calls a Stembis-Chagan , which probably refers to Sizabulos.

In Sogdia, the Turks and the locals acted cooperatively, with Sogdians playing an important role in the administration of the loosely built western Turkish empire. However, the Avars withdrew from the rule of the khagan, whereupon he is said to have sworn to take revenge on them.

In an alliance with the Sassanid king Chosrau I, Sizabulus broke the power of the Hephthalites and expanded his sphere of influence at their expense. Sizabulos had therefore initially maintained good contacts with the Sassanid Empire and Chosrau even married one of his daughters. But rivalries soon broke out, not least of which revolved around the control of the trade routes along the so-called Silk Road . Chosrau insulted Sizabulos by rejecting gifts and ambassadors. Then Sizabulos turned to the advice of the apparently quite influential Sogdier Maniakh to the Eastern Roman Empire ; Maniakh himself traveled to Constantinople and made contacts there.

Kaiser Justin II. Sends 569 a delegation under the direction of Zemarchus the court of the Khagans. This was the beginning of a regular exchange of ambassadors between the Western Turks and Eastern Streams. Menander Protektor wrote a relatively detailed report on the journey of Zemarchus. Zemarchus was warmly welcomed in a magnificent setting at the Turkish court. Sizabulus entered into an alliance with the Eastern Romans, which was directed against Persia.

When an Eastern Roman embassy under Valentinos reached the Turkish court in 576, Sizabulos had already died. He was succeeded by his son, whose Greek form of name is Turxanthos ; another son (if the identification of Sizabulus with Iştämi should be correct) was named Tardu . Another treaty did not materialize, especially since the Eastern Romans had meanwhile made contact with the Avars, which Turxanthos viewed as a hostile act. The Roman-Turkish alliance finally broke up.

literature

  • Hans Wilhelm Haussig : Byzantine sources about Central Asia in their historical statement. In: J. Harmatta (Ed.): Prolegomena to the Sources on the History of Pre-Islamic Central Asia. Budapest 1979, pp. 41-60.
  • Li Qiang, Stefanos Kordosis: The Geopolitics on the Silk Road. Resurveying the Relationship of the Western Türks with Byzantium through Their Diplomatic Communications. In: Medieval Worlds 8, 2018, pp. 109–125.
  • Bertold Spuler : History of Central Asia since the appearance of the Turks . In: Karl Jettmar (Ed.): History of Central Asia . Brill, Leiden 1966, p. 123ff.
  • John Martindale: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire . Volume 3. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992, pp. 1163f.
  • Denis Sinor : The Establishment and Dissolution of the Turk Empire . In: Denis Sinor (ed.): The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1990, pp. 285-316.
  • Étienne de La Vaissière : Sogdian Traders. A history . Brill, Leiden 2005.

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Clifford Edmund Bosworth: Ṭabarī . The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen . Albany / NY 1999, pp. 153f., Note 394; Denis Sinor: The Establishment and Dissolution of the Turk Empire . In: Denis Sinor (ed.): The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia . Cambridge 1990, pp. 302f.
  2. ^ Cf. Walter Pohl : The Avars . 2nd edition Munich 2002, p. 356, note 6.
  3. ^ Theophylactus Simokates, Historien , 7,7,9.
  4. ↑ Étienne de La Vaissière: Sogdian Traders. A history . Leiden 2005, p. 199ff.
  5. ↑ See Etienne de la Vaissière: Sogdian Traders. A history . Leiden 2005, p. 234f.
  6. ↑ Mihály Dobrovits: The Altaic world through Byzantine eyes: Some remarks on the historical circumstances of Zemarchus' journey to the Turks (AD 569-570). In: Acta Orientalia 64, 2011, pp. 373-409.
  7. ↑ On the Turkish-Eastern Roman contacts, see also Christoph Baumer : The History of Central Asia. Vol. 2, London 2014, pp. 175ff .; Walter Pohl: The Avars . 2nd edition Munich 2002, p. 42f .; Étienne de La Vaissière: Sogdian Traders. A history . Leiden 2005, p. 234ff.
  8. ↑ Menander, fragment 20.
  9. ↑ Menander, fragment 43.
  10. ↑ Walter Pohl: The Avars . 2nd edition Munich 2002, p. 66f.
personal data
SURNAME Sizabulos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Silzibulos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Khagan
DATE OF BIRTH 6th century
DATE OF DEATH 6th century