Kavad I

In Kavad’s first reign a religious and social movement named after its leader, Mazdak son of Bāmdād, grew strong, and Kavad supported it. Everything we know about it comes from enemies or outsiders: the Roman Procopius says Kavad brought in a law of “communal” women; the Syriac Joshua the Stylite, hostile to Kavad, says Kavad “re-established” the creed; and the Arabic and Persian tradition was written after Khosrow I’s victory over the Mazdakites. Procopius in the same passage wrongly names Kavad’s replacement Balash; the coins show Zamasp.

Scholars disagree sharply. Shahbazi speaks of a “Mazdakite revolution” that preached the distribution of wealth and the sharing of women and brought social anarchy. Kreyenbroek says our sources are the victors’ attempts to demonize Mazdak and calls the charge of common goods and women “improbable”; in his view Mazdak’s message was brotherhood and social justice within Zoroastrianism. Schindel says what the movement was, and how far Kavad believed in it or used it to enlarge his own power, is “impossible to find out”. Gaube even questions whether Mazdak existed, or at least whether he played the main role.

The sources cannot tell us whether the “sharing of property”, if it existed, was voluntary or forced. That difference is everything: giving freely is not the same as taking by force. On the other hand, the nobles’ estates were not “property” in the liberal sense either; they were a hereditary privilege backed by the state and by birth. So the story of Mazdak cannot simply be reduced to “property” against “sharing”. What is clear is that one state first backed a movement and then killed its followers; when the state is the judge of people’s beliefs, their fate hangs on the king’s interest. This is our reading.

In 496 the nobles deposed Kavad. At an assembly they agreed that he should be imprisoned, against those who wanted him killed; his brother Zamasp became king. Kavad escaped, went to the Hephthalite court, married the Hephthalite king’s daughter and came back with his army in 498/9. Schindel says not much fighting took place. Zamasp was spared, though probably blinded, and Gušnaspdād, who had argued for Kavad’s death, was executed.

As a boy Kavad had been a hostage of the Hephthalites; now the same Hephthalites gave him back his crown. The date of the return comes only from Zamasp’s coins (regnal years 1 to 3) and the resumption of Kavad’s coinage from his regnal year 11. The Arabic and Persian tradition, Schindel notes, was written from the point of view of Khosrow’s court and must be read with care.

An assembly of nobles deposed the king and chose prison over death. It is a sign that in Sasanian Iran power did not lie with the king alone. But this “assembly” represented a few great families, not the people.

In 502 Kavad invaded Roman Armenia, struck at Theodosiopolis and in winter reached Amida. After a long siege he took the city in early 503. The same year a siege of Edessa failed. Amida was returned for an indemnity and in 506 a seven-year peace was concluded.

Schindel calls the capture of Amida the most conspicuous Sasanian success since 359, when Shapur II had taken the same city. The story of the old priest and Kavad’s order is Procopius’s.

The killing ended at an old man’s word, but the townspeople’s property was plundered and the survivors were enslaved. In war, the lives and goods of citizens become bargaining chips between two states.

The second war with Rome began in 528, allegedly because Rome would not back Khosrow’s succession. In 530, by the frontier fortress of Dara, one of the greatest open-field battles between the two empires was fought. It ended in a great Roman victory, but did not end the war.

All the details of the battle, from the trench to the army sizes, come from Procopius. The diagram below follows his account and is schematic.

The king was not at this battle; a general named Perozes commanded. Wars that one man begins are paid for by others on the field.

In 531 Kavad sent another army. Under Azarethes and with the Lakhmid al-Mundhir, it defeated Belisarius by the Euphrates near Callinicum. But the victory was costly and no city was taken. Later that year, during the siege of Martyropolis, Kavad fell ill and died.

Procopius says that on campaign each Persian put an arrow in a basket and took it out on return, so the dead could be counted. Because many arrows were left, Kavad rebuked Azarethes for the victory. Only Procopius has this story.

The king counted a victory that took no city and cost many men as a failure. The account of a war is settled in soldiers’ lives, not in who holds the field.

After his return Kavad dropped the Mazdakites and subdued the unruly nobles. According to Shahbazi he abolished the office of supreme commander and divided the army command among four spāhbeds. Schindel says it is certain that a cadastral survey was begun late in his reign and was still incomplete at his death. On it Khosrow I based a tax paid in money in three annual instalments.

Schindel notes that views differ on what these reforms meant. Whether the four spāhbeds were Kavad’s work or Khosrow’s is not agreed in the sources.

A land survey and a fixed money tax meant a farmer knew in advance what he owed. A predictable tax, even a heavy one, leaves less room for abuse than arbitrary levies on the harvest. This is our reading.