Narseh

On a tower at the Paikuli pass, in today’s Iraqi Kurdistan, Narseh set up a bilingual inscription (Middle Persian and Parthian). Its blocks are scattered, and Humbach and Skjærvø restored and translated the text. It is the only source for Bahram III’s four-month reign: from Bahram II’s death, the secret crowning of Bahram III by Wahnām, the nobles’ letter to Narseh, Bahram’s surrender and Wahnām’s capture, to Narseh’s acceptance of the kingship.

The text was written by the winner and is full of question marks: Skjærvø says he was “liberal in the use of queries” in unclear places. Even so, Paikuli shows that the crown was not secure without the nobles’ consent; Weber calls it “a serious crisis” that threatened to become civil war.

Paikuli is the record of a negotiation: the king receives letters from the nobles, meets them, and only then accepts the throne. That is not yet the rule of law, but neither is power one-sided. Wherever power has to win others’ consent, their property and lives are safer.

Weber reconstructs the war like this: in 296 Narseh gathered his army in north-east Mesopotamia. In spring 297 he heavily defeated Galerius between Callinicum and Carrhae. But at the end of 297 or 298 Galerius struck from Satala at his camp at Osḫa and seized the king’s wives, children and treasure. In the Peace of Nisibis Rome recovered the lands it had lost under Philip the Arab.

The text of the treaty does not survive; only a summary of five clauses from Petros Patrikios remains. Its year is also disputed: 298 (Iranica) or 299 CE. Most scholars see it as a dictated peace for the Sasanians, but some, such as Winter and Dignas, judge it more mildly.

Narseh paid for peace in land to get his family back. The borderland people of Mesopotamia and Armenia once again changed hands without anyone asking them.