Khosrow I

King of Persia (r. 531-579)

• Born: c. 510
• Birthplace: Probably Ctesiphon, Mesopotamia (now in Iraq)
• Died: 579
• Place of death: Probably Ctesiphon, Mesopotamia (now in Iraq)

Through courage and shrewd practical intelligence, Khosrow I restored and revitalized the threatened Sāsānian monarchy, bringing Persian civilization to a peak of wealth, prestige, and security. He also introduced administrative, civil, and military innovations that radically transformed government, earning him the title Anushirvan (of the Immortal Spirit).

Early Life

Khosrow I (kaws-RAHW) was born at a time when the ancient culture of Mesopotamia was disrupted by internal convulsions and threatened by several external forces migrations of tribes displaced by the Huns and Avars, defensive maneuvers by factions of the deteriorating Roman Empire, and uprisings among the Arabs. His father, Kavadh I (r. 488-496, 499-531), struggled against these forces, establishing strategies that Khosrow I would perfect. Kavadh himself had seized the throne in a rebellion of nobles fomented by the Hephthalite Huns, with whom he had lived as a prisoner or hostage. For this reason, his control was precarious. During the first part of his reign, he alienated some of his aristocratic supporters by engineering the assassination of his prime minister, Zarmiha (Sokhra), who had helped put him on the throne. His major problem, however, was with the Mazdakites, followers of the heretical Zoroastrian priest Mazdak (fl. late fifth century).

Kavadh promoted the Mazdakite causes mostly based on a revival of prescribed Manichaean principles, modified by pacifism and principles of community property apparently because he needed the support of a cohesive group to oppose the power of the aristocracy. The strategy backfired. When rebellion broke out among the subject Armenians and Arabs, and the Byzantine emperor withheld support, the nobles conspired to depose Kavadh and replace him with his brother Jamasp. Kavadh managed, however, to escape from prison, make his way to the Hephthalite frontier, and persuade his former allies to send an army to restore him to power. Thus, in 498, Kavadh secured his power by an unusual policy of conciliation.

During the next few years, Kavadh engaged in intermittent and indecisive war with the Byzantines, which ended in a treaty in 506. Thereafter, Kavadh concerned himself with internal affairs. Mazdakite agitation persisted, and Kavadh began to moderate his earlier tolerance. He became preoccupied with the question of succession. Singling out his youngest and ablest son, Khosrow, as most likely to secure and extend his achievements, he tried for a while to persuade the Byzantine emperor, Justinian I (r. 527-565), to adopt Khosrow, thereby to gain support from that quarter. This plan fell through, and war broke out again. Khosrow began influencing policy even before his accession, taking the lead in the persecution of the Mazdakites, even bringing about the execution of Mazdak. Kavadh was able to make alliances both north and south of Persia, partly through the diplomatic efforts of Khosrow, who young, vigorous, a splendid horseman with a commanding presence was able to inspire immediate confidence.

Life’s Work

In spite of Kavadh’s preparations, Khosrow’s ascent to the throne of the Sāsānian Empire was not uncontested. His brothers Kaus and Zham launched a revolt of dissident nobles, which Khosrow suppressed with little difficulty; he then had his brothers executed. He decided that internal reforms had to take precedence over imperial ambitions, especially because the Mazdakite disruptions had damaged both economy and administration. This initial attention to the details of management set the pattern for his major achievement, a radical reform of methods of government.

Kavadh had recognized that inconsistencies in the registration of property and possessions as well as in the census itself had hampered the collection of taxes and fees. To amend this, he had begun a program of surveying and measuring the land. Khosrow completed and extended this undertaking to tabulating sources of revenue, such as date palms and olive trees, systematizing the registration of land titles, and regularizing the census. In conjunction, Khosrow replaced the old system of assessing taxes on the produce of land with a new fixed tax based on averages. At the same time, he imposed a fixed head tax on the common people. Both were to be paid in money, not kind, and payments were to be made three times a year. The effect of these reforms was remarkable: The central administration could now calculate in advance the exact revenue to be collected at any time, and that made accurate national budgeting possible.

Khosrow’s army reforms were almost equally important. Previously, armies had been levied from the personal troops of the landed nobles, who served without pay, supporting their retainers by shares in plunder. Khosrow instead enrolled all nobles in the army, paying them a fixed salary and providing their equipment. This system secured the principal allegiance of the military class for the king and his army and reduced the power of the great magnates. In effect, Khosrow had created a knightly class loyal to him. During his lifetime, these nobles came to form the central class of the Persian social system: the knights who owned villages. Khosrow planted several such villages on the borders, with the explicit mission of taking up arms whenever the frontier was threatened.

Khosrow followed these reforms with further administrative changes. Dividing the empire into quarters, he appointed generals to head each part. Thus, the empire’s frontiers were secured; improved military roads and communications systems made it possible to reinforce quickly any threatened sector. Khosrow was now free to carry out military operations without having to be concerned with defending his borders. He began his military expeditions almost immediately, perhaps sensing an opportunity in Justinian I’s preoccupation with the western part of his empire.

In 540, Khosrow invaded Syria, conquering Antioch. Because of his western involvement, Justinian could not employ his full military force against the Persians. Khosrow withdrew slowly, extorting ransom from Byzantine cities as he did as the price of their safety. When he actually besieged one of them to increase this forced tribute, Justinian denounced the truce and sent Belisarius, his best general, to push back the Persians.

Returning to Persia, Khosrow built a new city on the model of Antioch near Ctesiphon. He called it Veh az Antiok Khosrow, meaning “Khosrow’s better than Antioch,” and populated it with prisoners; it became known as Rumagan, the town of the Greeks, and formed part of the opulent capital complex. When the campaign resumed, Khosrow won some initial success in the north, but eventually the war settled into a three-year stalemate. In 544, after Belisarius had returned to the west, Khosrow besieged the principal city of Edessa, intending to gain control over all Byzantine trans-Euphrates possessions. Edessa resisted the siege heroically, forcing Khosrow to retreat. Justinian was able to forge a five-year truce.

Four years later, the Byzantines broke the truce to recover the Black Sea holdings. They succeeded in retaking Petra in 551 after routing two Persian armies. This resulted in a partial truce, made permanent after the Byzantines had regained Lazica in 556. Final settlement was reached in 561 in the form of a fifty-year treaty. Khosrow agreed to this primarily to free his armies for operations in the east, where opportunities for expansion had suddenly improved. He formed an alliance with the Turks in 557 to destroy the Hephthalites and divide their territory. In this way, Khosrow dramatically extended Persian control across the Oxus River, possibly pushing all the way to India.

Khosrow also proved able to extend Persian power into southern Arabia. The Byzantines were interested in controlling this region for two reasons: to protect the various Christian interests there and to break down Persian control of the spice and silk trade routes with India. Khosrow was prevented from sending aid for a while, but in 572, he dispatched an army with a small fleet under Vahriz. After taking time to work out alliances with Arab groups, Vahriz mounted a successful campaign that made southern Arabia a Sāsānian dependency in 577.

Meanwhile, Justinian was succeeded in 565 by Justin II (r. 565-578), who was eager to recover Byzantine territory in the east. Taking advantage of an Armenian uprising in 571, he invited the rebels into the empire and sent an army to back them the following year. The Persians, however, profited from dissension among officers of the invading army, driving them back and occupying new Byzantine possessions. Justin sued for peace, but because no agreement had been reached regarding Armenia, Khosrow invaded again in 575. For the next four years, the rival empires traded successes, until the Byzantine emperor Maurice (r. 582-602) gained the upper hand at the same moment that the Armenian rebels returned to the Sāsānian fold. Negotiations for peace were taking place when Khosrow died in 579.

Significance

Khosrow I brought the Sāsānian Empire to the pinnacle of its glory. Had that empire endured longer, it is quite possible that his name would be as well known in Western societies as those of David and Solomon, who achieved considerably less. His wisdom and accomplishments remain proverbial even today among the common people of the Near East, and Kisra, an Arabic corruption of his name, became the Arabs’ designation for all Sāsānian rulers. Peasants in Iraq still routinely point to any ruin as the work of Kisrá Ānūshirvān, and in many cases they are right. Khosrow directed more new construction of caravanserais, roads, bridges, official buildings, even whole towns than had any previous Persian ruler. This network not only interconnected the parts of the empire in unprecedented ways but also promoted a remarkable economic expansion that financed Khosrow’s colonial and military enterprises. He also constructed defensive walls and supporting forts on all four frontiers, designed for the protection of his four commanding generals.

The wealth supporting these activities came basically from agriculture, which expanded significantly during this period. Much of the expansion came from bringing new land under cultivation, promoted by Khosrow’s painstaking survey and registration programs. He also systematically encouraged the practice of irrigation, bringing tunnel and canal systems into use throughout the empire. Irrigation had been a common practice in this region for centuries, but it was Khosrow who developed it as a state policy. Iraq owes to him the great Nahsawan canal system, which brought about a geometrical increase in that country’s agricultural production.

Unlike most monarchs of his time, Khosrow permitted little religious persecution; his attacks on the Mazdakites stemmed from social and political motives. Furthermore, he advanced the cause of learning, even providing a refuge for some of the scholars and philosophers exiled by Justinian when he closed the academy at Athens. Khosrow maintained a circle of scholars at his court; a medical school established during his reign flourished into Islamic times. Numerous translations of important works date from his period.

One measure of his significance is the appellation of “the Just” attached to his name from early times. Several collections of andarz or “advice books” somewhat like how-to manuals for noblemen, especially rulers are attributed to him, much as the Book of Psalms is to David or Proverbs to Solomon. Like these and other semilegendary figures, Khosrow’s eminence was such that many tales arose concerning his special powers. That in itself, however, testifies only to his hold on the popular imagination. More concrete witnesses appear in the wealth of artifacts and architectural remnants dating from his reign, including many silver plates and engraved stones preserved in museum collections. What remains standing of the palatial Taq Kisra in Ctesiphon (believed to have been built during Khosrow I’s time), with its particularly magnificent central arch, speaks across the ages of the stature of Khosrow I.

Sāsānian Kings, 309-821

Reign

• Ruler

309-379

• Shāpūr II

379-383

• Ardashīr II

383-388

• Shāpūr III

388-399

• Barham (Varahran) IV

399-421

• Yazdgard I

421-439

• Barham (Varahran) V

439-457

• Yazdgard II

457-459

• Hormizd III

459-484

• Peroz

484-488

• Valash

488-496

• Kavadh I

496-498

• Jamasp

499-531

• Kavadh I (restored)

531-579

• Khosrow (Khusro or Chosroes) I

579-590

• Hormizd IV

590-628

• Khosrow II

628

• Kavadh II

628-629

• Ardashīr III

629-630

• Boran

630-632

• Hormizd V and Khosrow III

633-651

• Yazdgard III

651

• Islamic conquest

651-656

• ՙUthmān ibn ՙAffān

656-661

• Alī ibn Abiī Tālib

661-750

• Umayyad caliphs

750-821

• ՙAbbāsid caliphs

Bibliography

Curtis, John, ed. Mesopotamia and Iran in the Parthian and Sāsānian Periods: Rejection and Revival c. 238 B.C.-A.D. 642. London: British Museum Press, 2000. Collected papers from a conference on Sāsānian and early Iranian civilization. Includes discussion of the art of the period. Bibliography.

Firdusi. The Epic of the Kings: Shāh-nāma, the National Epic of Persia, by Ferdowsi. Translated by Reuben Levy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967. A translation of the poet-historian Firdusi’s Shahnamah (c. 1010), a monumental epic poem on the history of Persia from its eponymous beginnings through the conquest by the Muslims. Contains much information on Khosrow, both historical and legendary, presented from the perspective of Persian historiography. Part of UNESCO’s Persian Heritage series. (An abridged 1996 translation with a new introduction is also available from Mazda Publishers, Costa Mesa, Calif.)

Frye, Richard N. The Heritage of Persia. Cleveland, Ohio: World, 1963. Similar to the fuller account in The Cambridge History of Iran, though more tentative. A good discussion of Khosrow’s influence on pre-Islamic Persia. Illustrations.

Frye, Richard N. “The Political History of Iran Under the Sāsānians.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, edited by Ehsan Yarskater. Vol. 3. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1983. The most thorough account in English of the achievements of Khosrow and their background, with complete bibliography and photographs of relevant artifacts. Other chapters on different aspects of Iranian history are also relevant to Khosrow, showing, for example, his image in Persian literature.

Ghirshman, Roman. Iran: Parthians and Sāssānians. Translated by Stuart Gilbert and James Emmons. London: Thames and Hudson, 1962. A solid and incisive presentation, focusing on Khosrow’s social, military, and civil accomplishments. Part of the Arts of Mankind series. Maps, bibliography.

Sicker, Martin. The Pre-Islamic Middle East. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000. A concise yet comprehensive survey of the Middle Eastern world from early antiquity to the end of the Sāsānid Empire. Bibliography, index.

Sykes, Percy. A History of Persia. 2 vols. 1915. Reprint. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1969. A dated account, but it provides a substantial overview of Khosrow, his achievements, and his role in the development of Persian culture. Maps, bibliography.

Wiesehofer, Josef. Ancient Persia: From 550 B.D. to 650 A.D. Translated by Azizeh Azodi. New York: I. B. Tauris, 1996. A comprehensive study of the Persian Empire under the Achaeminids, the Parthians, and the Sāsānians. Focuses primarily on Persian written and archaeological sources rather than often inaccurate Greek or Roman accounts. Includes black-and-white plates, bibliographical essays, a chronological table, and a list of dynasties and kings.