4.2. THE ROOTS OF THE ANASTASIAN WAR.
The Anastasian War that broke a long century of peace (more or less) between both empires in the Middle East was an act of naked Sasanian aggression, in which Kawād I attacked the Roman Empire taking its eastern defenses mostly unprepared and by surprise. There had been no direct, immediate provocation on the Roman part: no building of new fortresses on the border, no support to Caucasian rebels (Armenians, Iberians and Albanians were quiet, for a change), no meddling or bribing of Transcaucasian tribes to attack
Ērānšahr, nothing at all. This unprovoked attack though had its reasons other than simple warmongering; he had reasons for this change in policy, which I will classify in two blocks: short-term and long-term ones.
The short-term reason is stated clearly in contemporary sources like Joshua the Stylite and Procopius of Caesarea: money. Kawād I needed money urgently with which to repay the Hephthalites for their assistance in recovering his throne and presumably, to pay them the tribute that they had probably been collecting since 484 CE. And as we have seen, the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire were rich and prosperous after a long century of peace and stability, and their defenses were in disarray, while the Sasanians (even after their devastating defeats against the Hephthalites) had a potent and warlike army, that had spent the whole century in an almost constant state of war against dangerous foes in their eastern and northern borders. The Roman East was a tempting prize.
The Syriac Chronicle attributed to Joshua the Stylite, XIX-XX:
Balâsh then, because he had no money to maintain his troops, was despised in their eyes. The priesthood too hated him, because he was trying to abolish their laws, and wishing to build baths in the cities for bathing; and when they saw that he was not counted aught in the eyes of his troops, they took him and blinded him, and set up in his stead Kawâd, son of his brother Pêrôz, whose name we have mentioned above, who was left as a hostage among the Huns, and who it was that stirred up the war with the Greeks, because they did not give him money. For he sent ambassadors, and a large elephant as a present to the emperor, that he might send him money. But before the ambassadors reached Antioch in Syria, Zênôn died, and Anastasius became emperor after him. When the Persian ambassador informed his master Kawâd of this change in the Greek government, he sent him word to go up with diligence and to demand the customary money, or else to say to the emperor, “Take war”.
And so, instead of speaking words of peace and salutation, as he ought to have done, and of rejoicing with him on the commencement of the soverainty which had been newly granted him by God, he irritated the mind of the believing emperor Anastasius with threatening words. But when he heard his boastful language, and learned about his evil conduct, and that he had reestablished the abominable sect of the magi which is called that of the Zarâdushtakân, (which teaches that women should be in common, and that every one should have connexion with whom he pleases), and that he had wrought harm to the Armenians who were under his sway, because they would not worship fire, he despised him, and did not send him the money, but sent him word, saying, “As Zênôn, who reigned before me, did not send it, so neither will I send it, until thou restorest to me Nisibis; for the wars are not trifling which I have to carry on with the barbarians who are called the Germans, and with those who are called the Blemyes, and with many others: and I will not neglect the Greek troops and feed thine”.
Procopius of Caesarea, History of the Wars – Book I: The Persian War, VII:
A little later Cabades was owing the king of the Hephthalites a sum of money which he was not able to pay him, and he therefore requested the Roman emperor Anastasius to lend him this money. Whereupon Anastasius conferred with some of his friends and enquired of them whether this should be done; and they would not permit him to make the loan. For, as they pointed out, it was inexpedient to make more secure by means of their money the friendship between their enemies and the Hephthalites; indeed it was better for the Romans to disturb their relations as much as possible. It was for this reason, and for no just cause, that Cabades decided to make an expedition against the Romans.
The long-term reasons are more complex, but they could be resumed thus: since the reign of Pērōz, relations between the courts of Constantinople and Ctesiphon had been worsening slowly but steadily by due to a series of incidents:
Repeated Roman negatives to pay “subsidies” for the upkeep of the Caucasian passes. As we saw in the previous chapter, this was probably one of the points agreed in the peace treaty between Warahrān V and Theodosius II, and the Roman practice of interrupting payments without warning and resuming them when they felt like it (a deliberate tactic so that the Roman
augusti could plausibly deny that regular tribute of any sort was being paid to the Sasanians) were a source of constant irritation for the court of Ctesiphon, especially considering that these passes were under considerable pressure during most of the V c. CE. It also deprived the Sasanian court of their claim of universal suzerainty, as they could not portray the Romans as tributaries; in a time when the defeats in the East put in question the very ideological foundations of
Ērānšahr, this Roman practice only worsened an already bad situation for the Sasanian kings. Pērōz had also asked Zeno for monetary help to fight the Hephthalites (and perhaps also to pay his own rescue and that of his son) and Zeno had refused in each case (according to Joshua the Stylite). Undoubtedly, this soured the relationship between both empires.
Gold solidus of Anastasius I, struck ca. 498 CE. Obverse: D(-ominus) N(-oster) ANASTASIVS P(-ius) P(-erpetuus) AVG(-ustus), Reverse: VICTORIA AVGGG(-usti). Mint of Constantinople.
The other source of friction concerned the Arab allies of both empires. While the Lakhmid kingdom of al-Ḥīra was a stable polity ruled by a reliable dynasty, the same could not be said of the Arab
fœderati of the Romans. As the Arabs will keep gaining importance in this story as the thread goes on, I will detail in some length their activities during the V c. CE and how they ended up being another contributing factor for the worsening relations between both empires. I will be following here loosely Irfan Shahīd work
Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century.
The reign of Arcadius in the East (395-408 CE) saw the rise of the Salīḥids, wo replaced the Tanūkhids (who had lost their status as the main Arab
fœderati of Rome early in the reign of Theodosius I) as the main Arab Roman
fœderati in Syria and Palestine. It should be made clear though that the Tanūkhids remained as Roman clients and allies, but they were not enjoying now a predominant position. The tale of the appearance of this new Arab group is told by Sozomen, who attributed their alliance to the Romans to the conversion to Christianity of their childless chief,
Zokomos (
Zόxoμoς; which was identified by the German scholar Alfred von Gutschmid in the XIX c. with a certain
Ḍuj’um that appears in Arabic sources), who (allegedly) was able to begot a son thanks to the prayers of a Christian monk. Hence this tribe is also known as
Zokomids by some scholars. Interestingly, when talking about the Salīḥids and Zokomos, Sozomen used for the first time the term
phylarch (
φύλαρχος;
phúlarkhos) to refer to the latter. This early in time, it was used simply as a synonym of “tribal chief” but later this term came to mean a royal term bestowed by the Emperor in Constantinople onto the “king” of his Arab
fœderati, and as such, a very prestigious and sought after title. Other than the prestige itself, it also entitled its owner to receive the gold payments that the Romans disbursed to their
fœderati Arabs and distribute it between his followers as he deemed appropriate, thus enabling him to build a large network of clients and cementing his power among the loosely tied Arab tribes.
Unlike the hated and feared Germanic/Gothic
fœderati that had inflicted so much damage and humiliation to the Romans since 378 CE, the Arabs were seen as “reliable”
fœderati, and probably were seen with sympathy by the “public opinion” in Constantinople. After the Roman disaster at Adrianople, it had been the
fœderati Arabs of Queen Mavia who had defeated the Goths when they were marching against the eastern capital, thus sparing the city on the Bosporus from a dangerous situation. Plus, their staunchly Orthodox stance won them the support of the official church, who despised the Goths and other East Germanic peoples for their adherence to Arianism. In Arabic sources, the Salīḥids were known for their religious zeal throughout their time span as
fœderati and after their fall, well into the Muslim period. They were specially supportive of monastic Christianity, and Saint Simeon the Stylite was especially venerated by Arab Roman allies during the V c. CE.
Shahīd adds that in the anonymous hagiography
Vita Sanctae Pelagiae it is said that during the first half of the V c. CE around thirty thousand “Saracens” were baptized by bishop Nonnus of Heliopolis, in the province of
Phoenice Libanensis (or
Phoenice Secunda), and the
Notitia Dignitatum lists two units of “Saracens” posted in
Phoenice Libanensis during this period. In Shahīd’s opinion, this group of Arabs cannot have been the Salīḥids, because according to Sozomen they were converted by a monk, not a bishop. Despite the fact that it is practically impossible to identify them, this notice attests to the strong Arab presence in this eastern province and the growing importance of Christianity among Arabs.
According to Sozomen (who wrote probably during the 450s CE) the Salīḥids became “formidable” against the Sasanians “and to the Saracens as well” in the two Roman-Sasanian wars of the V c. CE and in the great “barbarian” incursion” suffered by the Roman East in 410 CE as reported by Jerome. This invasion was strong and wide-ranging enough to attack the whole of the
Limes Arabicus from Circesium on the Euphrates to the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea and managed to break through the Roman defenses at least in Palestine, where Bethlehem (where Jerome had settled) was occupied by them. Jerome does not offer any details about the identity of these “barbarians” although the modern scholarly consensus is that they were Arabs, but the scope of the assault leaves only three possible candidates:
- The Lakhmids. They could have done so, but in 410 CE under Yazdegerd I Ērānšahr was at peace with the Romans and both empires enjoyed good diplomatic relations.
- The Banū Kalb. They were a powerful tribal group that stretched from Palmyra to the northern Ḥijāz, and they were related to the Tanūkhids, who had felt out of favor with the Romans. They could have undertaken such a powerful raid in reprisal for the Roman decision of conferring the former status of the Tanūkhids to the Salīḥids. The tension between these two rival Arab groups would last until the end of the V c. CE.
- Or it could have been an unnamed ad hoc conglomerate of tribes displaced by drought and lack of pastures from their traditional pastoral lands in the Syrian and north Arabian deserts, as it has happened regularly in this part of the world since the dawn of history.
As for the Roman-Sasanian war of 421-422 CE, Shahīd points out one interesting point. According to one of the surviving fragments of Malchus of Philadelphia, one of the points of the peace treaty that ended this war stated that neither power should receive the Arab allies of the other, Shahid links this with the notice in other sources (view previous thread for more information in this respect) that one of the reasons for the war was that Theodosius II had granted asylum to “Christian refugees” from
Ērānšahr, and hypothesizes that maybe these allies were Arabs, as Christianity was becoming widespread even among the Arabs who were nominally allied with or subjected to the rule of the Sasanian kings, even venturing his opinion that these fugitive Arabs probably belonged to the
Iyād group. Such defections of Arab groups from one master to another were commonplace, and a repeated factor during Late Antiquity. The Tanūkhids themselves had been originally an Arab group subjected to the Sasanians before switching allegiances, and as we have seen the Lakhmids defected twice (first from the Sasanians to the Arabs and then back into Sasanian service) during the first half of the IV c. CE. Shahīd also pointed out that in some Arabic sources it is stated that the Salīḥids themselves also dwelled in Sasanian Mesopotamia before moving into Roman territory.
Remains of a Late Roman church in the citadel of Amman (Jordan), ancient Philadelphia.
In this war, as we saw in the previous thread, the Lakhmid Arabs, clients of the Sasanians, played an important role, led by their king al-Munḏir I. As we also saw in the previous thread, according to Ṭabarī the Lakhmids and their king played a key role in securing the throne for Warahrān V, and so al-Munḏir I would have been an influential character in the court of this
Šāhān Šāh, influential enough that he disposed (according to Ṭabarī) of two elite cavalry “regiments” (perhaps organized in the manner of the Iranian 1,000-men
gund), named
al-Shahbā’ and
al-Dawsar. Shahīd speculated that as al-Munḏir I was a pagan (the Lakhmid kings of al-Ḥīra remained pagan until the late VI c. CE) he could have been moved by an “anti-Christian” sentiment in this war, but personally I am quite skeptical in this respect, as probably many of his subjects were Christian. What I fins more possible is that the fact he was not Christian reinforced his loyalty towards the House of Sāsān, and his bellicosity against Rome; and his support for Warahrān V (whom he had helped to put on the Sasanian throne recently against important resistance among the Iranian nobility and clergy) meant that as this was the first war in the young king’s reign, he had a vested interest in Warahrān V being victorious, because if he was defeated it could be possible that he would be dethroned, and if this came to happen, then al-Munḏir, as one of his main supporters, would also feel the consequences.
According to Socrates of Constantinople, al-Munḏir I led a deep raid behind the Roman lines, aimed ambitiously at taking Antioch, the capital of Roman Levant, that ended in a defeat with heavy losses for the Lakhmids. Shahīd speculated that the strategic thinking behind al-Munḏir I's plan may be inferred from a comparison with an analogous situation that occurred in 531 CE, when another Munḏir planned the strategy of the Sasanian campaign that culminated in the battle of Callinicum, between the Sasanian raiding force and a superior Roman army commanded by Belisarius. The account of Procopius of Caesarea makes clear that this Munḏir recommended a direct attack on Antioch in Syria because Roman Mesopotamia was well fortified and garrisoned, while Syria was not. So, Shahīd thought that his forebear al-Munḏir I, of the war of 421-422 CE, may have recommended a similar course on similar grounds. In this case, this offensive might have been a diversionary move designed to relieve pressure on the main Sasanian royal army engaged in the north at Nisibis by the Roman
magister militum Ardaburius.
Administrative divisions of the Diœcesis Orientis during the V-VI c. CE.
As I have written above, one of the clauses of the peace treaty of 422 CE between Theodosius Ii and Warahrān V stated that neither side would accept the Arab fugitives of the other side. Shahīd also pointed something else: that this clause of the peace treaty that ended the 421-422 CE war benefitted mainly the Sasanians, as almost all the cases of Arab “defection” stated above happened in a single direction (i.e. from the Iranians to the Romans), and that it should be interpreted as a Roman concession.
Shahīd questioned why the Sasanian court insisted on the non-acceptance by the Romans of her own Arab allies. According to Shahīd, this defection was hurting the Sasanian cause in many ways. It is possible (as we have seen above) that the powerful tribal group Iyād migrated or defected at this time and Shahîd thought that that their new allegiance to the Romans was one of the causes for the Lakhmid disaster on the Euphrates. The defection of the lyād and other tribal groups would have been damaging to Sasanian interests because they were well informed about the defensive arrangements of
Ērānšahr and about its overall forces and military plans; and what is worse, they had relatives and friends among the Arabs of the Sasanian Empire.
According to Sozomen, the chief defector was a certain
Aspebetos, who had been a high-ranking military official in Sasanian service; Shahīd attributes his defection to a supposed anti-Christian persecution in
Ērānšahr that would have flared up after the murder of Yazdegerd I in 420 CE; personally I don not agree with his opinion; as we saw in the previous thread, this supposed persecution is only attested in Roman sources, but not in East Syriac or Armenian ones. The
magister militum per Orientem, Anatolius, received him well and endowed him with the post of phylarch of the province of Arabia. The fame as a miraculous healer of Saint Euthymius in the Jordan Valley attracted Aspebetos’ attention, and the saint succeeded in curing his son, Terebon. As a result he and his followers were baptized (which undermines even more Shahīd’s hypothesis that he had fled a supposed persecution of Christians in
Ērānšahr). At a later date he was deemed worthy of the episcopate and was consecrated by Patriarch Juvenal of Jerusalem around 427 CE. Aspebetos started a line of phylarchs, who are attested as late as the middle of the VI c. CE in Palestine.
The figure of
Aspebetos has raised a certain controversy among scholars since the XIX c. This is due to the fact that the name
Aspebetos is clearly the Greek transliteration of the MP military rank of
Spāhbed, but many scholars have historically assumed that such a high-ranking title was only given to Iranians in the Sasanian Empire (this is wrong by the way, because some Armenian nobles received it) and so they assumed that this character must have been an Iranian. But the Roman authors are noticeably clear on this point: he was a “Saracen” and he ruled over “Saracens”. Plus, as Shahīd points out, the name of his son “Terebon” although obscured by its Greek transliteration, has no clear Iranian etymology, and must be almost without doubt an Arabic name.
As Shahīd pointed out, when the defector happened to be someone of the stature and influence of Aspebetos, Sasanian sensitivity in the clauses of the peace treaty becomes even more understandable. As a high-ranking officer in the Sasanian army, he may have been privy to information which the court of Ctesiphon would not want him to share with the Romans. As to the question of what value rebellious allies were to the Sasanians, it is not clear from the clause whether Theodosius II was to return them to
Ērānšahr.
Map of the Middle East during the VI c. CE, showing the location of the main Arab kingdoms and tribes. Notice the location and extension of the Kingdom of Kindah in central Arabia. Having been founded in the II c. BCE, by then it was more than 600 years old. It had been originally founded by the Ḥimyarite kingdom in Yemen to police the trans-Arabian caravan routes and defend Ḥimyarite interests in the area. The Kindites kept a close relationship with the Ḥimyarites, and it is possible that when the latter converted to Judaism in the late V c. CE the Kindites followed in their steps. They kept a bitter rivalry with the Lakhmids, and this was to be exploited by the Romans.
The second Roman-Sasanian war of the V c. CE was an even shorter and less important affair and happened in 440-442 CE, twenty years after the first one, at the beginning of the reign of Yazdegerd II, and with Theodosius II still reigning in Constantinople. This war is far worse attested in the sources, at least as far as Arabs’ involvement is concerned. That they took part in it is clarified only by two sources: Marcellinus Comes, who stated that “Saracens” were amongst the invaders, and Isaac of Antioch, according to whom Sasanian Arabs attacked and laid waste the Roman city of
Beth Hur in the vicinity of Nisibis. We know nothing at all about the identity of these invaders; although Shahīd guessed they were Lakhmids. He further added that in 440 CE the Lakhmid king al-Munḏir I was still alive and that he may have wanted to avenge his defeat of twenty years before. But in my opinion Shahīd went too far in his guesses when he attributed the start of the war to the Lakhmids. As a matter of fact, as he himself admitted there is not even clear evidence that the Lakhmids (who were based in southern Mesopotamia) had time to reach the war theater in northern Mesopotamia before the short war was over, and there were in that part of the border other Arab groups allied to the Sasanians who could have been responsible for the raid described by Isaac of Antioch.
One of the fragments that have survived by Priscus of Panium describes the plight of the Romans in their negotiations with Attila in 447 CE, that is, after the Huns appeared south of the Danube and before the treaty of 448 CE. Priscus enumerates the peoples who were either taking up arms or threatening the empire. In addition to the Vandals, Isaurians, and Ethiopians, there is mention of the Arabs and a guarded reference to the Sasanians. The first are described as "ravaging the Eastern parts of their dominions”, while the Sasanians are described as "preparing for hostilities”. Shahīd notes that Yazdegerd II had abided by the peace treaty of 442 CE and had even moved his residence to the northeast of his empire (probably to Gorgān, as we saw in the previous thread) to pursue his war against the Kidarite Huns. To which I would add that frictions in the volatile Armenian border cannot have caused problems in 447 CE either, as the Armenian rebellion of Vardan did not start until three years later. Shahīd thought that the reason for the problems between Romans and Iranians in 447 CE might have been the Roman’s lateness with the payment of “subsidies” for the upkeep and defense of the Caucasian passes, and that this lateness would have been caused by Attila’s “exorbitant” demands of Roman gold. But as I noted in the previous post, the payments disbursed by the court of Constantinople to Attila were actually quite modest ones. We do not know how much the Romans paid as “subsidy” to the Sasanians for the upkeep and defense of the Caucasian passes in the V c. CE, but if we take as a guide the payments disbursed in the VI c. CE by Anastasius, Justin I and Justinian I to Kawād I and Xusrō I, they cannot have been that high either, compared to the monstrous amount spent in the fiasco of 468 CE against the Vandals. In my opinion, the reason for the lateness in the payments was political. With the imperial armies humiliated in the Balkans and the court of Constantinople begging Attila for peace at any price, the last thing that Theodosius II, Pulcheria and their ministers would have wanted is to be seen at the same time as tributaries to the Sasanians. Again Shahīd thought that the Lakhmids were the most likely candidates for raids conducted in 447 CE (al-Munḏir I would have been still alive), and that another possible candidate could have been the
Kindites (from the tribal Kingdom of Kindah in central Arabia which had been founded in the II c. BCE), whose adventurous king
Ḥujr was active in North Arabia toward the middle of the V c. CE.
The next incident in the
Limes Arabicus happened during the reign of Marcian (r. 450-457 CE), and is recorded in another of the surviving fragments by Priscus:
Priscus of Panium, Fragment 20 (from the Excerpts on Foreigners’ Embassies to the Romans of Constantine VII Porphyrogenites):
Ardabourios, son of Aspar, was fighting a war against the Saracens around Damascus and, when Maximinos the general and Priscus the historian arrived there, they found him in discussions with the Saracen ambassadors concerning peace.
Shahīd noticed that this seemingly innocuous passage implies important developments in the central part of the Arabian
limes. That Ardaburius was fighting the Arabs and negotiating with them suggests that the encounter was important enough to be worthy of the personal attention of the
magister militum per Orientem himself, and that the Arabs involved were worth the time he was spending on the negotiations. His negotiating with them also suggests that they were not a band of marauding “Saracens” who had been beaten off the
limes and presented no further problem for the military administration of the East, but that they were sufficiently important to induce the
magister to engage in peace negotiations that entailed their sending ambassadors for that purpose. Shahīd also hypothesized if this Arab raid could have been related to the mass conversion of 30,000 Arabs accounted for in the
Vita Sanctae Pelagiae (see above) and to the two “Saracen” units posted in the province of
Phoenice Libanensis according to the
Notitia Dignitatum (the province where Damascus was located).
Unfortunately, Priscus does not identify the Arabs involved in this encounter or, if he did, the identification has not survived in the fragment. Shahīd thought it unlikely that they were the Lakhmids. Their overlord, Yazdegerd II, was busy during these years with the Armenian revolt and the war against the Kidarites, so it is unlikely that he would have authorized a raid by his Lakhmid clients that risked opening another front against the Romans. Their king al-Munḏir I was getting old and would die in 462 CE, after a long reign which had begun in 418 CE. By elimination, the Arabs referred to are more likely to have been one of the two groups who were restless and in motion in this period in north Arabia; either the Kindites or the Ghassānids, probably the former.
For the same timeframe, Nicephorus Callistus (a late source, as he wrote during the early XIV c.) recorded a military operation against the Arabs, during the disturbances that broke out in Palestine when the Miaphysites chased Patriarch Juvenal, out of Jerusalem. Dorotheus, the commander who was conducting the military operation, was forced to recross the Jordan and hurry back to Jerusalem. Nicephorus is precise in giving the name of the commander who battled the Arabs and the location of the military operation: Moabitis, in the east bank of the Jordan River.
Dorotheus’ rank was
comes et dux Palæstinae, which meant that he was in charge of military operations in the three Palestines. This particular operation against raiding Arabs must have been in
Palæstina Tertia or
Salutaris, since Moabitis was within this division of tripartite Palestine, lying to the southeast of the Dead Sea. Whether the
dux of the adjacent province of Arabia was also involved is not clear, but he could have been. One of the cities of Moabitis,
Areopolis, is listed in the
Notitia Dignitatum as belonging not to Palestine but to the province of Arabia. So the operations against the Arabs in Moabitis may have involved the
duces of the two provinces, Palestine, and Arabia, and Dorotheus may have found it possible to rush back to Jerusalem because he could depend on his fellow
dux of Arabia to continue the conduct of the military operation against the “Saracens”. Finally, Shahīd states the impossibility of identifying the invading Arabs with more precision; especially if the attack coincided in time with the raids that forced the
magister militum Ardaburius to intervene in
Phoenice Libanensis, and if this was the case, if they belonged to the same tribal group or if they had formed some sort of alliance against the Romans.
Page from an illuminated XV c. Persian manuscript depicting the building of the al-Khornaq Castle in al-Ḥīra
During the reign of Leo I the Thracian (r. 457-474 CE), events in the
Limes Arabicus are dominated by the figure of the Arab chief
Amorkesos, probably yet another defector from the Sasanians. His story is known through the surviving fragments of Malchus of Philadelphia, who was unable to hide his dislike for this Arab warlord. The traditional view has been that
Amorkesos is the Greek version of Arabic
Imru' al-Qays, a well-known pre-Islamic personal name. Accordingly, the
Amorkesos is of Malchus could have been one of various personages of that name during this period. Shahid rules out that he could have been the Lakhmid prince of the same name, who was the father of the Lakhmid king al-Munḏir that appears in Procopius of Caesarea’s writings. Another possibility is that he was the Imru' al-Qays that appears in Arabic sources as a member of the Ghassānids group; he is named in these sources as
bitrīq (“patrician”), and Malchus’ Amorkesos received this rank from Leo I, and these sources also give him a Sasanian background. Ancient Arabic sources also show that the Ghassānids had lingered in al-Ḥīra and in Lakhmid territory before they crossed over to the Romans, plus the sources for the Lakhmids mention for this period a civil war or strife involving the Lakhmids and the Ghassānids within the camp of the pro-Sasanian Arabs, which ended in a Lakhmid victory. This could make Imru' al-Qays' change of masters intelligible.
But that is not the only possibility: Greek
Amorkesos could be the transliteration of an Arabic name other than
Imru' al-Qays. In the sources for the history of al-Ḥīra there is reference to a certain
'Abd al-Masīḥ, who is described as "son of 'Amr, son of Kays". The segment of this genealogical line
'Amr, son of Kays could have been transliterated from Arabic into Greek as
Amorkesos. Supporting this view is the fact that this historical personage was a Ghassānid, who thus could have left the service of the Sasanians after a quarrel with the Lakhmids, the dominant Arab group in al-Ḥīra in the service of
Ērānšahr. Against this view is the fact that this personage is the father of 'Abd al-Masīḥ according to the genealogists, and since 'Abd al-Masīḥ was alive in the thirties of the VII c. CE, 'Amr would have been a VI, not a V c. CE figure. However, Shahīd points out that 'Abd al-Masīḥ, according to the Arab historians, was one of the
Mu'ammarūn (
macrobiotes in Greek), who lived inordinately long lives. If he lived well over a hundred years, 'Amr son of Kays, his father, could have been active in the second half of the V c. CE. Shahīd also adds that there is a further consideration which argues in favor of Greek
Amorkesos being
'Amr, son of Kays. In a rare mood, the Greek source mentions not only the name of the Arab chief but also his clan affiliation,
Nokalios. 'Abd al-Masīḥ is referred to in the Arabic sources as belonging to the clan or tribe of
Bukayla or
Bukaila/
Buqayla, a clan within the larger Ghassānid tribal group.
What actually motivated Amorkesos to change sides and opt for the Romans is not clear. Malchus of Philadelphia gave two possible explanations: either because he had not attained an honorable position in Sasanian service or because he thought that life with the Romans was better than with the Sasanians and, consequently, that he would do better in Roman territory. Neither explanation is convincing in Shahīd’s opinion; the first seems hardly credible considering his exploits (that imply that he was a resourceful leader), which would have been usefully employed among in Sasanian service. The second explanation is too vague and general to be informative. But knowledge of the history of the Sasanian Arabs in this period, especially of the Lakhmids and al-Ḥīra and their relations with their overlords, could throw light on the motives of Amorkesos in changing sides. Shahīd offered two possible explanations that are not mutually exclusive:
- Al-Ḥīra, the capital of the Lakhmids, was tribally a composite city inhabited by many groups of Arabs, although the Lakhmids, who ruled the city, were dominant. It is possible that there was friction between the group of Amorkesos, the Ghassānids, and the Lakhmids or one of the other tribal groups in the city. Indeed, the sources speak of the strife between the Lakhmid king, al-Aswad, and the Ghassānids and their massacre by him. These sources also speak of friction between the Ghassānids, especially the tribe of Banū Buqayla, and that of the powerful Tamīm group of 'Adī ibn Zayd. Such bitter internal strife in al-Ḥīra could easily have induced the Ghassānid chief to leave in search of greener pastures.
- Or the alleged religious intolerance of the Sasanians, who would have frowned upon conversions to Christianity among their client Arab groups. I will not repeat here my objections to this explanation; I find it quite objectionable.
The date for Amorkesos’ defection to Roman territory is probably to be dated to the early 460s CE. In 464 CE, the Sasanian king Pērōz had complained to the court of Constantinople about the Roman reception of Arab fugitives, in open breach of the peace treaty that stood between both empires; this was probably a reference to Amorkesos. Given his difficulties in the East, the last thing that Pērōz would have wanted is to have some Arab tribes raising trouble in the West. But when Amorkesos left Ḥīra, he did not go directly to Roman territory, as he was probably aware that this would have been an open breach of the treaty, and so he wandered for some years across the northern Arabian desert, finally settling in norther Ḥijāz, as far away from the Sasanian border as he could reach but still close to Roman territory. This way, when he entered Roman-controlled lands, he could present himself as a newcomer from Arabia, and not as a fugitive from the Sasanians.
Aerial picture of the remains of Sergiopolis, in the Late Roman province of Euphratensis.
The
Azd tribal group, to which the Ghassānids belonged, had moved northward from South Arabia along the Sharāt Range that goes through western Arabia, and two of their important tribes,
al-Aws and the
Khazraj, had settled in Yathrib (modern Medina). It is quite likely that they had already been settled there in the second half of the V c. CE. If so, the Ghassānid adventurer would have had a power base in northern Ḥijāz from which to operate against Roman territory in
Palæstina Tertia. From here, he seized the island of the
Iotabe, at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba. This was a bold stroke for an Arab chief who was a land warrior; it was an amphibious operation and implies that the chief had at his disposal some ships or rafts to convey his troops to the island. It is not entirely clear whether he sailed from an adjacent port on the Red Sea or was already in possession of a strip of land on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Aqaba. Whatever his route was, it was a remarkable operation for an Arab chief who had operated with horses and camels and not with ships. Amorkesos’ military or strategic plan was also remarkable in that it affected the Roman Empire adversely in an area that was vital for imperial trade in the Red Sea area and which was also a source of revenue, owing to the customs dues that the resident Roman official collected from ships that put in. So the Arab chief must have had a noticeably clear conception of the importance of Iotabe for the eastern trade of Rome. Malchus of Philadelphia stated that he not only inconvenienced the Romans by occupying the strategically located island, but also amassed great wealth by collecting the taxes himself after expelling the resident Roman officials.
Malchus continued his account by telling that after seizing the island of Iotabe, Amorkesos attacked the neighboring villages, and it was only then that he "expressed a wish to become an ally of the Romans and a phylarch of the Saracens under Roman rule in
Arabia Petræa ". Malchus is specific when he speaks of the area over which Amorkesos desired to be phylarch, namely,
Arabia Petræa. Since
Palæstina Tertia was a large, curiously shaped province, comprising Sinai, the Negev, and the region to the east of the valley of Wādī 'Araba, running from the southern tip of the Dead Sea to the modern Israeli city of Eilat, it may be assumed that he wanted to be phylarch over the third and last mentioned part of Palæstina Tertia. Malchus of Philadelphia, who was a classicizing historian, did not wish to use the administrative term
Palæstina Tertia, a recent coinage of the IV c. CE but instead chose to express himself through the geographical idiom of Strabo, who conceived of this region as
Arabia Petræa. The reference is specific enough, since it indicates that Amorkesos was made phylarch not over Palæstina Tertia in its entirely but over the Trans-'Araban part of it, which Malchus referred to as
Arabia Petræa. It must be noted that Malchus himself was a native of Philadelphia (modern Amman, in Jordan) and he knew well this part of the empire.
Remains of the so-called “Byzantine church” at Petra, in modern-day Jordan. Built in the V-VI c. CE, back then it was located in the Roman province of Palæstina Tertia.
Shahīd also asked a key question: how was it possible for an Arab chief in the reign of Leo I to effect deep penetrations within Roman territory and, what is more, to occupy one of the Roman islands, especially one that had such strategic importance for Roman interests in the Red Sea? Furthermore, the Arab chief's occupation of the island entailed the eviction of its Roman tax collectors, and this would have dealt a blow not only to Roman material interests but also to its pride and prestige in the whole Red Sea area and western Arabia. The military dispositions of the Eastern Roman Empire make this all the more surprising. Palæstina Tertia, which witnessed the brunt of Amorkesos' thrusts, was well defended. The
Notitia Dignitatum is informative on the units that were deployed there in the V c. CE. Ayla, at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, was the station of
Legio X Fretensis, transferred there from Jerusalem in the reign of Diocletian, and its transfer was inspired by some such potential danger from Arabia and the Arabs. There were also military units and forces in the neighboring
Provincia Arabia. All or any of these forces in Palæstina Tertia and in the
Provincia Arabia could have come to the rescue of the beleaguered province under attack from Amorkesos, in much the same way as, toward the end of the century, Romanus, the energetic
dux of Palestine, was able to disperse a coalition of tribes that had posed a serious threat to the same region and, furthermore, to evict the Arabs from the same island. Not only regular Roman troops but also Arab
fœderati, especially deployed for meeting such a threat, could have dealt with this situation. Their presence is attested in the V c. CE both in Palæstina Tertia and in the
Provincia Arabia.
Shahīd provided a convincing answer for this puzzling question. In 468 CE Leo I dispatched a huge armada against the Vandals that had occupied the old Roman provinces of North Africa, in alliance with the Western Emperor Anthemius and the western general Marcellinus. The estimates sometimes provide fantastic figures, but historians agree on the magnitude of the expedition in terms of ships, men, and
centenaria of gold spent on it. According to the more reliable ancient sources, the fleet consisted of 1,113 ships (according to John Cedrenus), which carried 100,000 soldiers (Peter Heather reduced this amount to 30,000 soldiers and 20,000 sailors, although additional expeditionary forces were landed in Vandal-occupied Sardinia and Sicily, and another force was deployed to Tripolitania to advance from there to Carthage by land, under the command of Heraclius of Edessa); the cost amounted to 130,000 Roman pounds of gold (according to Priscus of Panium and Procopius of Cæsarea). This was a huge expedition; the mustering of an expeditionary force of this size must have entailed mobilizing many contingents from the
limes orientalis. This was possible because of the peace that reigned between the Roman and Sasanian empires for most of the V c. CE. This provides a credible situation in which the southern part of the
limes orientalis, as well as Egypt, may have been stripped of its troops, both
fœderati and regular forces. This temporary military vacuum occasioned by Leo I's expedition against the Vandals may have created suitable conditions for the military exploits of Amorkesos by land and sea, which would otherwise have been utterly incomprehensible.
After his successes on land and sea, the Arab chief sent Petrus, the bishop of his tribe, to Constantinople to negotiate with Leo I the question of his phylarchate in Palæstina Tertia. The emperor was receptive (much to the dismay of Malchus of Philadelphia) and asked Amorkesos to come to the capital. Amorkesos' diplomacy was the climax of his successes in war and also signaled a desire to win the peace. In this case diplomacy was the continuation of war by other means. The Arab chief had demonstrated his military worth by his successes and now wanted to reap the harvest by a triumph in another area-by becoming a phylarch of the Romans. This desire reflects how this office, modestly called the
phylarchate, was much coveted by Arab chiefs, even ones as successful as Amorkesos. What mattered to these chiefs in the end was not only military successes in Arabia but the Roman connection, which carried with it the title of
phylarch. That he was an astute diplomat and that he perfectly understood the importance of ecclesiastical diplomacy in the Late Roman Empire is shown in his choice of a bishop as his envoy. Shahīd also underlines that Petrus was an Arab bishop, the bishop of Amorkesos’ people, and not the bishop of the captured Roman outpost of Iotabe.
Shahīd dates Petrus’ arrival to Constantinople to 473 CE, thus after the Council of Chalcedon, that gave way to the division of the Eastern Roman Church between Miaphysite and Orthodox supporters; something similar happened among the neighboring Arabs who had already embraced Christianity.
Leo I received Amorkesos in Constantinople with full honors; there were a number of friendly encounters with the emperor. Amorkesos was awarded a private audience with the
augustus, the two dined together, Leo asked the phylarch to attend Senate meetings (where he sat among the first-rank patricians, which according to Malchus scandalized Constantinople), and the two exchanged gifts. At the end of his stay in Constantinople, Leo formally endowed Amorkesos with the phylarchate. He confirmed him in his possession of the island of Iotabe and even gave him authority over a large number of villages. This was an unusual arrangement. This is the only instance recorded in the extant sources of an Arab phylarch being given charge of an island and, what is more, one that was so strategically located. Shahīd also notes that The
fœdus awarded by Leo I recognized the
fait accompli that Amorkesos had confronted the Romans with. This was unlike the other
fœdi that Rome might have struck with the Salīḥids, for instance, when the circumstances were completely different, and the Arab party was not negotiating as the victor in a military context. Amorkesos, rather, like many a Germanic chief in the West, was in occupation of Roman territory which he had forcibly seized; the emperor simply confirmed him in this and made him an ally in much the same way that had been done with Germanic chiefs. As Amorkesos also kept control of his north Hijaz territories, now the Romans were able to project their influence south into the Ḥijāz in a way they had been unable to do for at least a century. But, as convenient as the
fœdus may have been both to Amorkesos and Leo I, it was a clear breach of the standing peace treaties between Rome and
Ērānšahr, and it was carried out at a time deeply inconvenient to the Sasanians, for in 474 CE Pērōz suffered his first disaster against the Hephthalites. It also marks the start of the relationship between Romans and Ghassānids, a relationship that would last under the Rashidun conquest of the East in the 630s CE.
Shahīd attributes the decline of the Salīḥids during the last third if the V c. CE precisely to their participation in the disastrous Vandal expedition of Leo I, same as had happened to the Tanūkhids after the disaster at Adrianople. If they had suffered heavy losses (which could have very well been the case), then after the return of the survivors to the East, they would have met trouble reasserting their status as the dominant Arab group among the “Saracen”
fœderati of Constantinople. As I have stated before, there were clear precedents for the transfer of eastern allies/
fœderati to other war theaters, so Leo I’s employ of Arab
fœderati against the Vandals would have not been unusual. Against this bleak background, Leo I's receptiveness toward Amorkesos in 473 CE becomes perfectly logical. The empire was militarily depleted: troops that had embarked from the Diocese of
Oriens, both regulars and
foederati, were badly mauled, and some probably never returned to man the
limes orientalis. For the emperor, the prudent course was to come to terms with the powerful chief who then appeared with an olive branch, asking to become his ally.
Detail of a mosaic church found in Jerash in Jordan (ancient Gerasa, in the Roman province of Arabia).
Another circumstance that must have weighed with Leo I in his willingness to reach an accommodation with Amorkesos was the execution of the two Alan
magistri militum Aspar and Ardaburius, and the virtual elimination of the Germanic element in the armies of the Eastern Roman Empire. Leo I wanted to counterbalance the Germanic preponderance in the East by recruiting as much as possible from native subjects of the empire. He thus relied on some hardy mountaineers, including the future emperor Zeno
the Isaurian, and initiated what historians have called the “Isaurian policy”. Since the times of Adrianople, the Arab
fœderati had served the Empire loyally and had even saved Constantinople once, and had the added bonus of being Orthodox (at least for now) which would have been a bonus on Leo’s eyes, so he felt that he could rely on them, same as he chose to rely on
Tarasicodissa (Zeno’s native Isaurian name) and his people.
474 CE was a year of turmoil in the East. Unprecedented news arrived from faraway Central Asia about the defeat and capture of the
Šāhān Šāh by the Hephthalites, while in Constantinople Leo I died and was succeeded by his general Zeno the Isaurian, who shortly after it had to deal with a palace coup led by Basiliscus, brother-in-law of the late Leo I and his sister Empress Dowager Verina that forced him to flee Constantinople and seek refuge in Isauria, from where he would be able to return a year later, capture the capital and execute all those who had taken part in the plot.
In his account of the reign of Zeno, Evagrius relates that in 474 CE that the empire was assaulted simultaneously in the East by the Arabs and in the West by the Huns. He is precise on the geographical sector into which the Huns irrupted, Thrace, but is vague on the Arabs. But Theophanes the Confessor pins the Arab invasion down to Mesopotamia. Theophanes gives no precisions about the identity of the invaders, but Shahīd pointed out that they were probably Sasanian clients and that the raid was launched to convey the displeasure of the Sasanian king Pērōz with the warm reception offered to Amorkesos in Constantinople the previous year.
More incursions happened in 485 CE, one year after the defeat and death of Pērōz against the Hephthalites. They appear in a letter sent by the metropolitan of Nisibis Barṣaumâ to the
catholicos of the East Acacius. According to this letter, Arabs who were clients of the Sasanians made an incursion into Roman territory, and in response the Arab
fœderati of Rome assembled at the border to retaliate. The
marzbān of the area,
Kardag Nakōragan, arranged for talks that ended with an agreement that each side, the Sasanian and the Roman Arabs, would give up what it had captured and pillaged from the territory of the other, and the frontier would be delimited by a treaty. To this end the
Šāhān Šāh (i.e. Walāxš) ordered the king of the Arabs and the
šahrab of Bēṯ-Aramāyē to go to Nisibis, while the Roman commander was also persuaded by Barṣaumâ to attend. During the amicable encounter at Nisibis, the Sasanian Arabs again went on a raiding expedition against the villages in Roman territory; this incensed the Roman commander, who thought he had been cheated or lured to come to Nisibis so that the Sasanian Arabs might lay waste to Roman territory with impunity. However, nothing serious seems to have resulted from the action of these unruly Arabs, and the Roman-Sasanian peace was not ruffled for the remainder of the reign of Zeno.
Shahīd thought that is possible that the background of this episode was Zeno's having recently (483 CE) stopped the annual subsidy that Rome paid the Sasanians for the upkeep of the Caspian Gates, and his demanding the return of Nisibis to the Romans as a condition for the resumption of these payments. According to Joshua the Stylite, this less than diplomatic answer by Zeno was the response to an official complaint made by Pērōz to this respect just before he embarked in is ill-fated last campaign against the Hephthalites; it is possible that Zeno decided to take advantage of the Sasanians’ difficulties in Central Asia to stop the payment of subsidies for good.
Barṣaumâ’s letter offer some precise details about the Arabs who undertook the second raid while the negotiations were being carried on at Nisibis: it was a single Arab tribe, and four hundred cavalrymen took part in the raid. According to Barṣaumâ, the name of this tribe was
Ṭou’āyē; Shahīd thought that this was probably the well-known pre-Islamic Arab tribe of
Ṭayy, the tribe whose name became the generic name for the Arabs among Syriac authors, namely,
Ṭayāyē. Their legal status under the Sasanians is not clear from the text of the letter, for the word used by Barṣaumâ to refer to them could mean that they were either tributaries or allies of the
Šāhān Šāh (the Iranian equivalent to
fœderati). In the letter, the
Šāhān Šāh calls on the "king of the Arabs" (undoubtedly the Lakhmid king of al-Ḥīra) to come up to the north and deal with the situation created by the raid of these Sasanian Arabs into Roman territory. The natural presumption is that this group of Arabs in Sasanian-ruled Mesopotamia was independent of the Lakhmids and free to do what it wanted, without regard to the latter. But when the
Šāhān Šāh so desired, he could ask the Lakhmids to control other Arabs within Sasanian territory. At the beginning of the letter Barṣaumâ also complains of their ravages in Sasanian territory before they crossed over to Roman Mesopotamia. In Shahīd’s opinion, this does not seem like the conduct of Arab allies of the Sasanian Empire, and so they are likely to have been a tribal group allowed to settle in Sasanian Mesopotamia as
ύρήχοοι (
úrḗkhooi), a category of peoples recognized in the Romano-Sasanian treaty of 561 CE.
Shahīd also points out the importance of the fact that the Sasanian king ordered the Lakhmid king of al-Ḥīra to intervene and that he had to travel all the way to Nisibis to help the marzbān with the negotiations. At this point in time, the Lakhmid king would have been al-Munḏir II, son of al-Munḏir I, and this letter of Barṣaumâ confirms the information given in Arabic sources (like Ṭabarī) about the powers over all the Arabs in
Ērānšahr vested upon him by Warahrān V.
The remaining years of the reign of Zeno were quiet in the Roman-Sasanian border, but things heated up once more under Anastasius I (r. 491-518 CE). In 491-492 CE Arabs raiders made an inroad into
Phœnice Libanensis and penetrated as far as Emesa, disrupting one of the nearby monasteries. This is not mentioned by the chronographers, but by the hagiographer Cyril of Scythopolis in the
Vita Abramii. It could have been a local raid, but considering that the Arabs reached Emesa, deep in the heart of the province, it may have been of more than local importance. Shahîd points out that it is noteworthy that it coincided with the beginning of Anastasius I' reign. Kawād I pressed his claims for the payment of the subsidies related to the Caspian Gates, but the new emperor, following in the footsteps of Zeno after 483 CE, refused to pay in spite of Kawād I's demands and threats. Accordingly, this Arab invasion may have been organized by the court of Ctesiphon and undertaken by its Arab allies, the Lakhmids, who had obliged on similar occasions in the past when the
Šāhān Šāh wanted to express his displeasure without seeming to violate the peace that was supposed to prevail between both empires.
The events of 498 CE though (as reported by Theophanes the Confessor) are much more important and extensive. According to this source, the year witnessed a general invasion of the Roman East by three groups of Arabs:
- The “Tented Arabs” invaded the province of Euphratensis (in Mesopotamia) but were repealed at Bithrapsa (that Shahīd identifies with Ruṣāfa/Sergiopolis) in Syria by the commander of troops in the area, Eugenius. These Arabs were Sasanian allies and were under the command of Naaman.
- A second group of Arabs under Jabala had overrun Palestine before the arrival of the Roman commander Romanus there, but the latter beat them and put them to flight. Then, after hard-fought battles, he retook the island of Iotabe from Arab rule and returned it to Roman direct control.
- A third group of Arabs under Ogaros, son of Arechas, were beaten by Romanus, who also cook many of the Arabs captive, including Ogaros.
Theophanes’ chronology is confirmed by Evagrius and the Arab historian Hishām. al-Nu’mān II, the Lakhmid king who organized the offensive, reigned for four years and died in 503 CE, so on this side the chronology also aligns with Theophanes’ data. Obviously, Theophanes’
Naaman is the Lakhmid king al-Nu’mān II, to whom Theophanes refers to as phylarch. Again, the obvious question arises. With the Lakhmid king himself involved, this was an operation organized in Ctesiphon, that could not be hidden, so what prompted Kawād I to take this step? The year 498 CE witnessed the recovery of the Sasanian throne by Kawād I. This would have been an occasion for him to renew demands for the payment of the annual subsidies for the upkeep of the Caspian Gates, which had been denied by Anastasius I when Kawād I had demanded them before. It is thus possible that Kawād I launched this operation as a reprisal after a demand for payment had been rejected by Anastasius I. So he conveniently ordered his client king to mount this offensive against Roman territory to signal his displeasure. If the al-Nu’mān II became king of al-Ḥīra in the same year, he too would have found it convenient to celebrate his own accession by a military operation against the age-old enemy.
Shahīd thought that the choice of objective by the Lakhmids was due to the fame of Sergiopolis as a pilgrimage center among the Christian Arabs, which would have translated into an accumulation of wealth through donatives to the shrine of Saint Sergius. Added to this, Sergiopolis was located close to the Sasanian border. Shahīd adds nothing about the Roman commander Eugenius who defeated the Lakhmids in Sergiopolis; he could have been the local
dux of the province, but Shahīd thought that he probably was a higher-ranked commander, able to muster the military resources of more than one province.
Remains of the southern church at Shivta in the Negev (modern Israel), which would have been part of Palaestina Tertia. This (now abandoned) town experienced an economic boom during the V-VI c. CE thanks to the production of the highly appreciated wine of Gaza (vinum Gazentum).
As for the other Roman commander, Romanus, he is better documented. He was the
dux of Palestine and took part in the opening stages of the Anastasian War in 503 CE. The identity of the first Arab chief whom Romanus defeated and put to flight in Palestine is quite clear: he was the Ghassānid
Jabalah, the father of
Arethas (Ar.
al-Ḥārith), whom Procopius of Caesarea mentions by name and patronymic. His relationship to the Amorkesos who first occupied the island of Iotabe is not so clear. He could be lineally or collaterally related to him; he could belong to the same Ghassānid clan or to another. Once more, Shahīd raised the obvious question: what caused this obvious breach of the agreement reached by Amorkesos and Leo I in 473 CE? Shahīd stated that the sources are silent, but it is practically certain that the financial policy of Anastasius I was responsible for it. Anastasius I retrieved the financial situation after it had reached the brink of ruin because of the costly expedition of Leo I against the Vandals. His careful spending and personal attention to matters of detail restored the economy of the state. Surely the extraordinary arrangement that Leo I had with the Arab chief would have attracted his attention, and so he was probably determined to wrest the island of Iotabe from Arab hands and restore it to Roman rule. He might, then, have issued orders for its return. Thus it is practically certain that it was not Amorkesos' phylarchate over
Palæstina Tertia that irked Anastasius I but his rule over Iotabe and the financial loss to the empire that it entailed. Shahīd thought that it was possible that Anastasius I took seven years before addressing this issue because previously he had been busy with a serious rebellion in Isauria whose last leader was not executed until 498 CE, but that it was more probable that the reason for the delay was that Amorkesos might have died in 498 CE. His death might have confronted the Romans with the usual problem of the renewal of the
fœdus. Anastasius I might have taken advantage of this moment to refuse to renew what he possibly thought was a
fœdus iniquum as far as Rome was concerned, struck between the Empire and an Arab chief in the aftermath of Leo I's expedition against the Vandals, and negotiated under duress. So he refused to renew it, just as he refused to pay the annual subsidies to Kawād I for the upkeep of the Caspian Gates. He may well have considered that the money that Rome paid to
Ērānšahr and the money that the Arab lord of Iotabe collected belonged to the same order of extortion from, and loss to, the Roman Treasury. So, what happened at Iotabe and the fight in Palestine against Jabalah the Ghassānid was a rebellion that was put down by the Roman commander Romanus after a hard struggle (according to Theophanes).
As for the other Arabic attack, the invasion of Palestine that was also refused by Romanus: Shahīd identified the Arab leader
Ogaros, son of Arechas, with
Ḥujr, the Kindite chief. This Kindite prince was the son of Ḥārith, son of 'Amr, the Kindite king, well known to the Romans around 500 CE and for more than a quarter century to come. His father, Ḥārith, lived for at least another twenty-five years and was highly active in the military, political, and religious life of the Roman borderlands. And yet he appears only genealogically in the Theophanes passage; it is his son, Ḥujr, who undertook the operations against the Romans. Shahīd thought the most plausible explanation that probably Ḥārith ruled over a vast area in Arabia and so had to delegate authority to his sons. Ḥujr at this time (ca. 500 CE) was apparently in charge of the tribes that were adjacent to the
limes Arabicus; hence his involvement. It is unclear why the Kindites became involved in all this commotion; Shahīd attributed it to either opportunism or more plausibly that they asked a call for help from the Ghassānids, as these two Arab groups were generally in good relations with each other.
After the offensives of 498 CE, the sources are silent on the Ghassānids for some four years, but not on the Kindites. In 502 CE a Kindite prince,
Ma'di-Karib, mounted a large-scale raid against the three great regions of the Roman East (Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine) so swiftly that Romanus was unable to overtake him when he chose to retreat with a great deal of booty. Since the Banū Ghassān emerged a little later as the dominant Arab
fœderati, it cannot be said that they disappeared or were crushed completely. The Ghassanids had already the status of foederati with Rome and had enjoyed it for a quarter of a century, while the Kindites were basically a foreign power, with a considerable territorial base in northern and central Arabia.
