Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/637

 EMPIRE.] PERSIA 609 flict. Carus, however, in 283 led his army as far as the hostile capital, and had taken Ctesiphon and Coche (a part of Seleucia) when he suddenly died (by lightning, it is said), and the Romans drew off. Carus is said to have been favoured by intestine disorders, which at this period were certainly common in Persia. In 291 a rhetorician mentions the rebellion of a certain Hormizd (Ormies) against his brother the king, in alliance with barbarians. A youthful son, who appears opposite the queen on coins of Bahrain II., seems never to have ascended the throne, which was probably contested between Bahrain III. (a son of Hormizd 1. 1) and Narseh (according to an inscrip tion, son of Shdpiir I.). Bahrdm III., called SagAn Shah, because he had been governor of Sagastan (Sistan), reigned, or at least held the capital, for a very short time ; Narseh reigned from c. 293 to 303, and, following up Shapiir s policy, occupied Armenia and defeated Galerius (probably in 297) between Carriage and Callinicus (Rakka) in Meso potamia. But under Diocletian s wise rule Galerius soon restored the honour of the Roman arms, totally defeating Narseh in Armenia and taking his wives and children. A brilliant peace (298) rewarded the victors ; to recover his family the Persian ceded Armenia and Mesopotamia, and even some districts east of the Tigris as far as Kurdistdn. The peace lasted forty years. Narseh s son, Hormizd II., came to the throne about 303 and was succeeded early in 310 by his son, Adharnarseh, who was soon deposed, and probably slain, ostensibly for his cruelty. The nobles now held the reins of power, and, having blinded one brother of the fallen king and im- S piir prisoned another (Hormizd), 1 crowned Shapur II., the new- I born (or unborn) son of Queen Ifra (?) Hormizd (310). The rule of the queen-mother and nobles was what may be readily imagined in an Oriental empire, which above all things needs a strong man at the head ; but such a man young Shapur, one of the greatest princes of the dynasty, soon proved himself to be. Persian tradition preserves few really historical notices of Shapur II., but is full of stories of astounding campaigns against the Arabs, highly coloured by hatred of that race ; and there is no doubt that Shapur did devote himself with energy to the always important task of repelling the plundering Bedouins from the civilized lands on which their deserts border. Another notable undertaking was the new foundation of Susa after it had rebelled and been chastised by total demolition, the very ground being stamped down by the king s elephants. NISHAPUR (q.v.), i.e., Nev-shdhpuhr, may be his foundation, or that of Shapur I. In Shapiir s youth fell the victory of Roman Christian ity over paganism under Constantino, and the Christians of Persia at once threw in their sympathies with the Christian state. These feelings were openly shown when Shapur in 337 or 338 began a Roman war, as appears in a homily of the Syrian bishop Aphraates, a subject of Persia. The bishop of the capital, too, ventured to use language against the king which no Oriental prince, least of all ersecu- one like Shapur, could submit to. And so almost simul taneously with the Roman war a terrible persecution of ans the Christians broke out (339/340), of which the Syrian Acts of Persian Martyrs give a lively picture, instructive, too, for the light cast on persons and affairs in the realm. Sh&piir was no fanatic, as even the Acts of the martyrs show, and he did not molest the Jews, whom his priests hated quite as much as the Christians. But, like Diocle tian, he wished to destroy the organization of the church, and therefore used the utmost rigour against the lower as well as the higher clergy, and destroyed the ecclesiastical 1 Hormizd escaped to the Romans in 323 and remained with them all his life. As late as 363 lie shared the Roman campaign against his half-brother Shapur. buildings. To break up congregations he often constrained 282-363. prominent church members to stone their own priests. The Persian priests, of course, used the opportunity to gratify their hatred of the Christians, and other impure passions increased the cruelty of Shapiir s hard measures. The Christians on their part showed much heroic courage mixed with not a little cowardice. Roman sources tell us that the war was begun by the Shapur Persians with an invasion of Mesopotamia. Constantino H- 8 C011 died on 22d May 337, before he could march against them. But Shapiir s great preparations, as we learn from Aphraates, fell in the year that begins with autumn 337. With many vicissitudes and long pauses the war endured for twenty- five years, but only for its second part do we possess fuller accounts by contemporaries and in part eye-witnesses. Shapiir s aim was to drive the Romans from the upper Tigris, where they were dangerously near Ctesiphon, and especially to seize Nisibis, and then to reduce Armenia, that old apple of discord between East and West. Three times Nisibis victoriously resisted a severe siege (338, 346, 350), and other sieges occupy a great place in the story of the war. Constantius, when he took the field in person, was always defeated, as in 348 at the great battle of Sin- gara (Shingar, Ar. Sinjar). Yet Shapiir s successes bore little fruit, mainly perhaps because Diocletian and Con- stantine had put the fortresses in the best condition, and in all respects had made wise provisions to cover the threatened districts. Even when victorious the Persians could hardly penetrate into western Mesopotamia, and if Shapiir had taken all the strong places he could hardly have garrisoned them. Thus he took Amida (Amid) after long and costly sieges, and in the very next year (360) the Romans found it ungarrisoned. The Romans were helped, too, by the trouble which Shapiir had with barbarous ene mies ; the third siege of Nisibis was all but successful when the Persian was called away to Khorasan by urgent affairs there. These eastern conflicts were the prelude to a long pause in the contest (350-358), broken only by small forays. When, however, the Romans opened negotiations (356 to 358) Shapur had made peace in the east and offered no conditions that could be accepted. In 359 and 360 the war was again hotly renewed, and Shapur took several im portant fortresses. Then there was a lull till 363, when the warlike, active, and ambitious Julian, now sole emperor, resolved to strike at the capital of the enemy, as Trajan, Severus, and Carus had done. He left Antioch for Meso potamia in March and swiftly descended the Euphrates, wasting the enemy s land with fire and sword and taking several cities by short sieges, among others the royal city of Mah6z Malka, not far from Ctesiphon. Julian now occupied Seleucia, but, finding he was not strong enough to take Ctesiphon, the fortified capital on the opposite bank of the Tigris, he ordered a retreat along the left bank. And now for the first time Shapiir s troops began to harass him, but the army might have regained Roman soil without seri ous loss had not Julian fallen mortally wounded in a skir mish (26th June 363). The army chose Jovian emperor, a man too weak for such an occasion, who managed his soldiers and the negotiations so badly that a shameful peace was the result, and Shapur regained the lands east of the Tigris lost to Galerius, and part of Mesopotamia with Nisibis and Singara. Nisibis was the gravest loss, for in all future wars it was to the Persians a sure base for advance and a bulwark for defence. But a still more shameful condition was that the Romans should not help their ally Arsaces of Armenia against Shapiir. The Persian, nevertheless, did not find Armenia an easy con quest. He took Arsaces captive, but this did not decide the fate of the whole country, divided as it was by nature into a number of separate regions under almost independent XVIII. 77