The reign of Zamasp appears to have lasted from A.D. 498 to A.D. 501, or between two and three years. He was urged by the army to put Kobad to death, but hesitated to adopt so extreme a course, and preferred retaining his rival as a prisoner. The “Castle of Oblivion” was regarded as a place of safe custody; but the ex-king contrived in a short time to put a cheat on his guards and effect his escape from confinement. Like other claimants of the Persian throne, he at once took refuge with the Ephthalites, and sought to persuade the Great Khan to embrace his cause and place an army at his disposal. The Khan showed himself more than ordinarily complaisant. He can scarcely have sympathized with the religious leanings of his suppliant; but he remembered that he had placed him upon the throne, and had found him a faithful feudatory and a quiet neighbor. He therefore received him with every mark of honor, betrothed him to one of his own daughters, and lent him an army of 30,000 men. With this force Kobad returned to Persia, and offered battle to Zamasp. Zamasp declined the conflict. He had not succeeded in making himself popular with his subjects, and knew that a large party desired the return of his brother. It is probable that he did not greatly desire a throne. At any rate, when his brother reached the neighborhood of the capital, at the head of the 30,000 Ephthalites and of a strong body of Persian adherents, Zamasp determined upon submission. He vacated the throne in favor of Kobad, without risking the chance of a battle, and descended voluntarily into a private station. Different stories are told of his treatment by the restored monarch. According to Procopius, he was blinded after a cruel method long established among the Persians; but Mirkhond declares that he was pardoned, and even received from his brother marked signs of affection and favor.
The coins of Zamasp have the usual inflated ball and mural crown, but with a crescent in place of the front limb of the crown. The ends of the diadem appear over the two shoulders. On either side of the head there is a star, and over either shoulder a crescent. Outside the encircling ring, or “pearl border,” we see, almost for the first time, three stars with crescents. The reverse bears the usual fire-altar, with a star and crescent on either side of the flame. The legend is extremely brief, being either Zamasp or Bag Zamasp, i.e. “Zamaspes,” or “the divine Zamaspes.” [PLATE XXII., Fig. 1.]
CHAPTER XIX.
Second Reign of Kobad. His Change of Attitude towards the Followers of Mazdak. His Cause of Quarrel with Rome. First Roman War of Kobad. Peace made A.D. 505. Rome fortifies Daras and Theodosiopolis. Complaint made by Persia. Negotiations of Kobad with Justin: Proposed Adoption of Chosroes by the Latter. Internal Troubles in Persia. Second Roman War of Kobad, A.D. 524-531. Death of Kobad. His Character. His coins.
The second reign of Kobad covered a period of thirty years, extending from A.D. 501 to A.D. 531. He was contemporary, during this space, with the Roman emperors Anastasius, Justin, and Justinian, with Theodoric, king of Italy, with Cassiodorus, Symmachus, Boethius, Procopius, and Belisarius. The Oriental writers tell us but little of this portion of his history. Their silence, however, is fortunately compensated by the unusual copiousness of the Byzantines, who deliver, at considerable length, the entire series of transactions in which Kobad was engaged with the Constantinopolitan emperors, and furnish some interesting notices of other matters which occupied him. Procopius especially, the eminent rhetorician and secretary of Belisarius, who was born about the time of Kobad’s restoration to the Persian thrones and became secretary to the great general four years before Kobad’s death, is ample in his details of the chief occurrences, and deserves a confidence which the Byzantines can rarely claim, from being at once a contemporary and a man of remarkable intelligence. “His facts,” as Gibbon well observes, “are collected from the personal experience and free conversation of a soldier, a statesman, and a traveller; his style continually aspires, and often attains, to the merit of strength and elegance; his, reflections, more especially in the speeches, which he too frequently inserts, contain a rich fund of political knowledge; and the historian, excited by the generous ambition of pleasing and instructing posterity, appears to disdain the prejudices of the people and the flattery of courts.”
The first question which Kobad had to decide, when, by the voluntary cession of his brother, Zamasp, he remounted his throne, was the attitude which he should assume towards Mazdak and his followers. By openly favoring the new religion and encouraging the disorders of its votaries, he had so disgusted the more powerful classes of his subjects that he had lost his crown and been forced to become a fugitive in a foreign country. He was not prepared to affront this danger a second time. Still, his attachment to the new doctrine was not shaken; he held the views propounded to be true, and was not ashamed to confess himself an unwavering adherent of the communistic prophet. He contrived, however, to reconcile his belief with his interests by separating the individual from the king. As a man, he held the views of Mazdak; but, as a king, he let it be known that he did not intend to maintain or support the sectaries in any extreme or violent measures. The result was that the new doctrine languished; Mazdak escaped persecution and continued to propagate his views; but, practically, the progress of the new opinions was checked; they had ceased to command royal advocacy, and had consequently ceased to endanger the State; they still fermented among the masses, and might cause trouble in the future; but for the present they were the harmless speculations of a certain number of enthusiasts who did not venture any more to carry their theories into practice.
Kobad had not enjoyed the throne for more than a year before his relations with the great empire on his western frontier became troubled, and, after some futile negotiations, hostilities once more broke out. It appears that among the terms of the peace concluded in A.D. 442 between Isdigerd II. and the younger Theodosius, the Romans had undertaken to pay annually a certain sum of money as a contribution towards the expenses of a fortified post which the two powers undertook to maintain in the pass of Derbend, between the last spurs of the Caucasus and the Caspian. This fortress, known as Juroi-pach or Biraparach, commanded the usual passage by which the hordes of the north were accustomed to issue from their vast arid steppes upon the rich and populous regions of the south for the purpose of plundering raids, if not of actual conquests. Their incursions threatened almost equally Roman and Persian territory, and it was felt that the two nations were alike interested in preventing them. The original agreement was that both parties should contribute equally, alike to the building and to the maintaining of the fortress; but the Romans were so occupied in other wars that the entire burden actually fell upon the Persians. These latter, as was natural, made from time to time demands upon the Romans for the payment of their share of the expenses; but it seems that these efforts were ineffectual, and the debt accumulated. It was under these circumstances that Kobad. finding himself in want of money to reward adequately his Ephthalite allies, sent an embassy to Anastasius, the Roman emperor, with a peremptory demand for a remittance. The reply of Anastasius was a refusal. According to one authority he declined absolutely to make any payment; according to another, he expressed his willingness to lend his Persian brother a sum of money on receiving the customary acknowledgment, but refused an advance on any other terms. Such a response was a simple repudiation of obligations voluntarily contracted, and could scarcely fail to rouse the indignation of the Persian monarch. If he learned further that the real cause of the refusal was a desire to embroil Persia with the Ephthalites, and to advance the interests of Rome by leading her enemies to waste each other’s strength in an internecine conflict, he may have admired the cunning of his rival, but can scarcely have felt the more amicably disposed towards him.