Victorious: The “Arrogance” of Šāhanšāh Xusrō Parvīz (Proof)

Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture www.dabirjournal.org Digital Archive of Brief notes & Iran Review ISSN: 2470-4040 Vol.01 No.02.2016 1 xšnaoθrahe ahurahe mazdå Detail from above the entrance of Tehran’s fire temple, 1286š/1917–18. Photo by © Shervin Farridnejad The Digital Archive of Brief notes & Iran Review (DABIR) ISSN: 2470-4040 www.dabirjournal.org Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture University of California, Irvine 1st Floor Humanities Gateway Irvine, CA 92697-3370 Editor-in-Chief Touraj Daryaee (University of California, Irvine) Editors Parsa Daneshmand (Oxford University) Arash Zeini (Independent scholar) Shervin Farridnejad (Freie Universität Berlin) Book Review Editor Shervin Farridnejad (Freie Universität Berlin) Editorial Assistants Ani Honarchian (UCLA) Sara Mashayekh (UCI) Advisory Board Samra Azarnouche (École pratique des hautes études); Dominic P. Brookshaw (Oxford University); Matthew Canepa (University of Minnesota); Ashk Dahlén (Uppsala University) Peyvand Firouzeh (Cambridge University); Leonardo Gregoratti (Durham University); Frantz Grenet (Collège de France); Wouter F.M. Henkelman (École Pratique des Hautes Études); Rasoul Jafarian (Tehran University); Nasir al-Ka‘abi (University of Kufa); Andromache Karanika (UC Irvine); Agnes Korn (Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main); Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (University of Edinburgh); Jason Mokhtarain (University of Indiana); Ali Mousavi (UC Irvine); Mahmoud Omidsalar (CSU Los Angeles); Antonio Panaino (University of Bologna); Alka Patel (UC Irvine); Richard Payne (University of Chicago); Khodadad Rezakhani (Freie Universität Berlin); Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis (British Museum); M. Rahim Shayegan (UCLA); Rolf Strootman (Utrecht University); Giusto Traina (University of Paris-Sorbonne); Mohsen Zakeri (University of Göttingen) Logo design by Charles Li Layout and typesetting by Kourosh Beighpour Contents Notes 1. Keenan Baca-Winters: Vitorious: The “Arrogance” of Šahanšah Xusrō Parvīz 2. Touraj Daryaee: Whipping the Sea and the Earth: Xerxes at the Hellespont and Yima at the Vara 3. Touraj Daryaee: Dancing in Middle & Classical Persian 4. Göz König: The Niyāyišn and the bagas (Brief comments on the so-called Xorde Aveta, 2) 5. Datur Firoze M. Kotwal: Jamshīdī Nō-Rūz (Fats v/s Myth) 6. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones: An orgy of Oriental dissipation? Some thoughts on the ‘Camel lekythos’ 7. Marc Morato: The Turkish Iranian emigration as perceived by the Maathir al-Umara (1544-1629) 8. Mohesn Zakeri: Survey of Šāhnāme sources. 1. The so-called *Paykār and *Sagēsarān 01 04 10 16 25 31 39 44 Reviews 1. Vahé S. Boyajian: Asatryan, Garnik S. & Viktoria Arakelova. 2014. The religion of the Peacock Angel: the Yezidis and their spirit world. (Gnotica: Texts & Interpretations). Durham, UK: Routledge. 157 pp., £63.00, ISBN 978-1-84465-761-2. 2. Touraj Daryaee: Shahbazi, A. Shapur, Tārīḫ-e sāsānīān. Tarjome-ye baḫš-e sāsānīān az ketāb-e tārīḫ-e Ṭabarī va moqāyese-ye ān bā tārīḫ-e Balʿamī [Sasanian Hitory. Translation of the Sasanian Setion from the Hitory of Ṭabari and its Commparission with the Hitory of Balʿami], Tehran, Iran University Press, 1389š/2010. Pp. 811. ISBN 978-964-01-1393-6. 3. Shervin Farridnejad: Timuş, Mihaela. 2015. Cosmogonie et eschatologie: articulations conceptuelles du sytème religieux zoroatrien. (Cahiers de Studia Iranica 54). Paris: Peeters Press. 288 pp., €30.00, ISBN 978-2-910640-40-8. 4. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones: Briant, Pierre. 2015. Darius in the shadow of Alexander. (Trans.) Jane Marie Todd. Cambridge, Massachusets: Harvard University Press. 608 pages, $39.95, ISBN 9780674493094. 5. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones: Bridges, Emma. 2014. Imagining Xerxes: ancient perspetives on a Persian king. (Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception). New York: Bloomsbury Academic. 256 pp., £65.00, ISBN 9781472514271. 50 53 55 57 59 Obituary 1. Ehsan Shavarebi: Malek Iradj MOCHIRI (1927–2015) 61 Digital Archive of Brief notes & Iran Review Vol.01 o.02.2016 N ISSN: 2470 - 4040 © Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies & Culture University of California, Irvine 2016, Vol. 1, No. 2 ISSN: 2470 - 4040 © Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture, University of California, Irvine Victorious: The “Arrogance” of Šāhanšāh Xusrō Parvīz Keenan Baca-Winters 1 X usrō II (r. 590 CE-628 CE) was the lat mighty šāhān šāh of Ērānšahr. The hallmark of his reign is his near conquet of the Roman Empire, the ancient foes of the Iranians. Mot of the Roman-Sasanian War of the seventh century (602 CE-628 CE) was a boon for Ērānšahr. In quick succession, the Romans lot Amida (609 CE), Edessa (610 CE), Theodosiopolis (610 CE), Jerusalem and the cross of Jesus Chrit’s crucifixion (614 CE), Egypt and the grain it provided the ret of the empire (618 CE) (Nikephoros 1990, 48), and Anatolia (617 CE), which put the Iranians within triking ditance of Contantinople, the Roman capital. By 626 CE Xusrō II’s power seemed to be limitless (James Howard-Johnton 2004, 93). His army, along with his Avar allies, besieged Contantinople. The Roman Empire was atrophying from the loss of tax revenue, while the Iranian treasury began to swell with captured Roman booty (Al-Ṭabarī 1999, 394). It mut have seemed to Xusrō II that he was on the cusp of figurative immortality. The defeat of the Romans was imminent, and Xusrō II was about to rule not only Ērānšahr, but also the Roman Empire, which was comprised of parts of Italy, North Africa, Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Levant. The Roman-Sasanian War of the seventh century was an important event and has received a lot of atention in the ancient sources. These authors also focused on Xusrō II’s supposed arrogance and greed and how the two went hand in hand. This note explores why these sources were fixated on how Xusrō II was arrogant and greedy, and why these sources were not necessarily wrong to depit him as such. While Xusrō II himself was a complex man who was influenced by things other than the war of 2016, Vol. 1, No. 2 2 the seventh century (my forthcoming dissertation explores other aspets of his personality), his achievements did have an efet on how he viewed the world. The bet example we have of Xusrō II’s egotism is a leter in the Hitory of Pseudo-Sebēos. Ater Heraclius (r. 610 CE-641 CE) obtained the emperorship, he wrote to Xusrō II asking him to cease hotilities. Xusrō II’s response is dramatic and full of insults. He wrote that he is special to the gods and that Heraclius was jut a tupid servant whose empire at that point was all but Xusrō II’s. He asked if Heraclius prayed to Jesus Chrit to save the Roman realm and pointed out that Jesus could not save himself from crucifixion by the Jews. Xusrō II then “forgave” Heraclius and “all his trespasses” (Sebeos 1999, 79). Then according to Nikephoros, another ancient author, Xusrō II contruted a palace and had a mural of himself depited as a god, seated among the sun, moon, and tars, along with a contraption that simulated lightening and thunder (Nikephoros 1990, 56). Theophylat Simocata also demontrated Xusrō II’s hubris and pleonexia by writing that Xusrō II’s father, Hormīzd IV (r. 579 CE-590 CE), warned the Iranians that Xusrō II’s arrogance knew no bounds (Theophylat Simocata, 1986, 109). The Middle Persian source Māh ī frawardīn rōz ī hordād also described Xusrō II’s love of treasure (Māh ī frawardīn rōz ī hordād 27). Latly, Al-Thaʿālibī corroborated that Xusrō II was avaricious and included a dossier on how much treasure Xusrō II owned (Al-Thaʿālibī 1900, 687-689, 698-711). The intereting thing about al-Thaʿālibī is that according to him, Xusrō II got all of his treasure from the Roman Empire, and he thanked God for allowing that to happen (Al-Thaʿālibī 1900, 701). The is important as al-Thaʿālibī linked Xusrō II’s possessions with his success againt the Romans. As Xusrō II’s armies seized more and more Roman territory, the Sasanian treasury swelled with goods and precious metals. Coupled with the knowledge that the majority of the war of the seventh century went well for Xusrō II, it is not dificult to see that Xusrō II’s pride would swell as the Iranians annexed more Roman territory, and more Roman treasure came into Ctesiphon. Movsēs Kałankatuac‛i corroborates this assertion by tating that Xusrō II became arrogant because of his gains in the war of the seventh century CE (Movsēs Dasxuranci 1961, 11). Thus, we have two authors who had linked Xusrō II’s behavior with his success againt the Romans. This is the crux of why Xusrō II was arrogant. While all the sources discussed here need deeper analysis to undertand why they portrayed Xusrō II the way they did, it sometimes behooves hitorians to accept certain things for face value. One, Xusrō II posed one of the greatet threats the Roman Empire had ever faced. For a young šāhān šāh, this was remarkable considering the Romans and Iranians had had hotile relations for centuries prior to the war of the seventh century. Xusrō II’s invasion marked the firt time one realm threatened the existence of the other. Two, success undoubtedly went to Xusrō II’s head and he probably began to think that since the war had gone well for him for so long, things would continue to go well for him. Thus it is not dificult to see him penning an insulting leter to Heraclius or massing exotic goods in his palaces and gloating about it. Because Xusrō II accomplished so much in his life as šāhān šāh, he more than likely became haughty with his successes, which is why the sources suggeted that he was immodet and covetous. Xusrō Parvīz was a conqueror, and he ated like one. Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture Bibliography Abū Ja’far Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī. The Hitory of al-Ṭabarī: An Annotated Translation: Volume V, The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen. Translated by C. E. Bosworth. New York: State University of New York Press, 1999. Al-Thaʿâlibî. Hitoire des rois des perses par Aboù Manṣoûr ʿabd Al-Malik ibn Moḥammad ibn Ismàʿìl al-Thaʿâlibî. Edited and translated by M. Herman Zotenberg. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1900. Howard-Johnton, James. “Pride and Fall: Khusro II and His Regime, 626-628.” In La Persia e Bisnazio (Ati dei Convengi Lincei 201), edited by G. Gnoli, 93-113. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 2004). Reprinted in Eat Rome, Sasanian Persia and the End of Antiquity: Hitoriographical and Hitorical Studies. Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2006. Māh ī frawardīn rōz ī hordād in Corpus of Pahlavi Texts. Edited by Jamaspji Datur Minocherji JamaspAsana. Bombay, 1902. Movsēs Dasxuranci. The Hitory of the Caucasian Albanians. Translated by C. J. F. Dowset. London: Oxford University Press, 1961. 3 Nikephoros. Nikephoros, Patriarch of Contantinople: Short Hitory. Edited and translated by Cyril Mango. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1990. Sebeos. The Armenian Hitory Atributed to Sebeos: Part 1. Translation and Notes. Edited and translated by R. W. Thomson with commentary by James Howard-Johnton with Tim Greenwood. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999. Theophylat Simocata. The Hitory of Theophylat Simocata: An English Translation with Introdution and Notes. Edited and translated by Michael and Mary Whitby. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1986. Keenan Baca-Winters is about to receive his Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine. His dissertation is a tudy of Xusrō II and how he is depited in diferent sources. 2016, Vol. 1, No. 2 66