Diplomatic contacts and an intensive exchange of information regarding a variety of issues – economy and trade, the security of the borders, religious and cultural matters etc. – formed an important part of Roman– Persian relations. However, it was above all the military confrontations that characterised Rome's relations with her Eastern neighbours. These were as numerous as they were of long duration. Both powers' claim to universal rule pointed out in the previous chapter did not leave any room for a stable coexistence on the basis of international law. Almost inevitably, or rather instinctively, any perceived or real weakness provoked the military initiative of the opponent so that from the third into the seventh century a state of war between the two has to be seen as ‘endemic’. The analysis of these military confrontations is therefore predominant in this study, not because of an imbalanced modern view of Roman–Sasanian relations that adopts a ‘confrontational perspective’ but because of the actual historical events, which were experienced and analysed by the contemporary observers in a similar way. These also emphasise the opposition between West and East and focus on sometimes very elaborate descriptions of a permanent struggle for a powerful position and strategic advantages in the Near and Middle East. This is – and rightly so – reflected in modern scholarship, which has always paid particular attention to questions of peace and war as well as triumph and defeat. Our diachronic survey thus includes a detailed account of the rivalry between the two powers as it is expressed in the numerous military confrontations. The theatres of war included both the Eastern Roman provinces and the Western regions of the Sasanian Empire.

Although Roman–Persian relations were dominated by military conflicts or diplomatic activities concerning these conflicts, there were a number of issues that showed points of contact between the two powers, which, however, could themselves become the starting point for further tensions. These are above all economic and trade related issues, the protection of the frontier and the integration of territories that had been contested for centuries. It is noteworthy that the contemporary authors always give their accounts on the basis of an ‘imaginary opposition’ between Occident and Orient, which creates a typical ‘perspective of confrontation’. One cannot fail to notice the prejudices the Roman historians held against the ‘oriental barbarians’. Such commonplaces, which found their way into Western literature many centuries ago, and which were embellished in numerous subsequent accounts given by those travelling between the cultures – soldiers or diplomats, scholars or philosophers, artists or missionaries – have had a tremendous impact on modern views until the present day. The second part of this book thus emphasises the contrary, namely the efforts to reconcile differences, the openness for cooperation between the powers and the solutions that were found in the process and thereby to gain a deeper understanding of Roman–Sasanian relations. Given how the rivalries between Rome and Persia persisted and how difficult in particular the geographical conditions in the border regions were, these solutions can indeed be called innovative and forward-looking. At times, they certainly helped to stabilise the difficult political situation in the contested border territories along the Euphrates and Tigris.

The martyrdom of the Roman virgin Agnes was a sight to behold, according to an impressive group of late Roman narrators, including Bishop Ambrose of Milan, Prudentius, and the anonymous author of the Passio Agnetis (BHL 156), quoted here. To a greater or lesser degree, these authors revel in conjuring the scene, dwelling on the beauty of the young woman (she is nearly ravished by her persecutors in a brothel), her eagerness to feel the thrust of the executioner's sword, and the intensity of her desire to be joined to Christ. The sexual element in her persecution and death in these narratives has made of Agnes something of a spectacle in modern scholarship, an iconic figure in analyses of the erotics of male ascetic Christianity. It may be, however, that we are the victims of our own interest in contemporary voyeurism.

Concepts of ‘legitimate rule’ and the ‘family of kings’

Although the military confrontations between Rome and Persia continued over centuries and their ideological differences were irreconcilable, it is evident that both ‘world powers’ from early on acknowledged the other's claims to being of equal rank. In particular the relationship between the individual rulers and the way they treated each other are good indications for this. Examining this relationship allows us to gain insight not only into the state of diplomatic relations and the political balance of power but also into the degree of mutual respect that existed between the two rulers at a given point. In this context one should pay special attention to two fundamental ideas, namely the legitimacy of the ruler's status and the notion of a ‘family of kings’. Ammianus Marcellinus records an exchange of letters between Constantius II (337–61) and Šāpūr II (309–79), which clearly reveals that the two perceived each other's rank as equal to their own. The Sasanian king addresses the emperor with the following words:

Ammianus Marcellinus xvii.5.3 and 10

(3) ‘I, King of kings, Šāpūr, comrade of the stars, brother of the Sun and the Moon, am sending many greetings to my brother, the Caesar Constantius.’

The emperor's response begins as follows:

(10) ‘I, Constantius, victor by land and by sea, always Augustus, am sending many greetings to my brother, King Šāpār.’

By the middle of the fourth century war between Rome and Persia had been going on for quite some time without substantial gains on either side (7).

In order to understand the intense and multi-faceted relations between Romans and Persians during the course of late antiquity – and in particular the many military confrontations that continued into the seventh century – one has to address the overall political goals of the two great powers. These goals are therefore the starting point of the second part of our survey, in which we present and analyse the source material.

Whereas Roman generals of the Late Republic already boasted that as Alexander's successors they had extended the borders of the Roman Empire to the ends of the earth and scholars agree on Rome's claim to world domination, namely to rule an imperium sine fine (‘an empire without borders’) or ‘an empire that extended from sun rise to sun set’, there is no corresponding consensus among scholars with regard to the goals that drove Sasanian foreign policy. The following examination therefore focuses on the Sasanian claims and the ideological background of the Sasanian foreign policy vis à vis Rome. This should not, however, evoke the impression that the Sasanians acted as aggressors and the Romans as defenders of threatened possessions or territories, which, obviously, the latter had conquered in long, violent wars from an unwilling population. On the contrary, the reader should be aware that such a ‘eurocentric’ view, which has been prevalent for many decades in the scholarly literature, is not justified in any way.

Territorial claims of the Sasanians against Rome

The contemporary sources presented in this chapter indicate that immediately after ad 224 the Sasanians refused to acknowledge Rome's supremacy in the Near and Middle East.

THE THIRD CENTURY: THE ORIGINS OF SASANIAN INTERESTS IN THE WEST

The rise of the Sasanian dynasty, the revolt of Ardašīr I (224–40) against the Arsacids, the fall of Parthian rule and the foundation of the Neo-Persian Sasanian Empire (map 2) – together, these were not only a turning point within the history of Iran but also a benchmark regarding Iran's relations with Rome. Although Ardašīr's hostile attitude against Rome was at first a mere continuation of Parthian sentiments, within a few years of his reign the king established, consolidated and centralised his rule to the extent that his ambitions threatened wide areas of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. The West knew that Ardašīr's claims would go beyond the borders of the Parthian kingdom and that he would ask for more than declarations of loyalty from the many client kings within his empire; it was clear that he would claim all the territories that had once belonged to his Achaemenid ancestors. Rome therefore considered the Sasanian dynasty as a serious opponent right from the beginning of their relations (I).

As soon as Ardašīr had established his rule he turned towards the West. According to the contemporary historian Herodian, Ardašīr I responded to a letter from the Roman emperor Severus Alexander (222–35), in which the emperor warned him to respect peace and reminded him of the great victories of Augustus, Trajan and Septimius Severus, by asking Rome to withdraw altogether from Syria and Asia Minor.

Lay patronage of the late antique Roman church presents us with something of an oddity. In the fourth and fifth centuries the Roman church was preparing itself to become one of the most powerful and richest dioceses in the western Roman empire, while in its midst resided the proud members of an extremely wealthy senatorial aristocracy, who were slowly, but inevitably, converting to Christianity. The assumption of interdependency between the two phenomena suggests itself. Yet, for most of the period we have little evidence of where the Roman church got its money from and how far the senatorial aristocracy were involved. In fact, altogether we know of only twelve fairly securely attested interventions by Roman aristocrats on behalf of Roman churches for the fourth and the fifth centuries from the epigraphic and literary evidence.

Yet, there is one particular type of church foundation in the city of Rome that is often and extensively cited not only to show the involvement of the Roman aristocracy in this matter, but also to provide insight into the legal details of their patronage. In a famous subscription list at a synod held in Rome in 499 the Roman presbyters appear as attached to twenty-nine churches distinguished by the term titulus and a personal name in the genitive (for example titulus Caeciliae). It is usually assumed that these personal names were for the most part the original founders’ names.

Around the middle of the third century bc the kingdom of the Parthians emerged in the Eastern parts of the Seleucid kingdom. Originally the nomadic tribe resided in the area between the Caspian and the Aral Seas. Around 250 bc Arsaces I, who was to become the first Parthian king (247–217 bc) and who became the first representative of the ‘dynasty of the Arsacids’, led the Parnians, as they were called, into the province of Parthava, which was situated east of the Caspian Sea and was part of Seleucid Iran. Although at first this campaign amounted to no more than one of the frequent insurrections against an unstable Seleucid rule in one of the Eastern provinces, after a few setbacks the Arsacid kings managed to take firm hold of these areas. When the Parthians embarked on their Western expansion during the second century bc, the Seleucid kingdom, which was among other things confronted with the new world power of Rome in the West, was not able to stop them. During the reign of the most significant Parthian king, Mithradates II (124/3–88/7 bc), the Arsacids succeeded in extending their rule into Armenia and Mesopotamia. This was the beginning of an ‘international role’ for the Parthian kingdom, a phase that also entailed contacts with Rome. Favoured by the decline of the Hellenistic kingdoms and driven by an immense desire for expansion during the first two centuries bc, the Romans extended their rule not only into Asia Minor but throughout the entire Eastern Mediterranean world.

Sasanian armament and tactics

Heliodorus, Aethiopica ix.15.1–6

(1) The character of their armament is the following. A selected man chosen for his bodily strength wears a helmet that is compact and made of one piece, and it is skillfully crafted to look exactly like a man's face. He is covered by this from the top of his head to the neck except for the eyes in order to see through it; he equips his right hand with a pike longer than a spear, the left is free for the reins. He has a sabre hung by his side under his arm, and he is armed with a corselet not only across his breast but also across the rest of his body. (2) The construction of the corselet is as follows: they forge plates of bronze and iron into a square shape that is a span long on all sides, and they fit one to the other at the edges on each side so that the one above always overlaps with the one below and the one alongside with the one next to run on continuously, and they furnish the conjunction with hooks under the flaps; thereby they create a kind of chiton clad in horny scales, which clings to the body without causing pain and covers it on all sides, tracing each limb and not hindering movement as it contracts and extends. (3) For there are sleeves, and it reaches from the neck to the knee, separated only at the thighs, as much as is necessary to mount a horse's back. Such a corselet it is, a protection against missiles and a defence against all wounds.

The idea that Christianity orders a moral topography extending from ecclesia to domus figures prominently in the sermons of the Roman bishop Leo I (441–461). ‘Rule your slaves and those who are subjected to you with fairness; let none of them be tortured by imprisonment or chains’, he exhorted his congregation on the first Sunday of Lent in 444. Elsewhere Leo urgently directed his congregation to search their homes for heretics, while his successor Gelasius (492–496) expressly targeted aristocratic households in an open letter to a leading Roman senator, in which he railed against their participation in the Lupercalia, an archaic Roman fertility rite that was still performed annually by Rome's elite residents as late as the 490s. We might also consider anecdotes about financial assistance to impoverished matronae, stories of bishops helping to arrange marriages, and episcopal involvement in monastic foundations as evidence for the bishop's growing interest in, and sense of responsibility for, the city's various households.

Leo's demand for an ethical parity between household and church recalls a familiar paradigm in ancient political and biblical thought.

In 410, Augustine of Hippo had a difficult letter to write to Caeonia Albina, daughter of the Roman praefectus urbi Caeonius Rufinus Albinus (praefectus urbi from 389 to 391), widow of the senator Valerius Publicola, and mother of the future saint Melania the Younger. Melania had visited Hippo with her husband, Pinian, as part of a tour of visitation to the couple's estates in Italy and Africa. In a pious spree characterized more by enthusiasm than good sense, the pair, both in their mid-twenties, were selling off as many of their extensive land-holdings as the market would bear, and undertaking a one-off bonanza of pious gift-giving to the religious individuals and institutions along their way. Things had evidently gone badly wrong in Augustine's own town of Hippo. Albina had addressed a sharp letter to Augustine, and although her reprimand is now lost, Augustine's letter of reply stands as a record of the tensions and uncertainties in the fifth-century churches regarding the role of aristocratic patrons. In this heady period of experimentation, the ‘ground rules’ for the direction of aristocratic wealth to pious causes had yet to be established. It is with the fifth-century attempt to develop these ground rules, especially with regard to that most self-possessed group of donors, the senatorial aristocracy, that the present chapter will concern itself.