Home > Kavadh I of Persia

At this time the empire was utterly disorganized by the invasion of the Ephthalites or White Huns from the east. After one of their victories against Peroz, Kavadh had been a hostage among them during two years, pending the payment of a heavy ransom. In 484 Peroz had been defeated and slain with his whole army. Balash was not able to restore the royal authority. The hopes of the magnates and high priests that Kavadh would suit their purpose were soon disappointed.

Kavadh gave his support to the communistic sect founded by Mazdak, son of Bamdad , who demanded that the rich should divide their wives and their wealth with the poor. His intention evidently was, by adopting the doctrine of the Mazdakites, to break the influence of the magnates. But in 496 he was deposed and incarcerated in the "Castle of Oblivion ( Lethe)" in Susiana, and his brother Jamasp (Zamaspes) was raised to the throne.

Kavadh, however, escaped and found refuge with the Ephthalites, whose king gave him his daughter in marriage and aided him to return to Persia. In 499 he became king again and punished his opponents. He had to pay a tribute to the Ephthalites and applied for subsidies to Rome, which had before supported the Persians. But now the emperor Anastasius refused subsidies, expecting that the two rival powers of the East would exhaust one another in war. At the same time he intervened in the affairs of the Persian part of Armenia.

So Kavadh joined the Ephthalites and began war against the Romans. In 502Events End of the Qi Dynasty and beginning of the Liang Dynasty in southern China. Liang Wu Di succeeds Qi He Di. War breaks out between the Byzantine Empire and Persia. The prophet Mazdak, declares private property to be the source of all evil. Births De he took Theodosiopolis in Armenia. In 503 Amida (Diarbekr) on the TigrisThe Tigris ( Old Persian: Tigr Syriac Aramaic: Deqlath Arabic: , Dijla Turkish: Dicle biblical Hiddekil is the eastern member of the pair of great rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates, which flows from the mountains of Anatolia through. In 505 an invasion of Armenia by the western Huns from the Caucasus led to an armistice, during which the Romans paid subsidies to the Persians for the maintenance of the fortifications on the Caucasus.

When Justin IJustin I (c. 435 August 1, 527) was an Eastern Roman Emperor ( 518-527) who rose through the ranks of the army of the Byzantine Empire and ultimately became its emperor, in spite of the fact he was illiterate and probably more than 80 years old at the tim (518-527) came to the throne the conflict began anew. The Persian vassal, Mondhir of Hira , laid waste MesopotamiaThis is an article about the ancient middle eastern region. For the region in modern times, see Iraq, Syria. See also Mesopotamia, Ohio. Mesopotamia ( Greek: , translated from Old Persian Miyanrudan "the Land between the Rivers" or the Aramaic name Beth-N and slaughtered the monks and nuns. In 531 BelisariusFlavius Belisarius ( 505- 565) was probably the greatest general of the Byzantine Empire. He is not very well known today, but this is due more to a lack of attention to Byzantine history than to his skill and accomplishments, which were matched by few, i was defeated at the Battle of CallinicumThe Battle of Callinicum took place between the armies of the Eastern Roman Empire under the command of General Belisarius and Persians under Azarethes on April 19, 531 AD. Belisarius had been skirmishing with the Persian forces after the Battle of Dara i. Shortly afterwards Kavadh died, at the age of eighty-two, in September 531. During his last years his favourite son KhosrauKhosrau I "the Blessed" Anushirvan , ( 531 579) was the favourite son and successor of Kavadh I, and the most famous of the Sassanid kings. According to one account, Khosrau was the Kavadh's son through a peasant girl, and was originally considered unwort had had great influence over him and had been proclaimed successor. He also induced Kavadh to break with the Mazdakites, whose doctrine had spread widely and caused great social confusion throughout Persia.

In 529 they were refuted in a theological discussion held before the throne of the king by the orthodox Magians, and were slaughtered and persecuted everywhere; Mazdak himself was hanged. Kavadh evidently was, as ProcopiusThe writings of Procopius of Caesarea ( 500 ? 565 ?), in Palestine, are the primary source of information for the rule of the emperor Justinian. He was the author of a history in eight books of the wars fought by the Justinian I, a panegyric on Justinian' (Pers. i. 6) calls him, an unusually clear-sighted and energetic ruler. Although he could not free himself from the yoke of the Ephthalites, he succeeded in restoring order in the interior and fought with success against the Romans. He built some towns which were named after him, and began to regulate the taxation.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica