One Supposed Way Kavadh I Of Persia Counted His Slain Warriors

From ancient times until the modern day, governments have long prized keeping statistics and catalogs of their resources. In a war-torn age, numbers concerning manpower and military size are especially of interest. Kavadh I (r. 488-496, 498-531), a ruler of Sāsānian Persia, lived in one such age of prevalent warfare and he reportedly took very seriously the task of calculating the number of his warriors who did not return from battle. To aid him in this grim task, Kavadh I reportedly encouraged his military to follow an interesting tradition that resulted in a tangible and visible representation of how many people were lost.

According to the historian Procopius (c. 490-565), Kavadh’s warriors were required to submit a token of sorts to the Sāsānian Persian government before they left on campaign. The historian suggested that these relinquished items were usually small weapons, and if the Persian ruler was present, the warriors would place these tokens in containers set before their leader. Procopius described the alleged ceremony: “the king sits on the royal throne, and many baskets are set there before him; and the general also is present who is expected to lead the army against the enemy; then the army passes along before the king, one man at a time, and each of them throws one weapon into the baskets” (History of the Wars, I.18). After the troops passed by, the many filled baskets were reportedly sealed up, labeled, and placed in a safe location. The baskets (and the tokens locked inside) would not be retrieved until the army returned from its campaign.

As the story goes, once news of an army’s return from battle reached the Persian court, officials would race off to wherever they stored the sealed tokens to retrieve the respective baskets for the homebound army. Then, as Procopius claimed, “when this army returns to Persia, each one of the soldiers takes one weapon out of the baskets. A count is then made by those whose office it is to do so of all the weapons which have not been taken by the men, and they report to the king the number of soldiers who have not returned” (History of the Wars, I.18). Therefore, the unclaimed tokens left in the baskets could be tallied up for a broad number of who was lost in the war from that particular army, be it from death, capture or desertion. Of course, it would be just as easy to write down a head-count of the warriors, themselves, before and after their campaign, or to collect records from the officers who led the forces into battle. Yet, Procopius’ proposed ceremony, if it indeed was put into use, would certainly create a striking visible representation of the human cost of war.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Convivial meeting of Kai Khosrow by Hossein Qollar-Aqasi, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• History of the Wars by Procopius, translated by H. B. Dewing. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1919.

The Duels Of Trainer And Coach, Andreas, Before The Battle Of Dara

In the year 530, Emperor Justinian’s newly appointed General of the East, Belisarius, led a Byzantine (Eastern Roman) army to a position between the cities of Nisibis and Dara to block the path of an invading Sāsānian Persian force. According to the historian Procopius, who happened to have been General Belisarius’ accompanying legal advisor, the Romans dug a series of trenches near Dara and deployed at the site a force of approximately 25,000 warriors in a fairly typical tripartite formation, with a left, center and right. After the Romans had constructed their defensive features and took up their positions on the battlefield, the Persian army arrived on the scene. Procopius, an eye-witness to the battle, claimed that the Persians numbered around 40,000 upon their arrival on the battlefield, and they initially set up in what seemed to be a single block-like phalanx formation.

On the first day of conflict, the Persians probed the left wing of the Roman formation with a noncommittal cavalry charge. In the ensuing skirmish, the Romans drove off the charging horsemen, reportedly killing seven of the Persians before the cavalry rejoined their main force. At this point in the day, it was late in the afternoon, but the Persians were not done taunting and testing the Roman lines. Next, a young Persian horseman reportedly rode up to the Romans, demanding to duel anyone who was brave enough to come forward. According to Procopius, the Persian warrior’s challenge was accepted by a man named Andreas, a physical trainer and a wrestling instructor who had accompanied one of the Roman generals into battle, not as a warrior, but as an attendant. Reportedly wielding only a spear and a knife, Andreas marched forward to meet the Persian horseman in combat.

When Andreas stepped forward, the Persian horseman charged at him, perhaps thinking that the athletic instructor would be an easy foe. Yet, although Andreas was not a professional warrior in the army, he was nonetheless a skilled fighter. With the horseman bearing down on him, Andreas stood his ground and readied his spear. As the story goes, Andreas used his polearm to knock the charging Persian off of his horse, leaving the horseman dazed on the ground. Now that the Persian warrior was defenseless, Andreas tossed aside his spear, took out his knife, and “slew him like a sacrificial animal as he lay on his back” (Procopius, The Wars, 1.13). As Andreas finished off his opponent, cheers erupted from the Roman army, as well as from onlookers on the walls of nearby Dara.

The day’s events, however, were not over. According to Procopius, a second Persian horseman soon rode up to the roman lines, demanding another duel. The new arrival was much older than the first Persian duelist, and he was reportedly equipped with a whip and a spear. The physical trainer and wrestler, Andreas, as he was already on a roll, accepted this second challenge. After picking up his spear and hopping onto a horse (perhaps the fallen Persian’s steed), Andreas charged at the new duelist. Noticing Andreas’ advance, the Persian lowered his own spear and set off on his horse toward the Roman champion. What resulted was an ancient joust of sorts, with the two horsemen bearing down on each other with their lances leveled. Yet, when the two connected, neither fighter made a direct hit. Instead, the Roman and the Persian unhorsed each other and both fell to the ground, likely dropping their weapons in the process. Down on the ground and unarmed, the wrestling instructor Andreas was in his element. Using all of his grappling prowess, Andreas quickly overpowered the Persian and, either with or without a weapon, slew his opponent.

By the time Andreas’ second duel had finished, the sun was already setting and both armies decided to return to their camps. In the morning, 10,000 Persian reinforcements would join the preexisting 40,000-man-strong army. Despite this, the smaller Roman army, with its series of trenches, would hold its ground and win the day.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Medieval depiction of Byzantine emperor Basil I (left) with his son Leo VI from a manuscript of John Skylitzes's history, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The History of the Wars (Book I) by Procopius, translated by H. B. Dewing (Harvard University Press, originally published 1914).

King Kavadh Of Persia’s Bizarre, Yet Stylish, Escape From Prison

King Kavadh I (or Kawād) became the ruler of Sāsānian Persia in 488. He came to power at a time when the Sāsānian ruling family was under threat from both external armies and internal factions—Kavadh’s father, King Fīrūz, had been killed in battle around 484, and Kavadh’s uncle, King Balāsh, was deposed in a coup that took place in 488. The conspirators who overthrew Balāsh put young Kavadh on the throne and dominated him for nearly a decade. Around 496, however, Kavadh I began to assert his own power at the expense of his rivals. Yet, when the enemies of Kavadh within the Sāsānian Empire began to resist his attempts to impose crown authority, the king quickly realized he did not have nearly enough strength to enforce his will. Unfortunately, a coup was launched against Kavadh in 496, and he was deposed, arrested and imprisoned.

Kavadh I was reportedly locked away in the so-called Prison of Oblivion, and his brother Jāmāsp was placed on the throne in his stead. Although deposed and replaced, Kavadh was not forgotten, and he still had some supporters on the outside. Sometime between 496 and 498, Kavadh’s supporters managed to break him out of prison, allowing him to flee to the Hephthalites, a powerful rival of Sāsānian Persia. The 6th-century historian, Procopius, claimed to have come across several differing Persian accounts of this event, and apparently summarized the common elements of the tales in the first book of his History of the Wars. In doing so, Procopius preserved an interesting folkloric account of Kavadh’s escape, which involved an adventure filled with seduction, stealth, and even cross-dressing.

As the story goes, Kavadh was married to a devoted wife at the time that he was sent to prison. Whereas Kavadh, himself, was securely locked away, his wife apparently was left to roam free. As she did not seem to have anyone surveilling her, Kavadh’s dutiful (and unfortunately unnamed) wife formed a network with her husband’s allies to plot Kavadh’s escape.

Step one was to obtain access to Kavadh. In order to achieve this goal, Kavadh’s wife regularly went to the Prison of Oblivion, using all of her charm and seductiveness to earn the confidence of the prison warden. She started slowly, at first simply showing up to drop off food for her imprisoned husband to eat, and, while there, she would engage the warden in friendly conversation. Yet, soon, she became more flirtatious with the official, all the while plying him for more access to the secure sections of the prison. Eventually, after she and the prison warden had become quite close, the devoted wife was given freedom to come and go from Kavadh’s cell whenever she pleased.  She made these trips to see her husband with such consistency that it became routine for the prison warden and guards, and they paid very little attention to her as she left from Kavadh’s cell and departed from the prison each visit.

On one particular day, however, the prison warden noticed a break in the routine—the wife of Kavadh abruptly stopped coming to visit. The previous day, she had arrived at the usual time, wearing her usual garb, doing her usual routine. She had been let in to see her husband, and after they had done their thing in privacy, the femininely-clad figure had left the cell and exited the prison; a normal end to a normal day. Now, however, the wife oddly did not come to visit the prison. Eventually, the concerned guards went to see their prized prisoner, perhaps to ask if the deposed king had any news about his absent wife. To the guards’ relief, they found the cell still inhabited, and they could see a figure inside wearing the clothing of a prisoner. Yet, something seemed off about the person in the cell and they decided to take a closer look. To their horror, the person in the cell was not Kavadh, but his wife.

Procopius wrote that he had no further information on the fate of Kavadh’s wife, saying “As to the fate which befell the woman after the stratagem had come to light, and the manner in which they punished her, I am unable to speak with accuracy” (The Wars, book 1, section 6). Procopius did, however, have more information about what Kavadh did after he was visited by his wife for the last time. As the story goes, the deposed king and his wife traded clothing, finally launching an escape plan that had been long in the making. After dressing up like a woman, the king began to sneak out of the prison, while his wife stayed behind to play the part of the prisoner.  As usual, the guards of the prison paid little attention to the person leaving from Kavadh’s cell, allowing the fugitive king to successfully walk out of the prison. In addition to clothing, Kavadh’s wife had also given her husband a message from his supporters, which told him where to go to find horses and loyal warriors. As the story goes, Khavad traveled to that spot, and with those horses and troops, he successfully fled to the Hephthalites. Additionally, as his wife had conveniently sacrificed herself, Kavadh arranged for himself to marry a daughter of the Hephthalite king, a political move which gave Kavadh enough military support to reclaim the Sāssānian Empire by force in 498 or 499. He would continue to rule the empire until his death in 531.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Gold coin issued by Kavadh I, photographed by the Classical Numismatic Group, and published via Creative Commons and OTRS).

Sources:

• The History of the Wars by Procopius, translated by H. B. Dewing (Harvard University Press, originally published 1914).
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kavadh-I 
• http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kawad-i-reign 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Balash 
• http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/balas-proper-name 
• http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/firuz-1 
• http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/jamasp-i-reign