Kavad I King of Sasanian Empire [60525]

  General Notes:

http://www.rpi.edu/~holmes/Hobbies/Genealogy/ps31/ps31_267.htm

Kavad (Kabades, first reign), son of Peroz, lived with the Hephthalites as a hostage and was supported by them. Kavad supported the religiosocialist movement of Mazdak , son of Bamdad. Mazdak seems to have been a Zoroastrian priest whose gnostic and egalitarian doctrine gained support among the common people but hostility from the nobles and the traditional priesthood. A conspiracy was formed against Kavad; he was arrested and replaced by his brother, Zamasp , who ruled from 496\endash 498. Kavad escaped to the Hephthalmites, who accompanied him back to Persia where Zamasp resigned.

Kavad (second reign) returned to power and withdrew official support for increasingly radical reforms demanded by Mazdak.

FIRST WAR WITH ROME (Byzantium). The Byzantine emperor's failure to support Kavad led to an indecisive war in which the Persians took Amida. Peace was made, and Amida and other Persian conquests were ceded (506).

The nobility and the Zoroastrian priesthood continued to oppose the Mazdakites, who were massacred late in the reign (523). The Arab kingdom of the Kinda occupied parts of Mesopotamia (506\endash 528), and unrest in Iberia led to the introduction of a Persian garrison.

SECOND WAR WITH ROME (Byzantium). Hostilities began in the Caucasus with Persian victories in Iberia and Mesopotamia (527\endash 528) (See 527\endash 31 ). Belisarius defeated Persia at the Battle of Daras (528) but was himself defeated at the Battle of Callinicum (531). The war ended with the death of Kavad. Khusrau, the crown prince, engineered the execution of Mazdak and his followers as heretics (531) and then succeeded his father, Kavad.

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Kavadh I (born 449; ruled 488\endash 531, also spelled Kaveh, Kavad), son of Peroz I (457\endash 484), was the nineteenth Sassanid King of Persia from 488 to 531. He was crowned by the nobles in place of his deposed and blinded uncle Balash (484\endash 488).



State of the Sassanid Empire

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 I, Kavadh I had been a hostage among them for two years, pending the payment of a heavy ransom. In 484 Peroz I 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 I would suit their purpose were soon disappointed.

Mazdaki sect

Kavadh I 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 Djamasp (496\endash 498) was raised to the throne.

Return from exile

Kavadh I, however, escaped and found refuge with the Ephthalites , whose King gave him his daughter in marriage and aided him to return to Persia. In 498 Kavadh I 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 I (491\endash 518) 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 and restored Iberia to Iran's effective control.

War and succession

Kavadh I joined the Ephthalites and began war against the Byzantine Empire . In 502 he took Theodosiopolis (Erzurum ) in Armenia; in 503 Amida (Diarbekr ) on the Tigris . 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 I (518\endash 527) came to the throne in Constantinople, the conflict began anew. The Persian vassal, al-Mundhir IV ibn al-Mundhir , laid waste Mesopotamia and slaughtered the monks and nuns. In 531 Belisarius was defeated at the Battle of Callinicum . Shortly afterwards Kavadh I died, at the age of eighty-two, in September 531. During his last years his favourite son Khosrau I had had great influence over him and had been proclaimed successor. He also induced Kavadh I to break with the Mazdakites, whose doctrine had spread widely and caused great social confusion throughout Persia.

Effect on Sassanid Empire

In 529 Mazdaki doctrine was formally 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 I evidently was, as Procopius (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.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Acceded, 488.

Kavad married Newandukht hephthal princess [61596] [MRIN: 551616966], daughter of Unknown [61597] and Unknown.