Khosrow and Shirin, Part 3

We left off two days ago (because of the Farhad Tarash interlude) with the "wrong" ending of their love story, one we know didn't happen because we know when the two lovers lived and died. The idea that Khosrow's son kills Khosrow in order to marry Shirin, and Shirin killing herself to avoid this, does not fit the few facts we know.

The fact is that the two were married. Shirin was a Christian, and her presence in his life was likely an influence on his tolerance for the various Christian offshoots, although he did take sides. The ongoing conflict between Monophysite (Jesus had only one nature) and Nestorian (Jesus had a human and divine nature) Christians led Khosrow to favor his wife's version and declare that Monophysitism should be followed by Christians in his empire.

Shirin bore a son, Mardanshah, whom she would have liked to be Khosrow's successor.

Also, despite the part of the story that has Shirin also romantically interested in the sculptor Farhad, she lives on in legend as a faithful wife. She played a more public role than Gordiya (the sister of Khosrow's one-time enemy, Bahram Chobin), or Mariam (said to be the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Maurice). Each of his wives bore him sons. It was a son of Mariam who was to cause the greatest grief for the couple.

During the Persian-Turkic War of 627-629, the Turks captured Khosrow's home in Dastagird, whereupon Khosrow fled to the capital of Ctesiphon. Once he reached Ctesiphon, Khosrow intended to recognize Mardanshah as his heir. Hearing this, Sheroe sent a message to a general who once led opposition to Khosrow. Sheroe promised to promote conspirators, increase the army's salaries, and end the war with the Byzantine Empire.

With those assurances, the general arranged for a coup d'état in favor of Sheroe, who started calling himself Kavad II as a regnal name. This was in 628.

Sheroe had his father imprisoned, and a list of accusations was made against him for mis-management and corruption. Khosrow dismissed the accusations. Kavad then had all his siblings rounded up and executed. He then had an Iranian nobleman kill Khosrow, after which he had the nobleman killed. Khosrow's daughters criticized their brother. Shirin is also said to have died in 628, but the idea that she committed suicide because her step-son wants to marry her was unlikely. (The illustration is a carved capital that depicts Khosrow.)

To end the war, Kavad would have to deal with Byzantine Emperor Heraclius. Let's meet him tomorrow.

Farhad Tarash

I mentioned yesterday a sculptor named Farhad who was punished by Khosrow II for becoming a rival for the love of Shirin. He was given the impossible task to carve steps into the cliffs of Mount Behistun.

As it happens, if you go to Mount Behistun in western Iran you'll find a long smooth section carved into the stone that is decidedly not natural. Called the Farhād Tarāsh, it is 30 meters high and 200 meters long.

Its origin is unknown. A medieval geographer named Istakhri, who died in 957, had no idea whence it came. Near the Farhād Tarāsh are several hundred dressed stone blocks that would be suitable for the start of a wall or a building's foundation. They have been dated to the same era as the wall carving.

Farhad is only known from Nizami Ganjavi's famous tragic romance Khosrow and Shirin, which he started writing in c. 1180. Did Nizami Ganjavi know something about the history of Mount Behistun? Or did he simply take a mystery and come up with a fiction that explained it and added a tragic note to his story? (In the story, Farhad threw himself off the cliff when he was told that Shirin was dead.)

One archaeologist thought the stone face was created to be the frame for an inscription by Darius the Great (reigned 522-486 BCE). Another theorized it was the beginning of a planned palace by Khosrow II, and that the literary link to his reign was evidence of such. Khosrow also reigned over a Golden Age of sorts before the Muslim conquest of Iran.

None of the theories can be proven, but it makes for an interesting footnote to the romance of Khosrow and Shirin, which we will get back to tomorrow.

Khosrow and Shirin, Part 2

Yesterday we started the romance of Khosrow and Shirin, in which the two lovers separate when Khosrow goes to Constantinopole to get help from Roman Emperor Maurice. Khosrow had been dethroned by Bahram Chobin, and Maurice would lend him soldiers if Khosrow agreed to marry Maurice's daughter Mariam. He also had to promise to marry no one else whilst Mariam lived, which would put a wrinkle in his plans to be married to Shirin.

Khosrow and Mariam are wed. She will give birth to a son, Shiroyeh. Time passes.

While Khosrow was in Constantinople, a sculptor named Farhad was falling for Shirin. Shirin was returning the interest. (The illustration is of Shirin visiting Farhad.) Back in power, Khosrow sends Farhad away with the task of carving steps into Behistun Mountain. While Farhad is attempting this task, Khosrow sends him word that Shirin has died. Farhad's grief is so great that he throws himself from the mountain and dies.

Khosrow sends a message to Shirin, informing her that Farhad is dead and expressing regret. Eventually, Mariam dies. A 10th-century Persian poet who wrote the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi, says Shirin poisoned her, after which Shirin sends Khosrow a letter expressing regret sarcastically, in revenge for the death of Farhad.

The two lovers are now free to marry, but Khosrow has a dalliance with another woman named Shekar; this delays the union of the two. Then, a drunk Khosrow goes to Shirin's castle to see her, but she won't let him in because of his affair with Shekar, and he returns to his own castle.

Several more incidents occur before Shirin agrees to marry Khosrow, but yet another wrinkle appears: Shiroyeh has fallen in love with Shirin. Shiroyeh kills Khosrow and writes to Shirin, saying that he will marry her in one week. She kills herself instead, and she and Khosrow are buried together.

Didn't happen.

What did happen is worth telling, but first we have to talk about Farhad, the likely fictitious sculptor given an impossible task. At Behistun there is a carving with his name attached to it, and it's worth looking at. See you tomorrow. 

Khosrow and Shirin, Part 1

Once the rebellions were finished, the reign of Khosrow II (590 - 628) experienced a golden age in some respects. One facet of his reign was his tolerance of Christians, which may have had something to do with undoing the persecutions in the times of his immediate ancestors, and also to do with one of his wives, Shirin.

Shirin was a Christian, a member of the Church of the East and later a member of the Syriac Orthodox Church. When Jerusalem was conquered in 614 by the Sassanians and the True Cross was captured, it was brought to Ctesiphon where Shirin took possession of it.

How Khosrow came to be married to a Christian is the subject of speculation, and many varying accounts were created over the years. One is that she was a servant in a Persian home he used to visit when he was young. A 12th-century Persian poet, Nizami Ganjavi, wrote a very popular poem called "Khosrow and Shirin" in which he tells the beautiful (and no doubt extremely fictional) story of the two lovers.

Nizami paints Shirin as the flawlessly beautiful niece of an Armenian queen. A friend of Khosrow travels at his behest to find Shirin and show her a picture of Khosrow, with whom she falls in love. She decides to flee her home to go to find Khosrow. Ironically, Khosrow at the time decided to flee his father's anger and go to Armenia to find Shirin.

Coincidentally, Khosrow (disguised as a peasant) sees a young woman bathing in a river. It is Shirin, who does not recognize him because of his disguise. He does not realize that she is the woman he seeks, so he continues. They miss each other several times in the story, until he flees to Armenia after his overthrow by Bahram Chobin. He finally meets Shirin, but leaves her in Armenia to travel to Constantinople to get help from the Byzantine Emperor Maurice against Bahram Chobin.

Maurice agrees to help, but on the condition that Khosrow marry his daughter Mariam, and to marry no one else so long as Mariam is alive. To further complicate things, a sculptor named Farhad falls in love with Shirin.

The romance of Khosrow and Shirin was known long before Nizami, but he turned it into a famous Iranian epic. Tomorrow we'll find out what happened to the lovers.

Gordiya

The woman whose name keeps showing up in the last few posts was the wife of three powerful men in 6th-century Iran, one of whom was her brother.

Born to one of the Seven Great Houses of Iran, Gordiya's father was a military officer under Emperor Khosrow I (531 - 579). She had three brothers, one of whom was Bahram Chobin, who later started a civil war against Khosrow's son (Hormizd IV) and then grandson, Khosrow II. She was married to Bahram; it is not known for certain, but they may have been half-siblings from different mothers.

Not much is known of Gordiya's early life. After Bahram's death in 590, when Khosrow II's uncle Vistahm rebelled against his nephew and created his own principality in eastern Iran, Gordiya saw a chance to be connected again to a powerful man and married Vistahm. This increased his authority with her brother's former followers.

Vistahm, however, was not going to be allowed to run his independent mini-kingdom, and ultimately Khosrow sent an army to conquer him. Vistahm was killed either by a supporter of Khosrow's or by Gordiya herself. Whether she was responsible is not able to be proven, but the identity of her third husband might shed some light on the incident.

She married Khosrow II.

If it is possible that Khosrow made a secret offer to her to make her his empress, then that could be sufficient motivation for her—a woman who saw marriage to powerful men as a way to gain status—to eliminate Vistahm.

Dinawari, a 9th-century Iranian polymath, wrote a history that mentions Gordiya giving Khosrow a son, Juvanshir, who was briefly a king of Iran in 630. If that were the case, however, there is no other evidence, neither written records nor coins minted with his information on them.

Let's get back to Khosrow II; with rebellions suppressed, we can now find out what else was significant about his reign, starting tomorrow.

Uncle Vistahm

An uncle willing to kill your father might not be the best person in whom to put your faith. Vistahm and his brother Vinduyih killed Iranian Emperor Hormizd IV (they had revenge reasons) and put his son on the throne as Khosrow II.

They had helped Khosrow during a civil war against his enemy, Bahram Chobin, but eventually he had to order them executed to distance himself from their murder of his father. Vinduyih was caught up with and killed, but Vistahm found enough supporters—including supporters of Bahram Chobin when Bahram's sister Gordiya married Vistahm—to create a little kingdom for himself inside Persian territory.

Because of the coins Vistahm was printing with his name and dates (see illustration), we know that he was ruling that area for seven years. Khosrow sent soldiers several times to capture and kill Vistahm, but Vistahm's following was too great. Ultimately, however, Vistahm had to flee to the mountainous province of Gilan.

Although some Armenian sections of Khosrow's army defected to Vistahm, he was finally tracked down and captured by forces led by an Armenian Prince, Smbat IV Bagratuni. Vistahm was killed, but there are two stories about that. One is that, at Khosrow's request, a prince of Transoxiana, Pariowk, killed him. The other is that the urging came from Gordiya herself.

Why would his wife be involved, whose brother was killed by forces of which Vistahm was originally part? She seems to have had a good head for figuring out where her best future options lay. Once it looked like Vistahm was no longer going to be successful, she was willing to abandon him for something else.

What was that "something else"? Would you be surprised to know that her next husband was a younger man, a powerful man; in fact, that his name was Khosrow II?

Maybe it's time to learn more about Gordiya. See you tomorrow.

Dealing with the Uncles

So Khosrow II had regained his throne and the usurper Bahram Chobin had fled and been killed. Order was restored in the Iranian Empire. Khosrow had originally been put on the throne when his two uncles on his mother's side, Vistahm and Vinduyih, who absolutely hated Khosrow's father, Hormizd IV (who had persecuted aristocratic clans to have more control himself and had killed their father), deposed Hormizd.

During the approach of Bahram's army to Ctesiphon, when Khosrow fled to Azerbaijan, Vinduyih even pretended to be Khosrow when Bahram's force caught up with them, and allowed himself to be captured in order to save his nephew.

Both uncles were rewarded handsomely with money and positions. Vinduyih became the royal treasurer. Vistahm took over his father's title of military chief in the east. 

The shadow of Hormizd's murder hung over Khosrow's reign, however. In order to distance himself from any complicity, Khosrow chose to have his uncles executed. Vinduyih tried to flee to Vistahm, but was captured and killed.

Then Vistahm (understandably) rebelled against Khosrow, sending him a message:

You are not worthier to rule than I am. Indeed, I am more deserving on account of my descent from Darius, son of Darius, who fought Alexander. You Sassanians deceitfully gained superiority over us and usurped our right, and treated us with injustice. Your ancestor Sasan was no more than a shepherd.

There was plenty of support for Vistahm, aided by an unexpected marriage. Bahram's sister, the influential noblewoman Gordiya (see illustration), went to Vistahm and married him. This brought many of Bahram's supporters to Vistahm's side.

Vistahm managed to carve out a very nice principality for himself, thumbing his nose at Khosrow. The estimates of his reign are from 590 to c.594/5. If he had stayed quiet, he might have lasted longer, but he decided to expand toward Khosrow-controlled territory. This set up a more serious clash between the two, about which I will say more tomorrow.

Khosrow II and Bahram

After Hormizd IV was strangled with his own turban by his own followers in 590, his son, now Iranian Emperor Khosrow II, faced the threat of the civil war leader Bahram Chobin heading his way. Khosrow sent a message to Bahram with a gentle warning:

Khosrow, kings of kings, ruler over the ruling, lord of the peoples, prince of peace, salvation of men, among gods the good and eternally living man, among men the most esteemed god, the highly illustrious, the victor, the one who rises with the sun and who lends the night his eyesight, the one famed through his ancestors, the king who hates, the benefactor who engaged the Sassanians and saved the Iranians their kingship—to Bahram, the general of the Iranians, our friend.... We have also taken over the royal throne in a lawful manner and have upset no Iranian customs.... We have so firmly decided not to take off the diadem that we even expected to rule over other worlds, if this were possible.... If you wish your welfare, think about what is to be done.

Bahram continued his march to the capital of Ctesiphon. Khosrow's loyalists initially held off Bahram's forces, despite being outnumbered, but were eventually worn down. Khosrow, his wives, his uncles Vistahm and Vinduyih (who had killed Hormizd) and 30 nobles fled west to lands controlled by the Byzantine Empire.

Bahram declared himself emperor in the summer of 590. Bahram supported his claim by linking his existence and success to a Zoroastrian legend of a savior (mentioned here). He proceeded to do what rulers do: minting his own gold coins (illustration) with his name and likeness on them.

Khosrow, meanwhile, made the desperate move of writing to the Byzantine Emperor Maurice (mentioned here) to ask for help regaining his throne. Despite the frequent Byzantine/Persian clashing, Maurice agreed, in exchange for the return of some cities to Byzantine possession and Iran stopping interfering with Iberia and Armenia.

Some vicious fighting followed, as Khosrow and his people attacked Bahram-controlled territory. General Narses made enough progress into Bahram's territory that Khosrow was again declared king there. Vistahm and Vinduyih also were making progress. Bahram was sufficiently defeated that he fled eastward where he found refuge with the Khagan of the Turks.

Khosrow was back on the throne after having ruled for less than a year and then been exiled for less than a year. Understanding that Bahram was very popular and could still pose a threat, Khosrow sent men to execute him. It would be convenient to say that Bahram's legacy no longer intertwined with Khosrow's, but history doesn't always tie up loose ends neatly. Tomorrow we'll look at Khosrow's reign, new/old threats, and a surprise marriage.

The End of Hormizd IV

So Hormizd IV was dealing with a civil war when a successful military leader decided he was destined to lead the Iranian Empire. Hormizd asked his general Farrukhan to go put down the rebellion. Before setting out, Farrukhan requested that Hormizd release a political prisoner, Zadspram, a military leader whom Farrukhan considered important to success. Zadspram was released.

The armies of Hormizd under Farrukhan faced the army of Bahram Chobin across the River Zab. Neither wanted to be the first to try crossing the river and putting themselves into a vulnerable position. Farrukhan might also have delayed in hopes that the rebellion would dissolve over time.

Unfortunately, Zadspram deserted Farrukhan. This desertion demoralized the army. Two of Farrukhan's officers killed Farrukhan, and the loyalist army fell apart.

Meanwhile, Hormizd was in Ctesiphon, the Iranian royal capital for over 800 years. Enter Vistahm and Vinduyih. They were Hormizd's brothers-in-law, and they hated him. They decided to get Hormizd off the throne, so they blinded him with a red-hot needle in 590. The brothers elevated his son, their nephew Khosrow II (born c.570), to the position of emperor. Not long after, the two dealt with Hormizd permanently by strangling him with his own turban.

Accounts written later disagree on whether Khosrow II was involved in the murder of his father. A few years after the event, Khosrow executed both uncles for the murder of his father, along with others he considered co-conspirators. (More own this in the next few days.)

With the news of the death of Hormizd, Bahram Chobin continued his march to the capital under the public pretext of avenging the assassination of the emperor. Now, however, he was Khosrow II's problem. Whether this would make Khosrow II's reign a short one will be seen tomorrow.