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According to one of my books (in Norwegian), a radical proposal was, according to the chronicler Procopius, put forward by the Sassanid king Kavadh_I in order to stop the devastating wars between the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires. Procopius, who lived at the court of Justinian the Great, wrote in The Persian War that Kavadh tried to have his third son Khosrau adopted by the Eastern Roman emperor Justin I. A similar idea had earlier been put forward by the Eastern Roman emperor Arcadius. In his testament he decided that the Sassanid king Yazdegerd_I should be entrusted the care of his son, Theodosius_II.

I do not know whether this was ever seriously considered by the other part. In both cases, the party coming up with the proposal was the one that had most to gain. But is it possible to see a situation where the two empires were in fact united? Maybe through a marital alliance between the son and daughter of the two monarchs? In order to strengthen the alliance and to unite the interests of the most powerful families, similar marital alliances could perhaps have been made between other powerful alliances in the Eastern Roman and Sassanid Empires. I assume that the Sassanid Empire would in this case have to adopt Christianity as its official religion.

So what do you think?
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