The Crumbling Giants
Slavic Migrations
It was in 548 that the Antes finally crossed over the Danube in force, but it was perhaps not more than a larger example of an ongoing trend prevalent over the past decade. The Antes had long been a people known to the Romans. In earlier, more peaceable times they had been an ally of sorts, settled along the river and given occasional gifts in exchange for keeping the border secure from the Bulgars. Until 540, this was a task the Antes had succeeded at admirably - but the Romans had been forced to reduce their regular payments due to budget shortfalls, the Bulgars were being driven westward, and the Antes, clan by clan, raiding party by raiding party, were finding the Danube border ill fortified and poorly garrisoned. The Romans were stretched thin, and the majority of the forces they did have were emplaced to watch the waning Gepid Kingdom.
The Antes raiding parties were small and mobile, groups of lightly equipped men ahorse or on foot. Their raids were disorganized - and indeed the Antes were not even a unified people, being a mix of Iranic and Slavic tribes under the nominal hegemony of a common King named Idariz. Their tendency to take the Thracians as slaves only further damaged an already critically depopulated province. Soon, various groups of raiders and brigands marginally loyal to the Roman regime were squatting in captured forts in Scythia Minor and Moesia Inferior, and despite the best efforts of the Roman commander Julian, a veteran of the Gothic War, several of these fortresses were not recaptured - rather treaties were re-negotiated.
The favorite Roman practice of divide and conquer was used here, and it was not without short-term benefits. These new petty warlords provided settlers in a region ravaged by plague and their own deprivations, and were cheerfully willing to keep Idariz from re-asserting dominance over them.
But by 547, the Antes were on the warpath in a semi-unified form. The "foederati" were just as quick to betray the Romans and allow their kin to cross into Roman territory. Meanwhile, another related people, called by the Romans the Sklaveni, crossed the Danube at Sykibid, plundering Thrace and Dacia. The walls of the city of Serdica had been allowed to fall into ill repair, and the city was subjected to a five day sack. The Antes made it as far as Hadrianopolis before Belisarius, recalled to Constantinople by Emperor Zeno II lead an army out and repulsed them, killing Idariz in the thick of the battle. But despite consistently strong Roman performances on the field of battle, the Balkans were now a sieve. The Diocese of Thrace was breaking open.
There was simply no room for the Slavic tribes to retreat. In 550, it was the Kutrigurs under Samur Khan who now filled the role Attila once played - driving the barbarians to the gates. The deployment of an additional Roman army stemmed the tide somewhat, but a group the Roman historians call "White Sklaveni" defeated it in battle in 551. After this, Belisarius fought a long holding action - capably preventing the Balkans from being penetrated south of an imaginary line stretching from Hadrianopolis to Doclea, and reasserting Imperial authority over much of the Balkans. However, the constant stress of campaigning and a lack of reinforcements took its toll both on the army and Belisarius. The Emperor's increasingly unrealistic demands to reclaim the Danube fortifications further exacerbated the situation, but the General fought on heroically on through 553, when he passed away under unclear circumstances, falling from his horse never to rise.
His replacement, one Flavius Hadrianus would enjoy mixed success. Despite being popular as a commander, he was a Monophysite, and also prone to personal scandals and insubordination. Under Hadrianus, the Romans lost their tentative control over the Sklaveni territories.
By 556, the Langobards, which under the rule of Emperor Vitalian had been "given" jurisdiction over Pannonia had also subjugated the Gepids and brought them under their crown as allies. However, their King, an aged but charismatic man had other ambitions, and the Empire's imperiled situation allowed him great leeway to act as he saw fit with tacit Imperial consent from the regional governor. Ostensibly protecting the Empire from the depravity of the Sklaveni, Audoin sent armies south, battling the Sklaveni and also ensuring that what was once Roman Illyrium was now his own personal fief, occupied and defended by his own troops. That local leaders did not object overmuch is a sign of the collapse of Imperial authority in the Balkans.
In 558, Samur Khan and his Kutrigurs crossed over the border themselves, subjugating what remained of the Antes. However, this proved to be perhaps the saving grace of the Romans - despite initial failures in repelling the Kutrigurs, they were ultimately repulsed against the Danube, and the border fortifications recovered. Despite this success, Illyrium was not wholly reclaimed - an exhausted Zeno signed a treaty allowing Pannonia and Dalmatia to remain under Langobard rule, and the northern Balkans were heavily depopulated.
Transformations Continued
Sogdia and Baktria, the twin crossroads of cultures were in a period of great growth. The "Thousand Cities" were not ravaged by plagues and warfare as Mesopotamia was - accustomed to low level tribal raiding, and well defended by their Eftalid overlords, Sogdia in particular blossomed artistically and culturally, entering a golden age which mirrored that of India in time and place. Buddhism and the veneration of Hindu deities (with Sogdian names) became more commonplace, and with the patronage of the Eftal Shahs, those religions overturned the traditional Zoroastrianism of the Sogdian mercantile elite.
It was an era typified by the construction of beautiful viharas and temples, of beautiful paintings and great works of Buddhist philosophy. Further south in Baktria, Balkh grew into a city of famous opulence, her merchants traveling far afield with their carvans. Not far from the wealthiest commercial hub of the eastern Eftalid Empire, Piandjikent became a great palace city, famed for its opulent frescoed walls and sublime gardens. Ruled by the Satrap of Balkh, Queen Iashe's brother, it was said to have far surpassed Susa in beauty and decadence.
Across the Gozan river, which the Greeks called the Oxus, the Iranian peoples of Xvarazm did not perhaps welcome their overlords with open arms, but these were people not dissimilar from the Eftal - both had the same heritage, worshipped similar deities, and paid tribute to the Satrap in Piandjikent. They relied on their Eftal cousins for defense against the migrations which periodically came down from the steppe, and to that end, high walled fortresses, designed by Baktrian architects were constructed along the Gozan and leased to local dihqan (lords) and their retainers to guard.
The Celestial Tujue were growing in power on the horizon, but they had not yet come into contact with the Eftal in any violent way. The two powers enjoyed aimiable relations - nephews of the Tujue Qagan were fostered in Pianjikent, and one of the Satrap's sons, Ezwarhran, was married to a Tujue noblewoman. They preserved and protected the trade routes which wound through their territories, making a great deal of profit from this mutual security and respect. The latter half of the sixth century CE was a safe one for merchants, in contrast to the turbulent wars and upheaval of the first fifty years.
The other region which truly prospered was that of the Persian gulf, a region where few Eftal lived - a small ruling class of Eftal controlled a major route of trade, often with the help of Arabian mercenaries and Kidarite settlers. Temples to gods such as Mahadeva and Mithra were patronized heavily in this region, indicating the decline of Ahura Mazda and orthodox Zoroastrianism as ever more complex heretical, local traditions developed, incorporating new deities and spirits, and frequently accepting the concept of reincarnation - an idea which had been growing for some time. The Persian gulf was rich in poetry and art, sculpture and architecture. Like the East, it was a place where philosophical and scientific traditions could mix, but here also new agricultural activities - it is around this time that citrus plants began to be cultivated in Mesopotamia in large quantities. They would come to be an important ingredient in much of Iranian cooking.
Indian Ocean trade brought much wealth to the region. It was between 550-650 that the trading cities of Pangani, Rapta, Msasani, Shanga, and many others were founded in East Africa by Arabic, Persian, Marathi, and Tamil merchants and adventurers, often with the backing of the Hadhrami, who benefitted greatly from the new flow of ivory, slaves, gold, and spices. Even Javanese merchant vessels reached the Island of the Moon in this time period - by 600, there was a flourishing international trade across the ocean, financed by Persian and Arab merchants.
The Alans, the Armenians and the Loyalists
The Eftal-Roman wars were fought with large numbers of Alan mercenaries, but the Alans were a people under pressure. Their traditional homeland, across the Caucasus, was under threat by the Sahu tribal confederacy, an Iranic group who drove the Alans further south each year. By 546, they had reached the breaking point, and streamed through the Caucasian Gates - at first as a trickle of refugees, but eventually as a military force - into Armenia and Lazica. Aligning themselves with an opportunistic Abasgian prince, they conquered Lazica and many of the river valleys of Iberia.
Their attempt to penetrate Armenia and thus the Eftal Shahdom ended at the battle of Kumyari, when the Armenians repulsed the Alans relatively single-handedly. Since the early sixth century, Armenia's local lords, the naxarar, had enjoyed essential total autonomy within their region. When the Eftal had broke the back of the Sasanian Empire, they had not settled Armenia or even done more than acknowledge it as a vassaldom. However, within the past twenty years leading up to Kumyari, the Armenians had slowly been asserting their independence against a distracted Eftal regime. After the Eftal-Roman war, and the devastating plague which had effected their isolated mountain communities only lightly, they began to push their limits.
Kumyari was that limit. The Eftal had sent aid, of course, but it had been so late in coming that it had been irrelevant, and shortly thereafter the Eftal were driven out in a concerted uprising, lead by one Anastas Varazhnuni. Khauwashta now was forced to respond to this uprising of the Armenians - one which Anastas characterized in the language of religious war, rallying his people. He defeated Shah Khauwashta at the battle of Surenapat, and a second, primarily Iranian army in the battle of Xram, an ambush which saw the Satrap of Adurbadagan slain. By 552, the Armenian Kingdom was acknowledged as independent at the treaty of Dvin. Khauwashta, in spite of his legacy of economic prosperity and military reform, would see his legacy primarily defined by two unsuccessful campaigns - the stalemate against the Romans and defeat against the Armenians cemented his position in history, and overwrote his early victories on the steppe.
Retreating home battered and beaten, Khauwashta was incapable of preventing his own son-in-law, Akhshunwar, from overthrowing him with the assistance and complicity of his wife, Iashe, whose role in the coup would alternately be exaggerated or denied depending on the history one reads. Either way, Khauwashta's legacy would finally be an inglorious one, in spite of his many accomplishments. He was slain in 553 while hunting outside Susa. Akhshunwar II would not be crowned until a year later, after being forced to flee the capital by the "partisans of Khauwashta", he retreated to Pianjikent, where he raised an army of Sogdian and Xionite auxiliaries, gained the allegiance of the eastern Eftals, and rode back on Susa.
The loyalists were a mixed group, a scattering of Eftal and Persian aristocrats. Akhshunwar enjoyed broad support, no doubt to the clever scheming of his mother-in-law and the humiliation of Khauwashta in battle. Although Khauwashta's younger half-brother, Nijara led the loyalists, he failed to act decisively enough in this instance, and had never had any expectation of gaining the throne, nor was he willing to attempt to claim it once Akhshunwar did. This confusion of his intent doomed his movement from the beginning.
When Akhshunwar marched on Susa, Nijara and Khauwashta's loyalists fled. They attempted to find sanctuary in Ctesiphon, but the Satrap there kept the gates closed to them, and indeed sallied forth from his walls with his retainers, scattering the loyalists. Defeated, the loyalists retreated to Khishiwan, where they hoped to gain the loyalty of bedouin mercenaries and carry on a long war. But it was not to be. Akhshunwar proved to be a capable commander and an excellent politician - soon the local cities had turned against the loyalists, and to avoid an hopeless siege the loyalists fled into Arabia, reaching first Tayma, where they stayed for a few months, and then Yathrib.
This period is seen as the first low point in Eftal history, despite the blossoming of commerce and culture in the east and south. The loss of Armenia was a minor blow, perhaps more the confirmation of a long-established truth, and the migration of the Alans was a defeat for Roman interests just as much as Eftal interests - both sides had lost control over parts of the Caucasus they regarded as part of their hegemony. The Romans, of course, would send try to send forces to recover the territory of their lost vassals, but these forces were small and many of the most competent Roman generals were long past their prime. They ultimately settled for acknowledging the Alans as an ally, and making diplomatic overtures to the new Armenian state.
