The Rise of the White Huns

[Shahrasayr]

Great update! This is an awesome TL.

So Buddhism is flourishing along with a Sogdian variant of Hinduism, and Sughd is entering a golden age. What will happen to Zoroastrianism in this TL?

From what it looks like it is losing much of its ground in Greater Iran and how long before it starts dying out in the Iranian plateau itself?

 

[Practical Lobster]

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy it.

Zoroastrianism will be around, in some form or other, for a very long time. To avoid spoilers, and because I'm trying not to write this with a master plan, I can't say too much more. There's just too much history for it to die out easily, and even if it does eventually become marginalized, it will definitely continue to influence the version of Buddhism and/or Christianity worshiped in the area.

(I heard that the idea of the Maitreya Buddha might be liked to Mithra, but I don't know how true that is. Still, if true it's a fascinating example of how religions can live on long after they're marginalized.)

 

[Space Oddity]

Obviously, this is a few centuries past its height in the region, but may I ask how Manichaeism is doing?

 

[Practical Lobster]

It still exists, but as you said, it's somewhat past it's peak. In the absence of any active persecution however, it will endure. I wouldn't rule out the idea of some steppe people or other picking it up as well, since it's made inroads in that direction both IOTL and TTL.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Akhshunwar II - (554-557)

Shah Akhshunwar II would ultimately, in spite of his remarkable charisma and savvy, fail to hold the Eftal Empire together. The first blow to his attempt to establish his legitimacy came mere months after his coronation. The Satrap in Piandjikent died, his only child by all accounts a "child in mind, slow to speak and slower still to comprehend" Akhshunwar thus appointed a new Satrap from his own household, a friend of his named Pharashapha to the position, but the local Eftal refused to acknowledge that fact, and Pharashapha was forced to go east with an army.

The new-made Satrap did not last a year after his arrival. He was overthrown and the forces under his command seem to have mutinied not long before. The east was quickly lost to Akhshunwar, and seemed to quite quickly rally around a new figure named Mihiragula. What we know of Mihiragula was that he was an Eftal, born somewhere in Sogdia. What is notable about him is the meteoric rise he enjoyed, seemingly becoming quite quickly a presence in the East. His earliest possible mention is as a young standard-bearer in the army of Khauwashta.

Akhshunwar traveled those territories still loyal to him, much as his predecessor Toramana had. He gained many allies in this way, and rallied a great number of men to his banner, but not so many as he had hoped. In a curious move, he seems to have tentatively embraced Christianity as a means of cementing his support amongst the economically powerful Mesopotamian cities. Knowing that the East was lost to him, he couched his hopes on the support of both ethnic Persians and Christians. Amongst the former he enjoyed modest success, and the latter were wary of the reprisals they might have suffered for aligning themselves with a lost cause, but many of the Nestorians among the Eftal flocked to his banner.

Soon, Mihiragula was on the warpath - gathering Tujue and Huna mercenaries and his own corps of war elephants, he marched west, gathering his own allies. In early 557, he marched through Gilan, and then struck south towards the royal capital at Susa.

The stage was set for a decisive battle, and it nearly transpired in Ahmatan. But ultimately, Akhshunwar refused to engage, beginning a long retreat which would see Susa fall after mere skirmishing. The true decisive battle would happen at Zabe on the Tigris, after Akhshunwar's tribal affiliates refused to retreat further. It would be quick but bloody, an affair in which Mihiragula gave no quarter to those who fought alongside with Akhshunwar. The usurper himself was captured and executed in a particularly grisly manner, the details of which no two historians seem to agree upon.

And thus Shah Mihiragula took the mantle of the Empire upon his shoulders.

"Primary Source"

From The Life of Kaosha, a text of unknown authorship, translated

Nijara, the loyalist of Khauvashtha had been given by his wife a beloved son by the name of Kaosha, who grew into a man of Persian features and accent. Nijara was a worshipper of fire, but his son was a mystic, and spent the latter days of his youth in a vihara at until the reign of Axsunavar the Usurper, when he joined his father in the house of the sons of 'Aus. His father was ill then, wounded at Tesifon, and would perish soon after. Ill-fortuned was Nijara indeed!

From there Kaosha took his companions southwards, saying to them "let us seek a fortune in this country, let us not wait for the one whose dominion is boundless to find us. Surely he shall murder us all if he comes upon this sanctuary." And so his men made themselves caravan guards and journeyed south under arms to old Marib, and further on to Aden, which was in those antique times subservient to the Hadhramaut.

The Malik of Aden did welcome them in secret, and give to them many lavish gifts. Khauvashtha is said had been an ally of his. With these gifts they lived in ease and the eyes of the world were not upon them, a blessed thing for hunted men. What a refuge is Aden! There they Kaosha came to meet the Teacher who called himself Sattiga, and the two became inseparable companions, the Krishna to his Arjuna.

When the Malik did make war upon the people ofSaylaq and the Habash in the country of mangroves, he sent Kaosha against the barbarians, and Kaosha set himself upon Saylaq and upon its taking made a ledger of the people there, accounting their numbers and their cattle. The ones the Hellenes called the Avalites were richest among them, and he aligned himself with their cause, striking down Abraha, who was King in Habash, and winning great victories and loading ships with plunder, which he sent to Aden as signs of his victory.

Then he marched south along the coast, and deep into the heartland, bringing low the cities he found there. He made himself a Shah of the barbarians, sitting at Amud, and giving lands to his followers.

A Shah in Africa

Our understanding of the Horn of Africa and the surrounding regions is prejudiced by the descriptions of the Greeks and the Arabs, who described a land of small cities, fractured and chaotic at the best of times. To the northwest was Axum, a state on the decline but nevertheless powerful in its own right as a local trade power. To understand Kaosha's peculiar campaign we can trace the history back to a single account, an anonymous history upon which most other accounts were subsequently based and embellished. What is clear is that the fragmented Cushitic peoples were brought under the unified sovereignty of the exiled Eftal prince and his retainers, who had seemingly been serving as mercenaries in the army of a local Adenite chieftain until they decided to strike out on their own.

Kaosha's army was a small, mixed group. Persian and Eftal aristocrats with fine equipment rode alongside South Arabian mercenaries and brigands. It was at its core a profit seeking mission - conquest for plunder and perhaps the potential for long-term wealth, if Kaosha was successful. Their enormous successes can be attributed to the disunity of the region and the relative decline of Axum. In any other period they would have been a mere footnote in history.

Most of the cities he would have found were quite different from what later historical accounts would describe. The Greek historian Maurianus gives us descriptions of urban areas that resemble the large cities of the Eastern Mediterranean - archeological evidence does not point to such a thing being plausible. Rather it would seem that the typical "barbarians" of the region were nomadic pastoralists, keeping herds of cattle and frequently engaging in low-level tribal conflicts. Kaosha's conquest of the region he called Awalastan generally ignored or made treaties with the nomadic peoples, conquering a few interior cities and many coastal outposts. These outposts were typically very small, trading cities traditionally bound up in the tribal structure of Somalia. But this was a rich country, wealthy in incense, gum, and spices as well as entrepot trade, and thus the conquest undoubtedly made Kaosha and his followers incredibly wealthy.

There was perhaps another motivation, however, one only hinted at in the early texts, and elaborated upon in the work of Maurianus, where the "heathen prophet" takes on a major role. One way or another, this religious impetus would feature prominently in Kaosha's actions and in archeological records of a temple to "the limitless great God" constructed in the city of Amoud. What Sattiga preached was it seems an Arabian influenced form of Shaivism, an iconoclastic pursuit of ecstatic unity with the divine impulse, and it was this which gave unity to Kaosha's small band of followers. On the other hand, the native peoples still worshipped gods not dissimilar to those of the pagan Hadhrami - temples and statues to the god Ilmuqah feature heavily in this period, and it seems probable that Kaosha and his Arab allies gave sacrifices to these traditional pagan gods as well, so as to better cement his legitimacy.

 

[Grouchio]

I really need to start drawing shit for this.

 

[Practical Lobster]

I saw your drawing of Mithridates, and all I can say is I'd be very honored if you did.

 

[Practical Lobster]

The fifth Eftal Shah

The end of the Akhshunwarid Dynasty and the ascendency of Mihiragula marks the beginning of the end of the chaos and transition which marked the reign of his predecessors. He maintained relative peace along the long, steppe border by choosing to continue to honor pacts made with the Celestial Tujue. This period of peace allowed for trade of both commerce and ideas with China and India.

The Gupta continued to preside over a golden age of art and culture even as their Empire collapsed and was reduced to a still-potent but much reduced regional power along the Ganges. Their decline paved the way for the era of the Kalachuri and the Vakataka along the coast, now freed from Gupta influence. Stone-cut Takasashila, still a great center of learning and Buddhist civilization was freed from the Gupta Empire in this period by an uprising which saw Gandhara ruled from Purushapura once more. The ruling dynasty, called the Johiyava Rajas seems to have had good relations with the Eftal, exchanging hostages and trade. The Johiyava developed a reputation as a warrior people and as patrons of Hinduism, and from time to time feuded with the Rai dynasty to their south and the Arjunayanas.

Meanwhile, the Western borders were far less peaceful. The Roman Empire was holding itself together but at increasing expense, her population only just beginning to recover from the plague. The Bulgar Samur Khan and the Langobard King Alboin were both now technically "allies" of Emperor Zeno, but the Balkans had not come under this great of a threat since the days of the Goths - and the Imperial diplomats were working overtime, trying to sew tensions between the patchwork confederations of tribes at their gates. This was perhaps far more successful than swords had been - the Utigurs invaded the territories of their kin and the resulting war would distract both parties. Meanwhile, certain nobles amongst the Langobards were elevated in status and formally given large estates in Dalmatia, a move intended to direct their loyalty more directly towards the Empire.

Seeking to restore the East to some measure of stability, the Roman Emperor began to work with King Anastas of Armenia, bringing order to the Caucasus and putting an end to Alan raids. The Emperor's niece married the son of King Anastas, and the Empire financed a joint fortification project.

Fearing that Armenia would fall into the hands of the Romans, Mihiragula had no choice but to begin to prepare for war. A successful war against the Romans would also solidify his legitimacy as Shah, and even an unsuccessful campaign would allow him opportunities to conveniently dispose of those who might still be loyal to Akhshunwar II. Striking secret pacts with the Alans and also a confederation of Arabian tribes, the Kindah, who would oppose the Banu Ghassan, Mihiragula went to war with the Romans in 559, not giving the Empire any time to catch its breath after the bloody wars in the Balkans.

Mihiragula set forth from Nisibin, and unlike his predecessors, he was triumphant, capturing Hierapolis and Edessa and striking into the very heart of the Empire.

To look at the reasons for his successes, it may help to look at the reasons previous Eftal Shahs failed. Akhshunwar was ruler of a vast territory only recently conquered, and his tribal army was not able to translate successful field battles into major gains of territory. Khauwashta faced a capable Roman army under a group of brilliant commanders. Mihiragula, by contrast, had a well-established state and a capable army, veterans of warfare on the eastern steppe. Many of the men under him had fought under Khauwashta as well, and Mihiragula was, if not a warrior like Khauwashta, a tactician and a statesman who could bring together the disparate peoples under his command into an effective fighting force.

Meanwhile, in the south Kindah would see few successes in their raids - they were on the decline by the late sixth century, but managed quite capably to disrupt the overland caravan trade between the Roman world and Arabia - concentrating this trade in the hands of the southern Arabians and their associated maritime city-states.

Third Eftal-Roman War

The Roman state, despite its exhaustion refused to give up without a fight. The eastern frontier troops proved ineffective at stopping the incursion of Mihiragula, despite their successes in preventing further Alan incursions into Asia Minor. The Eftal army enjoyed a series of easy victories and captured or extorted tribute from many cities in Syria and along the Euphrates. Then, Mihiragula swept south and met the Romans in battle at Pagrai. Here, the Roman army was utterly destroyed and the Eftal given "free license to do what they would with the whole of the Orient."

Antiokheia, a city in decline ever since the 526 earthquake, was taken shortly after Pagrai, a short siege ended by Iranian siege engineers. Mihiragula presided over a devastating sack, wherein many relics and great works of art were either captured or destroyed, and the city's already declining population massacred. Riding north, Mihiragula earned through diplomacy and overwhelming force the submission of the Cilician plain and crucially, the city of Tarsus.

A Roman army under the command of one of Hadrianus' former subordinates, Serenos, was sent into Asia Minor with a fresh army, veterans of the Balkan wars mixed with raw recruits. Serenos took a northerly route, hoping to link up with an Armenian army and force Mihiragula to commit troops further north, ideally granting time for the Romans to retake Syria. However, this plan failed. King Anastas was defeated by a General named Hiramaosha at the battle of Zarisat, and when the news reached Serenos he stalled, allowing Mihiragula to meet him in battle outside of Caesarea and, with that triumphant victory, Asia Minor lay open to the Eftal.

By spring 561, the Eftal had raided as far as Nikaia, devastating the Anatolian plateau and wreaking havoc. Around this time, Zeno II was deposed in a coup orchestrated by one Kallinikos, a Greek military officer who had served with distinction in a time where few officers had. Ruling as Flavius Callinicus Augustus, he was an active Emperor, spending much of his time personally ensuring the defenses of cities in Asia Minor. Still, it would take Kallinikos time to truly command the apparatus of state - having come to power in a coup, he was forced to move carefully and establish himself as a defender of Christendom from the pagan hordes, no matter how nuanced the reality of the situation was.

What he could not do is save the Orient. Mihiragula rode south, leaving Hiramaosha to oversee the raiding of Asia and vex the reformed Roman field armies there. Hiramaosha proved more than capable at this task, but ultimately was slowly forced back by Kallinikos, who personally led the Roman armies and pushed Hiramaosha back to Caesarea. Damascus fell easily, and after a long siege, Jerusalem was taken in January of 562.

The shock throughout the Roman world was immense. As one Roman playwright wrote, "Holy Jerusalem has fallen! Weep for all the generations of Christians, weep for the martyrs. The Hun have destroyed the object of all our vows. The Heavenly City lies destroyed." Exaggerated tales of massacres were spread, but in truth it seems that the region was not heavily depopulated, in contrast to the annihilation of Antioch - although the Patriarch was, according to our Greek sources, killed, and many holy relics taken as trophies of war.

Mihiragula, after erecting a great monument to his victory, praised both Shiva and Mithra for delivering him the victory, but his language was not one of religious war. The victory monument lists Jerusalem as one of many cities taken, and while he must have known the effect its conquest would have on his enemies, for him his war was an explicitly political one. By contrast, Kallinikos was whipping the Roman Empire into a religious frenzy. The heathen was at the gates, the vicious Huns stood poised to annihilate the very Empire.

Mihiragula would reach as far south as Gaza before turning north once more. Egypt, despite not having large armies at its disposal, was a tough nut to crack in the best of times, and attempts by the Eftal to encourage a popular uprising seem to have enjoyed little success.

Of course, the Eftal possessed no way to cross into Europe, and by the time Mihiragula linked up with Hiramaosha (leaving his new conquests under the often-feeble control of Persian garrison troops and new made local administrators), the Shah was on the back foot. Attacking deep into the Asia Minor three more times between 562 and 565, each time was met with less success - the Roman war machine remained capable and despite a series of brutal famines, there was no rioting in Constantinople or the provinces, and the Romans enjoyed victories as often as they suffered defeats.

A Roman embassy in 565 nearly achieved peace, but for Mihiragula's confidence in his ability to push on. Nearly his entire reign had been spent at war, and he had, at least on paper, enlarged and restored the Eftal Empire. Reincorporating Armenia as a vassal state after her King's crushing defeat and conquering the Orient had assured him of his invincibility. The tribute he demanded was crushing and utterly unrealistic, and Mihiragula expected to retain all of his tremendous territorial gains. Unwilling and quite likely politically unable to concede Jerusalem or allow the Empire to be severed and drained of all her incomes, Kallinikos had little choice but to fight on.

Mauri Africa and the Goths - the Western Mediterranean

While what remained of Rome burned, her heirs rose in power and prestige. Their merchants re-established old trade links and it seems that the coastal cities were some of the quickest to recover, even as the tribal kingdoms of the far interior began to decline and desiccate. Patronizing great philosophers and artists, the Mauri Kings also took to the increasing trend of monasticism, founding many new desert monasteries.

Isemrases II, King of Africa and Mauritania (r. 552-574) ruled a semi-feudal patchwork of tribal cities. Much of his reign was preoccupied with maintaining this status quo while also attempting to expand the paltry fleet at his command. Over his reign he would deal with six separate rebellions, the most famous of them seeing Tingis sacked. In the final of these rebellions, in 566, many tribes of the Gaetuli were enslaved and annihilated en masse for their role in assisting the rebels, finally establishing the dominance of the settled, Latin speaking coastal tribes.

Famously, Isemrases patronized the great artist Maisara, whose work began a revival of Roman art and architecture in the region, characterized by a unique Berber flair. Romano-African merchant ships could be seen in all the ports of the Mediterranean, and the city of Lilybaeum, despite nominal Roman rule, enjoyed a great resurgence as Berber traders set up shop. Sicily as a whole benefitted enormously from this Mauri "renaissance", and the Prefect of Sicily, a Greek by the name of Maurice enjoyed a close relationship with Isemrases, viewing the Africans as a counterweight to the Goths.

The Goths under Athalaric, the arrogant son of Eutharic, was enormously popular with his nobles because he lived as they lived, drank as they drank, and ultimately, died as they died, drinking himself to death six years after taking the crown in 548. By contrast, his father Eutharic's long life had been a distinguished one. But despite having beaten back the Romans to a mere toehold in Italy and fought long and hard against the Franks, he nevertheless ruled an increasingly divided state, his Goths forming a military aristocracy which, after the depopulation of Italy from war and plague, was totally entrenched, and slowly becoming Romanized.

Concurrently, the work of Cassiodorus helped bridge the divide between Roman and Goth, while also promoting a resurgence of classical thought. One of the notable philosophers of the period, his work would ultimately have a long-lasting impact. Founder of schools and monasteries, it was not until the short reign of Athalaric that he achieved high office, and shortly after Athalaric's death he disappears from the historical record into a quiet life of contemplation.


Edit: I just wanted to promise this is not becoming an Eftal-wank.

 

[fanthemadman]

Enjoying this greatly!!!

 

[Grouchio]

I'm going to need physical descriptions of each of the Eftal Kings, so that I can finally starting drawing awesome shit here.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Grouchio - PMed you about it. Let me know if you need any extra details, I couldn't always think of what all to say.

 

[Deleted member 67076]

Oh dear, its Heraclius a century earlier....

 

[RGB]

I love everything about the concept. The Berber state, the Gothic Italy, and of course the Hephtalites.

It's a bit broad brushstrokes at times but hey, it's not a very well-trod topic, so research must be pretty interesting and challenging at this point.

 

[Practical Lobster]

The research is often really fascinating, and I'm glad you're still enjoying it. One major problem is simply how little we actually know about the White Huns - and a lot of what we do "know" is potentially exaggerated or fictional.

If anyone has anything they'd like me to focus on in more depth, I'd be very happy to do additional in depth posts and slow down the pace of the history to grant them more focus.

 

[Zulfurium]

Well, it is nearing the point that Maurice began to pop up in OTL, so is he going to play any role coming up? As far as I know Maurice was integral to keeping the ERE running in the late 590s, cleaning up after Justinian II. Maurice was considered one of the most gifted military figures of his time, so it would make sense for him to pop up now that the ERE is in trouble.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Maurice is still a young man at this point, plausibly a capable civil servant, but a good deal of the things that enabled his rise to power have been butterflied away.

Which is not to say that other capable administrators and generals won't emerge, but the Romans we know from our timeframe are becoming less and less likely to emerge.

Kallinikos fits the Maurician bill in this setting - native Anatolian General turned Emperor, will be regarded as a capable tactician and administrator, and the weaknesses and defeats of the Empire will be remembered as those of his predecessors. If he loses he'll be the Last of the Romans, if he wins he'll be TTL's Heraclius

 

[Practical Lobster]

"Primary Source"

From the accounts of Khinjila [1] "The Peoples of the North and East"

From the city of Kasyar caravans come into the broader territory of the Ashina, who call themselves Celestial Turk, and are ruled by one Arslan Kaghan. Over that city is set no man in power, save the Khagan, but he has a minister in the city whose name is Niriryam, and from that source all power flows. Over the cities of the caravan road Niriyam has hidden strength, speaking with the voice of the Khagan. Kasyar is his home because it is the greatest of these cities which support the movement of caravans, and upon the border with our nations. It is home to many of the Sugd but also a thousand other peoples of the world.

Arslan Khagan is a victorious man. His father defeated the indolent peoples who called themselves Ruru[2], and Arslan has made peace with them, and they rule uneasily over a broad country in the south that was once the lands of Wei. The Ruru, once refugees, have become strong and arrogant in their hold, and rule from the city of Pinchayinj. Their ruler, whose name is Poulomen Teifa Qagan holds in his heart little desire to adopt the manners of the conquered Han, but it is vast territory he holds, and much of it he holds only weakly, with the aid of allies and federates. To his south is an empire of much wealth, but he cannot strike against it in strength, and this vexes him.

If one were to travel north from Kasyar, as a peerless and predatory bird might, over the rugged mountains and dry country without oases, one would come to the lands of the Qangli, who are federate to the Ashina as the Xionites were federate to Akhshunwar, but they keep kinship and are the "blacksmith slaves" of the Ashina. They have a great city which is Tarban, and there they trade with the Xvarezm, Sugd and our nations. There they have built a great ensemble of Buddhistic temples and great monuments, but there are also temples to the God of Mani, and regardless of where they prey the Qangli venerate Heaven still.
To the northwest of the Qangli are the lands of the Asvha, the newcomers, who are cousins of the Sahu and worship Surya[3] and Siavash. The Asvha are far-ranging and ride finer horses than their neighbors, but are federate to the Khagan of the Ashina nonetheless. They wear great conical hats and keep retainers as we do. When a great man of their tribe dies, he is buried with statues of his companions, that they might in some form preserve him. When they raid it is against the Xasar-Sahu, and they do this with the permission of the Turks. The Asvha do not push overmuch the Xasar, for the Xasar are perhaps four times again[4] more numerous than they, and rule a broad country of many waters.

The Xasar[5] are a people of many tribes, and their Khagan is named Itemei. Their ruling clan is the Sahu, but there are many Turks among them as well, and many Xiongnu, and many who were once Gaoche. The Sahu worship the countless gods, among them Anahita and the Moon. Their priests are women. Their subordinates worship the Sky and the Rain. As a people they are said to be great lovers of music and war, and take to these tasks in equal measure, training their children with fierce games of skill to be peerless with bow and sword when they come of age. They have no great love for the Eftal, for many of their kin died against the might of Khauwashta Shah of Shahs and his companions, but in truth they have no great love for any people of the world.

[1] One of the few (possibly) ethnically Eftal Historians of the period, little is known about him, except that he lived in Farghana, which was in his lifetime an autonomous tributary of the Eftal, and seems to have been part of an embassy of sorts.

[2] Or the Rouran Khaganate.

[3] Asvha would certainly not have called the Sun by the name of Surya. While their origin is unclear, they are an Iranian tribal people which emerged after the collapse of the Gaoche and Xiongnu.

[4] This is likely utter conjecture on the author's part, but the Xasar-Sahu Confederacy was certainly much larger than the Asvha alone, and was slowly but surely moving its way westward, causing a wave of displacements amongst the Sklaveni and Bulgar peoples.

[5] It should be noted that the Xasar-Sahu and OTL's Khazars, despite similar names have relatively little in common, both in ethnic makeup and origin.

565-568 In the Balance

Mihiragula had not managed to make a peace on the terms he wanted, but by the summer of 565, nothing seemed to be going against him. A rebellion in Judea had been beaten, just barely, by the Persian auxiliaries stationed there. One of his most trusted companions, Ariasb, ruled the Orient from Damascus, leading a small but veteran force of Eftal cavalry in continual attacks against the Arab allies of the Roman Empire. The Banu Ghassan, now cut off their allies, were crumbling. The Alans had begun raiding in force into Pontus, and he still held Caesarea. The past years had seen devastating raids into Roman territory, but also continual reversals.

Emperor Kallinikos was a capable commander, easily defeating Hiramaosha in both of the two occasions they had met in pitched battle. His legions were less adept at stopping prolonged raiding however, but the noose was closing. The Romans were hemming in Mihiragula, and the Eftal had been unable to take many cities in Asia Minor - disciplined Roman infantry and grain shipments from Egypt preserved the urban population, despite endemic rural famine and the devastation of Eftal raids.

After a year of further raids, in 566, Mihiragula decided it was time to force Kallinikos to battle. The Eftal track record against the Romans in pitched battles was historically excellent. Field engagements, even if they had not been decisive or war-winning, frequently resulted in the depletion of Roman manpower and might free him up to carry the war further westward.
The two armies maneuvered for several months until finally, Kallinikos took the bait and moved to intercept Mihiragula near the city of Mokissos. The commander of the Roman vanguard, one Athanasius, fell on Mihiragula's camp in the earliest hours of the morning, and despite a spirited defensive holding action by the Gilani mercenaries, Mihiragula was forced to arrange his forces in relative disarray and confusion. The Romans had managed, against the odds, to leave him blind as to their approach until it was too late for Mihiragula to take command of his army. The Eftal were forced to react to new events, rather than decide their own strategy.

Both armies were ponderously large. Kallinikos had brought three separate forces together to intercept the Shah, and Mihiragula commanded a vast field army which even at the best of times required individual initiative from his commanders to work in concert. As the Eftal forces arrayed and countered the Roman attack, the remainder of the Roman army arrived and drew up for battle. Kallinikos brought his cavalry down on the Eftal flank, scattering the Persian and Baktrian cavalry. Mihiragula might have attempted to sound a retreat, but the his experience with Akhshunwar II and also the relative disorganization of his forces reminded him that any retreat could be a disaster.

So the Eftal fought on.

"Batzas, the Emperor's brother-in-law, took a spear in the thigh, and fought on until he was dragged from his horse. His bodyguards recovered him with great losses, while the Prince of the Hephthalites brought forward the lances of his companions and made a great charge against our right. When the lances were broken and lost the Hepthalites with their cudgels and their axes bled our legions hard." - Dioscorus of Sardis

It is unclear who the Prince of the Hephthalites was in this context, as Mihiragula had four sons of roughly similar ages, but it probably Varhran, the most martial of them. What is clear is that the Eftal and Romans both broke each other's flank and the two armies began to slowly pivot around a central axis, until a large contingent of Bulgar mercenaries aligned with the Romans began pillaging the Hephthalite camp, and in the confusion were caught by a significantly smaller force of Persian infantry and massacred. After this, the Roman army retreated, and the Eftal were too disorganized to follow up on their (admittedly qualified) victory.

The situation in Asia Minor was ultimately unchanged. Despite the large size of the battle, it seems that almost every unit on both sides was present at later engagements. The Battle of the Camp, as it became known, was indecisive, and the two brilliant tacticians in overall command seemingly had only a limited impact in the actual engagement.

The next two years would see further raiding and pillaging. The Roman armies were depleted of manpower, and in 567, Mihiragula would sack Ikonion, Sozopolis, and Pessinous, but he did not get to hold them for more than a few months. Pessinous massacred the garrison left behind, and a Roman army recaptured Ikonion and Sozopolis. Kallinikos waged a defensive war which saw a battle outside Ankyra go in his favor, and 568 saw the Romans take Caeserea back. The Eftal were pushed out of Asia Minor, and the Romans rejoiced.

Meanwhile, a Roman fleet arrived at Laodikea in Syria, and the Christians there overthrew the small Persian garrison and resisted a siege by Ariasb. Unable to gain the city's walls with his unreliable levies and unwilling to force his few Eftal and Kidarite horsemen to dismount and attack the walls, Ariasb was forced to tolerate the loss and send petitions to the Eftal commander at Nisibin for aid and reinforcements. But reinforcements were few on the ground, a sign of the toll caused by the continual warfare.

The Homefront

Mihiragula had spent only two years out of the first ten years of his reign inside the de jure borders of his Empire. Two of his sons, Vinayaditha and Faganish, seem to have ruled in his stead. Our Persian historians record that Vinayaditha was a scholarly man, an administrator, and patronized Iranian artists and philosophers. It is perhaps for this reason that he is regarded favorably, while Faganish gets little mention and is often characterized as a drunken and incompetent child. However, the Eftal historian Khinjila reports that Vinayaditha was a coward who let his wife run the affairs of state, not unlike Khauwashta, and praises Faganish and Varhran for their "manly virtues". The fourth son, Toramana, receives little note in the historical record, save that he was raised among the Turks and married a woman of Turkic royalty.

Despite these disputes, trade and tax revenue seem to have declined under the "Rule of Sons" as this era is often known. War with the Romans hurt trade and the Hadhrami and the Kaoshid Shahdom benefited immensely from this, becoming the gateway for Roman-Indian trade. A small border conflict with some of the cities of the Tarim Basin and the Shah of Farghana further exacerbated the situation.

This was, however, the beginning of the Eftal Golden Age. Economic hardship aside, many of the famous Persian artists, philosophers, and mathematicians patronized by Vinayaditha would revolutionize their fields. Formerly of aristocratic families but denied their traditional role, these scholars would go into Buddhist and Christian monasteries or local courts and palaces, and there produce great works. A joint Eftal-Persian culture was being born, a true synthesis of the two peoples.

 

[Deleted member 67076]

The Eftals are going to burn themselves out if they continue war. Trying to hold all that land and still go towards offensive actions while conducting patronage isnt good for the economy at all. Thats the stuff that leads to peasant revolts and weird anti authorian social movements.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Oh definitely. The Eftal are already reaching pretty much the end of what can be expected of them. They're vastly overextended trying to occupy all of Syria and Palestine, and their army, by 568, is small and exhausted compared to what it used to be.

The military increasingly has to rely on auxiliaries, mercenaries and levies, which strain the budget compared to the traditional retainer system. Without giving spoilers, you can see how this might be a problem. Increased taxes will hit the rural peasantry especially hard too - a peasantry that doesn't necessarily relate to the cultural changes of the Iranian mercantile or landholding elite.

Mihiragula still commands a veteran, battle-tested force though, and he's the kind of guy who can do that very effectively. So we'll see what happens.

(Also it's worth noting that the East, Sugd, Baktria, etc. and the Persian Gulf region are still doing relatively well for themselves. It's the northern and western regions that are really taking the worst of it, and the Iranian plateau itself to a not insubstantial degree.)

 

[Practical Lobster]

War and Aftermath
Ariasb, the de facto governor of Palestine and Syria, would receive no relief. Rebellion, not of the Christian majority but rather the Jewish minority in Galilee, further aggrivated an already collapsing situation. Urgent letters were sent to Mihiragula, but without joy. Jerusalem fell late in 568, and Caesarea fell early in 569. While it is unclear just how many Jews participated in the rebellion, what is clear is that the Christian population was as likely to see vicious reprisals as the small Iranian garrisons. This period of communal violence was particularly directed against the urban, Hellenized population, and the rebellion itself was more opportunistic than motivated by a desire to escape Iranian rule - the Jewish population believed, quite accurately, that the Eftal were losing, and that simultaneously the Romans were too weak to regain their lost ground.

By the summer of 569, much of Palestine was lost, and Ariasb chose to concentrate on holding Syria. He retook Laodikea and, riding south to Tyros, began fortifying it and many of the other Christian cities of Lebanon for a siege. Compared to the bitter, hostile reception the Eftal typically received, the population of Tyros welcomed Ariasb with open arms, our Iranian sources report. It was, however, a ruse. Ariasb and his retainers were murdered in their beds, and with that blow, uprisings in Syria became general. While many among the Syrian population were not overly pleased with Roman rule, the Eftal were old enemies, and had done little to ingratiate themselves with the occupied populace, preferring to loot and pillage the countryside and occupy the cities, levying tributes from them not dissimilar to Roman taxes. As such, in the wake of these rebellions, the Eftal were forced to commit additional forces, and Mihiragula was incensed.

Shortly thereafter, the Shah, by way of one of his companions, engaged the Jewish leaders in negotiations, agreeing to recognize their small state in exchange for peace and their support. It is clear that Mihiragula still had notions of incorporating Roman Syria into his Empire, and his reprisals, motivated chiefly by the death of his companion and friend, when they came, were swift and brutal. His philosophy seems to have been that fresh settlers from the East were always available.

Kallinikos, meanwhile, attempted to invade Cilicia. After taking many of the fortified places of the rocky uplands, he descended east into the plains and there Mihiragula met him in another battle, and this time was triumphant, scoring the decisive victory he had long hoped for. The Roman infantry were massacred and Kallinikos barely escaped with his life. The Battle of the Pyramus River, as it became known, was yet another in a long list of catastrophic battles for two Empires which could ill afford them.

Mihiragula's army was a shadow of the force that had begun the war. Eleven years of bloodshed had weakened his core of retainers, and there were simply not fresh Eftal warriors to replace them any longer. Mercenaries and Persian auxiliaries both cost money, and the latter were of often unreliable quality. In 570, Mihiragula sought peace, and this time, Kallinikos agreed. Increased threat of Slavic migration and Bulgar raids seem to have played as much of a factor as any, and Mihiragula finally abandoned his hold on Syria, settling for a reduced conquest which nevertheless brought much of the Euphrates under formalized Eftal control, including the cities of Edessa and Samosata. Further, a great sum of wealth was paid to the Eftal Shah.

The "Rule of Sons" was only saved by this large influx of wealth - wealth which allowed the Eftal dynasty to continue its patronization and give some measure of relief to the mercantile class. With the end of the war, trade experienced a brief revival as well, but the damage to the Eftal Shahdom had already been done, and it was unclear if the Shahs could recover. Mihiragula found himself a peacetime ruler now, a position he was unaccustomed to. His sons, meanwhile, had grown accustomed to the power and status they enjoyed in the long absence of their father, and relations at court were strained to say the least.

Kallinikos, meanwhile, moved south and put down the Jewish rebellion with ruthless efficiency, restoring Jerusalem to Christian rule for the first time in many years. The Emperor spent several months in the city, treating it as an extended pilgrimage before returning to Constantinople victorious. The Empire was restored.

Culture and Society

It was in this time that the differences between the Eftal and the Iranian aristocracy truly started to become minor. Like so many conquering nomadic peoples before them, the Eftal were losing their distinct culture. Few enough of them were truly nomads now in any case - the Eftal had become landholders, distinct from their subject peoples such as the Kidarites who in many cases had not abandoned their cattle-herding lifestyle.

The Eftal had always been willing to dwell in cities and adapt to the lifestyle of settled peoples and this willingness was part of what would see their unique identity and customs begin to disintegrate. Unlike some of his predecessors, there is no indication Akhshunwar II or Mihiragula bound their heads in the traditional Eftal style. The new Eftal dressed no differently than their settled Iranic subjects, and generally adopted their languages with ease.

It was in religion that the Eftal imparted the greatest changes to society. The Eftal firmly entrenched their own particular sorts of Sogdian inspired Buddhism and Shivaist Hinduism throughout the eastern part of their domains, and granted Buddhism a foothold as far west as Mesopotamia, although there many of their settlers ultimately became Nestorian Christians. Zoroastrianism would undergo, if not decline, significant changes.

Those in urban centers, particularly the artisan and merchant classes, were some of the first either accept Buddhism or begin worshipping Mahadeva, but the aristocracy and the bureaucracy, by the time of Khauwashta was following suit. The cult of Zurvan remained prevalent and powerful, and even Mazdakism remained - although slowly but surely it lose ground, becoming a series of isolated, cultic communities. Traditional Zoroastrianism would become the faith of the rural peasant, appealed to in times of domestic upheaval and rebellion. The paganism of the Eftal however, would never truly die out. Mithra and other such gods would find their place among the Buddhist teachings most popular in the Eftal Shahdom.

The willingness of the Eftal to settle many conquered peoples or tribal federates in their territory, often very far afield, was a practice as old as the Middle East, but the Eftal used it to great effect. Many of the migratory peoples who came against them ultimately found themselves living alongside their conquerors, and these migrations would have a profound impact on the culture and demographics of places like Mesopotamia, creating a new aristocracy out of settled Turkic and Iranic peoples, subordinate to the Eftal and a critical supply of manpower which contributed to the enduring legacy of the Eftal as these transplanted peoples gradually found themselves identifying with their new overlords, becoming "Eftal" in spite of their varied origins.

The meaning of the word Eftal thus became an expansive one, a broad term for all the formerly nomadic peoples who came to settle across what had once been the Sasanian Empire. And thus the Eftal would endure long after the collapse of the great Eftal Shah, as both a visually distinct ethnic group and a reliable source of soldiers and mercenaries, even as they culturally assimilated into the majority population. However, as time went on, even the visual distinctions would fade - intermarriage with the locals had always been a part of the Eftal strategy for rulership.

Vultures Circling

In the aftermath of the Gupta Emperor Narasimhagupta Baladitya seizing much of the Hindu Kush from the "Sveta Huna", the Eftal had never been capable of reclaiming it. The land of the Kamboja was simply beyond their reach, high mountain passes unsuitable for cavalry. In another world they might have passed into India through those passes, but no sooner did the Gupta collapse than another dynasty had arisen to fill their place, and they were dynamic and powerful.

The Johiyava represented a blend of cultures and traditions. Fearsome warriors, famed for their cavalry and archers, their regime in Purushapura might have paid a small annual tribute to the Eftal, but they were independent in law as well as fact, even if they gave lip-service to the notion of being yet another satrap, they were a native Gandharan dynasty, and they did not allow the Eftal to extend their dominion south into the subcontinent.

Vexed in their own attempts to expand south, the Johiyava would ultimately come to make their mark on Baktria as one of the many vultures circling the Eftal Empire, waiting for a sign of weakness. By 575, they were raiding the Eftal in turn, and the once mighty Shahdom was having considerable trouble stopping the horsemen, warriors of the Asvaka clan, and their lightening attacks out of the mountains. Despite not enjoying the official sponsorship of the Raja Anandakumara, they were nevertheless protected once they entered the Hindu Kush, and thus proved a major thorn in the side of the Satrap of Balkh.

Piandjikent sent an embassy to the Raja, and when it was ill received, there was little the Satrap could do but raise additional retainers and hope to keep the situation under control. Shah Mihiragula sent additional soldiers, primarily Iranian mercenaries, but that appears to be the extent of his involvement.

The Asvha, an Iranian nomadic group not dissimilar from the Eftal, meanwhile had begun raiding into Xvaresm, taking the great wealth in livestock of the pastoralist peoples there. While their raids were ultimately of little consequence in the grand scheme of things, it is certainly symptomatic of the times and perhaps also deteriorating relations between the still-expanding Gokturks and the Eftal Shahs.