Deportations: Enforced resettlement of prisoners

Moreover, in the context of the Persian conquests numerous people were deported into the Sasanian Empire.941 Together with these, Western ideas and culture reached Iran. Already Sapur I (240—72) boasted in the epi-graphic record of his deeds that as a consequence of his victorious campaigns in the Roman Eastern provinces he had deported innumerable people from the Roman Empire and resettled them in the Persis, in Parthia, in the Susiane, in Mesopotamia49 and all other provinces.50 The deportations of a large number of Romans to the Sasanian ancestral homelands after the victory over the emperor Valerian in 260 and the assignment of Roman prisoners to several cities in Iran are confirmed by a Nestorian chronicle, the so-called Chronicle of Seert, which was composed in Arabic. This text stems from a period soon after 1036 and is not only significant for our knowledge about the religious situation in Iran but also an important source with regard to the Sasanian—Roman relations.51

Chronicle ofSeert, PO iv 220—1

In the eleventh year of his reign Sapur son of Ardasir entered the land of the Byzantines, where he remained for some time laying waste to many towns. He defeated the emperor Valerian and took him prisoner, taking him to the land of the Nabataeans, where he fell ill from grief and died. Then (and) the bishops whom the wicked Valerian had exiled returned to their sees. When SapUr left the Byzantine lands he brought with him captives whom he settled in Iraq, Ahwaz, Persia and in the cities founded by his father. He himself founded three cities, giving them names derived from his own. The first of them lies in the land of Maisan, he named it Sod Sapor, and is now called (this is) Deir Mahraq. The second one is in Persia and is still (up to our time) called Sapur. He also rebuilt Gundesapur, which had been demolished and called it Antisapiir. This name is a mixture of Greek and Persian and it means: ‘you are the opposite of Sapur’. He founded a third city on the Tigris river and he gave it the name Marw Habur and currently this is Ukbura and its surroundings. In these cities he settled a number of captives, distributing among them lands to cultivate and houses to live in, and because of this the number of Christians in Persia increased. Monasteries and churches were built. Among the settlers were priests taken captive in Antioch who settled in Gundesapur. They elected Azdaq from Antioch as their bishop because Demetrius, patriarch of Antioch, had fallen ill and died of grief.

The author gives a detailed list of the Persian territories and cities where the Roman prisoners were settled. According to the chronicler the resettlements led to an increase of the Christian population in the Sasanian Empire.942 Tabari also talks about the deportations under Sapur I.

Tabari, Ta'rlh i 827—8

Then he passed from there (Nisibis) to Syria and Roman Anatolia and conquered a great number of cities. It is said that Cilicia and Cappadocia were among the territories that he took, and that he besieged a king who happened to be in Anatolia called Valerianus in the city of Antioch, captured him, and took him together with a large group that was with him and settled them in Gundesapur. It is mentioned that he forced Valerianus to build the dam at Sostar at a width of one thousand cubits. The Roman had it constructed by a group sent to him by the Romans. He made Sapur promise to release him after he had finished building the dam. It is said that he took from him great wealth and that he set him free after he cut his nose off. It is also said that he killed him.

Tabari’s words suggest that there were many skilled workers among the Roman prisoners. In fact, among the Roman prisoners who were settled in Iran, primarily in the modern provinces Pars and Huzistan, there were numerous architects, technicians and craftsmen,943 who during the following period participated in the building projects of Sapur I. Their skills were important for the construction of bridges, dams, roads and palaces. One of the most famous building projects was most certainly the dam of Sostar (Shushtar), which Tabari mentions and which was located on the river Karun in the province of Huzistan. Its ruins can still be seen today and attest not only to the grandeur of the monument but also of Sapur I’s efforts to make use of Roman experts on irrigation systems in order to exploit the fertile soil of this region for everybody’s benefit.944

Both Tabari and the Chronicle of Seert also mention the foundations of cities by the Sasanian king. Analogously to other Sasanian foundations of cities the king often chose names that testified to his victories.945 In most cases the name of the king was part of the name of the city. Many of the Roman captives came from the Syrian metropolis Antioch. The majority of these were deported to the city Veh-Antiok-Sapur (= ‘Sapur made [this city] better than Antioch’). The city later developed into the intellectual centre GundeSapur (= ‘the weapons of Sapur’). In this case Sapur restored and extended an existing settlement, which was renamed to become GundeSapur soon after 260.946

Yet another remarkable example is Bisapur (= ‘the beautiful [city of] Sapur’), which the king founded in the Persis after his victory over Valerian.947 The city was modelled on the plan of a Roman military camp. Its first inhabitants were mostly Roman soldiers who had been taken captive in the year 260. It looks as if the foundation was an attempt to integrate the captives and to facilitate their life far away from their home country. In fact, we do not hear of confrontations between the Iranian population and the new settlers.948

In Bisapur, the ‘Sasanian Versailles’,59 one notices a remarkable influence ofWestern craftsmen on Iranian art. Many of these were among the Roman prisoners but there were also volunteers, who had been attracted by the good pay and the exceptional prestige of the royal project — the royal buildings made up a quarter of the whole city.60 Above all the Western influence

Fig. i8 The great hall of the palace in Bisapiir (Ghirshman, R. (1962) Iran. Parthians and Sassanians: fig. 177.179) (Photos: Paris, Museum Louvre, model by A. P. Hardy)

Can be seen with regard to the throne room in the royal palace of Bisapur

(fig. i8).

The altogether sixty-four recesses were decorated with Greek key-patterns, leaf-scrolls and dentils, which give a Western ambience to the room. The themes of the floor mosaics reveal that the Roman artists modelled the room on the famous repertory of the mosaics of Antioch and North Africa.949 However, the models imported from the West were never reproduced stereotypically but rather ‘adapted by local artists to Iranian tastes and traditions’.950

It is impossible to estimate how many Romans were resettled by Sapur I but given that he conquered thirty-six cities in the year 260 the number must have been large. Deportations were not uncommon in antiquity.951

Fig. i8 (cont.)

To give but a few, one is reminded of the Babylonian captivity of the Jews or the io, ooo Roman prisoners who according to Plutarch were deported to Iran by the Parthians after the battle of Carrhae.952 The Romans also deported Persian prisoners of war. Cassius Dio, for example, tells us that after the capture of the Parthian capital Seleucia-Ktesiphon the emperor Septimius Severus (193—2ii)moved ioo, ooo Parthian captives to the West.953 During the third century the Romans had hardly any opportunity to deport Persian prisoners of war into the empire because in most instances they found themselves exposed to Sasanian attacks and in a defensive position. In the context of their famous defeat of Narse (293—302), however, we hear about Diocletian (284—305) deporting colonies of prisoners from Asia to Thrace.954 Galerius (305—11) must have taken these captive after his victory over Narse in Armenia, when the entire Sasanian camp including the royal family fell into his hands (6). In an encomium for the Roman emperor Constantius II (337—61) the orator Libanius mentions Roman attacks on Sasanian territory during which important cities were captured and the entire population deported to Thrace.955 The author also states that the deportations served to commemorate Rome’s victory and gave the emperor an opportunity to display his generosity and compassion.956 These words suggest a difference between Roman and Persian deportations. S. Lieu argues that ‘unlike the Sassanians, the Romans had no coherent plan of settlement for these prisoners and did not seem to have any economic aim in their deportation beyond using them as cheap farm-labourers. The main objective of the deportation was clearly propagandistic.’69 While this may be true, the deportation of Persians certainly continued into the late phases of Roman—Sasanian relations. Several sources attest to the deportation of the Persian population of Arzanene to Cyprus in the year 578.70

With regard to the East, the weak phase after the death of Sapur I meant that the flow of Roman prisoners to the Persian Empire ceased. Not before the reign of the powerful Persian king Sapur II (309-79) and his many successes against Rome did deportations become more frequent again.71 The economic motives of the Sasanian kings that could be seen already with regard to the deportations of Sapur I are confirmed by the so called Martyrology of Pusai, the Syriac testimony of a Christian martyr who lived during the reign of Sapur II, when comprehensive persecutions of Christians took place in the Sasanian Empire (31).

Martyrology ofPusai under Sapur II, Acta martyrum et sanctorum, ed. P. Bedjan, ii 208—10

This illustrious Pusai was one of the descendants of the captives whom Sapiir the son of Hormizd957 had brought from the territory of the Romans and had settled in the city of Veh Sapur which is in the province of Fars, for the father of this Pusai had arrived in that captivity.958 He was a person at ease with his way of life in this world, and was a believer in Christ before he was taken captive. He lived, then, by order of the king, in the city of Veh Sapur, and he made himself a native in it, and married a Persian woman from the city, and converted her, and baptised his children, and raised and instructed them in Christianity. Now when this king Sapur the son of Hormizd, he who stirred up the persecution against the churches of the east,959 built Karha d-Ladan and brought captives from various regions and settled them in it, it was also pleasing to him that from all the peoples of the cities which were in the territories of his dominion he should bring thirty families, more or less, and settle them among them, so that through the mingling of their people the captives should be bound by their families and by their love, so that it should not be easy for them to return by flight, a few at a time, to the territories from which they had been taken captive.960 Now Sapur planned this by his cunning, but God in his compassion made use of it to bring about good, for through the mingling of the captives with the peoples he captured the peoples for the knowledge of truth, and made them disciples on the way of verity. Like the other families whom they brought from various regions and settled in Karh, by the command of Sapur son of Hormizd, so also they brought [families] from the city of Veh Sapiir which is in Fars. Among these whom they brought from Veh Sapur they also brought the blessed Pusai, and his wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and the people of his household, and they settled them in Karhae d-Laedaen. Pusai was a skilled craftsman, and was especially expert in the making of woven cloth and in the embroidery of gold filigree. And he was one of those craftsmen whom king Sapur gathered together from all the peoples, the captives and his own subjects, and made into a single, multi-tiered, guild, and he established a workshop for them beside his palace in Karha d-Ladan. Now the blessed Pusai, because he was excellent at his craft, was praised before the king, and he was continually giving him honours and great gifts. Indeed, after a short time he made him chief craftsman, as day by day the man grew in honour and praise.

The text once more illustrates a Persian interest in resettling prisoners of war, whose knowledge and skills could be an asset.961 It was thus a matter of acquiring not only a work force as such but also the knowledge of specialists, and the main beneficiary of this process was the king, who continued to make use of those he had captured ‘with his own hands’.962 There is no doubt that the use of Roman prisoners contributed considerably to improving the infrastructure of the Sasanian Empire.963 One of the consequences of the resettlements of large numbers of Roman prisoners was — to say it in modern terms — a ‘transfer of technology’, which guaranteed an economic upturn for Sasanian Iran.964

Deportations of Romans continued into the sixth century. The following two passages refer to activities of Xusro I (531—79). After his conquest of Syrian Antioch in the year 540 the king resettled the inhabitants of this metropolis to the city Veh-Antiok-Xusro, which he founded in the vicinity of the Sasanian capital Ktesiphon.965

Procopius, De bello Persico 11.14.1—4

(i) Xusro (I) founded a city in Assyria,966 in a place that was a day’s march away from the city of Ktesiphon; he named it ‘Xusro’s Antioch’ and settled all captives from Antioch there, for whom he even had a bath and a hippodrome built and whom he provided also with other comforts. (2) For he brought along the charioteers and musicians from Antioch and other Romans. (3) Moreover, at public expense he took more care in catering for these people from Antioch than was customary for captives, and (he did so) for their entire life, and gave orders to call them ‘the royal ones’ so that they would not be responsible to any magistrate but the king alone.967 (4) When one of the other Romans had escaped and managed to seek refuge in Xusro’s Antioch and when one of the inhabitants claimed that he was a relative, the owner was no longer allowed to remove this captive, not even if one of the highest ranking Persians happened to have enslaved the man.

Tabari, Tanh i 898

After a few years of his rule, when he had established his kingship and all the lands had submitted to him, he marched on Antioch, where the leading commanders of the emperor’s army were stationed, and took the city. Then he ordered that a drawing be made of the city according to scale, with the number of its houses, its streets and everything that was in it, and to build him a replica city next to al-Mada’in. And the city known as ‘al-Riimiyya’ was built after the image of Antioch. Then he brought the people of Antioch to settle in it, and when they entered the city-gate, the people of each house went to the building that resembled the one in which they had lived in Antioch as if they had never left it.

The accounts of Procopius and Tabari agree on the fact that the new city was modelled upon a Western example. Whether an exact replica of Syrian Antioch or not, many public institutions were designed with the purpose of making life familiar as well as pleasant for the new inhabitants. Both authors describe a situation that must have been rather acceptable for the settlers of the new Antioch. Xusro’s attitude was not exceptional. In general, the kings guaranteed the freedom of religion, settled groups who shared ethnicity, religion or language in the same places, and awarded economic and social prestige to the skilled workers — measures and principles that compensated at least a part of the deported population to some extent for the loss of their home country.968 Indeed, for centuries there is no attestation of any resistance of the deported population against their fate.

However, one should probably not idealise the policy of the Sasanian kings. Our sources represent the views of aprivileged part of society and tend to focus on the norms, activities and achievements of the powerful, mostly of individual emperors and kings. The described ‘cultural exchange’ cannot have taken place without great human suffering among the captives.969 Nevertheless, we are left to speculate about the actual circumstances of the deportations. The Byzantine historian Zonaras can probably not be trusted when he claims that on their journey from Antioch, the cities of Cilicia and Caesarea in Cappadocia those captured by Sapur I (240—72) received very little food and were driven to water holes like cattle in order that no water had to be carried along for them.85 Similarly, Agathias’ accusation that Sapur I had not been able to gain profit from his conquests because he had left nothing but mountains of corpses86 must be judged as atrocity propaganda against the Eastern neighbour.87 It would appear that such comments do an injustice to Sapur I and other rulers, who primarily sought to use the specialised knowledge of Western workers for the benefit of their own empire.