Khosrow II (spelled Chosroes II in classical sources; and Khosrau), commonly known as Khosrow Parviz (New Persian , "Khosrow the Victorious"), is considered to be the last great monarch of pre-Islamic Iran, ruling the Sasanian Empire from 590 to 628, including an interruption of one year.
Khosrow II was the son of Hormizd IV (reigned 579–590), and the grandson of Khosrow I (reigned 531–579). He was the last emperor of Iran to have a lengthy reign before the Muslim conquest of Iran, which began five years after his execution. He lost his throne, then regained it with the help of the Eastern Roman emperor Maurice, and, a decade later, went on to emulate the feats of the Achaemenids, conquering the rich Roman provinces of the Middle East; much of his reign was spent in wars with the Eastern Roman Empire and struggling against usurpers such as Bahram Chobin and Vistahm.
Khosrow II began a war against the Eastern Roman Empire in 602, allegedly to avenge the murder of his ally, Maurice. Persian forces captured much of the Roman territory, earning Khosrow II the epithet "the Victorious". The Siege of Constantinople (626) was unsuccessful, and Heraclius, now allied with Turks, started a risky but successful counterattack deep into the Persian heartland. Dissatisfied with the war, the empire's feudal families supported a coup in which Khosrow II was deposed and killed by his estranged son Sheroe, who took power as Kavad II. This led to a civil war and interregnum in the empire and the reversal of all Sasanian gains in the war against the Romans.
In works of Persian literature such as Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and Nizami Ganjavi's (1141–1209) Khosrow and Shirin, a famous tragic romance and a highly elaborated fictional version of Khosrow's life made him one of the greatest heroes of the culture, as much a lover as a monarch. Khosrow and Shirin tells the story of his love for the originally Aramean princess Shirin, who becomes his queen after a lengthy courtship strewn with mishaps and difficulties.
Name
is the New Persian variant of his name used by scholars; in Middle Persian, his name is , which derives from Avestan ("he who has good fame"). The name is rendered in Greek as Chosroes () and in Arabic as Kisra. He was given the epithet (New Persian / ), meaning "victorious." His name in combination with the epithet is attested in Georgian as (Juansher Juansheriani, writing around the year 800) and in Armenian as .
Background Khosrow II was born in ; he was the son of Hormizd IV and an unnamed noblewoman from the House of Ispahbudhan, one of the Seven Great Houses of Iran. Her brothers, Vinduyih and Vistahm, were to have a profound influence on Khosrow II's early life. Khosrow's paternal grandfather was the famed emperor Khosrow I (), whilst his paternal grandmother was the daughter of the khagan of the Khazars. Khosrow is first mentioned in the 580s, when he was at Partaw, the capital of Caucasian Albania. During his stay there, he served as its governor and managed to end the Kingdom of Iberia and turn it into a Sasanian province. Furthermore, Khosrow II also served as the governor of Arbela in Upper Mesopotamia sometime before his accession to the throne.
Rebellion of Bahram Chobin Overthrow of Hormizd IV and accession
In 590, Hormizd IV had his prominent general Bahram Chobin disgraced and dismissed. Bahram, infuriated by Hormizd's actions, responded by rebelling, and due to his noble status and great military knowledge, was joined by his soldiers and many others. He then appointed a new governor for Khorasan, and afterwards set out for the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon. The legitimacy of the House of Sasan was based on acceptance that the halo of kingship, the farr, was given to the first Sasanian emperor, Ardashir I () and his family following the latter's conquest of the Parthian Empire. This was now, however, disputed by Bahram Chobin, thus marking the first time in Sasanian history that a Parthian dynast challenged the legitimacy of the Sasanian family by rebelling.
Meanwhile, Hormizd tried to come to terms with his brothers-in-law Vistahm and Vinduyih, who, according to the Syriac language writer Joshua the Stylite, both "equally hated Hormizd". The two brothers overthrew Hormizd in a seemingly bloodless palace revolution. They had Hormizd blinded with a red-hot needle, and put Khosrow II on the throne. Sometime in the summer of 590, the two brothers then had Hormizd killed, with at least the implicit approval of Khosrow II. Nevertheless, Bahram Chobin continued his march to Ctesiphon, now with the pretext of claiming to avenge Hormizd.
Khosrow then took a carrot and stick attitude, and wrote a message to Bahram Chobin, stressing his rightful claim to the Sasanian kingship: "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 Sasanians 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."
Flight
Bahram Chobin, however, ignored his warning—a few days later, he reached the Nahrawan Canal near Ctesiphon, where he fought Khosrow's men, who were heavily outnumbered, but managed to hold Bahram Chobin's men back in several clashes. However, Khosrow's men eventually began losing their morale, and were in the end defeated by Bahram Chobin's forces. Khosrow, together with his two uncles, his wives, and a retinue of 30 nobles, thereafter fled to Byzantine territory, while Ctesiphon fell to Bahram Chobin. Bahram Chobin declared himself king of kings in the summer of 590, asserting that the first Sasanian king Ardashir I () had usurped the throne of the Arsacids, and that he now was restoring their rule.
Bahram Chobin tried to support his cause with the Zoroastrian apocalyptic belief that by the end of Zoroaster's millennium, chaos and destructive wars with the Hephthalites/Huns and the Romans occur, and then a saviour would appear. Indeed, the Sasanians had misidentified Zoroaster's era with that of the Seleucid Empire (312 BCE), which put Bahram Chobin's life almost at the end of Zoroaster's millennium, he was therefore hailed by many as the promised savior, Kay Bahram Varjavand. Bahram was to re-establish the Parthian Empire and commenced a new millennium of dynastic rule. He started minting coins, on the front of which he is depicted as an exalted figure, bearded and wearing a crenellation-shaped crown with two crescents of the moon, whilst the reverse shows the traditional fire altar flanked by two attendants. Regardless, many nobles and priests still chose to side with the inexperienced and less dominant Khosrow II.
In order to get the attention of the Byzantine emperor Maurice (r. 582–602), Khosrow II went to Roman Syria, and sent a message to the Sasanian occupied city of Martyropolis to stop their resistance against the Byzantines, but with no avail. He then sent a message to Maurice, and requested his help to regain the Sasanian throne, which the Byzantine emperor agreed with; in return, the Byzantines would re-gain sovereignty over the cities of Amida, Carrhae, Dara and Martyropolis. Furthermore, Iran was required to stop intervening in the affairs of the Kingdom of Iberia and Armenia, effectively ceding control of Lazistan to the Byzantines.
Return to Iran
In 591, Khosrow moved to Constantia and prepared to invade Bahram Chobin's territories in Mesopotamia, while Vistahm and Vinduyih were raising an army in Adurbadagan under the observation of the Byzantine commander John Mystacon, who was also raising an army in Armenia. After some time, Khosrow, along with the Byzantine commander of the south, Comentiolus, invaded Mesopotamia. During this invasion, Nisibis and Martyropolis quickly defected to them, and Bahram Chobin's commander Zatsparham was defeated and killed. One of Bahram Chobin's other commanders, Bryzacius, was captured in Mosul and had his nose and ears cut off, and was thereafter sent to Khosrow, where he was killed. Khosrow II and the Byzantine general Narses then penetrated deeper into Bahram's territory, seizing Dara and then Mardin in February, where Khosrow was re-proclaimed king. Shortly after this, Khosrow sent one of his Iranian supporters, Mahbodh, to capture Ctesiphon, which he managed to accomplish.
At the same time a force of 8,000 Iranians under Vistahm and Vinduyih and 12,000 Armenians under Mushegh II Mamikonian invaded Adurbadagan. Bahram Chobin tried to disrupt the force by writing a letter to Mushegh II, the letter said: "As for you Armenians who demonstrate an unseasonable loyalty, did not the house of Sasan destroy your land and sovereignty? Why otherwise did your fathers rebel and extricate themselves from their service, fighting up until today for your country?" Bahram Chobin in his letter promised that the Armenians would become partners of the new Iranian empire ruled by a Parthian dynastic family if he accepted his proposal to betray Khosrow II. Mushegh, however, rejected the offer.
Bahram Chobin was then defeated at the Battle of Blarathon, forcing him to flee with 4,000 men eastwards. He marched towards Nishapur, where he defeated a pursuing army as well as an army led by a Karenid nobleman at Qumis. Constantly troubled, he crossed the Oxus river, where he was received honorably by the Khagan of the Turks, who was most likely Birmudha—the same Turkic prince that Bahram Chobin had defeated and captured a few years earlier during his wars against the Turks. Bahram Chobin entered his service, and was appointed as a commander in the army, achieving further military accomplishments there. Bahram Chobin became a highly popular figure after saving the Khagan from a conspiracy instigated by the latter's brother Byghu (conceivably an incorrect translation of yabghu). Khosrow II, however, could not feel safe as long as Bahram Chobin lived, and succeeded in having him assassinated. The assassination was reportedly achieved through distribution of presents and bribes between the members of the Turkic royal family, notably the queen. What remained of Bahram Chobin's supporters went back to northern Iran and joined the rebellion of Vistahm (590/1–596 or 594/5–600).
Consolidation of the empire Domestic affairs and relations with the Byzantines With Khosrow's rule now restored, his aim was to consolidate his grip over his realm, which included showing tolerance and support to his Christian subjects. His wife Shirin—a Christian from Khuzestan—was the most influential of his wives, playing an important role in the royal favour that the Mesopotamian Christians enjoyed. She had a church and monastery constructed near the palace in Ctesiphon, which was used to receive a portion of the treasury for the wages of the clergy and their vestments. The Arab Lakhmid kingdom, a client state located at al-Hira and its surroundings, could now openly convert to the Church of the East without angering the Sasanian court.