Battle of Herat 484
| Battle of Herat 484 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Hephthalite Empire | Sasanian Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Khushnavaz |
Peroz I † Mihran † | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
The Battle of Herat, which took place in 484, was a military confrontation held between the Sasanian empire, consisting of at least 100,000 men,[1] under the command of Peroz I, and a smaller Hephthalite army commanded by Khushnavaz. The outcome of the battle was catastrophic for the Sasanians, whose army was almost completely wiped out, and their king, Peroz, fell in battle.
Background
In 459, the White Huns, the Hephthalites, after they had occupied Bactria, challenged Hormuz III, king of the Sasanians. His brother Peroz I, however, defeated and killed the latter with the help of the Hephthalites themselves, and allowed them to settle in the province, and then killed most of his family and began persecuting Christian sects.
On the one hand, Peroz succeeded, though not easily, in maintaining peace with the Byzantine Empire, while on the other he tried to stop the Hephthalites, who had begun to conquer eastern Iran. The Romans supported him by sending auxiliaries, which Peroz used several times in battle. Eventually, however, in 481, soon after routing the Huns, he pursued them into the hills, where the enemy turned the tables and surrounded him. Peroz was thus taken prisoner, and had to give his son Kavad I as a hostage for three years before he could pay the heavy sum that represented his ransom.
The battle
In 484, having freed his son, Peroz formed a huge army and marched to the northeast to stop the Huns, determined to defeat them once and for all. He therefore marched to Balkh, where he established his base, and there rejected the peace proposals of the Hun king Khushnavaz. Peroz therefore advanced toward the city of Herat, but the Huns, anticipating his move, let the Persians advance, unaware that their retreat was cut off in the desert near the city, and it was there that they ambushed them. The army was annihilated, Peroz died in battle, most of his courtiers, including one of his daughters, were taken prisoner, and the city itself was sacked.
Consequences
Taking advantage of the fact that the Sasanian empire was left without a king (and would remain so for two years of full anarchy), the White Huns invaded the empire and sacked it. The Persian nobleman Zarmihr (or Sokhra) partly restored order and raised Balash, one of Peroz's brothers, to the throne, but the threat of the Huns would persist until the arrival of Cosroe I. Balash took no action against the enemies of the empire, particularly the White Huns, to whom he would indeed pay tribute, and, after a reign of four years, was blinded and deposed by his nephew Kavad I, who had meanwhile fled after his father's death and taken refuge with the Hun king, marrying one of his daughters.
Having ascended the throne, however, Kavad I also allegedly donated tribute to the Huns, and Mazdak, considering him weak, deposed him in 496, forcing him to flee back to the Hun king. After two years' stay, the latter granted him 30,000 warriors with whom he would regain the throne.
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