Review: The Last Great War of Antiquity, James Howard-Johnson
By Andrew Montiveo
In Kermanšah in Western Iran, visitors can see ancient mountainside reliefs of Persian kings. One immense relief shows only a frame. Most historians attribute it to Khosrow II, one of the last kings of the Sassanid Dynasty. One can view the unfinished work as a metaphor for its subject’s monumental and unfulfilled ambition.
Khosrow died in a coup d'état in 628 at the losing end of war with the Byzantine Empire. That war is the subject of James Howard-Johnson’s new book, The Last Great War of Antiquity. The author, an emeritus fellow at Corpus Christi College, examines the overlooked finale to the Romano-Persian Wars. More than a chronicle of events, The Last Great War of Antiquity analyzes the war’s belligerents, sets the socio-political backdrop, and breaks down the opposing militaries and strategies. At the same, Howard-Johnson does a masterful job sorting conflicting dates from ancient sources to create a coherent timeline and narrative.
Byzantium and Persia reigned as hegemons in the Near East during Late Antiquity, but faced a changing paradigm with the establishment of new Turkic confederacies across Eurasia. The author frames the murder of Emperor Mavríkios, an ally of Khosrow, in 602 as the Persian king’s opening to adapt to this paradigm:
“A Turkish world empire had materialized, militarily more than a match for Iran and, in addition, with a well-developed economy and effective governmental system... The Sasanian Empire had to adjust to changed circumstances, and had to reorient itself to the east. Consequently, the Roman [Byzantine] problem needed to be dealt with once and for all.” (Pg. 119)
Dealing with that problem meant war. To lend moral justification, the Persian king hosted a pretender (who may or may not have been the late Mavríkios’s son) and promoted his war as one of justice against a tyrant.
Within a decade, however, that tyrant would be dead. Irákleios (“Heraclius” in Anglicised form), son of a Byzantine governor in North Africa, led a revolt that toppled the usurper. However, his revolt diverted Byzantine soldiers from the eastern front and created factional strife across the empire. Enemies, including the Persians, took advantage and overran the frontiers.
One might think the Persian conquest of the Byzantine East Mediterranean would be a messy affair. The Sassanid Dynasty practiced the Zoroastrian religion and fostered Christian sects condemned by the Byzantine Church. However, Howard-Johnson describes a calm transition:
“There was no perceptible change in the tempo of life under the occupation which might be attributable to the Persians. Great affairs of state, high politics, and warfare made little impact on society at large at that time... Only on rare occasions, when the fighting was concentrated in a small area or when systematic degradation of whole regions of an enemy state became a strategic aim, did war really impinge on everyday life in the localities.” (Pg. 163)
Victory brought unwelcome consequences. Khosrow, buoyed by conquests, disregarded his nobility and ruled by his will alone. He showed growing contempt toward anyone who questioned his supremacy, seen in his execution of Byzantine ambassadors and Arabian vassals.
Irákleios spent the 610s resorting to desperate means to stall and build an expeditionary force. After a fruitless campaign in 613, the emperor begged Avar and Persian rulers to suspend hostilities. His humiliating pleas and tributes paid off: Irákleios led his new field army on a victorious counter-offensive in Anatolia in 622. Used to years of Byzantine capitulation, Irákleios's swift and dynamic maneuvers bewildered Persian troops. The emperor and his generals studied centuries’ worth of Greco-Roman military treatises to enhance their armies’ organization, mobility, and adaptability.
Yet the emperor’s “greatest achievement as a general,” says Howard-Johnson, “was his masterly use of intelligence. He was ever alive to the possibility of planting false information in the enemy’s mind. It might be conveyed by deserters, by rumours put into circulation, by official but covert propaganda, and by deliberately misleading actions. The objectives were to deceive the enemy about Roman intentions, to foster dissension between commanders in the field and the political authorities at home, and, in general, to create uncertainty in the minds of enemy generals and their men.” (Pg. 363)
Irákleios outdid himself with his next counter-offensive in 624: The Byzantine force surprised Khosrow, who was on site to prepare his field army for the conquest of Western Anatolia. Khosrow fled, abandoning his field army to encirclement and annihilation. Irákleios followed up this victory by plundering Northwestern Iran, ravaging Zoroastrian temples, and negotiating an alliance with the Khazar khanate in Transcaucasia.
A failed Avar/Persian siege on Byzantium in summer 626 served as the last gasp of Khosrow’s efforts. Irákleios, having already destroyed several Persian field armies, was soon marching toward the Persian capital, Tisfun. Before the Byzantine emperor could besiege the city, Persian nobles toppled and executed Khosrow in early 628.
The new Persian régime began negotiations with the Byzantine emperor, but securing peace proved as difficult then as now. It took two years for both sides to settle on boundaries and a timeline for withdrawals. A problem lay with Persian troops stationed in the Byzantine provinces: The soldiers didn’t recognize the new Persian king, thus forcing Irákleios to negotiate with them separately.
Irákleios would achieve his apogee with a triumphal march into Jerusalem in 629. His celebrations contrasted with the chaos in the Persian court, where over a dozen people jostled for the throne within four years. By the time the dust settled in the middle 630s, both states would face a formidable new power in the Arabian Islamic Caliphate. In less than a decade, the Arabs would shatter Byzantine and Persian armies and overrun the Near East.
How did a coalition of Arabian tribesmen defeat the Near East’s two hegemons so quickly? The traditional view holds that the war exhausted the Byzantines and Sassanids. Howard-Johnson refutes this. He devotes much of the book’s chapter to discounting the notion, arguing that the empires came away with large, well-prepared veteran armies and intact economies.
What caused the dramatic shift when faced with the Islamic tide? Howard-Johnson sums that "the defeats which they [Byzantium and Persia] suffered are largely attributable to the strength and sagacity…of the Arabs." (Pg. 378)
In other words: The Arabs were that good.
It's a lazy conclusion compared to the thoroughness of the book's earlier analyses. Surprisingly, Howard-Johnson sweeps aside accounts of Irákleios's mental decline in the 630s–which would help explain the anemic Byzantine defense against the Arabs.
The Last Great War of Antiquity is a profound examination of an essential but overlooked chapter in Near Eastern history. Some of the author's conclusions are suspect, but his research and analysis of the war itself are superb. This book is a rewarding read for any student of Byzantine or Persian history.
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Andrew Montiveo is a writer based in Los Angeles who covers film, transportation, and history. A graduate of the University of California, Irvine, he has contributed to The Worcester Review, Global Politics Magazine, and The Drive.
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