102 | CHAPTER 4
Not of course that we can understand Rome by looking at her eastern
provinces alone; but these were nevertheless of great strategic, economic,
and cultural importance, ever more so after the foundation of Constanti-
nople and the permanent division of the empire into western and eastern
halves from 395, not to mention the invigoration of Iran by the ambitious
new Sasanid dynasty from 224. This period seems to have witnessed a dis-
tinct southward and eastward shift of Rome’s center of economic gravity.^39
That will in turn have intensified her relationship with Iran, and Iran’s appe-
tite for her wealth. This was manifest especially during the fifth century in
often extravagant Sasanian demands for financial assistance in defending
their northern frontier, in particular the fortified passes through the Cauca-
sus thanks to which the settled, civilized lands of the South were protected
against the barbarians of the North.^40 Constantinople equivocated when she
could; but her continued albeit episodic involvement in the western Medi-
terranean as well, especially in conflict with the Vandals, did not always leave
her a free hand in the East.
Traditional scholarly neglect of the Sasanians is now being overcome;^41
but it is still hard to estimate how realistic was their propaganda about mak-
ing Rome their vassal. Could the Sasanians really have forced her to “cease to
be a Mediterranean power, and turn into a tribute- paying state in an empire
whose centre of gravity would be the Fertile Crescent”?^42 (Mesopotamia was
already the economic powerhouse and administrative hub of the Sasanid
state.) Perhaps, in the first flush of Sasanid self- assertion, Shapur I (241–72)
dreamed of this; after all, in his official propaganda he was able to claim vic-
tory over Gordian III and depict Philip the Arab as a suppliant, and Valerian
as a prisoner of war.^43 What is certain, though, is that the Syro- Mesopotamian
theater was of immense concern to fifth- and sixth- century Roman strate-
gists; they were constantly obliged to consider the aspirations of their eastern
neighbor; they were never, after 395, in a position to offer the Western Em-
pire consistent and effective aid, so that it disappeared in 476; and in that
sense there was no longer a Roman Empire that saw itself as pan- Mediterranean.
And while what is best henceforth called the Eastern Roman Empire saw, in
the fifth century, a rare combination of economic prosperity with peace on
39 B. Ward- Perkins, “Specialized production and exchange,” in CAH 14.346–91.
40 Al- Masʿūdī, Meadows of gold [4:22] 504; Z. Rubin, “The Mediterranean and the dilemma of the
Roman Empire in late Antiquity,” Mediterranean historical review 1 (1986) 38–46.
41 M. G. Morony, “Should Sasanian Iran be included in late Antiquity?,” e- Sasanika 6 (2008) 1–8;
Pourshariati, Decline and fall [1:22] 453–54.
42 Rubin, Mediterranean historical review 1 (1986) [4:40] 46; cf. Sebeos (attributed), Armenian
history [1:30] 122–23, with J. Howard- Johnston’s commentary in Thomson’s translation, 211–12; P. Sar-
ris, Empires of faith (Oxford 2011) 249: “The shah’s decision to reject even the most self- abasing of
Roman overtures signalled his absolute determination to destroy the Roman state once and for all.”
43 Canepa, Two eyes of the earth [2:70] 58–75.