The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, 395-700 AD

THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITY

persisted with the Zoroastrian establishment, but by the end of the sixth cen-
tury the religious ferment in the Near East as a whole was felt at the highest
level. Imperial policy was also dictated by realism. What might seem a strange
decision on the part of Maurice, to support his natural enemy rather than to
profit from the internal discord in the Sasanian kingdom, as some urged, was
both a demonstration of solidarity between kings and a hardheaded recogni-
tion of reality; neither side could or would aim at the total defeat of the other.
Each side knew the strengths and weaknesses of the other from centuries
of experience, and Maurice himself is credited with the Strategikon, a military
manual discussing all aspects of late Roman warfare including the military
characteristics of the Persians.^17

ThessalonicaConstantinople

Nicomedia

Athens Artaxata

Melitene

Antioch

Resafa

Damascus

Hira

Gadara

Jerusalem

Gaza

Aila

Ctesiphon

San’a

Dvin

Medina

Mecca

SASANIAN

EMPIRE

ROMAN

EMPIRE

EGYPT ARABIA

NUBIA

AXUM/

ETHIOPIA

Alexandria

CYPRUS

HIMYAR

ARMENIA

Lake

Van

Mediterranean

Sea

Red

Sea

Indian Ocean

Persian

Gulf

Caspian

Sea

Black Sea

SINAI

R. Tig

ris

R.Eu

phra

tes

R. Ni

le

0 1000 km

Map 9.1 The east in the early seventh century