The Sasanian Empire... unconquerable?

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

The question is simple (oh, I apologize for terrorizing the late antiquity mod forums with questions like these) - why, even though the statistics of win:loss so strongly favored the Romans, were they unable to calm the eastern frontier? Why didn't they just keep sacking Ctesiphon until Persia collapsed?

[The excited one]

The question is simple (oh, I apologize for terrorizing the late antiquity mod forums with questions like these) - why, even though the statistics of win:loss so strongly favored the Romans, were they unable to calm the eastern frontier? Why didn't they just keep sacking Ctesiphon until Persia collapsed?

sadly true the romans keep winning against the persians but sadly unable to like keep sacking the city until it collasped since the persians can simply replentish their troops from media as well as the far east (also the lucrative silk road is in those regions therefore the persians can strike back), tarjan was once even try to impose his rule in Ctesiphon but it collasped straight after his death as well as jewish revolts that prevent the romans focus on the persians. Also theres administrative problems on ruling such a far distance land which is even further than the distance from rome to the hadrian wall its so far away that the romans can't simply conquer it they can only fight a war of attrition to each other for centuries which consequently letting the forces of Islam crush the both exhausted sides.

[jermagon]

Also the Roman empire was overextended already, and from 3rd onward they had a serious problem with pushing back the Germanic tribes from the Roman territories, the Roman emperors were a ware that if they invade Persia they will have to deploy many legions from allover the empire o fight the persians,thus leaving the Roman frontiers in Europe exposed, not to mention that the mountainous terrain of Persia, so imagine Rome fights Persia for years to conquer the Persian empire without a success the outcome of the war would be devastating to the Romans specially the economic aspect.

and remember that when the Persians tried to conquer the eastern Roman empire in the 7th century, and they partially succeeded to conquer all the eastern provinces and they besieged the Roman capital itself, but at the end they were decisively defeated by Heraclitus and they were forced to abandon the provinces they conquered, so ultimate result of this war is no one won the war.
on contrary the Persian empire was awakened they lost alot of men and the economy was declining, not to mention the internal strife and the instability in the Persian court (Qabadh killed his father Khusroh and he died 6 month later, then Sharahrbaraz assumed the throne for a short time before he was assassinated)

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

But still, the Persians did not win a single war with the Romans after Edessa. They couldn't even defeat the Romans in the field.

[Pompeius Magnus]

Cocroach, you're right.

When Belisarius came to the east to organize the defense it is described by Procopius that Belisarius was angry about the general constitution of the Roman troops near the persian border and about the mobile troops as well. But even with those "humble" soldiers (ironically) he was able to push back the Persians (just look at the battle of Dara). The key element for the success was the Roman strategy in general and the Belisarian organisation. But later more about this...

You can compare this situation a little bit with the russian campaign of Napoleon.
Even if it`s another time period - the cause and effect is the same.
Napoleon was able to move quickly into the russian territories - even able to sack the capital Moscow.
The russian empire was not able to check the frensh army with its numerous elite units during the summer campaign.
Finally, the campaign ended in a disastrous defeat:
- the climate (russian winter) was an important factor
- furthermore: the russians had the space due to their huge country to retreat the troops far east and make the needed evasion maneuvres.
- ....and the frensh supply-lines were completely overstreched within a short time because the advance of the frensh troops was very fast.

Those reasons are also valid concerning the 2WW (Germany vs. Russia). Basically the same situation, even if the german army was a logistic-monster, they were not able to supply all troops equally

So, it is well known that the winter isn't cold at all in Mesopotamia, but the summer periode has its own rules for a full equipped marching army - partially deployed and coming from the green mild valleys of Asia Minor, greece and Thracia (or just think about the gallo-roman auxillaries from Julians campaign).
And even if there were some important rivers - ...beside the urban centers the climatical situation was difficult as well.

The Romans were not able to perform a slow and time consuming campaign. An army needs food and money. And the roman army was very expensive.
The Romans were invaders - operating in the persian hemisphere. Their only chance to finish the war was a quick campaign - always ending in a kind of forced reconciliation - and then leaving the country as fast as possible.
What is the benefit for the Romans if they conquer the persian capital if 90% of the population has an hostile attitude - and finally the persians burn down their own houses, poison water wells, burn down farms and fields to abolish the food - just to harass the roman army (and we have enough tales that this happend).

In my opinion the Romans had - even in the 6th century - still an advantage concerning their military strength compared to the Sasanian army. The purported weakness of localized Limitanei or defensive operating Stratiotai of the 6th century in the Oriens is provable wrong.
(Procopius is complaining about the Stratiotai - but he was a very special proponent of cavalry. Malalas and Agathias have a much more positive opinion about Roman infantry).
And even if persians troops had an high degree of training and qualified manpower - I doubt that the percentage had the same rate/level like that of the Romans.
I think that the romans had a higher proportion of professional troops compared to the Sasanian army (percentagewise).
If Roman historians claim that a high number of persian troops were of poor quality then it's possible that they exaggerate - however, it would also be wrong to ignore those tales.
We know that the Sasanians had very specialised "first-class" infantry troops - but was it the bulk of the army?

The persians were sometimes exerted to avoid big battles in open field and moved back to east.
So, if the military segment was not the reason of the failed campaigns against Sasanian Persia we have to look for other reasons. And then I come again back to the logistical and climatical reasons as described above. A temporarily victory was probably possible (not always, but sometimes) - but all emperors or generals were aware that it was not possible to occupy Sasanian Persia permanently.

But that's just my elaboration and opinion.

Regards
pm

edit:
@Cocroach
I have changed the name of the thread. The former name "Why?" was imo too expressionless. The discussion (or the topic) is interesting enough to keep the thread alive for a long time.

[Kiyan_the_Great]

I am very glad that this has come to my attention, most comments i've read here are very roman-centric.
For example the ratio of loss of Sassanians in fighting with the romans.
This view is very wrong and biased, Why?
1. Majority of Primary Sources were from the roman side and hostile towards persians.
2. Being overstretched is just a convenient excuse for not being able to conquer Persia, Conquering persia(or atleast turning it into a vassal kingdom) was in rome's best interest because in contrast to any Western or northern european province, persia wouldve empowered Roman economy. Sassanian Persia controlled most of fertile mesopotamia and the prosperous silk road.
There are a couple of very good reads in regarding to Roman-Persian Wars,

Rome and Persia in Late antiquity is specifically one of them,

P.S=Persia in contrast to Rome had little desire of conquering rome, and had to deal with more serious threats coming from east and north east (Hephtalites, Turks, Kushans and Remainder of Sakas). And by the way Islam wouldve conquered Byzantines, if it wasnt for impregnable constantinople(matter of fact it took early modern artillery and weaponry to finally take down constantinople). Muslims won almost all of asia minor, and it wasnt until 200 years later that the byzantines began to regain the lost territories.

[Pompeius Magnus]

First of all thanks for your interesting input. Clear statements are the spice for all discussions and I like it.

But I have also to criticize something. You say that most sources are coming from the Romans. That implies indirectly that all the theories about the problems of the Sasanian state (military as well as economical) are based on roman tales and therefore they have to be wrong.
This seems a little bit too "across-the-board" and is conceptual problematic. Furthermore it is in my opinion a vice to say always that roman historians in general were not authentic. Anyway.

The majority of my sources are from Jarir al-Tabari. He is a very neutral and eloquent writer/author when he wrote about the "ancients" - a man who gave many detailed informations about sasanian tax-system, juristic, military as well as about the economy, the persian art, the reforms and so on.

I'm in the lucky situation to have some of his relevant papers (german translation of "die Annalen"), analyzed by Franz Altheim and Ruth Stiehl and my elaboration is still ongoing. But that what I have read yet is not showing a solid and superior state.
It explains a state which was deeply divided after the Mazdakism uprisings. The ancient nobility was in a identity crisis and tried to find its way in a new system which was introduced by Khosrau I.
Jarir al-Tabari lived in the early 9th century and he had still access too many Sasanian literature - literature which was lost centuries later.
Those readings are especially interesting for those who always claim to be specialized for the late sasanian time era.

...
to the other question
Yes, Mesopotamia had green areas - and by the way that's what I said in my previous post - but that's only half the truth. Beside the large rivers and green valleys, Mesopotamia is semi-arid (in the case of Mesopotamia it is actually a hot steppe) with a vast desert expanse in the north.
And I fear it is indeed hard to handle this for a full equipped army. But I personally never walked down the same route by foot as the Romans did. In this case it is speculative from my side.
But climatical and geographical circumstances as well as supply lines are never an "excuse" for something, they are a fact - that's at least what I have learned during my conscription in the german army - that was by the way near Koblenz in Mayen/Andernach.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

But I personally never walked down the same route by foot as the Romans did.

And even then you couldn't really get a proper view of what they had to go through; the climate changed quite a bit since Antiquity (Alright, so the climate in that area got harsher )

[Pompeius Magnus]

The Sasanians were masters of underground watering, they built channels and tunnels under and over the earth to bring the water from rivers and water-reservoirs to the hinterland.
In my opinion they were far more developed than the romans concerning the watering. keywords: band-e Kaisar or the countless qanāts, built all over Mesopotamia.
It is no question that Mesopotamia had green and well waterized areas but it was not covering the complete area. To march with an army of more than 25.000 soldiers was at least a logistic challange.

[Kiyan_the_Great]

First of all thanks for your interesting input. Clear statements are the spice for all discussions and I like it.

But I have also to criticize something. You say that most sources are coming from the Romans. That implys indirectly that all the theories about the problems of the Sasanian state (military as well as economical) are based on roman tales and therefore they have to be wrong.
This seems a little bit too "across-the-board" and is conceptual problematic. Furthermore it is in my opinion a vice to say always that roman historians in general were not authentic. Anyway.

The majority of my sources are from Jarir al-Tabari. He is a very neutral and eloquent writer/author when he wrote about the "ancients" - a man who gave many detailed informations about sasanian tax-system, juristic, military as well as about the economy, the persian art, the reforms and so on.

I'm in the lucky situation to have some of his relevant papers (german translation of "die Annalen"), analyzed by Franz Altheim and Ruth Stiehl and my elaboration is still ongoing. But that what I have read yet is not showing a solid and superior state.
It explains a state which was deeply divided after the Mazdakism uprisings. The ancient nobility was in a identity crisis and tried to find its way in a new system which was introduced by Khosrau I.
Jarir al-Tabari lived in the early 9th century and he had still access too many Sasanian literature - literature which was lost centuries later
Those readings are especially interesting for those who always claim to be specialized for the late sasanian time era.

Thats awesome that you have had a chance to read tabari himself, he's one of the few iranian sources in a vast sea of western ones, and he does draw on many iranian sources as well. However Tabari himself is presumably a secondary source, there are some primary sources scattered in armenian, middle persian and syriac from the western part. Romans were not as overwhelmingly successful as they seemingly were,
p.s Khosrou I's Reforms were not because of the identity crisis of the nobility per say, it was to continue his fathers quest of minimizing the power of the extremely powerful and rich nobility at the cost of supporting the lesser nobilities known as 'dehghans' and to add an element to reenergize the economy, keep in mind that these dehghans were not accountable to the bigger nobility because many royal lands were reformed and given to these dehghans.
the legacy of Khosrou I and his fathers reforms has outlived the sassanian empire all the way into the abbasids era,
if Khosrou II wasnt to attack byzantine and overspend the empire's resources on his failed attempt at conquering byzantine, and instead wouldve worked to continue reformations, sassanians arguably wouldve survived the arab invasion.

[Pompeius Magnus]

However Tabari himself is presumably a secondary source, .

as I said in my previous post - Tabari lived during the 9th century - that implies automaticaly that we are not talking about primary sources.
Tabari was still in a lucky situation to have access to primary sources of the late sasanian era before many literature was lost - and that makes him to one of the most important sources of the last 100 years of sasanian rule. The love for details is incredible.

[juvenus]

I am very glad that this has come to my attention, most comments i've read here are very roman-centric.
For example the ratio of loss of Sassanians in fighting with the romans.
This view is very wrong and biased, Why?
1. Majority of Primary Sources were from the roman side and hostile towards persians.
2. Being overstretched is just a convenient excuse for not being able to conquer Persia, Conquering persia(or atleast turning it into a vassal kingdom) was in rome's best interest because in contrast to any Western or northern european province, persia wouldve empowered Roman economy. Sassanian Persia controlled most of fertile mesopotamia and the prosperous silk road.
There are a couple of very good reads in regarding to Roman-Persian Wars,

Rome and Persia in Late antiquity is specifically one of them,

P.S=Persia in contrast to Rome had little desire of conquering rome, and had to deal with more serious threats coming from east and north east (Hephtalites, Turks, Kushans and Remainder of Sakas). And by the way Islam wouldve conquered Byzantines, if it wasnt for impregnable constantinople(matter of fact it took early modern artillery and weaponry to finally take down constantinople). Muslims won almost all of asia minor, and it wasnt until 200 years later that the byzantines began to regain the lost territories.

ironically, even though u rendered others as being romano-centric, ur own post is decisively sasanio-centric.
the problems of the logistical nature encountered by the romans were immense! it's not an excuse whatsoever. pm nicely compared it with napoleone and the nazi germany. it was utterly difficult to maintain any form of continous supply lines across such a terrain, distance and weather conditions.

but even more importantly, ur argument about the potential economy gains versus gains from the european provinces is totally flawed. u see, it is exactly the tremendous cost of supplying an army far away in persia that would have rendered any potential economy gain as useless.
it cannot be more obvious that a post-war profit is directly dependant to a pre-war investment. the province of Dacia was useful exactly for it was close enough and the army to be supplied at a reasonable cost. btw, Dacia was rich with mines if u dont know already.

as for ur remark about the impregneable Constantinople, it's a sign of the roman superior engineering. besides, it wasn't just Constantinople that stopped the muslims. the romans never lost the asia minor to them, instead they did exactly what the sassanians did to the romans. and it's called the scorched-earth policy. those formidale forces of islam that swallowed persia never managed to hold asia minor for any significant duration.

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

That's more a matter of geography I'd say. And Constantinople was really almost impregnable to any force attacking from Asia anyway, as long as the Romans could defend the sea, there was no real way of taking the city.

[Kiyan_the_Great]

ironically, even though u rendered others as being romano-centric, ur own post is decisively sasanio-centric.
the problems of the logistical nature encountered by the romans were immense! it's not an excuse whatsoever. pm nicely compared it with napoleone and the nazi germany. it was utterly difficult to maintain any form of continous supply lines across such a terrain, distance and weather conditions.

but even more importantly, ur argument about the potential economy gains versus gains from the european provinces is totally flawed. u see, it is exactly the tremendous cost of supplying an army far away in persia that would have rendered any potential economy gain as useless.
it cannot be more obvious that a post-war profit is directly dependant to a pre-war investment. the province of Dacia was useful exactly for it was close enough and the army to be supplied at a reasonable cost. btw, Dacia was rich with mines if u dont know already.

as for ur remark about the impregneable Constantinople, it's a sign of the roman superior engineering. besides, it wasn't just Constantinople that stopped the muslims. the romans never lost the asia minor to them, instead they did exactly what the sassanians did to the romans. and it's called the scorched-earth policy. those formidale forces of islam that swallowed persia never managed to hold asia minor for any significant duration.

Well my friend as long as we're talking about logistics, Alexander III of Macedon had a lot less resources at his disposal and he conquered persia, while it is true that the realities of the time differed from eachother, we cannot just discuss the inability of romans to conquer persia only because they were short on logistics. Time and again the "Alexander Mystique" compelled many romans to try to conquer persia , crassus, trajan, valerian, and last but not least Julian the Apostate, and none of them went any farther than Mesopotamia. So that shows that partho-sassanian forces were very much tough foes to deal with, and Sassanians biggest concern wasn't always rome, there was all sorts of invasions of steppe peoples from the north east from the remaning sakas and hephtalites to the new coming turks.
In regards to romans inability to conquer persia if we're talking about one specific campaign then logistics could come in as a reason, but when there were numeroys invasions of by romans and when all of them failed to subdue the persian/parthians. The explaination also lies in the fact that Persian/Parthian Army (cataphract, horse archer combination) was too much for the romans to handle.
Now as to romans never loosing asia minor, the Byzantines lost all of north africa, mesopotamia to the Muslims, the fact that asia minor wasnt occupied by muslims wasnt because they couldnt capture it,
it was because of a mutual understanding between the two sides. You see when the muslim expansion began, they immediately took byzantine lands in mesopotamia, and there was no response or resistance from the byzantines however when they muslims tried to take persian lands, persians sent armies to try to subdue the muslims, so the Abu Bakr and Umar saw Persia as a more serious target than Byzantines.
And as far as Constantinople goes, its marvelous engineering not withstanding, it was also its strategic location that made it impregnable, as a proof look at your precious rome and how it succumbed to 'barbarian invasions' with all its engineering superiority.

I can go on , but that'll make it to long
anyways thats why my friend your school of thought is romano-centric, because you fail to mention realities that would make the situation more complex than Romans > Persians

[demagogos nicator]

I would rename this thread to "The Thread of the Greats" or "Three Greats Thread" (caunting also PM)
Btw interesting discusion here.

[jermagon]

yes it's a very informative thread indeed.

[Kiyan_the_Great]

I would rename this thread to "The Thread of the Greats" or "Three Greats Thread" (caunting also PM)
Btw interesting discusion here.

hahaha, it took me a while but i just got it, lol thank you
im just trying to give the other a side a bit of representation

[juvenus]

Well my friend as long as we're talking about logistics, Alexander III of Macedon had a lot less resources at his disposal and he conquered persia, while it is true that the realities of the time differed from eachother, we cannot just discuss the inability of romans to conquer persia only because they were short on logistics. Time and again the "Alexander Mystique" compelled many romans to try to conquer persia , crassus, trajan, valerian, and last but not least Julian the Apostate, and none of them went any farther than Mesopotamia. So that shows that partho-sassanian forces were very much tough foes to deal with, and Sassanians biggest concern wasn't always rome, there was all sorts of invasions of steppe peoples from the north east from the remaning sakas and hephtalites to the new coming turks.
In regards to romans inability to conquer persia if we're talking about one specific campaign then logistics could come in as a reason, but when there were numeroys invasions of by romans and when all of them failed to subdue the persian/parthians. The explaination also lies in the fact that Persian/Parthian Army (cataphract, horse archer combination) was too much for the romans to handle.
Now as to romans never loosing asia minor, the Byzantines lost all of north africa, mesopotamia to the Muslims, the fact that asia minor wasnt occupied by muslims wasnt because they couldnt capture it,
it was because of a mutual understanding between the two sides. You see when the muslim expansion began, they immediately took byzantine lands in mesopotamia, and there was no response or resistance from the byzantines however when they muslims tried to take persian lands, persians sent armies to try to subdue the muslims, so the Abu Bakr and Umar saw Persia as a more serious target than Byzantines.
And as far as Constantinople goes, its marvelous engineering not withstanding, it was also its strategic location that made it impregnable, as a proof look at your precious rome and how it succumbed to 'barbarian invasions' with all its engineering superiority.

I can go on , but that'll make it to long
anyways thats why my friend your school of thought is romano-centric, because you fail to mention realities that would make the situation more complex than Romans > Persians

interestingly enough, however, i can almost totally agree with everything u said here
true, no roman ever matched Alexander, however, neither did any other general in history for that matter.
in my opinion, there's just one minor problem here:

So that shows that partho-sassanian forces were very much tough foes to deal with, and Sassanians biggest concern wasn't always rome, there was all sorts of invasions of steppe peoples from the north east from the remaning sakas and hephtalites to the new coming turks.

i get what u're saying, but unfortunately u're going sassanio-centric here again. the argument that "Sassi's biggest concern wasn't always rome" is completely unnecessary and useless for this discussion. why? well, do u think that Persia was always the Rome's major concern? or course not. i hope u understand me, it's just irrelevant to mention something that u did because anyone else can comfortably say that opposite is also true. rome, for much of its history had more important engagements everywhere along the Rhine-Danube-Wall frontier.

You see when the muslim expansion began, they immediately took byzantine lands in mesopotamia and there was no response or resistance from the byzantines ...

i suppose ur speaking of the eastern-most territories. still, ur aware that Byzzis responded in full force at Yarmuk and were utterly defeated there, so i'm not sure if ur story about a "mutual understanding" has any credibility since they fought each other ferociously

Time and again the "Alexander Mystique" compelled many romans to try to conquer persia , crassus, trajan, valerian, and last but not least Julian the Apostate, and none of them went any farther than Mesopotamia.

u forgot Severus and Verus (M. Aurelius' co-emperor) but doesn't matter. the very range of the roman advance may be an interesting question...i'm pretty much sure that some historians thought Trajan advanced perhaps as far as the Persian Gulf. has anyone else heard of such a story? again, i heard it once, but it was quite some years ago and there was no real evidence whatsoever, it was just a supposition...would like to know if anyone has a clue about it?

[Pompeius Magnus]

posts moved to tavern on request of Cocroach

@all
the purpose of this thread is to clarify the question if the Sasanian empire was unconquerable. And if so, what were the reasons?

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

One of the reasons could have simply been that the Sassanid armies were not that inferior to Roman ones, and they did have some good commanders.