Misplaced Pages

#642357

116-508: The Daylamites or Dailamites ( Middle Persian : Daylamīgān ; Persian : دیلمیان Deylamiyān ) were an Iranian people inhabiting the Daylam —the mountainous regions of northern Iran on the southwest coast of the Caspian Sea , now comprising the southeastern half of Gilan Province . The Daylamites were warlike people skilled in close combat . They were employed as soldiers during

232-508: A "temple" or "shrine"), since monasticism was unknown to the ancient Athenians and their ekklesía had been a popular assembly . The secular historians eschewed the history of the Christian church. Ecclesiastical history was left to a separate genre after Eusebius . However, Cameron has argued convincingly that Procopius's works reflect the tensions between the classical and Christian models of history in 6th-century Constantinople. This

348-492: A Christian Psalter fragment, which still retains all the letter distinctions that Inscriptional Pahlavi had except the one between t and ṭ ; and the Pahlavi found in papyri from the early 7th century CE, which displays even more letter coincidences than Book Pahlavi. The Manichaean script was an abjad introduced for the writing of Middle Persian by the prophet Mani (216–274 CE), who based it on his native variety of

464-454: A conspiracy and was brought before this urban prefect. In fact, some scholars have argued that Procopius died at least a few years after 565 as he unequivocally states in the beginning of his Secret History that he planned to publish it after the death of Justinian for fear he would be tortured and killed by the emperor (or even by general Belisarius) if the emperor (or the general) learned about what Procopius wrote (his scathing criticism of

580-547: A currently more popular one reflecting the Sassanid-era pronunciation, as used by C. Saleman, W. B. Henning and, in a somewhat revised form, by D. N. MacKenzie (1986). The less obvious features of the usual transcription are: A common feature of Pahlavi as well as Manichaean spelling was that the Aramaic letters ṣ and ḥ were adapted to express the sounds /t͡ʃ/ and /h/ , respectively. In addition, both could use

696-474: A different shape from a historical point of view, by under- or overlining them: e.g. the heterogram for andar 'in' is transliterated B YN , since it corresponds to Aramaic byn , but the sign that 'should' have been b actually looks like a g . Within Arameograms, scholars have traditionally used the standard Semitological designations of the Aramaic (and generally Semitic) letters, and these include

812-654: A few of the extreme weather events of 535–536 , although these were presented as a backdrop to Byzantine military activities, such as a mutiny in and around Carthage . He rejoined Belisarius for his campaign against the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy and experienced the Gothic siege of Rome that lasted a year and nine days, ending in mid-March 538. He witnessed Belisarius's entry into the Gothic capital, Ravenna , in 540. Both

928-452: A girdle about the groin: not that she was abashed at revealing that, too, to the audience, but because there was a law against appearing altogether naked on the stage, without at least this much of a fig-leaf. Covered thus with a ribbon, she would sink down to the stage floor and recline on her back. Slaves to whom the duty was entrusted would then scatter grains of barley from above into the calyx of this passion flower, whence geese, trained for

1044-467: A javelin. Their characteristic battle tactic was advancing with a shield wall and using their spears and battle-axes from behind. The Daylamites were most likely adherents of some form of Iranian paganism , while a minority of them were Zoroastrian and Nestorian Christian . According to al-Biruni , the Daylamites and Gilites "lived by the rule laid down by the mythical Afridun ." The Church of

1160-942: A large number of diacritics and special signs expressing the different Semitic phonemes, which were not distinguished in Middle Persian. In order to reduce the need for these, a different system was introduced by D. N. MacKenzie , which dispenses with diacritics as much as possible, often replacing them with vowel letters: A for ʾ , O for ʿ , E for H , H for Ḥ , C for Ṣ , for example ORHYA for ʿRḤYʾ ( bay 'god, majesty, lord'). For ''ṭ'', which still occurs in heterograms in Inscriptional Pahlavi, Θ may be used. Within Iranian words, however, both systems use c for original Aramaic ṣ and h for original Aramaic ḥ , in accordance with their Iranian pronunciation (see below). The letter l , when modified with

1276-569: A less common view is that /x/ and /ɣ/ were uvular instead. Finally, it may be pointed out that most scholars consider the phoneme /w/ as being still a labial approximant, but a few regard it as a voiced labial fricative /v/ . The initial clusters of /s/ and a stop ( /sp-/ , /st-/ , /sk-/ ) had acquired a prosthetic vowel /i/ by the time of the Manichaean Middle Persian texts: istāyišn ( ՙst՚yšn ) 'praise' vs Pahlavi stāyišn ( ՙst՚dšn' ) 'praise'. Stress

SECTION 10

#1732772074643

1392-533: A major Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary was built on the site of the Temple Mount . It is not certain when Procopius died. Many historians—including Howard-Johnson , Cameron , and Geoffrey Greatrex—date his death to 554, but there was an urban prefect of Constantinople ( praefectus urbi Constantinopolitanae ) who was called Procopius in 562. In that year, Belisarius was implicated in

1508-538: A man with legal training. In 527, the first year of the reign of the emperor Justinian   I , he became the legal adviser ( adsessor ) for Belisarius , a general whom Justinian made his chief military commander in a great attempt to restore control over the lost western provinces of the empire. Procopius was with Belisarius on the eastern front until the latter was defeated at the Battle of Callinicum in 531 and recalled to Constantinople. Procopius witnessed

1624-456: A native of Caesarea in the province of Palaestina Prima . He would have received a conventional upper class education in the Greek classics and rhetoric , perhaps at the famous school at Gaza . He may have attended law school, possibly at Berytus (present-day Beirut ) or Constantinople (now Istanbul ), and became a lawyer ( rhetor ). He evidently knew Latin , as was natural for

1740-465: A part in the evolution of the ta'zieh . Estakhri describes the Daylamites as a bold but inconsiderate people, being thin in appearance and having fluffy hair. They practised agriculture and had herds , but only a few horses. They also grew rice, fished, and produced silk textiles . According to al-Muqaddasi , the Daylamites were handsome and had beards. According to the author of the Hudud al-'Alam ,

1856-409: A portrayal of Justinian and Theodora as caricatural villains. The Buildings ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Περὶ Κτισμάτων , Perì Ktismáton ; Latin : De Aedificiis , "On Buildings") is a panegyric on Justinian's public works projects throughout the empire. The first book may date to before the collapse of the first dome of Hagia Sophia in 557, but some scholars think that it is possible that

1972-461: A script derived from Aramaic . This occurred primarily because written Aramaic had previously been the written language of government of the former Achaemenids , and the government scribes had carried that practice all over the empire. This practice had led to others adopting Imperial Aramaic as the language of communications, both between Iranians and non-Iranians. The transition from Imperial Aramaic to Middle Iranian took place very slowly, with

2088-542: A set. They were, however, updated to mid-century before publication, with the latest mentioned event occurring in early 551. The eighth and final book brought the history to 553. The first two books—often known as The Persian War ( Latin : De Bello Persico )—deal with the conflict between the Romans and Sassanid Persia in Mesopotamia , Syria , Armenia , Lazica , and Iberia (present-day Georgia ). It details

2204-442: A sharply different attitude towards Justinian. He is presented as an idealised Christian emperor who built churches for the glory of God and defenses for the safety of his subjects. He is depicted showing particular concern for the water supply, building new aqueducts and restoring those that had fallen into disuse. Theodora, who was dead when this panegyric was written, is mentioned only briefly, but Procopius's praise of her beauty

2320-571: A slow increase of more and more Iranian words so that Aramaic with Iranian elements gradually changed into Iranian with Aramaic elements. Under Arsacid hegemony , this Aramaic-derived writing system for Iranian languages came to be associated with the Parthians in particular (it may have originated in the Parthian chancellories ), and thus the writing system came to be called pahlavi "Parthian" too. Aside from Parthian, Aramaic-derived writing

2436-472: A special horizontal stroke that shows that the pronunciation is /l/ and not /r/, is rendered in the MacKenzie system as ɫ . The traditional system continues to be used by many, especially European scholars. The MacKenzie system is the one used in this article. As for Pahlavi, c is used for the transliteration of original Aramaic ṣ and h for the transliteration of original ḥ . Original Aramaic h , on

SECTION 20

#1732772074643

2552-482: A surviving non-Iranian language. Many habits and customs of the Daylamites have been recorded in historical records. Their men were strikingly tough and capable of lasting terrible privations. They were armed with javelins and battle axes , and had tall shields painted in gray colours. In battle, they would usually form a wall with their shields against the attackers. Some Daylamites would use javelins with burning naphtha . A poetic portrayal of Daylamite armed combat

2668-553: A thousand of these in the Book Pahlavi variety. In addition, their spelling remained very conservative, expressing the pronunciation of the Arsacid period. The two most important subvarieties are: Other known Pahlavi varieties are the early Pahlavi found in inscriptions on coins issued in the province of Pars from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century CE; the relatively conservative Psalter Pahlavi (6th–8th centuries CE), used in

2784-406: Is a major difficulty for scholars. It has also been pointed out that the Pahlavi spelling does not express the 3rd century lenitions, so the letters p , t , k and c express /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ and /z/ after vowels, e.g. šp' for šab 'night' and hc for az 'from'. The rare phoneme /ɣ/ was also expressed by the same letter shape as k (however, this sound value is usually expressed in

2900-432: Is expressed in a synchronic alternation: at least at some stage in late Middle Persian (later than the 3rd century), the consonants /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ appear to have had, after vowels, the fricative allophones [ β ] , [ ð ] , [ɣ] . This is slightly more controversial for /ɡ/ , since there appears to have been a separate phoneme /ɣ/ as well. A parallel development seems to have affected /d͡ʒ/ in

3016-468: Is far more common for the letter l to have that function, as in the example plhw' for farrox . In the relatively rare cases where l does express /l/ , it can be marked as ɫ . Procopius Procopius of Caesarea ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς Prokópios ho Kaisareús ; Latin : Procopius Caesariensis ; c.  500 –565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar and historian from Caesarea Maritima . Accompanying

3132-413: Is fulsome. Due to the panegyrical nature of Procopius's Buildings , historians have discovered several discrepancies between claims made by Procopius and accounts in other primary sources. A prime example is Procopius's starting the reign of Justinian in 518, which was actually the start of the reign of his uncle and predecessor Justin I . By treating the uncle's reign as part of his nephew's, Procopius

3248-580: Is in this particular late form of exclusively written Zoroastrian Middle Persian, in popular imagination the term 'Pahlavi' became synonymous with Middle Persian itself. The ISO 639 language code for Middle Persian is pal , which reflects the post-Sasanian era use of the term Pahlavi to refer to the language and not only the script. In the classification of the Iranian languages, the Middle Period includes those languages which were common in Iran from

3364-399: Is nevertheless often the old pronunciation or a transitional one that is reflected in the Pahlavi spelling. 2. Voiceless stops and affricates, when occurring after vowels as well as other voiced sounds, became voiced: This process is thought not to have been taken place before Sassanid Pahlavi, and it generally is not reflected in Pahlavi spelling. A further stage in this lenition process

3480-585: Is present in Fakhruddin As'ad Gurgani 's Vis and Rāmin . A major disadvantage of the Daylamites was the low amount of cavalry that they had, which compelled them to work with Turkic mercenaries. The Daylamites exaggeratedly mourned over their dead, and even over themselves in failure. In 963, the Buyid ruler of Iraq , Mu'izz al-Dawla , popularized Mourning of Muharram in Baghdad , which may have played

3596-471: Is proven by the fact that he bore the title wahriz , a Daylamite title also used by Khurrazad , the Daylamite military commander who conquered Yemen in 570 during the reign of Khosrow I (r. 531-579), and his Daylamite troops would later play a significant role in the conversion of Yemen to the nascent Islam . The 6th-century Byzantine historian Procopius described the Daylamites as; The equipment of

Daylamites - Misplaced Pages Continue

3712-725: Is spelt mtr' . In contrast, the Manichaean spellings are gʾh , ngʾh , šhr , myhr . Some other words with earlier /θ/ are spelt phonetically in Pahlavi, too: e.g. gēhān , spelt gyhʾn 'material world', and čihr , spelt cyhl 'face'. There are also some other cases where /h/ is spelt /t/ after p : ptkʾl for pahikār 'strife', and /t/ may also stand for /j/ in that position: ptwnd for paywand 'connection'. There are some other phoneme pairs besides /j/ and /d͡ʒ/ that are not distinguished: h (the original Aramaic ḥ ) may stand either for /h/ or for /x/ ( hm for ham 'also' as well as hl for xar 'donkey'), whereas

3828-422: Is supported by Whitby 's analysis of Procopius's depiction of the capital and its cathedral in comparison to contemporary pagan panegyrics. Procopius can be seen as depicting Justinian as essentially God's vicegerent , making the case for buildings being a primarily religious panegyric. Procopius indicates that he planned to write an ecclesiastical history himself and, if he had, he would probably have followed

3944-427: Is that Arsacid word-initial /j/ produced Sassanid /d͡ʒ/ (another change that is not reflected in the Pahlavi spelling). The sound probably passed through the phase /ʒ/ , which may have continued until very late Middle Persian, since Manichaean texts did not identify Indic /d͡ʒ/ with it and introduced a separate sign for the former instead of using the letter for their native sound. Nonetheless, word-initial /j/

4060-566: The Alborz range, between Tabaristan and Gilan . However, the earliest Zoroastrian and Christian sources indicate that the Daylamites originally arrived from eastern Anatolia near the Tigris , where Iranian ethnolinguistic groups, including Zazas , live today. They spoke the Daylami language , a now-extinct Northwestern Iranian language similar to that of the neighbouring Gilites . During

4176-750: The Nika riots of January, 532, which Belisarius and his fellow general Mundus repressed with a massacre in the Hippodrome there. In 533, he accompanied Belisarius on his victorious expedition against the Vandal kingdom in North Africa , took part in the capture of Carthage , and remained in Africa with Belisarius's successor Solomon the Eunuch when Belisarius returned east to the capital. Procopius recorded

4292-672: The Pahlavi Psalter (7th century); these were used until the beginning of the second millennium in many places in Central Asia , including Turpan and even localities in South India . All three differ minimally from one another and indeed the less ambiguous and archaizing scripts of the latter two have helped to elucidate some aspects of the Sasanian-era pronunciation of the former. The vowels of Middle Persian were

4408-520: The Sasanian Empire and in the subsequent Muslim empires. Daylam and Gilan were the only regions to successfully resist the Muslim conquest of Persia , although many Daylamite soldiers abroad accepted Islam. In the 9th century many Daylamites adopted Zaidi Islam . In the 10th century some adopted Isma'ilism , then in the 11th century Fatimid Isma'ilism and subsequently Nizari Isma'ilism . Both

4524-539: The Secret History would not be proof that Procopius hated Justinian or Theodora. Researcher Anthony Kaldellis suggests that the Secret History is a tale of the dangers of "the rule of women". Procopius's perspective was that women's vices vanquished men's virtuous leadership. For Procopius, it was not that women could not lead an empire, but only women demonstrating masculine virtues were suitable as leaders. Rather than Theodora's true possession of strength, it

4640-522: The Vandal kingdom that had occupied Rome's provinces in northwest Africa for the last century. The final four books—known as The Gothic War ( Latin : De Bello Gothico )—cover the Italian campaigns by Belisarius and others against the Ostrogoths . Procopius includes accounts of the 1st and 2nd sieges of Naples and the 1st , 2nd , and 3rd sieges of Rome . He also includes an account of

4756-619: The Wars and the Secret History suggest that his relationship with Belisarius cooled thereafter. When Belisarius was sent back to Italy in 544 to cope with a renewal of the war with the Goths , now led by the able king Totila , Procopius appears to have no longer been on Belisarius's staff. As magister militum , Belisarius was an "illustrious man" ( Latin : vir illustris ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : ἰλλούστριος , illoústrios ); being his adsessor , Procopius must therefore have had at least

Daylamites - Misplaced Pages Continue

4872-682: The Yemeni campaign of Wahriz and in the battles against the forces of Justin II . Some Muslim sources maintain that following the Sasanian defeat in the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah , the 4000-strong Daylamite contingent of the Sasanian guard, along with other Iranian units, defected to the Arab side, converting to Islam. The Daylamites managed to resist the Arab invasion of their own mountainous homeland for several centuries under their own local rulers. Warfare in

4988-658: The imperial variety of the Aramaic alphabet used in the chancelleries of the Achaemenid Empire . As is typical of abjads, they express primarily the consonants in a word form. What sets them apart from other abjads, however, is the use of Heterograms , and more specifically Aramaeograms , i.e. words written in Aramaic (sometimes, in later periods, with distortions) but pronounced in Middle Persian: e.g. LY (Aramaic 'to me') for man 'me, I'. There were about

5104-481: The w and n have the same graphic appearance. Furthermore, letters used as part of Aramaic heterograms and not intended to be interpreted phonetically are written in capitals: thus the heterogram for the word ān is rendered ZK , whereas its phonetic spelling is transliterated as ʾn' (the final vertical line reflects the so-called 'otiose' stroke, see below ). Finally, there is a convention of representing 'distorted/corrupt' letters, which 'should' have appeared in

5220-442: The "old" language (i.e. Middle Persian) and Aramaic-derived writing system. In time, the name of the writing system, pahlavi "Parthian", began to be applied to the "old" Middle Persian language as well, thus distinguishing it from the "new" language, farsi . Consequently, 'pahlavi' came to denote the particularly Zoroastrian, exclusively written, late form of Middle Persian. Since almost all surviving Middle Persian literature

5336-412: The 10th–11th centuries, Middle Persian texts were still intelligible to speakers of Early New Persian. However, there are definite differences that had taken place already by the 10th century: Texts in Middle Persian are found in remnants of Sasanian inscriptions and Egyptian papyri , coins and seals, fragments of Manichaean writings , and Zoroastrian literature , most of which was written down after

5452-792: The 7th-century, the Sassanids were overthrown by the Arabs. Under Arab influence, Iranian languages began to be written in Arabic script (adapted to Iranian phonology ), while Middle Persian began to rapidly evolve into New Persian and the name parsik became Arabicized farsi . Not all Iranians were comfortable with these Arabic-influenced developments, in particular, members of the literate elite, which in Sassanid times consisted primarily of Zoroastrian priests. Those former elites vigorously rejected what they perceived as ' Un-Iranian ', and continued to use

5568-420: The Aramaic distinctions between ḥ and h and between k and q were not always maintained, with the first often replacing the second, and the one between t and ṭ was lost in all but Inscriptional Pahlavi: thus YKTLWN (pronounced о̄zadan ) for Aramaic yqṭlwn 'kill', and YHWWN (pronounced būdan ) for Aramaic yhwwn 'be', even though Aramaic h is elsewhere rendered E . In the rest of this article,

5684-488: The Aramaic script of Palmyrene origin. Mani used this script to write the known book Šābuhrāgān and it continued to be used by Manichaeans until the 9th century to write in Middle Persian, and in various other Iranian languages for even longer. Specifically the Middle Persian Manichaean texts are numerous and thought to reflect mostly the period from the 3rd to the 7th centuries CE. In contrast to

5800-447: The Arsacid sound values, but is known from the more phonetic Manichaean spelling of texts from Sassanid times. As a result of these changes, the voiceless stops and affricates /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , /t͡ʃ/ rarely occurred after vowels – mostly when geminated, which has protected them from the lenition (e.g. waččag , sp. wck' 'child'), and due to some other sound changes. Another difference between Arsacid and Sassanid-era pronunciation

5916-498: The Avesta also retain some old features, most other Zoroastrian Book Pahlavi texts (which form the overwhelming majority of the Middle Persian corpus as a whole) are linguistically more innovative. In view of the many ambiguities of the Pahlavi script, even its transliteration does not usually limit itself to rendering merely the letters as written; rather, letters are usually transliterated in accordance with their origin regardless of

SECTION 50

#1732772074643

6032-466: The Dailamites of the Sasanian army included swords, shield, battle-axe ( tabar-zīn ), slings, daggers, pikes, and two-pronged javelins ( zhūpīn ). Daylamites also took part in the siege of Archaeopolis in 552. They supported the rebellion of Bahrām Chōbin against Khosrow II , but he later employed an elite detachment of 4000 Daylamites as part of his guard. They also distinguished themselves at

6148-429: The Daylamite women took part in agriculture like men. According to Rudhrawari , they were "equals of men in strength of mind, force of character, and participation in the management of affairs." Furthermore, the Daylamites also strictly practised endogamy . Middle Persian "Middle Iranian" is the name given to the middle stage of development of the numerous Iranian languages and dialects . The middle stage of

6264-473: The East had spread among them due to the activities of John of Dailam , and bishoprics are reported in the remote area as late as the 790s, while it is possible that some remnants survived there until the 14th century. The name of the king Muta sounds uncommon, but when in the 9th and 10th centuries Daylamite chieftains appear in the spotlight in massive numbers, their names are undoubtedly pagan Iranian, not of

6380-483: The Emperor suddenly rose from his throne and walked about, and indeed he was never wont to remain sitting for long, and immediately Justinian's head vanished, while the rest of his body seemed to ebb and flow; whereat the beholder stood aghast and fearful, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him. But presently he perceived the vanished head filling out and joining the body again as strangely as it had left it. Similarly,

6496-466: The Iranian languages begins around 450 BCE and ends around 650 CE. One of those Middle Iranian languages is Middle Persian, i.e. the middle stage of the language of the Persians, an Iranian people of Persia proper , which lies in the south-western highlands on the border with Babylonia . The Persians called their language Parsig , meaning "Persian". Another Middle Iranian language was Parthian , i.e.

6612-483: The Manichaean script and a maximally disambiguated transliterated form of Pahlavi do not provide exhaustive information about the phonemic structure of Middle Persian words, a system of transcription is also necessary. There are two traditions of transcription of Pahlavi Middle Persian texts: one closer to the spelling and reflecting the Arsacid-era pronunciation, as used by Ch. Bartholomae and H. S. Nyberg (1964) and

6728-540: The Middle Persian prose Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan , the last ruler of the Parthian Empire , Artabanus V (r. 208–224) summoned all the troops from Ray , Damavand , Daylam, and Padishkhwargar to fight the newly established Sasanian Empire. According to the Letter of Tansar , during this period, Daylam, Gilan, and Ruyan belonged to the kingdom of Gushnasp, who was a Parthian vassal but later submitted to

6844-560: The Pahlavi scripts, it is a regular and unambiguous phonetic script that expresses clearly the pronunciation of 3rd century Middle Persian and distinguishes clearly between different letters and sounds, so it provides valuable evidence to modern linguists. Not only did it not display any of the Pahlavi coalescences mentioned above, it also had special letters that enabled it to distinguish [p] and [f] (although it didn't always do so), as well as [j] and [d͡ʒ] , unique designations for [β] , [ð] , and [ɣ] , and consistent distinctions between

6960-529: The Pahlavi spellings will be indicated due to their unpredictability, and the Aramaeograms will be given priority over the 'phonetic' alternatives for the same reason. If a word expressed by an Arameogram has a grammatical ending or, in many cases, a word-formation suffix, these are generally expressed by phonetic elements: LYLYA ʾn for šab ʾn 'nights'. However, verbs in Inscriptional Pahlavi are sometimes written as 'bare ideograms', whose interpretation

7076-731: The Roman general Belisarius in Emperor Justinian 's wars, Procopius became the principal Roman historian of the 6th century, writing the History of the Wars , the Buildings , and the Secret History . Apart from his own writings, the main source for Procopius's life is an entry in the Suda , a Byzantine Greek encyclopaedia written sometime after 975 which discusses his early life. He was

SECTION 60

#1732772074643

7192-594: The Sasanian Empire, they were employed as high-quality infantry. According to the Byzantine historians Procopius and Agathias , they were a warlike people and skilled in close combat, being armed each with a sword, a shield, and spears or javelins . The Daylamites first appear in historical records in the late 2nd century BC, where they are mentioned by Polybius , who erroneously calls them " Elamites " ( Ἐλυμαῖοι ) instead of "Daylamites" ( Δελυμαῖοι ). In

7308-483: The Sasanian era. The language of Zoroastrian literature (and of the Sasanian inscriptions) is sometimes referred to as Pahlavi – a name that originally referred to the Pahlavi scripts , which were also the preferred writing system for several other Middle Iranian languages. Pahlavi Middle Persian is the language of quite a large body of literature which details the traditions and prescriptions of Zoroastrianism , which

7424-515: The Theodora of the Secret History is a garish portrait of vulgarity and insatiable lust juxtaposed with cold-blooded self-interest, shrewishness, and envious and fearful mean-spiritedness. Among the more titillating (and dubious) revelations in the Secret History is Procopius's account of Theodora's thespian accomplishments: Often, even in the theatre, in the sight of all the people, she removed her costume and stood nude in their midst, except for

7540-420: The Wars and appears to have been written after they were published. Current consensus generally dates it to 550, or less commonly 558. In the eyes of many scholars, the Secret History reveals an author who had become deeply disillusioned with Emperor Justinian, his wife Theodora , the general Belisarius , and his wife Antonina . The work claims to expose the secret springs of their public actions, as well as

7656-751: The Zaidis and the Nizaris maintained a strong presence in Iran up until the 16th century rise of the Safavids who espoused the Twelver sect of Shia Islam . In the 930s, the Daylamite Buyid dynasty emerged and managed to gain control over much of modern-day Iran, which it held until the coming of the Seljuk Turks in the mid-11th century. The Daylamites lived in the highlands of Daylam , part of

7772-514: The antithesis of "good" rulers, with each representing the opposite side of emotional spectrum. Justinian was of "approachable and kindly" temperament, even while ordering property confiscations or people's destruction. Conversely, Theodora was described as irrational and driven by her anger, often by minor affronts. Procopius is believed to be aligned with many of the senatorial ranks that disagreed with Justinian and Theodora's tax policies and property confiscations ( Secret History 12.12-14). On

7888-531: The campaigns of the Sassanid shah Kavadh   I , the 532 'Nika' revolt , the war by Kavadh's successor Khosrau   I in 540, his destruction of Antioch and deportation of its inhabitants to Mesopotamia, and the great plague that devastated the empire from 542. The Persian War also covers the early career of Procopius's patron Belisarius in some detail. The Wars ’ next two books—known as The Vandal War or Vandalic War ( Latin : De Bello Vandalico )—cover Belisarius's successful campaign against

8004-429: The cluster *θr in particular), but it had been replaced by /h/ by the Sassanid period: The phoneme /ɣ/ (as opposed to the late allophone of /ɡ/ ) is rare and occurs almost only in learned borrowings from Avestan and Parthian , e.g. moγ (Pahlavi mgw or mwg 'Magian'), maγ (Pahlavi mγ ) 'hole, pit'. The sound /ʒ/ may also have functioned as a marginal phoneme in borrowings as well. The phoneme /l/

8120-411: The coinciding forms: thus, even though Book Pahlavi has the same letter shapes for original n , w and r , for original ʾ and ḥ and for original d , g and y , besides having some ligatures that coincide in shape with certain individual letters, these are all transliterated differently. For instance, the spelling of gōspand 'domestic animal' is transliterated gwspnd in spite of the fact that

8236-531: The early Middle Persian of the Arsacid period (until the 3rd century CE) and the Middle Persian of the Sassanid period (3rd – 7th century CE) is due to a process of consonant lenition after voiced sounds that took place during the transition between the two. Its effects were as follows: 1. Voiced stops, when occurring after vowels, became semivowels : This process may have taken place very early, but it

8352-438: The emperor, of his wife, of Belisarius, of the general's wife, Antonina: calling the former "demons in human form" and the latter incompetent and treacherous) in this later history. However, most scholars believe that the Secret History was written in 550 and remained unpublished during Procopius' lifetime. The writings of Procopius are the primary source of information for the rule of the emperor Justinian   I . Procopius

8468-558: The fall of the Achaemenid Empire in the fourth century BCE up to the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century CE. The most important and distinct development in the structure of Iranian languages of this period is the transformation from the synthetic form of the Old Period ( Old Persian and Avestan ) to an analytic form: The modern-day descendants of Middle Persian are New Persian and Luri . The changes between late Middle and Early New Persian were very gradual, and in

8584-571: The first Sasanian emperor Ardashir I (r. 224–242). The descendants of Gushnasp were still ruling until in ca. 520, when Kavadh I (r. 488–531) appointed his eldest son, Kawus , as the king of the former lands of the Gushnaspid dynasty. In 522, Kavadh I sent an army under a certain Buya (known as Boes in Byzantine sources) against Vakhtang I of Iberia . This Buya was a native of Daylam, which

8700-479: The following: It has been doubted whether the Middle Persian short mid vowels /e/ and /o/ were phonemic , since they do not appear to have a unique continuation in later forms of Persian and no minimal pairs have been found. The evidence for them is variation between spelling with and without the matres lectionis y and w , as well as etymological considerations. They are thought to have arisen from earlier /a/ in certain conditions, including, for /e/ ,

8816-530: The gradual conversion of the Daylamites to Shia Islam. Nevertheless, a strong Iranian identity remained ingrained in the peoples of the region, along with an anti-Arab mentality. Local rulers such as the Buyids and the Ziyarids , made a point of celebrating old Iranian and Zoroastrian festivals. From the 9th century onwards, Daylamite foot-soldiers began to comprise an important element of the armies in Iran. In

8932-488: The language of the northwestern Iranian peoples of Parthia proper , which lies along the southern/south-eastern edge of the Caspian sea and is adjacent to the boundary between western and eastern Iranian languages. The Parthians called their language Parthawig , meaning "Parthian". Via regular sound changes Parthawig became Pahlawig , from which the word 'Pahlavi' eventually evolved. The -ig in parsig and parthawig

9048-467: The later forms are an (Manichaean ՚n ), and meh (Pahlavi ms and Manichaean myh ); indeed, some scholars have reconstructed them as monosyllabic any , mahy even for Middle Persian. Middle Persian has been written in a number of different scripts. The corpora in different scripts also exhibit other linguistic differences that are partly due to their different ages, dialects and scribal traditions. The Pahlavi scripts are abjads derived from

9164-496: The letter p to express /f/ , and ṣ to express z after a vowel. The widespread use of Aramaeograms in Pahlavi, often existing in parallel with 'phonetic' spellings, has already been mentioned: thus, the same word hašt 'eight' can be spelt hšt or TWMNYA . A curious feature of the system is that simple word stems sometimes have spellings derived from Aramaic inflected forms: the spellings of verb stems include Aramaic inflectional affixes such as -WN , -TWN or -N and Y- ;

9280-823: The mid 9th century, the Abbasid Caliphate increased its need for mercenary soldiers in the Royal Guard and the army, thus they began recruiting Daylamites, who at the period were not as strong in numbers as the Turks, Khorasanis , the Farghanis , and the Egyptian tribesmen of the Maghariba . From 912/3 to 916/7, a Daylamite soldier, Ali ibn Wahsudhan, was chief of police ( ṣāḥib al-shurṭa ) in Isfahan during

9396-437: The other hand, is sometimes rendered as ẖ . For original ṭ , the sign ṯ is used. The special Manichaean letters for /x/ , /f/ , [β] , /ɣ/ and [ð] are transcribed in accordance with their pronunciation as x , f , β , γ and δ . Unlike Pahlavi, the Manichaean script uses the letter Ayin also in Iranian words (see below) and it is transliterated in the usual Semitological way as ՙ . Since, like most abjads, even

9512-436: The other hand, it has been argued that Procopius prepared the Secret History as an exaggerated document out of fear that a conspiracy might overthrow Justinian's regime, which—as a kind of court historian—might be reckoned to include him. The unpublished manuscript would then have been a kind of insurance, which could be offered to the new ruler as a way to avoid execution or exile after the coup. If this hypothesis were correct,

9628-545: The pairs [x] – [h] and [r] – [l] . Since knowledge of Pahlavi decreased after the Muslim conquest of Iran , the Zoroastrians occasionally transcribed their religious texts into other, more accessible or unambiguous scripts. One approach was to use the Avestan alphabet , a practice known as Pazand ; another was to resort to the same Perso-Arabic script that was already being used for New Persian , and that

9744-479: The presence of a following /n/ , sibilant or front vowel in the next syllable, and for /o/ , the presence of a following labial consonant or the vowel /u/ in the next syllable. Long /eː/ and /oː/ had appeared first in Middle Persian, since they had developed from the Old Persian diphthongs /ai/ and /aw/ . The consonant phonemes were the following: A major distinction between the pronunciation of

9860-407: The private lives of the emperor and his entourage. Justinian is portrayed as cruel, venal, prodigal, and incompetent. In one passage, it is even claimed that he was possessed by demonic spirits or was himself a demon: And some of those who have been with Justinian at the palace late at night, men who were pure of spirit, have thought they saw a strange demoniac form taking his place. One man said that

9976-485: The purpose, would next pick the grains one by one with their bills and eat. Furthermore, Secret History portrays Belisarius as a weak man completely emasculated by his wife, Antonina, who is portrayed in very similar terms to Theodora. They are both said to be former actresses and close friends. Procopius claimed Antonina worked as an agent for Theodora against Belisarius, and had an ongoing affair with Belisarius' godson, Theodosius. Justinian and Theodora are portrayed as

10092-598: The rank of a "visible man" ( vir spectabilis ). He thus belonged to the mid-ranking group of the senatorial order ( ordo senatorius ). However, the Suda , which is usually well-informed in such matters, also describes Procopius himself as one of the illustres . Should this information be correct, Procopius would have had a seat in Constantinople's senate , which was restricted to the illustres under Justinian. He also wrote that under Justinian's reign in 560,

10208-477: The region was endemic, with raids and counter-raids by both sides. Under the Arabs, the old Iranian fortress-city of Qazvin continued in its Sasanian-era role as a bulwark against Daylamite raids. According to the historian al-Tabari , Daylamites and Turkic peoples were considered the worst enemies of the Arab Muslims. The Abbasid Caliphate penetrated the region and occupied parts of it, but their control

10324-790: The reign of al-Muqtadir (r. 908–929). For many decades, "it remained customary for the Caliph's personal guards to include the Daylamites as well as the ubiquitous Turks". The Buyid amīr s, who were Daylamite themselves, supplemented their army of Daylamite infantrymen with Turkic cavalrymen. Daylamites were among the people comprising the Seljuq army, and Ghaznavids also employed them as elite infantry. Islamic sources record their characteristic painted shields and two-pronged short spears (in Persian : ژوپین zhūpīn ; in Arabic : مزراق mizrāq ) which could be used either for thrusting or for hurling as

10440-664: The rise of the Franks (see Arborychoi ). The last book describes the eunuch Narses 's successful conclusion of the Italian campaign and includes some coverage of campaigns along the empire's eastern borders as well. The Wars proved influential on later Byzantine historiography. In the 570s Agathias wrote Histories , a continuation of Procopius's work in a similar style. Procopius's now famous Anecdota , also known as Secret History ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Ἀπόκρυφη Ἱστορία , Apókryphe Historía ; Latin : Historia Arcana ),

10556-465: The rules of that genre. As far as known, however, such an ecclesiastical history was never written. Some historians have criticized Propocius's description of some barbarians, for example, he dehumanized the unfamiliar Moors as "not even properly human". This was however, inline with Byzantine ethnographic practice in late antiquity. A number of historical novels based on Procopius's works (along with other sources) have been written. Count Belisarius

10672-442: The same position, possibly earlier; not only was it weakened to a fricative [ʒ] , but it was also depalatalised to [z] . In fact, old Persian [d͡ʒ] and [ʒ] in any position also produced [z] . Unlike the case with the spirantisation of stops, this change is uncontroversially recognised for Sassanid times. The lenition of voiceless stops and affricates remained largely unexpressed in Pahlavi spelling, which continues to reflect

10788-590: The school of late antique historians who continued the traditions of the Second Sophistic . They wrote in Attic Greek . Their models were Herodotus , Polybius and in particular Thucydides . Their subject matter was secular history. They avoided vocabulary unknown to Attic Greek and inserted an explanation when they had to use contemporary words. Thus Procopius includes glosses of monks ("the most temperate of Christians") and churches (as equivalent to

10904-409: The social order of men standing over women. In Averil Cameron's view, Procopius is more aptly described as a reporter rather than a historian, providing a black-and-white description of events, rather than a deeper analysis of the causes and motives. Cameron argues that his intense political focus and exaggeration of the imperial couple's vices prevent a balanced and holistic perspective, resulting in

11020-449: The south-western "Persian" type, but of the north-western type: thus Gōrāngēj (not Kūrānkīj , as originally interpreted) corresponds to Persian gōr-angēz "chaser of wild asses", Shēr-zil to Shēr-dil "lion’s heart", etc. The medieval Persian geographer Estakhri differentiates between Persian and Daylami and comments that in the highlands of Daylam there was a tribe that spoke a language different from that of Daylam and Gilan, perhaps

11136-411: The spellings of pronouns are often derived from Aramaic prepositional phrases ( tо̄ 'you' is LK , originally Aramaic lk 'to you', о̄y 'he' is OLE , originally Aramaic ʿlh 'onto him'); and inalienable nouns are often noun phrases with pronominal modifiers ( pidar 'father' is ABYtl , originally Aramaic ʾby 'my father', pāy 'foot' is LGLE , originally Aramaic rglh 'his foot'). Furthermore,

11252-471: The state of affairs in living Middle Persian only indirectly. The surviving manuscripts are usually 14th-century copies. Other, less abundantly attested varieties are Manichaean Middle Persian , used for a sizable amount of Manichaean religious writings, including many theological texts, homilies and hymns (3rd–9th, possibly 13th century), and the Middle Persian of the Church of the East , evidenced in

11368-451: The transition of /θ/ to /h/ in some words (in front of /r/ this reflex is due to Parthian influence, since the Middle Persian reflex should have been /s/ ). In such words, the spelling may have s or, in front of r – t . For example, gāh 'place, time' is spelt gʾs (cf. Old Persian gāθu ) and nigāh '(a) look' is spelt nkʾs ; šahr 'country, town' is spelt štr' (cf. Avestan xsaθra ) and mihr 'Mithra, contract, friendship'

11484-635: The transliteration). Similarly, the letter d may stand for /j/ after a vowel, e.g. pʾd for pāy 'foot' – this is no longer apparent in Book Pahlavi due to the coincidence of the shapes of the original letters y , d and g , but is already clearly seen in Inscriptional and Psalter Pahlavi. Indeed, it even appears to have been the general rule word-finally, regardless of the word's origins, although modern transliterations of words like xwadāy ( xwtʾd ) and mēnōy ( mynwd ) do not always reflect this analogical / pseudo-historical spelling. Final īy

11600-475: The use of original Aramaic h is restricted to heterograms (transliterated E in MacKenzie's system, e.g. LGLE for pāy 'foot'). Not only /p/ , but also the frequent sound /f/ is expressed by the letter p , e.g. plhw' for farrox 'fortunate'. While the original letter r is retained in some words as an expression of the sound /r/ , especially in older frequent words and Aramaeograms (e.g. štr' for šahr 'country, town', BRTE for duxt 'daughter'), it

11716-463: The work postdates the building of the bridge over the Sangarius in the late 550s. Historians consider Buildings to be an incomplete work due to evidence of the surviving version being a draft with two possible redactions. Buildings was likely written at Justinian's behest, and it is doubtful that its sentiments expressed are sincere. It tells us nothing further about Belisarius, and it takes

11832-487: Was Justinian's lack of it that created the impression of strength in her. According to researcher Averil Cameron, the definition of "feminine" behavior in the sixth century would be described as "intriguing" and "interfering". She argues Procopius's intent in including her speech during the Nika riots in the Wars may be to demonstrate that Theodora does not stay in her appropriate role. At his core, Procopius wanted to preserve

11948-698: Was a regular Middle Iranian appurtenant suffix for "pertaining to". The New Persian equivalent of -ig is -i . When the Arsacids (who were Parthians) came to power in the 3rd-century BCE, they inherited the use of written Greek (from the successors of Alexander the Great ) as the language of government. Under the cultural influence of the Greeks ( Hellenization ), some Middle Iranian languages, such as Bactrian , also had begun to be written in Greek script . But yet other Middle Iranian languages began to be written in

12064-530: Was able to credit Justinian with buildings erected or begun under Justin's administration. Such works include renovation of the walls of Edessa after its 525 flood and consecration of several churches in the region. Similarly, Procopius falsely credits Justinian for the extensive refortification of the cities of Tomis and Histria in Scythia Minor . This had actually been carried out under Anastasius I , who reigned before Justin. Procopius belongs to

12180-529: Was adopted for at least four other Middle Iranian languages, one of which was Middle Persian. In the 3rd-century CE, the Parthian Arsacids were overthrown by the Sassanids , who were natives of the south-west and thus spoke Middle Persian as their native language. Under Sassanid hegemony, the Middle Persian language became a prestige dialect and thus also came to be used by non-Persian Iranians. In

12296-423: Was delayed until all of them were dead to avoid retaliation. Procopius's Wars or History of the Wars ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Ὑπὲρ τῶν Πολέμων Λόγοι , Hypèr tōn Polémon Lógoi , "Words on the Wars"; Latin : De Bellis , "On the Wars") is his most important work, although less well known than the Secret History . The first seven books seem to have been largely completed by 545 and may have been published as

12412-571: Was discovered centuries later at the Vatican Library in Rome and published in Lyon by Niccolò Alamanni in 1623. Its existence was already known from the Suda , which referred to it as Procopius's "unpublished works" containing "comedy" and "invective" of Justinian, Theodora, Belisarius and Antonina. The Secret History covers roughly the same years as the first seven books of The History of

12528-528: Was never very effective. Shortly after 781, the Nestorian monk Shubhalishoʿ began evangelizing the Daylamites and converting them to Christianity. He and his associates made only a little headway before encountering competition from Islam. During the reign of Harun al-Rashid (r. 785–809), several Shia Muslims fled to the largely pagan Daylamites, with a few Zoroastrians and Christians, to escape persecution. Among these refugees were some Alids , who began

12644-419: Was on the last syllable. That was due to the fact that any Old Persian post-stress syllables had been apocopated : It has been suggested that words such as anīy 'other' (Pahlavi spelling AHRN , AHRNy d , Manichaean ՚ny ) and mahīy 'bigger' (Manichaean mhy ) may have been exceptionally stressed on the first syllable, since the last one was apocopated already in the course of the Middle Persian period:

12760-457: Was referred to as Pārsī. Since these methods were used at a relatively late linguistic stage, these transcriptions often reflect a very late pronunciation close to New Persian. In general, Inscriptional Pahlavi texts have the most archaic linguistic features, Manichaean texts and the Psalter exhibit slightly later, but still relatively early language stages, and while the Pahlavi translations of

12876-425: Was regularly written y d . In the same way, (w)b may also correspond to a w in the pronunciation after a vowel. The fortition of initial /j/ to /d͡ʒ/ (or /ʒ/ ) is not reflected either, so y can express initial /d͡ʒ/ , e.g. yʾm for ǰām 'glass' (while it still expresses /j/ in the learned word y z dt' for yazd 'god'). Some even earlier sound changes are not consistently reflected either, such as

12992-555: Was retained/reintroduced in learned borrowings from Avestan . Furthermore, some forms of Middle Persian appear to have preserved ǰ (from Proto-Iranian /d͡ʒ/ or /t͡ʃ/ ) after n due to Parthian influence, instead of the usual weakening to z . This pronunciation is reflected in Book Pahlavi, but not in Manichaean texts: Judging from the spelling, the consonant /θ/ may have been pronounced before /r/ in certain borrowings from Parthian in Arsacid times (unlike native words, which had /h/ for earlier *θ in general and /s/ for

13108-446: Was still relatively rare as well, especially so in Manichaean texts, mostly resulting from Proto-Iranian *rd, *rz and, more rarely, *r. It also occurred in the combination /hl/ , which was a reflex of Old Persian /rθ/ and /rs/ (cf. the words 'Pahlavi' and 'Parthian'). The sound /xw/ may be viewed as a phoneme or merely as a combination of /x/ and /w/ . Usually /x/ , /xw/ and /ɣ/ are considered to have been velar ;

13224-406: Was the author of a history in eight books on the wars prosecuted by Justinian, a panegyric on the emperor's public works projects throughout the empire, and a book known as the Secret History that claims to report the scandals that Procopius could not include in his officially sanctioned history for fear of angering the emperor, his wife, Belisarius, and the general's wife. Consequently publication

13340-502: Was the state religion of Sasanian Iran (224 to c. 650) before the Muslim conquest of Persia . The earliest texts in Zoroastrian Middle Persian were probably written down in late Sasanian times (6th–7th centuries), although they represent the codification of earlier oral tradition. However, most texts date from the ninth to the 11th century, when Middle Persian had long ceased to be a spoken language, so they reflect

13456-626: Was written by poet and novelist Robert Graves in 1938. Procopius himself appears as a minor character in Felix Dahn 's A Struggle for Rome and in L. Sprague de Camp 's alternate history novel Lest Darkness Fall . The novel's main character, archaeologist Martin Padway, derives most of his knowledge of historical events from the Secret History . The narrator in Herman Melville 's novel Moby-Dick cites Procopius's description of

#642357