Peroz was defeated and captured by the Hephthalites about the year 469. There is confusion in the sources between the names "Hephthalite" and "Kidarite" Huns. Whether they are identical is difficult to decide, but since both designations appear in the time of Peroz one could assume they were contemporary rather than one or the other being anachronistic. The word "Chionite" is also used as a synonym for "Hun " in Syriac chronicles, further confusing our view of the situation in the east. The Sasanian monarch had to agree to an onerous peace. His son Kavad was left as a hostage until the Persians paid a large sum of money.1 Sasanian Iran in effect had to pay tribute to the Hephthalites for a number of years.
Peroz turned from his defeat in the east to Armenia where a revolt had broken out led by Vahan Mamikonian, a nephew of Vardan. In neighbouring Georgia, too, conflict between Christians and the partisans of the Persians at first brought victory to the Christian nobles. Later the proclaimed king of the Christian Armenians, Sahak Bagratuni, was killed in a battle with the Persians after the Georgian king Vakhtang had betrayed his Armenian allies by making peace with the enemy.
Vahan, however, was able to rally the Armenians after most of the Sasanian forces were withdrawn from the country in 482 to aid Peroz in a campaign to the east of the Caspian Sea. Two years later a Sasanian army was annihilated by the Hephthalites and Peroz was killed.
The bureaucratic organization of the Sasanian empire was fully developed by the 5th century; we have mentioned the important role in government of the prime minister Mihr-Narseh, the prototype of the later Islamic grand vizier. The three great offices of the state may have corresponded, at least in theory, to the three classes of priests, warriors and scribes. The mobadan mobad was the head of the Zoroastrian church; the ha^arbad or chiliarch was the title given to Mihr-Narseh by Armenian sources, which office was also known as that of the vu^urg framaddr (the great commander); thirdly the darandarybad seems to have been the chief of the bureaucracy or the chief councillor of the court.
From the vast number of seals preserved as well as notices in varied sources, we may assume that there was a hierarchy of andarzbads, in districts and provinces. The andarzbad was probably a judicial as well as an administrative officer, a testament to the continuing importance of law in Iran. The administration of the Sasanian empire is discussed in another chapter, but suffice it to say that the proliferation of titles in Sasanian Iran indicates the complexity of the bureaucracy.
Yazdgard II and Waging a War against Byzantines
