THE WHITE HUNS

 

Hephthalite Empire (442-705 CE)

Unfortunately, the origin of the Hephthalites is obscure, and there is a truly dizzying array of theories regarding where they came from (Mongolia, western China, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, or Afghanistan), speculating about their ethnicity (Hunnic, Turkic, or Aryan), and trying to determine whether they were an offshoot of one of the other Hunnic groups (e.g., the Xionites) or an autochthonous group. It was also once thought that the Alxonites (see my Red Huns page) were an eastern branch of the Hephthalites (or vice versa), although this theory has been revised in recent years. But the truth is, most of the current theories are plausible, but no one has made a case that is compelling enough to disprove the others, and so we must be satisfied for now with simply not knowing (or subscribing to your favorite pet theory until it is disproved). What we know is that the earliest historical mention of the Hephthalites is dated to 442 CE, when the Armenian historian, Yeghishe (410-475 CE), states that the Sassanian emperor, Yazdegerd II (435-457 CE), fought the Hephthalites in northeastern Iran (ca. 442-453 CE). Yazdegerd's battles against the Hephthalites were to protect the Sassanian province of Gurgan, which encompassed the lands to the east of the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. In 456 CE, the Hephthalites sent an embassy to China, and by 466 CE they seem to have taken over Transoxania-Ferghana from the Xionites (although Xionites are still mentioned by Persian sources until 500 CE, but this could be an anachronism that resulted from poor intelligence; i.e., the Persians kept calling the Hunnic horde in Transoxania-Ferghana Xionites even after they had been replaced by the Hephthalites). At the risk of sowing more confusion by adding to the list of theories, I have often wondered whether the Hephthalites may have originated in Dahistan (western Turkmenistan), which lay directly north of Gurgan. The Dahae were an Iranian group related to the Parthians of Persia that lived on the steppes to the east of the Caspian Sea from the sixth century BCE until about the first century CE. They may actually have lived there much longer—or at least their descendants may have—but there is on odd historiographical black hole regarding Dahistan after about the first century CE. The Parthians and Persians both sometimes claimed that Dahistan was part of the Persian Empire, but the archeological record does not back this up—if it was part of the empire, no cities or colonies seem to have been established there by the Parthians or Persians, which would have made it a unique province indeed. The Massagetae (see my Eastern Aryan Nomads gallery) are believed to have migrated into or through the region after they were driven westwards by the Yuezhi/Kushans (ca. 155-124 BCE), although the Massagetae are believed to have ultimately moved up the coast of the Caspian Sea and to have settled between the Volga and Ural rivers, where they are believed to have played a role in the ethnogenesis of the Alans (see my Western Aryan Nomads gallery). Dahistan would have been outside the core area of development for Hunnic ethnogenesis, which was centered on northern and eastern Kazakhstan, but the Hephthalites in particular are often cited by period sources as having a Caucasoid/Europoid appearance, which describes Aryan groups like the Dahae and Massagetae as well as it does groups like the Yuezhi/Kushans, Sogdians, and Bactrians (it is sometimes thought that these latter groups played a role in the ethnogenesis of the Xionites, Kidarites, and Alxonites, who are also often described in period sources as having a Caucasoid/Europoid appearance). If my theory is correct, it could explain why the earliest historical reference to the Hephthalites reports them as far west as the region of the Caspian Sea (i.e., north of the Persian province of Gurgan). Indeed, the Greek scholar, Procopios of Caesarea (500-570 CE), seems also to have first placed the Hephthalites east of the Caspian Sea in the vicinity of Gurgan. Having failed to invade Persia—Yazdegerd was successful in repelling them (ca. 442 CE)—it is not too great a stretch of the imagination to see them as being shunted off eastward, moving into Transoxania-Ferghana two decades later (ca. 466 CE), then taking over the Xionite realm by about 500 CE (the last historical date at which the Xionites are mentioned). This also fits with the report that remnant groups of the Massagetae in southern Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan were conquered by the Hephthalites between 442 and 450 CE (i.e., as they expanded eastwards from Dahistan, they could have absorbed the Massagetae on their way to Khwarazmia and Transoxania-Ferghana.

 

Regardless, by 467 CE the Hephthalites seem to have emerged as the primary power north of the Sassanian frontier, ruling a kingdom that may have stretched from Dahistan in the west, through Khwarzamia and Transoxania to Ferghana in the east (modern Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan), and probably including some of the southern steppes of Kazakhstan. Between 468 and 509 CE, Classical Chinese sources document the Hephthalite takeover of the city-states of the Tarim Basin (to the northeast of Ferghana). These put them in control of most of the middle portions of the emerging Silk Road (although it was not known by that name until the thirteenth century). Probably in order to protect these new territorial possessions and the trade that passed through them, the Hephthalites then conquered the Yueban Kingdom that lay to the north of the Tarim Basin (ca. 487 CE). Between 442 and 484 CE, Persian sources document Hephthalite raids into the Kushanshahr, a group of semi-independent Persian provinces in northeastern Iran and Afghanistan that were seized from the Kushan Empire. The Hephthalite king, Khushnawaz/Khushnavaz (450-488 CE), made an alliance with the Sassanian emperor, Peroz I (459-484 CE), that resulted in the defeat of the Kidarite Huns in Bactria (northern Afghanistan)(ca. 467 CE)—the Kidarites had toppled the last of the Kushans and taken over what was left of the Kushan Empire—and Khushnawaz established the capital of the Hephthalite Empire at Kunduz in northern Bactria (some later Hephthalite kings ruled from Balkh to the west of Kunduz, but Bactria ultimately became the heart of the empire). Despite his cooperation with the Hephthalites against the Kidarites, Peroz had a stormy relationship with Khushnawaz. The Sassanids originally took Balkh when the Kidarites were overthrown in Bactria, but in 468 CE Khushnawaz took Balkh and drove the Sassanids from western Bactria. Khushnawaz then invaded Gorgan (ca. 469 CE), and when Peroz attempted to repel the Hephthalites, he was defeated and captured by Khushnawaz. The Hephthalite king ransomed the Persian emperor back to his people, but the cash-strapped Persians had to take out a loan from the Byzantines to pay it. In 471 CE, Peroz invaded Bactria but was again defeated and captured by Khushnawaz—this time, Khushnawaz demanded Peroz's son (the future emperor, Kavad I) and the high priest of the Mazdayan Church (mobadan mobad) be turned over to him as hostages/collateral until the ransom was paid. Although Peroz apparently paid the ransom and effected the release of the hostages, he felt that his honor had been besmirched by Khushnawaz (basically by requiring collateral, he was saying he didn't think Peroz's word was good), and Peroz again invaded Hephthalite-held Bactria (many historians have suggested his real motivations were to salvage his reputation as a general and to recoup some of the lost ransoms by sacking Hephthalite cities). Taking no chances, Peroz amassed a huge army (probably around 50,000 men), but as he marched into Bactria the Persian army was ambushed by the Hephthalites near Herat and nearly annihilated (Battle of Herat, 484 CE). Peroz avoided being captured by Khushnawaz for a third time—by being killed in the battle. The Hephthalites then invaded eastern Iran (ca. 485-486 CE), but they were defeated by the Persian nobleman, Sukhra of House Karen (once again, the fighting was in Gurgan). Although Sukhra managed to stop the Hephthalite invasion, Khushnawaz and the Hephthalites still seem to have had all the leverage—they had decisively defeated the Sassanids three times in the last two decades (and killed an emperor), and Sukhra's defeat of the Hephthalites seems to have been just enough to make them retreat to their own territories, but not enough to deter them from attacking again. Therefore, Sukhra (who was the regent of Peroz's young heir, Kavad I) negotiated a treaty with Khushnawaz in which the Sassanids agreed to pay the Hephthalites an annual tribute (487-496 CE) in return for a surcease of Hephthalite raiding in northeastern Iran. In an epilogue, when Kavad came of age he fell out with Sukhra (Kavad was a reformer, and Sukhra was not), and although he had Sukhra executed, another faction at the Sassanian imperial court dethroned and imprisoned Kavad. He escaped to the court of Khushnawaz at Kunduz, where he had spent time as a hostage (following Peroz's defeat in 471 CE) and had apparently gained a good reputation with Khushnawaz. The Hephthalite king allowed Kavad to marry one of his daughters, then lent him a horde (30,000 men) with which to retake his throne (which he did, ca. 488 CE). Khushnawaz died that same year (488), but the Persians resumed paying the annual tribute to the Hephthalites until about 550 CE.

 

Remember, while all this was going on in Bactria and northeastern Iran, other Hephthalite armies were engaged in the conquest of the Tarim Basin (ca. 468-509 CE) and the Yueban Kingdom (ca. 487 CE), which seems to indicate the size and strategic sophistication of the Hephthalite state (fighting on three fronts simultaneously, and being successful in each). However, between about 552 and 558 CE, a new power emerged on the northern Kazakh steppe—the Göktürks (see my Central Asian Turks gallery). The ruling clan of the Göktürks was the Ashina, and they had originated as a subgroup of the Tiele Turks. The Tiele had been vassals of the Rouran Khaganate of Mongolia, but they had rebelled and taken over the Rouran state (ca. 547-552 CE)—founding the Göktürk (Old Turkic, "Blue/Celestial") Khaganate—and then expanded into western China, Manchuria, and the Kazakh steppe. In 555 CE the Sassanian emperor, Khosrow I (531-579 CE)(son and successor of Kavad I), formed an alliance with the Göktürk khagan (i.e., emperor), Muqan (553-572 CE)—the Turks agreed to attack the Hephthalites in the Tarim Basin and the Zhetysu region of eastern Kazakhstan at the same time that the Sassanids attacked the Hephthalites in Khwarazmia, Transoxania-Ferghana, and Bactria. The two armies drove into the heart of the Hephthalite Empire from opposite sides, linking up in Sogdia (modern-day Uzbekistan), where the Hephthalite king, Ghadfar, was soundly defeated at the Battle of Gol-Zarrium (560 CE). Initially, the Hephthalite state broke up into several small kingdoms, those in Transoxania-Ferghana and Bactria owing allegiance to the Sassanids (Khwarazmia was occupied outright), and those in eastern Kazakhstan and the Tarim Basin owing allegiance to the Göktürks (ca. 560-571 CE). But when the Turkic khagan, Istämi (553-576 CE), attempted to suborn the Hephthalites within the Sassanian sphere (i.e., he tried to get them to make an alliance with him against the Sassanids), Khosrow again marched into Transoxania-Ferghana and subdued the Hephthalites (ca. 562 CE). Istämi retaliated by launching a series of raids into northeastern Iran (ca. 569-570 CE)—a treaty ended this conflict, which included the provision of a marriage between Khosrow and a Turkic princess named Kayen. However, the Turks again allied themselves with the Hephthalite statelets in Transoxania-Ferghana and Bactria and attacked northeastern Iran during the reign of Khosrow's successor, Hormizd IV (579-590 CE). The Persian governor of Khorasan—the province that dominated much of the northeastern frontier—Bahram Chobin of House Mihran, defeated the combined forces of the Turks and Hephthalites at the Battle of the Hyrcanian Rock (April 588 CE), and by the end of 589 CE he had driven into Bactria, stormed the cities of Balkh, Bukhara, and Baykand (seizing massive amounts of treasure), and again delivered a decisive defeat to the Turkic-Hephthalite armies (he is believed to have personally slain the Turkic commander, Yangsu Tegin, with a bowshot). The Sassanids then briefly occupied Transoxania and Bactria (ca. 589-606 CE)(not Ferghana).

 

However, the successes of Bahram Chobin made Hormizd jealous and paranoid that the Mihran general might use his army to place himself on the throne, and Hormizd tried to have Bahram Chobin removed from office (as governor of Khorasan and general of the empire's eastern army). Hormizd had false charges leveled against Bahram (claiming he had kept most of the treasure he had captured in his eastern campaigns rather than turn it over to his sovereign, as was expected), and Hormizd also insulted Bahram (he implied that Bahram was an ungrateful slave). As one would expect, this led to a civil war (ca. 589-591 CE). Hormizd was deposed and Bahram became emperor (590-591 CE), but when Bahram was in turn assassinated and replaced by Khosrow II (591-628 CE), the Turks again formed an alliance with the Hephthalites in Transoxania-Ferghana and Bactria, drove out the Sassanian garrisons (ca. 606 CE), and attacked northeastern Iran (ca. 607 CE). Khosrow was at that time engaged against the Byzantines in Syria, so he sent the Armenian general, Smbat IV Bagratuni (580-617 CE), to repel the Turkic-Hephthalite incursion. Smbat was successful—he reputedly killed the Hephthalite leader in single combat—although he was unable to re-occupy Transoxania-Ferghana and Bactria (the Hephthalite states again became vassals of the Persians). The Persian-Hephthalite-Turk frontier then seems to have gone through an extended period of relative peace (ca. 607-651 CE), largely due to the fact that the Persians were distracted by serious internal turmoil (ca. 628-632 CE) followed by an invasion by the Rashidun Caliphate of Arabia (ca. 633-654 CE), and the Göktürks were also distracted by civil war (ca. 584-603 CE) and the division of the Turk empire into western and eastern khaganates (ca. 603-657 CE). The Muslim Arabs conquered Persia by 654 CE, then the Hephthalite states in Transoxania-Ferghana and Bactria (ca. 651-705 CE), bringing the Hunnic period in southern Central Asia permanently to a close.