46 Facts About Kavad I

Kavad I was the Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 488 to 531, with a two or three-year interruption.

Bankrupted by this hiatus, Kavad applied for subsidies from the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I The Byzantines had originally paid the Iranians voluntarily to maintain the defense of the Caucasus against attacks from the north.

Anastasius refused the subsidies, which led Kavad I to invade his domains, thus starting the Anastasian War.

Kavad I first seized Theodosiopolis and Martyropolis respectively, and then Amida after holding the city under siege for three months.

Around this time, Kavad I fought a lengthy war against his former allies, the Hephthalites; by 513 he had re-taken the region of Khorasan from them.

In 531, while the Sasanian army was besieging Martyropolis, Kavad I died from an illness.

Kavad I was succeeded by Khosrow I, who inherited a reinvigorated and mighty empire equal to that of the Byzantines.

The son of the Sasanian shah Peroz I, Kavad I was born in 473.

Kavad I eventually managed to gain the ten mule packs of silver by imposing a poll tax on his subjects, and thus secured the release of Kavad before he mounted his third campaign in 484.

Kavad I's army was completely destroyed, and his body was never found.

Kavad I's youth is emphasized on his coins, which show him with short whiskers.

Kavad I inherited an empire that had reached its lowest ebb.

The young and inexperienced Kavad I was tutored by Sukhra during his first five years as shah.

In 493, Kavad I, having reached adulthood, wanted to put an end to Sukhra's dominance, and had him exiled to his native Shiraz in southwestern Iran.

Kavad I bragged about having put Kavad on the throne.

Kavad I lacked the manpower to do so as the army was controlled by Sukhra and the Sasanians relied mainly on the military of the Seven Great Houses of Iran.

Kavad I found his solution in Shapur of Ray, a powerful nobleman from the House of Mihran, and a resolute opponent of Sukhra.

Kavad I used the movement as a political tool to curb the power of the nobility and clergy.

Kavad I's suggestion was overruled and Kavad was imprisoned instead in the Castle of Oblivion in Khuzestan.

Kavad I changed clothes with his wife to disguise himself as a woman, and escaped from the prison and fled with Siyawush.

Kavad I says that Kavad's sister helped him to escape by rolling him in a carpet, which she made the guard believe was soaked with her menstrual blood.

Regardless, Kavad I managed to escape imprisonment and fled to the court of the Hephthalite king, where he took refuge.

At the Hephthalite court in Bactria, Kavad I gained the support of the Hephthalite king, and married his daughter, who was Kavad I's niece.

In 498, Kavad I returned to Iran with a Hephthalite army.

Kavad I's reign is noteworthy for his reforms, which he had been able to make with the nobility and clergy weakened by the Mazdakites.

Kavad I's supporters were killed in a walled orchard, buried head first with only their feet visible.

Kavad I was executed afterwards by Khosrow, who had his feet fastened on a gallows and had his men shoot arrows at Mazdak.

Kavad I rebuilt Kirmanshah in Media, which he used as one of his residences.

Kavad I is said to have founded a township in Meybod, which was named Haft-adhar, because of a Zoroastrian fire temple being established there.

The prominent Caucasian Albanian capital of Partaw, which had been rebuilt during the reign of Peroz I and named Perozabad, was fortified by Kavad I and called Perozkavad.

Kavad I founded the city of Baylakan, which by most researchers is identified with the ruins of Oren-kala.

Kavad I captured Theodosiopolis, perhaps with local support; in any case, the city was undefended by troops and weakly fortified.

Kavad I proceeded to cross the Armenian Taurus, and reached Martyropolis, where its governor Theodore, surrendered without any resistance and gave Kavad two years' worth of taxes collected from the province of Sophene.

Kavad I then besieged the fortress-city of Amida through the autumn and winter.

The siege proved to be a far more difficult enterprise than Kavad I had expected; the defenders, although unsupported by troops, repelled the Iranian assaults for three months before they were finally defeated.

Kavad I had its inhabitants deported to a city in southern Iran, which he named "Kavad's Better Amida".

Kavad I left a garrison in Amida which included his general Glon, two marzbans and 3,000 soldiers.

In Christian Iberia, where the Sasanians had earlier tried to spread Zoroastrianism, Kavad I represented himself as an advocate of orthodox Zoroastrianism.

Kavad I's work was then translated from Syriac to Middle Persian and presented to Kavad.

Kavad I was even thought to have venerated a figure of Jesus.

Around 520 to secure the succession of his youngest son Khosrow, whose position was threatened by rival brothers and the Mazdakite sect, and to improve his relationship with the Byzantine emperor Justin I, Kavad I proposed that he adopt Khosrow.

Siyawush was thus most likely a Mazdakite, the religious sect that Kavad I had originally, but now no longer, supported.

Kavad I used the title of kay on his coins, a title that had been used since the reign of his grandfather Yazdegerd II.

Khosrow ordered the execution of Kavad I, who was still a child, and was away from the court, being raised by Adergoudounbades.

Kavad I sent orders to kill Kavad, but Adergoudounbades disobeyed and secretly raised him until he was betrayed to the shah in 541 by his own son, Bahram.

Kavad I's reign is considered a turning point in Sasanian history.