Afterwords | Iran Betrays a Peace Treaty

(Plate of Iranian shah Kavad I hunting rams)

Khosrow I, known by his epithet of Anushirvan (the Immortal Soul), inherited a reinvigorated empire at war with the Eastern Roman Empire ( Byzantium) from his father of Kavad I. Khosrow made a peace treaty with them known as the Perpetual Peace and emperor Justinian I paid 11,000 pounds of gold to Iran, then known as Iranshahr. Peace and cooperation prevailed between the region's great powers for the next eight years. 

Peace with Iran allowed emperor Justinian to focus his military efforts on the western frontier to subdue the Vandals and Goths. While the Romans were busy on their eastern borders, encouraged by Gothic envoys, Khosrow betrayed the peace accord and launched an attack to regain control of Lazica and thus began the twenty-year-long Lazic War. 

Did you know, Turkey's president Erdoğan is a Laz? His forefathers came from the same Lazica region in present-day Georgia. 

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