Khosrow I

Timeline

1. c. 515–531Ctesiphon · MesopotamiaKhosrow I was the son of Kavad I and was designated crown prince with his father's support. By his father's late years he was deeply involved in imperial affairs and led the purge of the Mazdakites, thereby building a broad political base among Zoroastrian priests and the traditional nobility, and succeeded smoothly to the throne in 531.
2. 531–551Ctesiphon · MesopotamiaAfter accession Khosrow I quickly eliminated the remaining Mazdakite forces, then carried out a series of profound reforms: introducing a new land and poll tax system (replacing the traditional tax-farming system), reorganizing the military into four great war zones, establishing a professional cavalry corps (savaran), and in 532 signing the Eternal Peace treaty with Byzantine emperor Justinian I, buying the empire time to recover.
3. 551–579Ctesiphon · MesopotamiaIn his later reign Khosrow I successively captured the Byzantine city of Antioch (540), allied with the Turks to destroy the Hephthalite Empire (558–563), and sent troops to Yemen to overthrow Aksumite rule (572). He widely recruited scholars, sheltered exiled Athenian Neoplatonist philosophers, and translated Indian and Greek texts; the Ctesiphon court became a meeting point of Eastern and Western culture, and later ages called this period the Sasanian golden age.