But two hostile acts were committed, one by each side. Kobad seized the Caspian Gates, the pass through the Caucasus through which our caravans were to have gone in search of silk; and Anastasius fortified the open city of Daras, close to the Persian frontier and commanding the main road joining the two countries.
To give an explanation of what these acts signified. The Caspian Gates are of great strategic importance. They are the only practical pass through the lofty and terrible Caucasus range, which acts as a barrier for many hundreds of miles between the broad Asiatic steppes, where the nomad Huns roam, and our civilized world. Alexander the Great had been the first to appreciate fully the importance of this pass, which is seven miles long and begins, at the end nearest to us, with a natural door, set in precipitous cliffs, that can be defended by a small garrison. He built a castle there, and it has been held by many different princes in the last eight or nine hundred years. The present constable was a Christianized Hun, whose grazing-lands on this side of the mountain the castle protected against the heathen Huns on the other.
This constable felt death approaching and, being able to place little reliance on the good sense or courage of his sons, wrote to Anastasius, who had shown him many marks of favour, and offered to sell him the castle and the pass for a few thousand gold pieces. Anastasius called his principal Senators together and asked them for their opinion on the matter, which they gave as follows: ‘The Caspian Gates would have been of great commercial importance to Your Sacred Majesty, had you been able to use the northern caravan-route for direct trade with China; but as this has been denied you by Persian intrigue there is no profit to be derived from them. Your Majesty will realize that the present constable, or his sons, will continue to hold the fortress without any inducement from you, merely to restrain raiders from the steppes from overrunning their own country. Moreover, to post a Roman garrison there would be both dangerous and expensive: for the Caspian Gates are situated two hundred miles beyond the eastern end of the Black Sea, and more than that distance from the Diocese of Pontus, which is the nearest of Your Clemency’s personal dominions on the southern shores of that Sea: the Persian satrapy of Iberia lies between. We therefore advise Your Greatness to thank this Hun most courteously and to send him a worthy gift, but not to throw good money after bad; the Eastern frontier has already cost the Empire too dear.’
Anastasius unwisely took their advice. The constable died shortly afterwards, and the sons quarrelled over his will. Then the youngest of them, who was robbed of his inheritance, wrote to Kobad suggesting that a strong Persian force should seize the Gates, and that he himself should be appointed constable with a large yearly salary. Kobad sent the force, seized the Gates, killed all the sons, including the youngest one, and congratulated himself that his extreme Western dominions were now secure from attack by the Huns. If Anastasius had only had the courage to garrison the Gates, he could, whenever he pleased, have let loose swarms of raiders on the Persian part of Armenia, as easily as a gardener removes a stop from a garden reservoir and floods the irrigation channels.
So much for the Caspian Gates.