Istemi’s campaign against Persia was the march that Istemi led with the Göktürks against Sasanian Persia under Khosrow I. It took place in 569 or 570, while the Roman envoy Zemarchos was at his court.[1] Istemi took Zemarchos with him. At Talas he set the Roman envoy above the Persian one.[2] It has been called Istemi’s secret campaign against the Persians of 569.[3]

The march

Zemarchos was still at Istemi’s court on the embassy of 569 when Istemi decided that the envoy should follow him on his campaign against the Persians, with twenty servants and companions.[2] The other Romans were to go back to the country of the Kholiatai and wait there for Zemarchos’ return.[2] Istemi gave Zemarchos a captive slave girl of the people called Kherkhis. Zemarchos then went with him as he marched to fight the Persians.[2]

Istemi may have proposed that Zemarchos and twenty people of the court accompany the yabgu on a campaign into Persian country.[4] This would have been a smaller campaign, probably meant to plunder goods.[4]

At Talas

On the march they encamped at a place called Talas. A Persian envoy met Istemi there.[2] Istemi invited both the Roman and the Persian envoys to a feast. He gave the Romans the more honoured couch.[2] He complained at length of the wrongs the Persians had done him. This, he said, was why he was going to war.[2] As Istemi pressed his charges, the Persian envoy broke the custom of silence that held at their feasts and answered him hotly. Those present marvelled at his anger.[2] Then they parted. Istemi made ready for the campaign against the Persians.[2]

The Persian may have interrupted the yabgu in mid-sentence. This confirmed Istemi in his decision to attack Persia.[4] A different explanation takes the Persian embassy as an attempt to drive a wedge between the Göktürks and their new allies. The attempt was rebuffed, and the Göktürks then prepared for war on Persia.[5]

Course and result

Menander does not follow the army beyond Talas.[2] His account turns next to Istemi sending Zemarchos home with a new Göktürk envoy, Tagma, whose title was Tarkhan.[2] The fragments do not say where the army went, how far it came or what it achieved.[2]

In another fragment, which the editor dates to about 570, Menander writes that the Göktürks invaded Media and ravaged the land.[6] They sent an embassy to Justin II asking him to make war on Persia with them. According to Menander, this did more than anything else to move Justin to war.[2] Menander does not say whether that invasion is the campaign on which Zemarchos rode.

The Romans incited the Göktürks without cease. This was one of the causes of the twenty years’ war between Rome and Persia that began in 572.[1] In sequence, the campaign falls between the embassies to Ctesiphon, where the enmity between the Göktürks and the Persians began, and the alliance with Rome that Zemarchos carried home.

The first great war between the Göktürks and Persia came nineteen years later, in 588.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b Nöldeke 1879, p. 158
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Menander Protector
  3. ^ Yavuz 2025, p. 388
  4. ^ a b c Yavuz 2025, p. 292
  5. ^ Golden 1992, p. 129
  6. ^ Menander Protector; Dindorf 1871, p. 68-69
  7. ^ Yavuz 2025, p. 359

Sources

Literature

  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Theodor Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden. Aus der arabischen Chronik des Tabari übersetzt und mit ausführlichen Erläuterungen und Ergänzungen versehn (1879)
  • Édouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) occidentaux (1903)
  • Ludwig Dindorf (ed.), Historici Graeci minores, Bd. II: Menander Protector et Agathias (1871)

Related

What links here15

Persons
Istemi · Justin II · Khosrow I · Tagma Tarkhan
States
Byzantium · Sasanian Persia
Conflicts
Göktürk Expansion along the Silk Road · Göktürk Expansion into Europe · Göktürk–Persian war, 588–589 · The Göktürk–Hephthalite war, 555–563 · The Göktürk–Sasanian Trade Conflict
Battles & Events
Maniakh's embassy to Constantinople, 568 · The embassy of Zemarchos, 569 · The Göktürk–Byzantine alliance
Customs & Pastimes
The Göktürk Feast

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Istemi's campaign against Persia, 569.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/istemis-persian-campaign-569/

Last revised: 8 November 2026