After he had taken the Roman fortress of Dara, the Persian king Khosrow I chose two thousand virgins from the captives and sent them as a present to the Göktürks.[1] His purpose, in the words of the Syriac church historian John of Ephesus, was “to please and content them, and hire their services”.[2] The women never arrived.[3] On the bank of a great river, fifty leagues short of their destination, they threw themselves into the water and drowned.[3] John is the only source for the episode.

Background

John names two causes of the war that Rome and Persia were fighting in these years.[4] The first was that the Persarmenians had surrendered themselves and their country to Rome.[5] The second cause greatly embittered the enmity. The Roman emperor had sent ambassadors to the Göktürks.[5] The Göktürks had been allies of Rome against Persia since the treaty of 568. The embassy of Zemarchos had confirmed the alliance.

In this war Khosrow besieged Dara. The siege ended in December 573 with the fall of the fortress.[6] Before the fall, a Persian army had stormed Apamea in Syria and brought its captives to the king’s camp. John puts their number at two hundred and ninety-two thousand.[7] Dara yielded immense wealth. Its people too were carried off into Persia.[8]

The gift

The next act of the king that John records followed from this victory.[8] Elated by his glory and by the booty taken from Roman territory, Khosrow ordered two thousand full-grown virgins of perfect beauty to be chosen from the captives.[8] They were brought before him and adorned like brides, in costly garments, gold and silver, jewels and pearls.[8] Then they were sent as a present “to the barbarians who dwell in the heart of his territories, and who are called Turks”.[1] The scribe of the manuscript left out the people’s name at this point. The translator restored it as “Turks” by comparison with the twenty-third chapter of the same book.[9] There John speaks of “a barbarous tribe, called Turks, who dwelt in the heart of the king of Persia’s dominions”.[10]

Two marzbans, Persian governors, escorted the women with a body of troops and large funds for the journey.[2] Their orders were strict. They were not to hurry. They were to travel at leisure, so that the women would not grow thin and lose their beauty.[2]

The river

The women grieved for their fathers and brothers and their other kin.[2] They grieved for their souls, which would be lost without Christian instruction, and for their bodies, which were to be given to the barbarians.[2] Speaking to one another in their own tongue, they prayed for death.[2] Syrian captives from their own country were in the escort. They learned what the women intended, and the story later became known through them.[11]

Within fifty leagues of the people for whom they were meant, the company came to a very broad and rapid river that was hard to cross.[12] The escort had orders to let them rest. They camped on the bank for a day.[12] The women took counsel.[12] Once they had polluted themselves among the heathen “with impure meats, and horseflesh”, they said, they would die all the same.[12] They resolved to die now, while their bodies were pure. They swore an oath to one another.[3]

They asked leave to wash in the river and asked their keepers to stand at a distance.[13] The keepers withdrew.[13] The women signed themselves in the name of Christ and threw themselves into the river together.[13] The keepers saw some carried down the stream and others sinking. They could not save a single one.[14]

Reliability of the account

John tells the episode as a martyrdom: the weak became strong in Christ and were saved in soul and body from the barbarians.[15] He names neither the Göktürk ruler for whom the gift was meant nor the river. The gift shows Khosrow trying to buy the service of the Göktürks while they were allied with Rome. Whether the Göktürks ever learned of the gift, and what they answered, the sources do not say.

References

  1. ^ a b John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 387–388
  2. ^ a b c d e f John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 388
  3. ^ a b c John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 389–390
  4. ^ John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 424–425
  5. ^ a b John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 425
  6. ^ Whitby 1986, p. 88
  7. ^ John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 385–387
  8. ^ a b c d John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 387
  9. ^ Smith 1860, p. 388
  10. ^ John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 424
  11. ^ John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 388–389
  12. ^ a b c d John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 389
  13. ^ a b c John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 390
  14. ^ John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 390–391
  15. ^ John of Ephesus; Smith 1860, p. 391

Sources

Literature

  • R. Payne Smith (trans.), The Third Part of the Ecclesiastical History of John, Bishop of Ephesus (1860)
  • Michael Whitby, Mary Whitby (trans.), The History of Theophylact Simocatta (1986)

Related

What links here2

Institutions and Titles
Diplomacy of the Steppe Empires
Sources
John of Ephesus

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Khosrow's gift of maidens (573).” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/khosrows-gift-of-maidens-573/

Last revised: 8 November 2026