Maniakh

Maniakh was the Sogdian who carried the Göktürks into the diplomacy of the west. Menander Protector says that, as the power of the Göktürks grew, the Sogdians asked their king to send an embassy to the Persians. The Sogdians had formerly been subjects of the Hephthalites and were now subjects of the Göktürks. They wished to travel to Persia and sell raw silk to the Medes.^[1] Sizabul, that is Istemi, agreed and sent Sogdian envoys with Maniakh at their head.^[1] The usual view identifies Sizabul with Istemi. A second regards him as a lesser chief of the Göktürks (see Türk-shad).^[2] The silk the Sogdians proposed to sell came from China. In those years the Zhou and the Qi each paid the Göktürks a hundred thousand pieces a year.^[3] Maniakh’s project was to double the profit of this Chinese payment by carrying the surplus to the other end of the continent.^[4]

Embassy to Persia

At the Persian court the Sogdians asked leave to sell their raw silk without hindrance.^[1] Khosrow was reluctant to give them free access to Persia. He put off his answer from one day to the next.^[1] When they pressed him he summoned a council.^[1] The Hephthalite Katulph advised him not to return the silk, but to buy it at a fair price and burn it before the envoys’ eyes.^[1] In that way the king could not be charged with an injustice, and it would be plain that he wanted no silk from the Göktürks.^[1] The silk was burned. The Sogdians went home displeased.^[1] A second embassy, of Göktürks, fared worse. Most of its members died of poison at the Persian court, in the embassies to Persia that closed the southern market.^[1] There was no blockade here. The policy was the ordinary Sasanian one of controlling frontier trade by permits and protecting a merchant class of its own.^[5] It was joined to a political refusal of the Göktürks. Their silk was the fruit and the symbol of Chinese tribute.^[6]

Embassy to Constantinople

Maniakh then advised Istemi that it would be better for the Göktürks to cultivate the friendship of the Romans and to send their raw silk to them for sale. The reason was that the Romans used more of it than other people.^[1] He said he was willing to go himself with Göktürk envoys, so that Romans and Göktürks should become friends.^[1] Istemi consented. He sent him with greetings, a valuable gift of raw silk and a letter.^[1] Maniakh travelled very many roads. He went over mountains reaching near the clouds, through plains, woods, marshes and rivers. He crossed the Caucasus and came to Byzantium.^[1] Justin II received him at the beginning of the fourth year of his reign.^[1] That was late 568 or early 569.^[7]

In the palace Maniakh handed over the letter and the gifts. He asked that the toil of his journey should not be in vain.^[1] The emperor had the letter, written in Scythian, read to him through an interpreter. He questioned the envoys about the Göktürks and their country.^[1] Menander does not say whether the Scythian letters were runiform or Sogdian. The report is cited in the debate on the origin of the script.^[8] They answered that the Göktürks had four principalities, but that power over the whole people lay with Istemi alone.^[1] The claim may be diplomatic exaggeration. It was meant to raise the standing of their ruler and of their mission, since the senior ruler was Mukan.^[9] They added that the Göktürks had conquered the Hephthalites, who lived in cities, and had made them tributary. Of the Avars who had broken away from them, some still held to the Göktürks. Those who had fled numbered about twenty thousand.^[1] Then Maniakh and his companions raised their hands and swore their greatest oath that they spoke with honest intent. They called curses on themselves, on Istemi and on their whole people if they lied.^[1] The Göktürks thus became friends of the Romans.^[1]

In August 569 Maniakh set out for home with the Roman envoy Zemarchos. Justin sent Zemarchos in answer to the embassy of 568.^[10] The embassy of Zemarchos reached Istemi’s camp on the mountain Ektag. It went with him on the march toward Talas.^[11]

Death and family

When Istemi dismissed Zemarchos, he sent another envoy with him. The former one, Maniakh, had died.^[11] The successor was Tagma, whose title was Tarkhan. With him went the son of the dead Maniakh.^[11] The boy was very young. Even so, he had been given his father’s title and ranked immediately after the Tarkhan.^[11] Menander thought the boy received the title because Maniakh had been very friendly and loyal to Istemi.^[11] Menander does not say how or where Maniakh died.^[11]

Maniakh’s family held rank and a hereditary title in the Göktürk hierarchy when the empire had only just been created. It belonged fully to the Sogdo-Göktürk milieu that governed the western khaganate.^[12] Maniakh identified the Greek empire, at a distance of several thousand kilometres, as the chief consumer of the west. He identified silk as one of the only goods worth the carriage.^[13] The Chinese payments to the Göktürks were only a few years old when he proposed to send their surplus across Asia.^[13] Gregory of Tours records an Armenian embassy that brought a great store of unwoven silk to the emperor in 571. It may be the fruit of the road Maniakh opened.^[14]

References

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.1
^ Sinor 1990, p. 302,303,305
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 209
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 210
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 231
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 232
^ Blockley 1985, p. 262
^ Vásáry 1993, p. 53
^ Sinor 1990, p. 303
^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.2
^ a b c d e f Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 236
^ a b de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 237
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 235–236

Sources

Menander Protector

Literature

R. C. Blockley, The History of Menander the Guardsman: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes (1985)
Étienne de la Vaissière, Sogdian Traders: A History (2005)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
Denis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990)
István Vásáry, Doğu Avrupa'nın Runik Alfabe Sistemleri Üzerine (1993)