蛮族中的文明人:5—6世纪拜占庭人对波斯人的认识——以拜占庭与萨珊波斯两次托孤事件为考察中心

Civilized People in the Barbarians:Byzantines’Understanding of Persians in the 5th-6th Century:Centering on the Two Events of Entrust of the Byzantine and the Sasanian Persian

408年拜占庭皇帝阿卡第临终之际把未来的皇帝狄奥多西二世托孤给萨珊波斯帝国国王耶兹迪格德一世是两国关系史上的美谈。但是525年波斯国王科巴德希望把幼子科斯劳托付给拜占庭皇帝查士丁一世却未能成行。两次托孤事件有着复杂的背景,是各自国内问题和两国关系各种因素的集中表现。选择彼此的对手作为托孤对象更反映出在古代晚期拜占庭人眼中波斯人是“蛮族”中的“文明人”,突显出两国关系中相对平等的认知心理。

In 408,on the deathbed of the Byzantine emperor Arcadius,he entrusted the future emperor Theodosius II to the king of the Sasanian Persian Empire YezdegerdⅠ,which was a good attempt on the relationship between the two countries.But in 525,the Persian King Cobard failed to entrust his youngest son,Chosroes,to the Byzantine emperor JustinⅠ.The two cases of entrusting orphans have a complicated background,which is the concentrated expression of domestic issues and various factors of bilateral relations.The choice of each other’s rivals as a solitary object reflects the fact that the Persians were“civilized people”among the“barbarians”,in the eyes of Byzantines in the Late Antiquity,which highlighted the cognition of relative equality in the relationship between the two countries.