Chosroes I

Chosroes I., or Khosru the Great, succeeded Cabades as King of Persia in 531 A.D. At first he maintained peaceful relations with the Roman Empire, but subsequently attacked Syria, Mesopotamia, and Cappadocia, and was for a time kept at bay by the famous Belisarius, but after ten years' war he compelled Justinian to cede to him in 562 considerable tracts of territory, to which he added the results of further conquests in the East. Justin II. having refused to continue the subsidy paid by his predecessor, he again made an irruption into Roman dominions, and had just driven Tiberius III. to come to terms, when he died in 579. He was beloved by his Mussulman subjects as a just and generous ruler, but he proved an implacable foe to the Christians. He encouraged literature, and caused the well-known work Kalilah and Bimnah to be translated into Persian.