For over 400 years, Sassanid Persia was the greatest state in Asia. To the east, the Kushan Empire was already in decline. The only strong opponent of Iran was the Roman Empire in the west. Military competition for influence in northern Mesopotamia, Armenia and the Caucasus region dominated Iranian–Roman relations, orienting the strategic activities of the early Sassanids to the western fringes of the empire. The breakthrough came in the mid-fourth century, with the emergence of the Kidara Huns in the east. Iran faced a ‘strategic dilemma’: it was crucial to avoid wars on multiple fronts. The Hephthalites or White Huns, became the most important enemy of the Sassanians until the end of the following century; the adoption of such a strategic paradigm enforced the maintenance of peace with the Roman Empire in the west. However, the Sassanian ruler, having secured the eastern territories, was able to move against Iran’s age-old enemy, Rome, this way beginning a period of wars in the west that, with few interruptions, lasted almost until the collapse of the Persian state. Defending such an enormous area was a challenge, as was preventing it from centrifugal tendencies, typical for multi-ethnic states. Despite these factors, the Iranian state managed to assure the territorial integrity of its core areas for four centuries. The tool to achieve this was the army – mobile, efficient, disciplined and motivated.

The imperial Guptas became the dominant power in India during the fourth and fifth centuries. Though the focus of this chapter will be on Gupta military strategy, I will occasionally peep into grand strategy and tactics. This is because superior tactical elements (horse archery and armoured lancers) allowed the Gupta emperor Chandragupta II to follow an aggressive military strategy. Also, non-military issues which are part of grand strategy (like the fiscal crisis in the mid-fifth century) forced the Gupta emperor Kumaragupta to adopt a passive defensive policy. First, we lay out the scope and objectives of the chapter and analyse the sources available to us for chalking out Gupta strategy. Second, we explore the offensive military strategy which enabled the Guptas to rise from a petty regional polity to the most formidable power in the subcontinent by AD 415. Third, the spotlight is shone on the failure of Gupta defensive strategic policies against the Huns after AD 467. The fourth section discusses the shortcomings of military and non-military strategies followed by the Gupta emperors in maintaining coherence within their domain. The empire was dependent on the co-operation of the samantas (feudatories) and landlords. Further, continuous success against external enemies was essential for maintaining royal supremacy. When the emperors failed against external invaders, then the internal props of royal power started disintegrating. The last section discusses strategic failures against both external and internal enemies which resulted in the collapse of the empire in the last decade of the fifth century.

Chapter 4 deals with Nicene–Homoian conversions in Italy under Ostrogothic rule. First it discusses the religious history of the Goths from the fall of the Hunnic empire to their triumph in the war with Odoacer, allowing us to better understand the nature of Gothic Homoianism in Italy and its relationship with the Nicene church. Then it examines conversions under Amal rule and the role of tolerance in their politics and ideology, and finally conversions between the Nicene and Homoian faith in the period of the Gothic War (535–54) and its aftermath.

The original Goths were a Germanic people who played a crucial role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of medieval Europe. In 410, a Gothic army led by Alaric sacked the imperial city of Rome, and at the end of the fifth century kingdoms ruled by Visigoths and Ostrogoths dominated much of the post-Roman West. The last Gothic kingdom disappeared more than a thousand years ago, when Visigothic Spain fell to the Muslim Arabs in 711, yet the Gothic legacy endured. The Renaissance depiction of the Goths as destructive barbarians was balanced by the Reformation’s respect for Gothic vigour and freedom, which gathered momentum in Germany and England and inspired the cultural revival from which the modern Gothic emerged. This chapter provides an introduction to the Goths of history, from their legendary origins to the downfall of Visigothic Spain, for only against that historical background, it claims, can we understand the attraction of the Gothic from the seventeenth century to the present day.