Byzantine Spies in the Byzantine–Sassanid Wars

Byzantine spies helped to secure battlefield victories and alter enemy strategies in the Empire’s war with Persia.

by Arnold Blumberg Byzantium, the successor state to ancient Rome, lasted over a thousand years. But it all could have been different because its first major enemy—Persia—was a fierce and determined competitor bent on the Empire’s demise. It would take martial adroitness supported by good intelligence gathering to sustain the state in its early days. But thanks to the use of spies in a number of guises, the City on the Bosphorus would survive the critical first challenge to its existence.