The Battle of Herat (588)

In 588 the Göktürks and their Hephthalite subjects crossed the Oxus into Sasanian lands and took Balkh, Talaqan, Badghis and Herat. Persian sources call the Turkic ruler "Sabeh" or "Shaba"; some historians identify him as Bagha Qaghan.

An emergency council met in the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and chose Bahram Chobin, a general of the Parthian house of Mihran. He marched to Khorasan with about 12,000 picked troops and war elephants. According to the sources the elephants struck the Turkic flanks, the cavalry smashed the centre, and Bahram himself killed the Turkic ruler with an arrow.

After Herat the Sasanians recovered their lost lands. But the victory brought Bahram such fame that a year later he rebelled against his own shah, Hormizd IV, and briefly took the throne. This was the second of the Göktürk-Sasanian wars; the third would come in the Caucasus in 627.