25,000 men[1] Lazic War The Battle of Dara was fought between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sasanians in 530 AD.

This failed to satisfy Kavadh, who attacked Byzantine allies, so Justin sent his generals Sittas and Belisarius into Persia, where they were initially defeated.

[5] In 529, the failed negotiations of Justin's successor Justinian prompted a Sasanian expedition of 40,000 men towards Dara.

[6][7] The next year, Belisarius was sent back to the region alongside Hermogenes and an army; Kavadh answered with another 10,000 troops under the general Perozes, who set up camp about five kilometers away at Ammodius, in the near vicinity of Dara.

[7] The Persians, outnumbering the Romans by 15,000 men, deployed around 20 stades away from the town of Daras and drew up their battle lines.

Belisarius also placed a body of Heruli cavalry under Pharas in ambush position off his left flank.

A reserve composed of his own bucellarii household cavalry was held behind his center and commanded by John the Armenian, his trusted lieutenant and boyhood friend.

Andreas, who had been secretly training with Belisarius' own household troopers, killed not only this Persian champion, but also a second challenger later in the day.

"[10] The letter either fell on deaf ears[7] or Perozes already wanted to negotiate which eventually failed,[5] the battle resumed.

For fresh men were always fighting in turn, affording to their enemy not the slightest opportunity to observe what was being done; but even so the Romans did not have the worst of it.

For a steady wind blew from their side against the barbarians, and checked to a considerable degree the force of their arrows.

Following the defeat, the Sasanians under Spahbod Azarethes together with their client Lakhmids started another invasion, this time, unexpectedly, via Commagene.