The Persian Empire

by Kia, Mehrdad;

  Having rejected Bahram III as the legitimate heir to his father, the powerful dignitaries who favored Narseh invited him to the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon. Before reaching the Persian capital, however, Narseh met with his supporters at Paikuli in present-day northern Iraq near the country’s border with Iran. An inscription at Paikuli in Parthian and Middle Persian describes how Narseh seized the Sasanian throne from Bahram III. The inscription has three parts: introduction, main text, and conclusion. The main text also can be divided into three parts. The first part is an account of the events that took place before Narseh and the Persian dignitaries met at Paikuli, the second part is an account of the events leading to the surrender of Bahram III and the punishment of Wahnam, and the third part covers the negotiations between Narseh and the dignitaries regarding his succession to the Sasanian throne.

  Once he had seized Ctesiphon, Narseh ordered the execution of Wahnam, the power behind Bahram’s throne. Soon after Narseh ascended the Sasanian throne, disputes over Armenia resulted in another war with Rome. In 296 CE, Tiridates, the Arsacid king of Armenia, invaded the northwestern provinces of the Sasanian Empire with support from Rome. The Sasanians responded by sending an army, which repelled the Armenians and regained the upper hand, pushing into eastern Asia Minor. Romans reacted by invading Mesopotamia, which Narseh had occupied hoping to check the enemy’s advance. The two powers fought three battles. While the first two battles were inconclusive, in the third confrontation at Callinicum in Syria, the Romans under the command of Galerius suffered a devastating defeat and were forced to cross the Euphrates and retreat to Antioch. Having reorganized their forces, Galerius attacked Armenia again in 297. In 298 the Romans surprised Narseh and inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Persians near Satala in eastern Asia Minor. Narseh fled to safety, but his harem, including his queen, his sisters, and several of his children, were captured by the Romans. With the Sasanian army in disarray and the victorious Romans advancing toward his capital, Narseh was forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty with Rome. According to this treaty, the Sasanian king ceded five provinces in Mesopotamia to the Romans. Tiridates was reinstated as the ruler of Armenia under Roman suzerainty. The Sasanian monarch also agreed to renounce his claims on Iberia (present-day Republic of Georgia) in the Caucasus, which emerged as a Roman protectorate. The Tigris River was established as the boundary between the two powers. The town of Nisibis in present-day southeastern Turkey on the border with northern Syria was designated as the only center for trade and commerce between Sasanian Iran and Rome. This allowed the Romans to tax the Iranian merchants directly. Narseh never recovered from the defeat he had suffered at the hands of the Romans. He died in 302 CE.

  See also: K&Q, Sasanian: Bahram I, Bahram II, Bahram III; Hormozd III; Prophets: Kartir

  Further Reading

  Daryaee, Touraj. Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2013.

  Frye, R. N. “The Political History of Iran under the Sasanians.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 3(I), edited by Ehsan Yarshater, 116–180. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

  Pourshariati, Parvaneh. Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran. London: I. B. Tauris, 2008.

  Rawlinson, George. The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy or the Geography, History, and Antiquities of the Sassanians or New Persian Empire. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1882.

  Shahbazi, A. Shapur. “Sasanian Dynasty.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2005, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sasanian-dynasty.

  Shayegan, M. Rahim. Arsacids and Sasanians: Political Ideology in Post-Hellenistic and Late Antique Persia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

  Peroz

  Persian king of kings who ruled the Sasanian Empire from 459 to 484 CE. When the Sasanian monarch Yazdegerd II died in 457, a battle for succession erupted between his two sons. At Ray, south of present-day Tehran, the older son, Hormozd, ascended the Sasanian throne, while the younger son, Peroz, fled to the eastern province of Khorasan to raise an army with assistance from the Hephthalites based in Tokharestan (present-day northern Afghanistan). Meanwhile, Denag (Dinak), the mother of Hormozd and Peroz, was ruling the empire from its capital at Ctesiphon, in present-day southern Iraq (Tabari: Tarikh-e Tabari, 2.628). The reign of Hormozd III proved to be short-lived. In 459 Peroz attacked Hormozd and defeated his brother, seizing the Sasanian throne and proclaiming himself the king of kings.

  The reign of Peroz began with a devastating drought that lasted for seven years. Rivers, springs, water wells, and underground irrigation systems dried up (Tabari: Tarikh-e Tabari, 6.629). The drought significantly diminished water levels even in the Tigris River. Cattle and other livestock and farm animals perished. Famine spread across the empire, and rural communities began to suffer from starvation. Having secured the throne, Peroz tried to relieve the pain and suffering of his people by temporarily halting collection of taxes by the central government. He also ordered all storehouses and pantries to open their doors and distribute their food reserves among the suffering populace. Peroz threatened that if he ever received news of one single individual dying in a city or a village from starvation, he would punish that community with the full force of the law. The gallant efforts of the Sasanian monarch paid off. According to the historian Tabari, despite enormous hardship and suffering brought about by the drought and famine, with the sole exception of a single village in the province of Fars, no one else suffered (Tabari: Tarikh-e Tabari, 2.629–630). Though he was forced to focus on the devastating impact of the drought and famine on his subjects, Peroz could not ignore the threats posed by internal rebellions and foreign invasions, particularly by nomads penetrating the eastern frontiers of the Sasanian Empire.

  The Persian king first led his forces to Albania, which had declared its independence from the Sasanian state. The territory of Albania corresponded with Iranian Arran and the present-day republic of Azerbaijan in the southern Caucasus region north of the Aras River. The Sasanian army suppressed the rebellion. Though he had reestablished Persian rule over the region, Peroz adopted a tolerant policy vis-à-vis the non-Zoroastrian communities, particularly the Armenian and Albanian Christians. He switched his focus from the Caucasus to the empire’s eastern provinces, which had been invaded by the Hephthalites. His campaigns against the Hephthalites brought the Sasanian state to the verge of extinction. The Hephthalites, who were called White Huns, had breached the eastern frontiers of the Sasanian state, particularly Tokharestan (ancient Bactria), which corresponded with today’s northern Afghanistan (Procopius: I.ii.1). The campaigns of Peroz against the Hephthalites, who had supported him in his campaign to seize the Sasanian throne, proved to be disastrous for the Persian monarch and the Sasanian Empire. In the first campaign the Sasanian army suffered a humiliating defeat, and Peroz was captured. The Persian king was released after he agreed to pay a substantial ransom. To avenge the humiliation he had suffered, Peroz attacked the Hephthalites for a second time. Once again the Persian monarch was defeated. This time, he could not pay the heavy ransom demanded from the Hephthalites. As a compromise, he was forced to leave his son Kavad, a daughter, and the chief Zoroastrian priest as hostages with the Hephthalites. But Peroz refused to accept defeat. He therefore organized a third campaign and, against the advice of the members of the Persian nobility at court, attacked the Hephthalites for a third time in 484. Once again, the Sasanian army suffered a humiliating defeat. Peroz and several of his sons were killed on the battlefield (Tabari: Tarikh-e Tabari, 2.628). The entire Sasanian royal harem, including all of the king’s wives and one of his daughters, as well as the chief Zoroastrian priest, were captured by the Hephthalites. The death of the Persian king and the disintegration of his formidable army enabled the Hephthalites to invade and occupy the eastern provinces of the Sasanian Empire. The Sasanians had no other alternative but to sue for peace and agree to pay an annual tribute.

  The relegation
of the Sasanian Empire from a superpower to a tributary state of the Hephthalite Empire was one of the lowest points in Sasanian history. The growing weakness of the Sasanian central government allowed the powerful members of the Persian nobility to reemerge and interfere in the decision-making process at the royal court. Historical sources mention Zarmehr Sokhra, of the Karen family, who fought the Hephthalites courageously after the death of Peroz on the battlefield and saved the Sasanian army from total annihilation at the hands of the enemy. Mention has also been made of Shapur, a member of the powerful Mehran family, who blamed Peroz for his tyrannical behavior and his refusal to consult the nobility before embarking on adventurous military campaigns. When a son of Peroz, Zarer, attempted to seize the throne after his father’s death, the powerful members of the nobility murdered him and instead installed Balash (Valakhsh), a brother of Peroz, on the throne. Balash, who has been described as a mild-mannered and peace-loving king, displayed his benevolence toward his Christian subjects by allowing them to practice their religion without fear of persecution. Despite his best efforts to restore peace and tranquility in his empire, however, the Sasanian state remained in dire straits. The treasury loomed empty, and the king of kings could not pay the salaries of his troops. Once again Zarmehr Sokhra and Shapur acted as the king makers, deposing Balash and passing the throne to Kavad, “the youngest son of Peroz,” who for a time had been a hostage with the Hephthalites (Procopius: I.iv.34–35).

  See also: K&Q, Sasanian: Balash; Kavad I; Yazdegerd II

  Further Reading

  Agathias. The Histories. Translated by Joseph D. Frendo. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1975.

  Procopius. History of the Wars, Books I–II. Translated by H. B. Dewing. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.

  Shahbazi, A. Shapur. “Sasanian Dynasty.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2005, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sasanian-dynasty.

  Tabari. The History of al-Tabarī, Vol. 5, The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen. Translated by C. E. Bosworth. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999.

  Tabari. Tarikh-e Tabari, Vol. 2. Translated from Arabic into Persian by Abol Qassem Payandeh. Tehran: Asatir Publications, 1984.

  Shapur I

  Shapur I was the second monarch of the Persian Sasanian dynasty who ruled from 239/240/241/242 to 270/272 CE. He was the son of Ardashir I, the founder of the Sasanian state. Ardashir defeated and killed Artabanus IV, the last king of the Arsacid (Parthian) dynasty, on the battlefield in 224 CE. Shapur was chosen by his father as co-regent either in 239 or 240 CE, and after Ardashir I died, Shapur emerged as the sole master of a vast empire, which by then stretched from Central Asia to Syria. The first years of Shapur’s reign were spent on consolidating his rule and suppressing the internal rebellions against the Sasanian central government. Once he had completed these campaigns, Shapur shifted his focus to the west and the threat posed by the Roman Empire. Ardashir I had already adopted an offensive posture toward the Romans by invading and occupying several key urban centers in Mesopotamia. Before Ardashir’s death, the Romans organized a large army under the command of Gordian III (r. 238–244 CE) to recapture the territory they had lost in Mesopotamia. In 243, Gordian succeeded in reestablishing Roman rule over Antioch, Nisibis (Nusaybin), and Carrhae (Harran) in present-day southeastern Turkey. He then moved south toward Ctesiphon, the Sasanian capital located in present-day southern Iraq. When the battle was joined at Misiche or Massice in Mesopotamia in 244 CE, the Sasanians defeated the Romans and forced them to withdraw their forces. The Roman emperor Gordian either died on the battlefield or was murdered by his own officers shortly after the conclusion of the battle. Gordian was succeeded by Philip the Arab (r. 244–249 CE). The new Roman emperor negotiated a peace treaty with Shapur I. Philip ceded Armenia and Mesopotamia to Shapur. He also paid a large indemnity of 500,000 gold dinarii to the Persian king. After this victory, Misiche was renamed “Pēroz Shāpur” (“Victorious Is Shapur”) (Frye: 296). Hostilities between the two empires resumed, however, when the Romans reneged on their promises and intervened in Armenia. In 256 CE, the Sasanian army defeated a 60,000-strong Roman army at Barbalissos in northern Syria. Soon Antioch fell, followed by Dura Europos on the right bank of the Euphrates River in eastern Syria. The Sasanian monarch ravaged Syria before returning home.

  Monumental statue of the Sasanian king of kings Shapur I stands in the Cave of Shapur a short distance from the ancient city of Bishapur in southern Iran. Shapur claimed that he had defeated three Roman emperors: Gordian III, Philip the Arab, and Valerian. (Ivan Vdovin/JAI/Corbis)

  Humiliated by the defeats they had suffered at the hands of Shapur and determined to recapture the territory they had lost, the Romans attacked again during the reign of the Roman emperor Valerian (r. 253–260 CE) with an army of 70,000. After seizing Edessa in present-day southeastern Turkey, Shapur led the Sasanian army against the Romans. Emperor Valerian and a group of Roman commanders, senators, and engineers were captured by the Persian king. Several scholars have rejected the claim made by Shapur in his inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam in southern Iran that he captured the Roman emperor on the battlefield, maintaining that Valerian was most probably seized by deceit. Once again, the disintegration of the Roman army allowed Shapur to attack and devastate Syria, northern Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. Major urban centers of the region, including Antioch, Edessa, Konya, and Caesarea, were raided and plundered. Sasanians were, however, surprised when the ruler of the important commercial city of Palmyra, who had remained loyal to the Romans, struck, attacking Persian forces and capturing Nisibis. It is generally believed that many Romans captured by Shapur were sent to Fars in southern Iran, where they participated in the construction of the city of Bishapur. Valerian never saw Rome again and died in captivity in Iran.

  Three rock reliefs at Bishapur celebrated Shapur’s victories over the Romans. The first, which is a scene of investiture, depicts the Sasanian monarch sitting on his horse and receiving a diadem from the great god Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazda), who is also mounted. Ohrmazd’s horse has trampled a figure under its hooves. This figure has been identified as the demonic Ahriman, the evil spirit in Zoroastrian religious teachings. As with Ohrmazd, Shapur has also crushed a figure under the hooves of his horse. This figure has been identified by some scholars as the Roman emperor Gordian III. Meanwhile, a figure believed by some to be Philip the Arab kneels in front of the Persian monarch in a display of submission and obedience. The second rock relief shows Shapur receiving the diadem not from God but from a putto, a nude, winged, male child. In the same relief, a figure believed by some to be the Roman emperor Gordian has been trampled under the hooves of the king’s horse, while another figure, probably Philip the Arab, kneels, and the Sasanian king holds the ill-fated Emperor Valerian by his wrist. The third relief shows a mounted Shapur who has trampled a figure, probably Gordian III, under the hooves of his horse. The Sasanian monarch holds Emperor Valerian by his wrist, while Philip the Arab kneels. The new element added to the third relief is the depiction of a group of horsemen and court dignitaries in two side registers. Another rock relief, this one at Naqsh-e Rostam, also in southern Iran, celebrated the Persian victory and depicted the defeated Valerian kneeling in front of the Persian king, who sits on his horse.

  It was during Shapur’s reign, around 242 CE, that the Iranian prophet Mani visited the Sasanian court. Mani dedicated one of his books, Shapurakan [Book of Shapur], to the Persian monarch. Shapur I granted Mani the right to preach in the provinces of the Sasanian Empire. Some have suggested that Mani tried to convert Shapur to his religion but failed, although Manichean sources claimed that the Iranian prophet did convert a brother of Shapur, Mihrshah, to the new religion (Frye: 300). The decision of the Sasanian king to allow Mani to preach his religion without fear of persecution may indicate that the Zoroastrian priesthood did not enjoy sufficient power over the Sasanian dynast to prevent competing religious doctrines and movements from carrying out their missionary activitie
s within the Sasanian domains. Shapur I died most probably in 270 or 272 CE and was succeeded by his son Hormozd Ardashir, who ascended the Sasanian throne as Hormozd I. Hormozd, who was not the oldest son of Shapur, had previously served his father as the king of Armenia.

  See also: Ancient Cities: Naqsh-e Rostam; K&Q, Sasanian: Ardashir I; Peoples: Sasanian Empire

  Further Reading

  Curtis, John. Mesopotamia and Iran in the Parthian and Sasanian Periods. London: British Museum Press, 2000.

  Daryaee, Touraj. Sasanian Iran (224–651 CE): Portrait of a Late Antique Empire. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2008.

  Frye, R. N. “The Political History of Iran under the Sasanians.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 3, edited by Ehsan Yarshater, 116–180. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

  Frye, Richard Nelson. The Heritage of Persia. Cleveland: World Publishing, 1963.

  Rawlinson, George. The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy or the Geography, History, and Antiquities of the Sassanians or New Persian Empire. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1882.

  Shahbazi, A. Shapur. “Sasanian Dynasty.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2005, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sasanian-dynasty.

  Tabari. The History of al-Tabarī, Vol. 5, The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen. Translated by C. E. Bosworth. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999.

  Tabari. Tarikh-e Tabari. Translated from Arabic into Persian by Abol Qassem Payandeh. Tehran: Asatir Publications, 1984.

  Shapur II

  Shapur II was the longest-reigning monarch of the Sasanian Persian dynasty who ruled from 309 to 379 CE. He was the son of Hormozd II. Hormozd II ruled from 302 to 309 CE. When Hormozd died, the Persian nobles and court dignitaries refused to support any of his living sons as the next king of kings. Instead, they placed the crown on the swollen abdomen of one of Hormozd’s wives, who was pregnant at the time, and declared her unborn child the successor to the deceased king. Thus, Shapur II was designated as the ruler of the Sasanian Empire before he was even born.