Sasanian Persia

The Rise and Fall of an Empire

Touraj Daryaee

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780857737229
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

I.B.Tauris in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation Of profound importance in late antiquity, the Sasanian Empire is almost completely unknown today, except as a counterpoint to the Roman Empire.What are the reasons for this ignorance and why does the Sasanian Empire matter? In this brilliant and highly readable new history Touraj Daryaee fills a huge gap in our knowledge of world history.He examines the Sasanians'complex and colourful narrative and demonstrates their unique significance, not only for the development of Iranian civilisation but also for Roman and Islamic history. The Sasanians were the last of the ancient Persian dynasties and are best known as the preeminent practitioners of the Zoroastrian religion.From its foundation by Ardashir I in 224 CE, the Sasanian Empire was the dominant force in the Middle East for several centuries until its last king, Yazdgerd III, was defeated by the Muslim Arabs, whose horsemen swept away his seemingly far more powerful empire in the 7th century.Theirs was the first post Hellenic civilisation in the Near East to operate on an imperial scale and its sphere of influence and contact was unparalleled-from India to the Levant and from the Arabian Peninsula to the Caspian Sea.
In this concise yet comprehensive new book, Touraj Daryaee provides an unrivalled account of Sasanian Persia.Drawing on extensive new sources he paints a vivid portrait of Sasanian life and unravels the divergent strands that contributed to the making of this great Empire: religion-not just Zoroastrianism but also Manichaeaism;the economy;administration;the multiple languages and their literature as well as the Empire's often neglected social history. Daryaee also explores - for the first time in an integrated book on the Sasanians-their descendants'attempts for more than a century after their defeat to establish a second state and reveals how their values and traditions have endured, both in Iranian popular culture and in the literary tradition of the Persian language and literature, to the present day. Sasanian Persia is a unique examination of a period of history that still has great significance for a full understanding of modern Iran.

Chapter 1

The Political History of Iran and an-Iran ¹

IRAN BEFORE THE SASANIANS

The Achaemenid Empire had made the Persians the dominant power in the known world from the sixth to the fourth centuries BCE. This fact usually escapes us, as we in the West have been so infatuated with Greece and the cluster of islands which surround it in antiquity. This Persian dominance in a sense meant the unification of the three major river civilizations, those of Egypt, Mesopotamia and India. This interaction brought various religious, technological and political ideas together and brought the world into a new phase of its existence under Persian rule. For examples those who worshipped Humban, the great Elamite deity, learned about Ahuramazda, the Zoroastrian deity par excellence, and the followers of Ahuramazda learned about Marduk, who sat at the head of the Mesopotamian deities. The Hebrews, the ethical monotheists, came into contact with the Zoroastrians and a fruitful period of interaction began which left its mark on beliefs of all sides. This interaction no doubt took place in an atmosphere of tolerance which the world had rarely seen and was to be a lesson for the succeeding Greco-Macedonian armies and the period known as the Hellenistic Age.

In the fourth century BCE, Alexander was able to conquer the Satrapies of the Persian Empire. Even in this Greco-Macedonian venture, one can see Alexander not as a foreign conqueror, but as someone who attempted to justify his conquest by claiming to be the rightful heir to the Persian throne. As his conquests took him to the heart of Persia, he began to adopt Persian customs, partake in the ceremonies of the Magi and marry Persian princesses to symbolically continue the royal Acahemenid line. For Persia, to follow P. Briant’s view, Alexander was only the last of the Achaemenid rulers. Now the Greco-Macedonians had become part of an already existing world order whose new masters they had become.

Alexander did not live to see the fruits of his conquests and died in Babylonia, leaving his generals squabbling over the spoils. One of his generals, Seleucus (312–308 BCE), was able to establish the Seleucid Dynasty in Persia. This dynasty only nominally controlled the Iranian Plateau and by 250 BCE there already were signs of weakness and fragmentation. At this time Greco-Macedonian colonies had been established on the Iranian Plateau, but soon these conquerors were subsumed by Persian culture and only a few held out in garrisons. We are not sure of the local population’s reaction to these political events, but if the Zoroastrian literature is of any measure, Alexander and his motley group of conquerors were seen as wicked, coming from the seed of the demon of Wrath who had ravaged the earth, killed the Magi, and destroyed the Mazda-worshiping religion. Only then, Alexander ran off to that dark, stinky place which the Zoroastrians knew as the House of Worst Existence, i.e., Hell.

By 238 BCE the Arsacids had invaded the eastern Iranian Plateau and a new dynasty, mindful of both the Persian and Greco-Macedonian heritage, was established. The Arsacids in time gravitated more and more towards Persian culture and adopted the ideas and ideals of the old Persian rulers. We are ill informed about the province of Persis (Fars), the heartland of the Persians, but based on the meager evidence, it can be said that they were semi-autonomous and remembered much of their old tradition. The local rulers, the fratarakā,² whose coinage demonstrate their respect for the past, ruled the area. They were followed by other local rulers who also minted coins in their own name and came to be known as the kings of Persis. By the beginning of the third century CE, for reasons unknown, there was an effort by a local Persian family known as Sasan to expand their power far beyond its locality of the city of Istakhr. Then a favorite son of Persis, named Ardashir (reminding us of the Achaemenid throne name Artaxerxes and of course the more recent Persis king Ardashir/Ardaxšahr) changed the course of history again.

ARDASHIR I AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SASANIAN EMPIRE

Ardashir I was able to defeat Ardawan (Artabanus IV) at the plain of Hormozgan in 224 CE and established the Sasanian Empire.³ From then on, Ardashir took the title of šāhān šāh “King of Kings” and began the conquest of a territory which would be called Iranshahr (Ērānšahr). But before this fateful battle between the last Arsacid king and the institutor of the Sasanian dynasty, much had happened internally and externally in order for this new dynasty to come to power. To the west, the Roman Empire was going through one of its worst centuries, an anxious period, when its future seemed unsure. Roman armies whose allegiance lay with their generals brought chaos to the empire and one “Barrack Emperor” followed another, with some ruling for a very short time. During Caracalla’s rule the empire was ruled by religious fanatics and imbued with civil strife. Ardawan IV had held his own fighting Caracalla and the Romans close to Nisibis in 217 CE. A treaty in 218 CE brought a monetary settlement and kept most of Mesopotamia in the hands of the Arsacids. The next two emperors, Elagabalus (218–222 CE) and Alexander Severus (222–235 CE) were faced with their own internal problems, preventing them from making the Arsacids and then the Sasanians their sole priority.

While Ardawan was able to repel the Romans, internally he had been challenged by Balash (Vologases VI) who minted coins in his own name until 221–222 CE, demonstrating the fact that the issue of an all-powerful King of Kings had not been settled in the Arsacid Empire.⁴ So it would not seem amazing that a local warrior and his family in the province of Persis was able to rise and begin conquering the surrounding territories in a short time. Ardawan had bigger problems and could not turn his attention to a minor upstart in Persis.

The Sasanian campaign in controlling the province of Persis began in 205–206 CE, when the father of Ardashir I, Pabag⁵ dethroned the local ruler of Istakhr, by the name of Gozihr, from the Bazrangid family. According to the sources, Pabag was a priest of the fire-temple of Anahid at the city of Istakhr and this must have been a stage for the rallying of the local Persian warriors who were devoted to the cult of this deity.⁶ Anahid is important, since she is an object of devotion in the Zoroastrian sacred text, the Avesta, (see Yasht V or the Aban Yasht) by heroes, warriors and kings. During the Achaemenid period, in the beginning of the fifth century BCE, Artaxerxes II also worshipped Anahid (Anahita) along with Mihr (Mithra) and Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazda). Thus, her cult must have been an old one in Persis and the temple may have served as a location where the Persian tradition was kept alive. Anahita’s warlike character was the symbiosis of ancient Near Eastern (Ishtar), Hellenic (Athena/Anaitis) and Iranian tradition which provided legitimacy for kingship in the Sasanian period.⁷

Pabag had envisaged his eldest son, Shabuhr, as his heir since we have coins representing both Shabuhr and his father. Nevertheless, Shabuhr died under mysterious circumstances. On these coins the obverse has the legend bgy šhpwhly MLK’ “(His) Majesty, king Shabuhr” and the reverse BRH bgy p’pky MLK’ “son of (His) Majesty, king Pabag.”⁸ Ardashir and his followers seem to be the culprits who benefited the most out of this “accidental death,” but that cannot be proved for certain. If the graffiti at Persepolis is an accurate portrayal of Pabag and his son Shabuhr, one can make several assumptions. One is that the Sasanians were becoming or had become a family that held both secular and religious power in Persis. Second, the cult of fire, which is very much an idea connected with Zoroastrianism, was alive before Ardashir came to power.⁹ Third, the proximity of the graffiti of Pabag and Shabuhr to the Achaemenid structures suggests that these monuments were important for the Sasanians. We may assume that after the death of Shabuhr, Ardashir became the next heir and began to complete the conquest of Persis and beyond. By this time Ardawan IV had become alarmed, but neither the forces sent nor the army under his direct command were able to defeat Ardashir. Walakhash/Balash, the Parthian challenger to Ardawan IV in Mesopotamia, outlived the Parthian king, but he was the next victim of Ardashir in 229 CE. By this time most of the Iranian Plateau¹⁰ and the Arab¹¹ side of the Persian Gulf had become part of his empire.¹²

In his invasion of Armenia,¹³ Syria and Cappadocia, Ardashir came into conflict with Rome and Emperor Alexander Severus (222–235 CE).¹⁴ In a letter to Ardashir, Alexander Severus had made it clear that his invasion of the Roman Empire would not be as successful as his conquest of his other neighbors.¹⁵ While Severus was alive, neither Ardashir nor the Romans were able to defeat one another (wars of 231–233 CE).¹⁶ However, once Severus died in 235 CE, Mesopotamia, Dura, Carrhae, Nisbis and finally Hatra were invaded by the Sasanians.¹⁷ Ardashir then retired and spent the last years of his life in Persis while his son, Shabuhr I who had taken part in the 240 CE campaign, continued his conquests and the expansion of the empire. One might ask why Ardashir had taken on these campaigns against the Romans? This was probably due to the fact that the stable borders between the two empires of Rome and Parthia had previously been Oshroene, Hatra, and Armenia, but Severus had conquered Oshroene which put the heartland of the Arsacid and later Sasanian dynasty in danger.¹⁸

We should say more about Ardashir, since he is an important personage in the development of the Sasanian outlook and imperial ideology. The material remains of his rule are especially rich in providing us with his world-view. In commemoration of his victory, he commissioned several rock-reliefs at Firouzabad, Naqsh-i Rajab and Naqsh-i Rustam. At Naqsh-i Rustam, he is shown on his horse standing over the dead body of Ardawan. Ohrmazd faces him on a horse as well, standing over the body of the evil spirit Ahreman, and is handing the symbol of sovereignty to Ardashir I.¹⁹ This relief demonstrates that Ardashir believed or wanted others to believe that he was appointed by God to rule over a territory which the inscriptions call Iranshahr (realm of the Iranians/Ayrans) and the people Ērān (Iranians). The name used for this territory had precedence in the Avesta and designated the mythical homeland of the Aryans, now transposed onto the region where the Sasanians were ruling.²⁰ This idea was to be accepted by the Zoroastrian and non-Zoroastrian population of the empire and lived on in the collective memory of Persians in various stages and among the various strata of Iranian society and governments till modern times.²¹ This idea should not be mistaken for the Classical historian’s testimonies, relaying that Ardashir was attempting to regain the Achaemenid Persian territory.²² What is clear is that a notion of what Iranshahr meant was present in the religious sphere, which may have given rise to political concepts of a set territory. This is gained from the third century inscription(s) of the Zoroastrian priest Kerdir who tells us what was considered to be Iranshahr and what was considered to be an-Ērān or “non-Iranian” lands. Kerdir tells us that he established many fires and priests in Iranshahr, which according to him were the following provinces: Persis, Parthia, Babylonia, Mesene, Adiabene, Azerbaijan, Isfahan, Ray, Kerman, Sistan, and Gurgan, to Peshavar. Kerdir tells us that Syria, Cilicia, Armenia, Georgia, Albania and Balasgan which were under Sasanian control were deemed as an-Ērān.²³ This term is also used in an adjectival form, giving Ērīh “Iranianess,” and an antonym, an-Ērīh which may be equivalent to the ancient Greek concept of barbaroi along with all its cultural trappings.

Ardashir’s coins²⁴ also bear a standard formula which the succeeding kings in the third and the fourth centuries adopted: mazdysn bgy ... MLK’n MLK’ ’yl’n MNW ctry MN yzd’n “Mazdaean Majesty, [name of the king], King of Kings of Ērān, whose lineage (is) from the gods.”²⁵ According to this legend, Ardashir considered himself a worshiper of Mazda (Ohrmazd) “mazdysn” first and above all.²⁶ Second, he saw himself of divine descent: “MNW ctry MN yzd’n.” This of course brings us to the question of from whom did he believe he was descended? Which “gods” were his forefathers? The eponym of the dynasty, i.e., Sasan is clearly important to this question. It was thought that the epigraphic form ssn, which appeared on certain Parthian ostraca and other documents, designated Sasan as a Zoroastrian deity, although he was not mentioned in the Avesta or the Old Persian material.²⁷ Recently, Martin Schwartz has...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Dedication Page
• Acknowledgments
• List of plates
• Prolegomena
• 1 The Political History of Iran and an-Iran
• 2 The Society of Iranshahr
• 3 Religions of the Empire: Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, Jews and Christians
• 4 Languages and Textual Remains of the Citizens
• 5 The Economy and Administration of the Iranshahr
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Plates