The Sasanian kings ruled what is now Iran from 224 to 636 CE. The dynasty took its name from Sasan, grandfather of the first Sasanian king, Ardashir. The Sasanians set out to restore the glories of the earlier Achaemenid kings of Persia. They promoted the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism and strove to reconquer all the provinces that had been Persian when Cyrus the Great and Darius ruled.
The Sasanian kings ordered the destruction of all records and inscriptions from the period when Persia had been ruled by the "foreign" Parthian kings. The first Sasanian king, Ardashir, even changed his name to Artaxerxes to remind his subjects of the link between the old and new Persian kingdoms.
A State Religion
The Sasanian kings ruled different peoples who worshiped their own gods. Shapur was a particularly tolerant king who allowed his subjects to worship as they pleased. He even met the prophet Manichaeus (or Mani), who preached his own unconventional form of Christianity at Shapur’s court. However, the later Sasanian kings permitted only Zoroastrianism, the official state religion. Manichaeus was arrested and executed in 276 by King Varahram (or Bahram) II. This act sparked a series of persecutions in which other faiths, including Christianity and Judaism, were outlawed and their followers harshly treated. The power of the mobad, or high priest, of Zoroastrianism grew steadily. By 350 CE, along with religion, the mobad had great influence in such areas of Persian life as the law, trade, and government.
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ENEMIES OF ROME |
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The Sasanian kings were determined to push the Romans out of western Asia. In the years after 245 CE, Shapur I (reigned 241–272 CE) forced the Roman army to retreat from Mesopotamia and Armenia. In a second campaign in the 250s, he sacked many of the rich Roman cities in Syria and Asia Minor. Thousands of Roman captives were forcibly deported and resettled in distant provinces of the Sasanian Empire. Rome struggled to deal with this powerful new force on its eastern frontier. The emperor Gordian III was mysteriously assassinated in Mesopotamia just as he was preparing to attack. Philippus I had to buy peace with the Sasanians by offering them gifts of gold and silver. At Edessa in 260, the Romans suffered one of their greatest disasters when the emperor Valerian was captured and murdered. Shapur ordered the carving of monumental scenes showing the Roman emperor as his helpless prisoner. The Romans had few victories against the Sasanian Empire until Julian marched his army into Mesopotamia in the middle of the fourth century.
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CHOSROES I REIGNED 531–579 CE |
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Chosroes I became king at a time when Iran had been weakened by feeble kings. The kingdom was poorly defended, warring nobles were ignoring the king’s authority, and White Huns and Turks of central Asia threatened to invade Iran’s northern frontiers. Chosroes set up a new system of tax collection, and with the extra money raised, he built a powerful army run by his loyal generals rather than by old noble families. He captured the rich trading city of Antioch in 540. He crushed the White Hun invaders in 558 and fought a twenty-year war against the Eastern Roman Empire. Chosroes was not only a warrior; he built the beautiful arch at Ctesiphon, which was celebrated for centuries as the world’s largest vaulted building. To encourage learning and the arts, Chosroes established schools, libraries, and temples. Old roads, canals, and aqueducts were restored to working order. He encouraged an interest in farming, crafts, and science. As a result of his accomplishments, Chosroes’s long reign was remembered as a golden age.
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