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Sasanian Empire

The Sasanian Empire (/səˈsɑːniən, səˈsniən/) or Sassanid Empire, officially known as Eranshahr ("Kingdom of the Iranians"),[9][10] was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th to 8th centuries. Named after the House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651, making it the second longest-lived Persian imperial dynasty after the Arsacids of the Parthian Empire.[2][11]

Kingdom of the Iranians
Ērānšahr[a][2]

Ardashir I (first)

Yazdegerd III (last)

28 April 224

526–532

628–632

633–651

651

3,500,000 km2 (1,400,000 sq mi)

The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire and re-established the Persians as a major power in late antiquity alongside its arch-rival, the Roman Empire (after 395 the Byzantine Empire).[12][13][14] The empire ended with the Muslim conquest of Persia. It was founded by Ardashir I, a ruler who rose to power as Parthia weakened as a result of internal strife and wars with the Romans. After defeating the last Parthian King of Kings, Artabanus IV, at the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224, he established the Sasanian Empire and set out to restore the legacy of the Achaemenid Empire by expanding Persia's dominions.


At its greatest territorial extent, the Sasanian Empire encompassed all of present-day Iran and Iraq, and stretched from the Levant to the Indian subcontinent and from South Arabia to the Caucasus and Central Asia.


The period of Sasanian rule was a high point in Iranian civilization,[15] characterized by a complex and centralized government bureaucracy, and revitalized Zoroastrianism as a legitimizing and unifying ideal.[16] They also built grand monuments, public works, and patronized cultural and educational institutions. The empire's cultural influence extended far beyond its territorial borders, including Western Europe,[17] Africa,[18] China, and India[19]—and helped shape European and Asian medieval art.[20]


Following the early Muslim conquests, the influence of Sasanian art, architecture, music, literature and philosophy on Islamic culture ensured the spread of Iranian culture, knowledge and ideas throughout the Muslim world.[21]

Name

Officially, the empire was known as the Kingdom of the Iranians (Middle Persian: ērānšahr, Parthian: aryānšahr, Greek: Arianōn ethnos); the term is first attested in the trilingual Great Inscription of Shapur I, where the king says "I am the lord of the Kingdom of the Iranians".[b][22]


More commonly, as the ruling dynasty was named after Sasan, the empire is known as the Sasanian Empire in historical and academic sources. This term is also recorded in English as the Sassanian Empire, the Sasanid Empire, and the Sassanid Empire. Historians have referred to the Sasanian Empire as the Neo-Persian Empire, since it was the second Iranian empire that rose from Pars (Persis),[23] while the Achaemenid Empire was the first.

The (642–760) descendant of Jamasp.[84]

Dabuyid dynasty

The (665–1598) of Mazandaran, descendant of Jamasp.[85]

Paduspanids

The (1100–1382) from Hormizd IV's line.[86]

shahs of Shirwan

The (9th–10th century) from Mihr Gushnasp, a Sasanian prince.

Banu Munajjim

The (9th–10th century) a dehqan family descended from Yazdegerd III.

Kamkarian family

The (9th–11th century) a family descended from the Sogdian ruler Divashtich, who was in turn a descendant of Bahram V.

Mikalids

Sources of slaves were both foreign (e.g., non- captives from warfare or raiding or slaves imported from outside the Empire by traders) or domestic (e.g., hereditary slaves, children sold into slavery by their fathers, or criminals enslaved as punishment). Some cases suggest that a criminal's family might also be condemned to servitude. At the time of the manuscript's composition, Iranian slavery was hereditary on the mother's side (so that a child of a free man and a slave woman would be a slave), although the author reports that in earlier Persian history it may have been the opposite, being inherited from the father's side.

Zoroastrians

Slave-owners had the right to the slaves' income.

While slaves were formally (property) and were liable to the same legal treatment as nonhuman property (for example, they could be sold at will, rented, owned jointly, inherited, given as security for a loan, etc.), Sasanian courts did not treat them completely as objects; for example, slaves were allowed to testify in court in cases concerning them, rather than only permitted to be represented by their owners.

chattel

Slaves were often given to the Zoroastrian as a pious offering, in which case they and their descendants would become temple-slaves.

fire temples

Excessive cruelty towards slaves could result in the owners' being brought to court; a court case involving a slave whose owner tried to drown him in the is recorded, though without stating the outcome of the case.

Tigris River

If a non-Zoroastrian slave, such as a slave, converted to Zoroastrianism, he or she could pay his or her price and attain freedom; i.e., as long as the owner was compensated, manumission was required.

Christian

Owners could also voluntarily manumit their slaves, in which case the former slave became a subject of the Sasanian King of Kings and could not lawfully be re-enslaved later. Manumissions were recorded, which suggests that a freedman who was challenged would be able to document their free status.

Uniquely in comparison to Western slave systems, Sasanian slavery recognized partial manumission (relevant in the case of a jointly owned slave, only some of whose owners were willing to manumit). In case of a slave who was, e.g., one-half manumitted, the slave would serve in alternating years.

Language

Official languages

During the early Sasanian period, Middle Persian along with Koine Greek and Parthian appeared in the inscriptions of the early Sasanian kings. However, by the time Narseh (r. 293–302) was ruling, Greek was no longer in use, perhaps due to the disappearance of Greek or the efforts of the anti-Hellenic Zoroastrian clergy to remove it once and for all. This was probably also because Greek was commonplace among the Romans/Byzantines, the rivals of the Sasanians.[4] Parthian soon disappeared as an administrative language too, but was continued to be spoken and written in the eastern part of the Sasanian Empire, the homeland of the Parthians.[150] Furthermore, many of the Parthian aristocrats who had entered into Sasanian service after the fall of the Parthian Empire still spoke Parthian, such as the seven Parthian clans, who possessed much power within the empire. Sometimes one of the members of the clans would even protest against Sasanian rule. The Sasanian Empire appears to have stopped using the Parthian language in their official inscriptions during the reign of Narseh.[151]


Aramaic, like in the Achaemenid Empire, was widely used in the Sasanian Empire (from Antioch to Mesopotamia), although Imperial Aramaic began to be replaced by Middle Persian as the administrative language.[152]

Regional languages

Although Middle Persian was the native language of the Sasanians (who, however, were not originally from Pars), it was only a minority spoken-language in the vast Sasanian Empire; it only formed the majority of Pars, while it was widespread around Media and its surrounding regions. However, there were several different Persian dialects during that time. Besides Persian, the unattested predecessor of Adhari along with one of its dialects, Tati, was spoken in Adurbadagan (Azerbaijan). Unwritten Pre-Daylamite and probably Proto-Caspian, which later became Gilaki in Gilan and Mazandarani (also known as Tabari) in Tabaristan, were spoken about in the same regions. Furthermore, some other languages and dialects were spoken in the two regions.[153]


In the Sasanian territories in the Caucasus, numerous languages were spoken including Old Georgian, various Kartvelian languages (notably in Lazica), Middle Persian,[154] Old Armenian, Caucasian Albanian, Scythian, Koine Greek, and others.


In Khuzestan, several languages were spoken; Persian in the north and east, while Eastern Middle Aramaic was spoken in the rest of the place.[155] Furthermore, late Neo-Elamite may also have been spoken in the province[153] but there are no references explicitly naming the language. In Meshan, Strabo divided the Semitic population of the province into "Chaldeans" (Aramaic-speakers) and "Mesenian Arabs". Nomadic Arabs along with Nabataean and Palmyrene merchants are believed to have added to the population as well. Iranians had also begun to settle in the province, along with the Zutt, who had been deported from India. Other Indian groups such as the Malays may also have been deported to Meshan, either as captives or recruited sailors.[156] In Asoristan, the majority of the people were Aramaic-speaking Nestorian Christians, notably including Middle Syriac, while the Persians, Jews and Arabs formed a minority in the province.


Due to invasions from the Scythians and their sub-group, the Alans, into Atropatene, Armenia, and other places in the Caucasus, the places gained a larger, although small, Iranian population.[157] Parthian was spoken in Khorasan along with other Iranian dialects and languages, while the Sogdian, Bactrian and Khwarazmian languages were spoken further east in places which were not always controlled by the Sasanians. To the further south in Sakastan, which saw an influx of Scythians during the Parthian period, much later the place of Sistanian Persian,[158][153] an unknown Middle Southwestern Iranian language was spoken if it was not likely Middle Persian as well. Kirman was populated by an Iranian group which closely resembled the Persians while, farther to the east in Paratan, Turan and Makran, non-Iranian languages[158] and an unknown Middle Northwestern Iranian language were spoken. In major cities such as Gundeshapur and Ctesiphon, Latin, Greek and Syriac were spoken by Roman/Byzantine prisoners of war. Furthermore, Slavic and Germanic were also spoken in the Sasanian Empire, once again due to the capture of Roman soldiers[159] but this must have been negligible. Semitic languages including Himyaritic and Sabaean were spoken in Yemen.

Parthian Empire

Edessa

271–301: A period of dynastic struggles.

283: War with Rome.

293: Revolt of .

Narseh

296–298: War with Rome – Persia cedes five provinces east of the Tigris to Rome.

Lakhmid kingdom

387: Armenia partitioned into Roman and Persian zones

Church of the East

[169]

482–483: Armenian and Iberian revolt

483: Edict of Toleration granted to Christians

484: defeated and killed by Hephthalites. The Treaty of Nvarsak grants the Armenians the right to profess Christianity freely.

Peroz I

491: Armenian revolt. Armenian Church repudiates the ; Nestorian Christianity becomes dominant Christian sect in Sasanian Empire

Council of Chalcedon

502–506: War with the . In the end the Byzantine Empire pays 1,000 pounds of gold to the Sasanian Empire[65] The Sasanians capture Theodosiopolis and Martyropolis.
Byzantine Empire received Amida for 1,000 pounds of gold.[65]

Byzantine Empire

526–532: War with the . Treaty of Eternal Peace: The Sasanian Empire keeps Iberia and the Byzantine Empire receives Lazica and Persarmenia;[170] the Byzantine Empire pays tribute 11,000 lbs gold/year.[170]

Byzantine Empire

531–579: Reign of , "with the immortal soul" (Anushirvan).

Khosrow I

541–562: War with the .

Byzantine Empire

572–591: War with the .

Byzantine Empire

580: The Sasanians under abolish the monarchy of the Kingdom of Iberia. Direct control through Sasanian-appointed governors starts.

Hormizd IV

590: and other Sasanian nobles, Khosrow II overthrows Hormizd IV but loses the throne to Bahram Chobin.

Rebellion of Bahram Chobin

591: regains the throne with help from the Byzantine Empire and cedes Persian Armenia and the western half of Iberia to the Byzantine Empire.

Khosrow II

593: Attempted usurpation of

Hormizd V

595–602: Rebellion of

Vistahm

603–628: War with the . Persia occupies Byzantine Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and the Transcaucasus, before being driven to withdraw to pre-war frontiers by Byzantine counter-offensive

Byzantine Empire

610: Arabs defeat a Sasanian army at

Dhu-Qar

626: Unsuccessful siege of by Avars, Persians, and Slavs.

Constantinople

627: Byzantine Emperor invades Sasanian Mesopotamia. Decisive defeat of Persian forces at the battle of Nineveh

Heraclius

628: overthrows Khosrow II and becomes Shahanshah.

Kavad II

628: A devastating plague kills half of the population in Western Persia, including .[65]

Kavad II

628–632:

Civil war

632–644: Reign of

Yazdegerd III

636: Decisive Sasanian defeat at the during the Muslim conquest of Persia

Battle of al-Qādisiyyah

641: The defeat a massive Sasanian army with heavy casualties during the Battle of Nihawānd

Muslims

644: The conquer Khorasan; Yazdegerd III becomes a hunted fugitive

Muslims

651: flees eastward from one district to another, until at last he is killed by a local miller for his purse at Merv (present-day Turkmenistan), ending the dynasty. Yazdegerd is given a burial by the Assyrian bishop Mar Gregory.[171] His son, Peroz III, and many others go into exile in China.[172]

Yazdegerd III

List of Sasanian revolts and civil wars

List of Zoroastrian states and dynasties

Military of the Sasanian Empire

Romans in Persia

Sasanian art

Sasanian family tree

Sasanian music

Women in the Sasanian Empire

Sasanika: the History and Culture of Sasanians

Sasanian rock reliefs, Photos from Iran, Archived 10 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine.

Livius

entry in the Encyclopædia Iranica

Sasanian dynasty

The Sassanians by Iraj Bashiri, University of Minnesota.

The Sassanians

The Art of Sassanians, on Iran Chamber Society

Archived 14 December 2006 at the Wayback Machine

ECAI.org The Near East in Late Antiquity: The Sasanian Empire

Google Books on Roman Eastern Frontier (part 1)

A Review of Sassanid Images and Inscriptions, on Iran Chamber Society

Archived 10 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine

Sassanid crowns

Archived 10 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine

Sassanid coins

Archived 22 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine

Sassanid textile

The continuation of Sassanid Art

Islamic Metalwork

.

Sasanians in Africa in Transoxiana 4

Ctesiphon; The capital of the Parthian and the Sassanid empires, on Iran Chamber Society

Islamic Conquest of Persia

Pirooz in China, By Frank Wong

Archived 1 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine BBC – Radio 4 In Our Time programme (available as .ram file)

The Sassanian Empire

The Sassanian Empire: Further Reading

Iranologie History of Iran Chapter V: Sasanians

Archived 10 November 2006 at the Wayback Machine

History of Iran on Iran Chamber Society

Archived 14 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine

Livius articles on ancient Persia

Richard Frye "The History of Ancient Iran"

Iransaga: Persian arts through the centuries

Christianity in Ancient Iran: Aba & The Church in Persia, on Iran Chamber Society

iranchamber.com