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The Sassanid dynasty (also Sassanian) was the name given to the kings of Persia during the era of the second Persian Empire, from 224 until 651, when the last Sassanid shah, Yazdegerd III, lost a 14-year struggle to drive out the Umayyad Caliphate, the first of the Islamic empires.
The Sassanid era began in earnest in 228, when the Shah Ardashir I destroyed the Parthian Empire which had held sway over the region for centuries. He and his successors created a vast empire, based in Firouzabad, Fars, which included those lands of the old Achaemenid Persian empire east of the Euphrates River. The Sassanids wanted to recreate the glories of ancient Iran and claimed to Persianise the country. They made Zoroastrianism the state religion and claimed in inscriptions to have persecuted other faiths (although these claims are not reflected in native Jewish and Christian sources of the time). It was the shahs' long sought-after goal to reunify all of the old Achaemenid territory, which brought them into frequent wars against the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire.
Ardeshir's son Shapur I (241-272) continued this expansion, conquering Bactria, and Kushan, while leading several campaigns against Rome. In 259, the Persian army defeated the Roman emperor Valerian at the battle of Edessa where more than 70,000 Roman soldiers were captured or slain.
The Roman Emperor Valerian tried to negotiate a peace with the Persian king, Shapur, but was captured by treachery and taken into captivity. Shapur used Valerian as a human stepping-stool to assist the Persian king in mounting his horse, thus subjecting a Roman emperor to the ultimate humiliation by a foreign leader. Valerian's body was later skinned to produce a lasting trophy of Roman submission!
Near the end of the 5th century a new enemy, the barbaric Ephthalites, or "White Huns," attacked Persia; they defeated the Persian king Firuz II in 483 and for some years thereafter exacted heavy tribute. It was not until the reign of Khosroe I (531-579), one of the greatest Sassanian rulers, that the Huns were beaten. Khosroe introduced many reforms he reorganized the army, reorganized the state religion and even redistributed nobles' wives! Khosroe I was renowned for his military and diplomatic skills and was reputed as the "Just". During his time the game of chess had been brought to his court from India and his chief minister, Buzarjomehr is reputed to have invented backgammon.
Khosroe II came close to achieving the Sassanid dream of restoring the Achaemenid boundaries when Jerusalem fell to him and Constantinople was under his siege in AD 626. However, Khosroe II had over extended his army and over taxed the people. When the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in a tactical move abandoned his besieged capital and sailed up the Black Sea to attack Persia from the rear, there was no resistance. Heraclius then marched through Mesopotamia and western Persia sacking Takht-i Sulayman and the Palace of Dastgerd. After the death of Khosroe II, and over a period of 14 years and twelve successive kings, the Sassanid Empire weakened considerably, and the power of the central authority passed into the hands of the generals. The Sassanid never recovered. Internal dissension and a long brutal conflict with the Byzantine, left Sassanid Persia pray for the Arabs.
The long war exhausted both sides, and the Sassanids were soon destroyed by the rise of Islam.
Sassanid rulers
- Ardashir I from 224 to 241.
- Shapur I from 241 to 272
- Hormizd I from 272 to 273.
- Bahram I from 273 to 276.
- Bahram II from 276 to 293.
- Bahram III year 293.
- Narseh from 293 to 302.
- Hormizd II from 302 to 310.
- Shapur II from 310 to 379
- Ardashir II from 379 to 383.
- Shapur III from 383 to 388.
- Bahram IV from 388 to 399.
- Yazdegerd I from 399 to 420.
- Bahram V frmom 420 to 438.
- Yazdegerd II from 438 to 457.
- Hormizd III from 457 to 459.
- Peroz I from 457 to 484.
- Balash from 484 to 488.
- Kavadh I from 488 to 531.
- Khosrau I from 531 to 579.
- Hormizd IV from 579 to 590.
- Khosrau II from 590 to 628.
- Kavadh II year 628.
- Ardashir III from 628 to 630.
- Shahrbaraz year 630.
- Boran and others from 630 to 631.
- Hormizd VI (or V) from 631 to 632.
- Yazdegerd III from 632 to 651.
See also
- List of kings of Persia
- Firouzabad
- Palace of Ardashir
- Ghal'eh Dokhtar, his first base.