The Sassanian Empire

The Sassanian Empire (224-651) was the last pre-Islamic dynasty to rule Iran. They called their dominion ‘Iranshahr’, meaning ‘Empire of Iran’. The Sassanians reinstated native Persian rule after centuries of foreign dominion and codified Zoroastrianism as their state religion. They were nemeses of the Roman Empire, and the two powers fought incessantly. The Sassanians ruled modern Iran, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Caucasus and the Stans of Central Asia (except Kazakhstan).

• Capital: Ctesiphon (near modern Baghdad)
• Official language: Middle Persian (Pahlavi)
• State religion: Zoroastrianism
• Government: Absolute monarchy
• Dynasty: The House of Sasan

The Sassanians were an old Persian family claiming descent from Cyrus the Great. Having conquered Persia in 330 BC, the Macedonians ruled three centuries. The Parthians who followed were of north-east Iranian stock but adopted Greek customs. In the third century AD, Ardashir of the House of Sasan overthrew his Parthian overlords and was crowned ‘Shahanshah’ – king of kings. His dynasty turned the feudal Parthian Empire into a centralised, urban state and restored the Persian Empire of old.

Zoroastrianism was the Sassanian state religion. The high priest Kartir put its oral traditions to paper and pushed an orthodox Zoroastrianism that left no room for differing interpretations. The clergy became a privileged and influential caste alongside the seven noble families of Iran.

Two heresies threatened the Sassanian order.  Early in the Sassanian Empire, the Manichaeans accepted a new prophet and threatened the clergy’s hold on power. The followers of Mazdak (Mazdakites) arose in the 6th century. They were a proto-communist cult advocating social revolution. Spurred by the clergy, the Sassanian rulers uprooted both and killed their prophets.

The backbone of the Sassanian army was its cataphracts – armoured men on armoured horses fighting with mace and lance. The Romans copied their design and it later influenced European knighthood. The Sassanians also used Indian elephants in war. 

The Sassanian Empire was one of five world powers alongside Rome, Ethiopia, India and Tang China. Their tug-of-war with the Romans over Armenia and Mesopotamia lasted four centuries. In 260, Shapur I annihilated a Roman army at Edessa and inflicted one of Rome’s worst-ever defeats. Emperor Valerian was taken captive and made Shapur’s footstool until he died. In the west, the Sassanians defended Iran against migrating Hunnish and Turkic tribes.

Khosrow I (reigned 531-539) gave the empire a second wind. He reformed the inefficient tax system and eased persecution of Christians and Jews while crushing the Mazdakites. His occupation of Egypt, Anatolia and Yemen brought Sassanian Persia to its greatest extent. When the Romans closed the Athenian Academy in 529, Khosrow welcomed its scholars to his court. An admirer of Plato, he sought to emulate the ideal philosopher-king.

The final Roman-Persian war of 602-628 bled the empire dry. Four years later, the Arabs, now united under Islam, invaded and destroyed the Sassanians within twenty years. In focusing so much on the Romans, the Sassanians had neglected their neighbours to the south. The last Shahanshah, Yazdegerd III, fled east and was murdered for his purse.

Today Persians consider the Sassanians the most authentically ‘Iranian’ Empire. The older Achaemenid Persian Empire belongs to an ancient, almost mythical past. By contrast, the Sassanians left ample records. They created truly Persian literature, practised a Persian religion and wrote in a Persian script. Chess was popularised and backgammon invented in the Sassanian court. Stories that would later make Ferdowsi’s ‘Shahnameh’, the Iranian national epic, were first collated in Sassanian times. The academy at Gundeshapur translated hundreds of philosophical and medical texts from Greek and Sanskrit into Persian which in turn laid the foundations of the Islamic Golden Age.

Ctesiphon today

Sources: Encyclopedia Iranica, Richard N Frye – The Heritage of Persia (1962)

See Also:

• Iranian Civilization
• Cyrus the Great
• Mani of Babylonia
• Empire

Basil the Macedonian

Basil I (811-886 AD) was the 50^th ruler of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. His story is remarkable: He was born a peasant, spent his formative years a slave and died an Emperor.  Basil’s 19 year reign was a golden age of Byzantine resurgence, peace and prosperity. He is regarded as one of their greatest leaders.

Basil was born in eastern Thrace, modern day Turkey, in the then province of Macedonia, to an Armenian family. Greek, the Byzantine Empire’s spoken tongue, was his second language and he maintained a heavy accent throughout his life.

In the early 800s the Byzantine Empire was in decline. Years of civil war over the violent iconoclast movement had sapped the once proud Empire, a weakness exploited by Bulgars in the north and the Arabs in the east. In 813 the Bulgar Khan Krum invaded Thrace and enslaved thousands, including two year old Basil and his family.

Basil spent his next 23 years a slave in Bulgaria. He escaped to Constantinople in 836 and slept his first night in the antechamber of a church.  Nicolas, the local monk, noticed and allegedly had a vision proclaiming that this striking vagabond would one day sit on the throne. Eager to assist, Nicolas found Basil employment as a horse groom, a role in which he excelled. Basil travelled frequently with his new master and one day caught the eye of Danelis, a wealthy Greek noblewoman. She bestowed a generous fortune on the handsome young man, and assisted in his rise, a favour he would later repay in kind.

On returning to Constantinople Basil gained a reputation for both his physical prowess and skill in taming horses. Once, while watching a wrestling match he was invited to take on the reigning champion, a Bulgarian.  Basil defeated him with ease.

News of his victory spread rapidly around the capital, eventually reaching the ear of the reigning emperor, Michael III. After Basil successfully tamed the Emperor’s unruly new horse, Michael was so impressed he granted Basil a slew of government positions and made him the new court favourite.

The Emperor grew to trust Basil so much, that when Basil convinced him his uncle Bardas was plotting treason he had Bardas killed. Believing Basil had saved his life, Michael III adopted Basil and appointed him co–Emperor.

A few years later Michael had a new favourite and Basil began to fall from favour. In 867 he murdered Michael and seized the throne.  In just six years since his liberation, Basil the Macedonian had ascended to the highest office in the Empire.

As Emperor, Basil I proved effective. He reversed the war with the Abbasid Caliphate in the East, who just forty years before had besieged Constantinople, and destroyed the Paulicians, their troublesome allies in Armenia.  The Adriatic was cleared of pirates and Cyprus and southern Italy were retaken from the Arabs.

At home, Basil settled church disputes and introduced a new law code, the Basilika, which remained until Constantinople’s fall in 1453. He also oversaw the ‘Macedonian Renaissance’ a revival in Byzantine artistry that lasted well beyond his reign. Basil made peace with the Bulgars by converting them to the Orthodox Christian Faith. His success undoubtedly owed to Basil’s familiarity with Bulgarian culture – he grew up there after all.

Emperor Basil’s one mistake was the fall of Sicily. When the Arabs attacked the capital at Syracuse he requisitioned ships to carry marble for a church project instead of providing relief.

Basil’s cruel streak that won him the crown also spilled into personal relations: he beat his scholarly son Leo and imprisoned him for three years, regularly threatening to gouge out his eyes.

In 886, aged 75, Basil was out hunting when a deer’s antler lodged itself in his belt. The deer dragged the emperor through 25 kilometres of forest before a local saved him. Before his wounds could be properly treated Basil had the man executed in paranoia. He died from the infection soon after. Basil’s hated son, Leo the Wise, ruled for the next 46 years. The Macedonian dynasty lasted another 200.