Sasanian Empire: A Visual History

The Sasanian Empire was founded in 224 when Ardashir I overthrew the Parthians. Ruling from Ctesiphon, its shahs made Zoroastrianism the state religion, fought Rome and then Byzantium for four centuries (Shapur I captured Emperor Valerian in 260), and under Khosrow I built a centralised, cultured state that preserved Greek and Indian learning. Khosrow II conquered Egypt, Syria and Anatolia in the 610s only to be routed by Heraclius; exhausted, the empire fell to the Arab conquests between 636 and 651.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Sasanian Empire. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Sasanian territory

Timeline of the Sasanian Empire

1. 224
   Ardashir defeats the Parthians
2. 260
   Valerian capturedAt Edessa by Shapur I.
3. 363
   Julian killed in PersiaRome cedes Nisibis.
4. 531
   Khosrow IReforms and the cultural peak.
5. 602
   The last great warKhosrow II invades the Byzantine East.
6. 614
   Jerusalem takenThe True Cross carried to Ctesiphon.
7. 627
   NinevehHeraclius wins; Khosrow II overthrown.
8. 636
   Al-Qadisiyyah
9. 651
   Yazdegerd III murdered

Ardashir and Shapur

Ardashir, a local king of Persis, defeated the last Parthian king in 224 and claimed the heritage of the Achaemenids. His son Shapur I defeated three Roman emperors, killing Gordian III, forcing Philip to buy peace and capturing Valerian in 260, and recorded it in rock reliefs at Naqsh-e Rustam. Shapur II (309-379) reigned for 70 years, from before his birth, and recovered Armenia and Mesopotamia from Rome.

Khosrow I

After the Mazdakite social revolt of the 490s, Khosrow I Anushirvan (531-579) reformed taxation and the army, welcomed Greek philosophers expelled from Athens, had Indian works (including the game of chess and the fables of Kalila and Dimna) translated, and founded the academy of Gundeshapur. He sacked Antioch, and with the Turks destroyed the Hephthalites.

The last war and the fall

Khosrow II, restored to his throne by the Byzantine emperor Maurice, used Maurice's murder as a pretext for war in 602. His armies took Damascus, Jerusalem (carrying off the True Cross), Egypt and reached the Bosporus. Heraclius struck back through Armenia into the Persian heartland, winning at Nineveh in 627; Khosrow was deposed and murdered. A decade of civil war left the empire helpless when Arab armies arrived: al-Qadisiyyah (636), Ctesiphon (637), Nahavand (642). The last shah, Yazdegerd III, was murdered by a miller near Merv in 651.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Parthian Empire (247 BC to 224)
• Roman Empire (27 BC to 476)
• Byzantine Empire (395 to 1453)
• Rashidun Caliphate (632 to 661)
• Kingdom of Armenia (ancient) (331 BC to 428)
• Hephthalite Empire (440 to 560)
• First Turkic Khaganate (552 to 603)
• Kushan Empire (30 to 375)
• Western Roman Empire (395 to 476)

8 surprising things about the Sasanian Empire

1. Shapur I is shown on rock reliefs using the captured Roman emperor Valerian as a footstool.
2. Shapur II was crowned in his mother's womb; a crown was placed on her belly.
3. Chess reached Persia from India under Khosrow I; the words 'checkmate' (shah mat, 'the king is helpless') and 'rook' are Persian.
4. The Sasanian great arch of Ctesiphon, the Taq Kasra, is the largest single-span brick vault in the world.
5. Rome and Persia both called each other 'the two eyes of the world' in diplomatic correspondence.
6. The Sasanian army's cataphracts, fully armoured horse and rider, influenced Byzantine and medieval European cavalry.
7. The Persian invasion of 614 was the first time Jerusalem changed hands from Christian rule since Constantine.
8. The Zoroastrian sacred text, the Avesta, was written down in its surviving form under the Sasanians.

Sources

• Sasanian dynasty Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Sasanian Empire Wikipedia
• Sasanian Empire World History Encyclopedia
• Touraj Daryaee, Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (2009) I. B. Tauris

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