The Ancients - Persia Reborn: Rise of the Sasanians

Episode Date: February 11, 2024

The Sasanians are renowned as one of Rome's most feared enemies. Founded in third century Persia by an Iranian noble called Ardashir, their dynasty oversaw the growth of a mighty empire that brought down the Parthians and survived into the early Middle Ages. But how did one family oversee the rebirth of Persia as a Mesopotamian heavyweight?In this episode of the Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Eve MacDonald to explore how the Sassanids came to dominate a region that had been under the control of Parthian kings for five hundred years, and discover why they dared to challenge the might of Rome.This episode was produced by Joseph Knight and edited by Aidan LonerganDiscover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code ANCIENTS sign up now for your 14-day free trial HERE.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode we are talking about the rise of one of the most powerful enemies the Romans ever faced, talking about the rise of one of the most powerful enemies the Romans ever faced, the Sassanians. We're going to explore in detail how this mighty empire was founded, how an Iranian noble called Ardashir rose to prominence in 3rd century Persia and wrestled control from the preceding Parthian dynasty that had ruled this area of the ancient world for almost 500 years. It's a gruesome,

bloody story. But we'll also explore how Ardashir then went on to consolidate his rule as the new king, as the founder of this new Persian empire, this new Persian dynasty. Of course, we'll explore his domestic policy, his founding of many new cities, for instance. But we'll also look at his early interactions with the great power west of the Euphrates River, Rome. My guest today is the awesome Dr. Eve MacDonald from the University of Cardiff. Eve, she is one of my favourite historians. She's an expert on all things Sasanian Persia, and she also has a book on this empire coming out very soon. I really do hope you enjoy. And here's Eve.

Eve, so great to have you back on the podcast. So nice to be here, Tristan. Last time we talked about Shirin and that was like the late antique period, wasn't it? We almost kind of stretched into the early medieval times, but we are staying in that area of the world. The Persian empire that we all think of, or at least I think of, is the one that Alexander the Great faces, the Achaemenid Persians. But there was another Persian Empire in antiquity, and arguably a more powerful empire too. Absolutely. The Sasanian Empire, as we call them, or sometimes they're called the Sassanids,

or sometimes they're called the Sassanids, was an empire that ruled the whole of the ancient Iranian plateau and the Mesopotamia, parts of India, Pakistan, parts of Asia Minor from the 3rd century AD all the way through to the 7th century AD, really to the very end of the ancient world. So they were incredibly powerful and important and really dominated much of that whole region and relations around much of the sort of Central and Western Asia for all those 400 years. 400 years. And we're going to be exploring just the emergence and the initial rise of the Sasanians in the East, well, at least of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean world. But Eve, let's set the scene, therefore. It's the 3rd century Iranian plateau. What's the situation on the Iranian plateau at that time, at the beginning of the 3rd century?

So, if you think about the sort of traditional empire of Iran in the third century AD, you have the boundary between the Romans and the Parthian empire along the Euphrates mostly. And that's something that's been there for a few hundred years, coming and going, moving, shifting between these two big, powerful empires. And the Parthians have been in power for almost 500 years by that point. And we always forget just how long the Parthians rule for. And they rise up, the Parthians, in the old Achaemenid world when the Hellenistic successors, the Seleucids, are ruling that old Iranian empire. And they rule after Alexander the Great. They rule after Alexander the Great. And in the third century BC is sort of old Iranian empire. And they rule after Alexander the Great. They rule after Alexander the Great.

And in the third century BC is sort of when they rise. And they're not originally from the region. They're from a little bit further north. They were the Parni people, they were called. And they speak an Iranian language. So there's a whole variety of different Iranic languages. And they moved down from the north into what was the old Achaemenid satrapy of Parthava. And so that's why we call them the Parthians.

It's not because they're from there. That's where they move into. So if you think of northeastern Iran, Turkmenistan, that area really is where they establish themselves as a power base. And they do that in the third century, where they establish themselves as a power base. And they do that in the third century, around the same time as the Seleucids are ruling in the Hellenistic Iranian world.

And they start bit by bit to conquer and carve themselves into power. And they do so with their first king, who is named Arsaces. And that's why we call them both the Parthians and the Arsacids. We name them after the dynasty, and the dynasty is the Arsacid dynasty and they rule the Parthian empire and they rule it up till the 3rd century AD. And is it still that Arsacid dynasty that is ruling some 500 years later when we get to the 3rd century? It is more or less with some ups and downs and changes, but definitely they consider themselves to be part of this long continuum that looks back to that original ruler who first started to conquer Arsacus. So they are connected then to this long dynastic rule. And of course, they rule not just

in the Iranian plateau in Mesopotamia, but in other regions as well that are connected to that area, places like Armenia too. And so they've been really influential and important. And we know mostly about the Parthians because they fought the Romans. That's how we know about them and that's how they're portrayed to us. So we don't always get a good picture of what the Parthians really were and what their empire really was. We always see them just as reacting to various Roman invasions, which happened from the time the Romans arrived in the region in the first century BC, all the way through till the end of the Parthians.

Right, so lacking very much that Parthian perspective, aren't you, when exploring this civilization? So 500 years of Parthian rule in this area of the world. Of course, there must have been quite a bit of evolution during this time. So what does the Parthian empire look like by the early third century? How should we imagine it? How is it structured? So in the early third century, the Parthians have had a bit of a rough ride, I would say. That's maybe a good way to put it. The Parthian Empire becomes the sort of empire enemy of choice for the Romans from the time of Trajan onwards. And so in the 2nd century AD, there's big Roman invasions down into Mesopotamia.

And the capital, the western capital of the Parthian Empire, Ctesiphon, as it's called, the old Seleucid city, is sacked a number of times. So Trajan takes it, sets up his own province. The province of Mesopotamia is set up as a Roman province. That's early in the second century. Of course, that doesn't last very long. It's always, it's a big conquest, and then the Romans have to retreat. But then Lucius Verus, he also leads an Parthian expedition. And then the Severan emperor, Septimius Severus, leads another early 3rd century expedition down into Mesopotamia to try and sort of retake this land, the lands of the tigers in the Euphrates.

And so this battling back and forth between Romans and Parthians, with the Romans really having the upper hand for about almost 100 years, weakens the Parthian rule. And the Parthian rule is a bit tricky to fully understand. It's like the Achaemenids in which they are kings of kings. They're ruling over other regions, but there are rulers in those regions who pledge loyalty allegiance to the one great king of king. So, of course, that relies on a kind of agreement and relationship between these vassal kings and the great king of kings.

And so the relationship is really important for sort of maintaining power of the great king. And with the Roman invasions undermining that in the secondheaval throughout the whole of the Parthian period, we think, but especially in this particular time. And that leads really to their demise. So we get this sort of Roman impact on the Parthian Empire being one of the main catalysts, I would say, for their fall. Isn't that so interesting? And you mentioned the words vassal kings there. Is this where these noble houses come into play, such as this house of Sasan? Yes, exactly. So that's where our Sasanians rise up. And it's because there are these very powerful, and how many very powerful families there

are is something that is debated by scholars a lot in this whole period. But the House of Sassan, as we call it, seems to be one of these many vassals who rule in the region of Persis or the Iranian province of Fars, which was the homeland region of the Achaemenids. So they're Persians, they're ethnic Persians, and they are the kings there. In the period after Alexander conquers the Achaemenid Empire, I always tried to think about what was it like in that part of the world, where power really moves away from Persia itself, that region of Fars, and it moves

to Mesopotamia. The center of power becomes Ctesiphon, Seleucia and the Tigris. You have a shift in the way in which trade networks work through this period as well. So in Persia, the old small province of Persia, it's still an important part of the world, but it's not the center of power. It's a bit of a backwater in this period.

And those kings rule there. They mint coins. They are loyal to the Parthian king of power. It's a bit of a backwater in this period. And those kings rule there. They mint coins. They are loyal to the Parthian king of kings, more or less, we think, over time. And they eventually rise up against their overlords, against their kings of kings. From the surviving sources that we have to trace the background of the Sassanians, do we know much about the history of the house of Sasan? Are they mentioned, let's say, in Seleucid times or Parthian times as being a long-established house with a rich history, or do we just not know too much about that? No, very much don't know too much about it. And we do have coins from this period. They're the

kings who rule after the fall of the Achaemenids, the Frataraca, they're important regionally. And so we have a succession of different kings ruling. And the Sassanians, the host of Sassan, seems to be connected to one of those rulers. And they come from a place called Estar, which is very near Persepolis. And it was a very important city, a regional city, and they're interacting, but with other local rulers. I mean, we don't always have the actual names of these local rulers, but they're sort of like dukes and, you know, sub rulers from these kings as well. But no, we don't have a lot of written evidence about them, but we certainly have some coinage,

and that's really helpful because it shows us that they are minting coins in the same style as the Parthian kings of kings. So they're showing their homage, their loyalty to the Parthians through the coinage they're minting. So we have coinage, and this is the last question before we delve into the nitty-gritty of the revolt and the uprising itself and the emergence of the Sasanian power. the nitty-gritty of the revolt and the uprising itself and the emergence of the Sasanian power. But I must always ask about sources. What types of sources do we have alongside coinage to kind of explore their emergence, their bursting onto the scene in the third century? I mean, we have so many sources, and they're absolutely fascinating. We have very few contemporary sources. The coins are our contemporary source. They tell us who's where they are when they're in power in the region. But we also have amazing legends and tales of the rise of the House of Sasson that were told afterwards because this dynasty becomes absolutely fundamentally the most powerful dynasty in the whole region for 400 years.

And everybody wants to tell their story. There's oral histories. There's also, of course, some mention in the Roman sources, two Roman sources in particular, Herodian and Cassius Dio, tell us about the fall of the Parthians and the rise of this new power. But they're not very specific about it. They just sort of generally talk about a new power in Persia. We also have Syriac sources. We have great Armenian sources for this. Now, if you remember, I was saying the Arsakids also ruled in Armenia as a separate kingdom, but related and allied to the Parthian kingdom.

And that rule of Arsacids continues in Armenia all the way through until the 5th century AD. So through the transition from Parthian to Sassanian. So the Armenian stories are really great for this because they talk again about the origin of Armenia, but within this, they talk about the political machinations of the rise of Sasan. And they tell us a slightly different version, of course, than some of the other sources. But we have, as I said, Syriac sources. We also have early Islamic sources. So really good Arabic sources write about the Sasanians because they take over their empire. They talk about them. Yeah. So Greek sources, Latin sources, everybody's sources. We don't have a lot of what Middle Persian sources, which is what the Sasanians' language was. We have a few,

but they're written down later on. So we don't have very many contemporary sources. We do have some really great inscriptions, though, that the early Sasanians wrote about their rise, some wonderful sort of detailed inscriptions from a couple of places in the region of Fars. And so that's really great. Shapur and Ardashur left us imagery, they left us rock reliefs and inscriptions. So it's a fairly well attested period. But one of our biggest issues is that very little of it comes from the mouth of the people that tell the story. So we have those inscriptions and the images, but we don't have the sort of narrative that we might want to tell us exactly what happened over this period.

Well, you mentioned in passing there Ardashir. This kind of feels like the next big figure that we're going to be exploring anyways. So as we turn to the Sasanian takeover itself, who is this figure right at the centre? Who is Ardashir? So Ardashir is just, I think, has to have been one of the most fascinating people in history. He is just amazing in the way that he's spoken about as this legendary figure, but he's also, as we can piece together his early life, incredibly dynamic. He is the son of a man whose name is Pabag. And Pabag seems to be the son of this person named Sassan. Some people question whether there really is that close of a link or not. And he is the younger son of a local king in Estar, basically. And from that position of a

younger son of a local nobility, he basically, over a course of maybe 20 years, conquers the whole of the old Parthian empire. And he does it step by step, but he is incredibly ruthless and also incredibly driven to create an image of power and imagery of power as well. So it's not random what he's doing. He's very carefully considered. The ruthlessness is amazing. Seems that everyone who stands in Ardashir's way to power dies quite quickly, mysteriously often, not always explained, but bit by bit by bit, he's able to rise up and basically challenge the Parthian king for his power. So it's incredible. It's an incredible story. I mean, worthy of a podcast on his own, the rise of Ardashir himself. So what leads him to do this? Why does he decide

to break with the great power that is Parthia? So it's really interesting, isn't it? Because, I mean, as I was talking about earlier, one of my thoughts, and I think many people think that, One of my thoughts, and I think many people think that, is this damage that these constant incursions on the Parthian Empire from the Romans must have undermined the to garner the support, the military support. But also there's an almost religious underpinning to this idea favored by the gods. And we see this with the Romans. We see this with the Parthians. We see this with the Sassanians. It's the idea that luck or religion has abandoned your king almost. So that there's unrest at this period of these many invasions isn't impossible.

But what is interesting with Ardashir is that he's sent off to be a commander in an important garrison town called Darabgird by his father. He's the younger son. And he goes there and the man who is his commander dies, one of the first of the long line of people who die in Ardashir's path. And so Ardashir takes over. So from Darab Gerd, from the control of a garrison in Fars province, he's able to really extend his influence bit by bit. And so back at home, his father then becomes the sort of king, takes over from the king himself, and he asks that the Parthian king of kings named Artavan recognize his rule.

So this is what's happening at the time. And then the Parthian king refuses to recognize the rule. So this is what's happening at the time. And then the Parthian king refuses to recognize the rule. And so that really leads to rebellion. And it's about local affairs and the concept of an overriding power. And it's when the local affairs are not approved of by the overriding power that it leads to this bigger rebellion. And with this big rebellion, is it a lot of time before the great clash between the Parthian king of kings and Ardashir? Or does it all kind of happen quite quickly? Well, I think it happens quite slowly. We think it happens over about 20 years, bit by bit. But

the big final battle, what happens as far as we understand is Ardashir's brother, who is Shapur, he dies. So Ardashir really takes over the family rule, and he leads this rebellion against the Parthian king. And the battle that takes place happens in the region of Media, at a place called Hormuzan. And if you think about and you look at the geography of the region of Persis, that's on the sort of Iranian side of the Persian Gulf. And if you move upwards towards power, towards Mesopotamia, you end up in the region of the Medes. And then you would move across the top of the Persian Gulf into Mesopotamia.

And it's in that region where Mesopotamia meets the region of Khuzestan, the city of Susa, the great human city of Susa is in that region, is where the battle supposedly took place, although there's some debate about the actual place of this battle of Hormuzan itself. And this is where the troops of the Sasanians of Ardashir meet with the Parthian king of kings, whose name is Ardashir, meet with the Parthian King of Kings, whose name is Ardavan, the last of the Parthian King of Kings. Come on then, on tenterhooks, what exactly, I mean, what happens? Well, of course, we don't know exactly, but we have some really interesting representations of it.

We have a rock relief from the time of Ardashir that shows the Sassanian ruler unseating, literally with his lance unseating the Parthian king from his horse. So it was a cavalry battle. There's some really interesting observations from some of these images about the type of mail, the type of armor that the Sasanians are wearing, and they seem to be wearing a kind of chain mail armor instead of the lamellar armor that was more traditionally associated with the Sasanian cavalry and the Persian cavalry and the Parthian cavalry. And this, some people argue, was an adoption from the Romans, and it allows for greater flexibility on horseback, and it creates a more dynamic cavalry experience.

So some people think these innovations helped Ardashir and his troops defeat the Parthian king, although it's not entirely certain what happened day to day. We have legendary accounts of it in some of the sources, that Ardashir unseats Ardavan, that Ardashir's son, who's also named Shapur, is also at the battle, and that they take over the Parthian Empire at that point. So it literally seems to be on the battlefield itself that Ardashir, some of our sources tell us, crowns himself King of Kings. Although there is evidence that a proper coronation takes place two years later,

and it may not quite have been so easy as it's being made out to be in the accounts of this battle. You can kind of feel like Henry VII after Bosworth, right? You know, when he gets the crown of Richard and puts it on his head. You can imagine something similar, can't you? And is that it? It feels quite brutal in a way. After 500 years, that's it for Parthian rule. It's there, it's gone. Yes, it is. In terms of the presentation of the Sasanians as the new power on the block, as this new and righteous power. And the Sasanians do a lot to sort of undermine the memory of that long history of the Parthians. And one of the things that's really interesting is that, although it's very clear that important Parthian families continue to be part of this

world of the Sasanians, some people even call it a confederacy of Sasanian and Parthian power. And some of our mythological tales of the rise of Ardashir talk about Ardashir marrying a daughter of Ardavan, marrying a daughter of the Parthian king of kings. So there's more sort of collaboration perhaps than is made out. But in every respect, in the way it's presented, it is Ardashir and this new dynasty taking control and ruling as rightful rulers of the whole region itself. And the reality and the presentation are two different things. It takes much longer, of course, for Ardashir to consolidate power than this. But the presentation is very much this new dynasty that's very much driven by a sort of dynamic new view on the whole region is here to stay. Although,

as I said, the Parthians are a really important part of that story. So it's this same idea of how do you rule? How does one king rule over all these other kings? And a lot of it has to do with presentation and propaganda and imagery. And yet the underlying realities of power in the Sasanian world are much different than that, much more a collaboration probably between all the bits. I mean, absolutely. When you consider, as you say, his background, younger son to king of kings, you mentioned it earlier, the proper coronation of Ardashir. How does that probably fit into this propaganda, this desire to portray himself as the new dynasty and a very powerful figure? Absolutely. So the very important to the Sassanians are this idea of being crowned. And there's two different things happening when you're gaining power in the Sasanian period. And this has a lot to do with the religion of the Sasanians. I think we'll talk about that a little bit more in detail. But there's this idea that you are both crowned physically with a crown, very elaborate crown,

actually, that the Sasanian kings of kings use in the center, in Disafhon, in this, what we call a conurbation now, of this really important city that's just south of Baghdad today, that was once a Hellenistic city, a Parthian city, that becomes a Sasanian city. And it's a really interesting place because we call it a conurbation because it is literally many different cities joined together. And it seems that that's where Ardashir goes to be officially anointed the king of kings. And that is the official sort of creation of the Sasanian dynasty as a ruling power. So there's a two-year gap between 224 andon. And we think that it is a crowning by the Zoroastrian priest and that the crown is laid on the head and homage is paid to the king from all across the realm. And so, it would have been a very formal and important representation of this idea of kingship and power

and the right to rule. And it would have been also the right to rule that was given by the Zoroastrian deity, the Sasanians call Ormuzd, but Ahura Mazda in the Achaemenid tradition. So is that the main religion of the Sasanians, Zoroastrianism, which is also very old by this time too? does it almost enjoy a revival with the emergence of Ardashir and the Sassanians? So I think somebody I was reading once put it really well is that Zoroastrian is the religion of the Sassanian dynasty. Absolutely. Zoroastrian is not the religion of the Sassanian empire. It's the religion of the dynasty itself. And that's a really important thing to keep separate because the Sassanian empire as it becomes is a multi-religious place. But yes, the authority,

the right to rule, the concept of rule in the Sasanian world is given and granted and driven from Zoroastrianism. And we talked about earlier that they're from the town of Star, Estar, And we talked about earlier that they're from the town of Estar, near Persepolis, so near this old Achaemenid power base of the palace of the Achaemenid kings. But also at Estar was one of the most important Zoroastrian fire temples to the goddess Anahita. And we're told that Ardashir's family, that the Sasanians were connected to the keepers of that fire, of the goddess Anahita. So there's a very strong religious element to the dynasty. And that's accentuated from the very, very beginning. And we have really beautiful rock reliefs from Naxirustam in Fars that show Ardashir on horseback meeting Ormazd and being given the right to rule by the god himself, by the deity himself, and that's in the shape of a ring. And so it's this idea of

a ring of power sort of being passed to Ardashir from Ormazd. And it's a really important part of the legitimizing process of the Sasanian dynasty is to have that right to rule from God. And we see that happening and paralleling in the Roman Empire at the same time or a little bit later, too, with the rise of Christianity and the importance of the Christian deity and, say, the rule of Constantine, his right to rule. So it's a very interesting idea that becomes really important in the third century. Much so. Well, he's at the coronation, Ardashir cementing his control in the region of Persia and Mesopotamia. I mean, but how does he go and further consolidate his new control over this massive empire? That still takes a few years, surely.

It does. And again, our sources aren't great for this. We know he goes, like all Sasanian and all Parthians, you have to go east, you have to go west, you have to go north, you have to go south. And that's really what he does. He goes first to, he goes to the West and he goes to some of the regions, the important oasis cities in the desert regions of what we think of as Syria today. And he goes there to places like Hatra, tries to take Hatra, fails everybody. That's a whole other really fascinating place, Hatra itself, because everybody has tried to take Hatra. Many fail at this point. So he's trying to consolidate. We can see power in the West along the border between the Romans. But we know that he's drawn east as well fairly quickly, and he has to move east to consolidate power along the eastern regions of the Sasanian Empire. That takes us

all the way into Afghanistan, all those periods where at the same time, this amazing Kushan power is growing up and taking control in that region. And there's an alliance, a dynastic alliance between the Sasanians and the Kushans as well. We know that he goes south into Bahrain, we're told that, into the Arabian Peninsula and tries to consolidate control and power in that region too. So we have him traveling around a great deal, trying to both win over the local kings and elites and chiefs and things like that, but also too, if he has to force allegiance as well. And he goes to Armenia. And of course, we were saying earlier, the Armenians are Ashakids, so they're not particularly well disposed to the Sasanians. And some of the tales

of the early rise of Ardashir say, you know, that Ardashir murdered the Parthian king of kings. And there's definitely a rebellion there and there's battles to be fought. We can trace some of these by the placing of rock reliefs around the empire. We have a rock relief from Salmas, which is just in the northern western part of the Caspian in Iran today, but very close to that borderlands and Armenian territory. And we have one that shows, we think, Ardashir and his son Shapur I and II, equally dressed, but seem to be Armenians on foot. And it's some sort of agreement seems to be happening there. So we can see a lot of action in Ardashir's reign, consolidation and control, basically, and the winning over the whole of the empire. So that's really how he does it.

But it takes quite a long time. I mean, he's fighting all the way through until 240, really, when his son takes over. So he's fighting all this time. But Eve, who is he mainly fighting against? Should we talk about the Romans? Well, the Romans, indeed. The Romans, the Romans. Well, yeah. I mean, the thing is, it's quite interesting, isn't it? Because the last of the Severan dynasty in the 230s,

Severus Alexander leads a new invasion, a new incursion into the Sasanian territory at this point. And the third century, of course, as you know, and everybody probably knows, is a bit of a disaster for the Romans. So the last of the Severans, Severan Alexander, leads an expedition in the 230s into Mesopotamia to try to regain some of the momentum, perhaps, of his great-grandfather. I can't remember if Severus Alexander and Severus, where we are in terms of generationally, but they have, and it's a rather dodgy source, unfortunately Herodian who tells us mostly about this, but it is really interesting because one of the things that the Parthians had not been able to do in the third, in the second century was defend Mesopotamia from the Romans. That had been something they hadn't

been able to do. And we'd see this with the success of incursions. The Persians, the new Persian power in this period is able to successfully defend against this Roman army. And I think that's something that's really different. And it shows a different kind of attitude to perhaps adapting different tactics and military tactics. And perhaps you can just imagine that Ardashir is almost reflecting that in some of the propaganda and ideas and that becomes more important with his son. But this idea of being able to defend against the Romans is something very important. It's extraordinary when you think about it, how you mentioned earlier how the Romans seem to influence the decline of the Parthians. And I remember talking

to Simon James about this a long time ago. I can't exactly remember it, but it feels like this rise of the Sasanians for the Romans looking on, they've helped get rid of a weaker power in Mesopotamia. And it's like a terrible case of blowback that actually has now been replaced with a much stronger power in Ardashir. contemporary Herodian and Cassius Dio talk about this in, unfortunately, not the clearest sense, and I'm not always with the best manuscript edition, but Cassius Dio talks about this new power rising in the East, talks about the old Achaemenid Empire rising up, and both those sources reflect the idea of the ancient Greeks and the Achaemenid Persians in their ideology of this defeating the Parthians has led to the rise of this whole new, much more powerful entity. And whether or not the

Sassanians actually considered themselves this way is one of our big issues. We don't know. We know that the Romans perceived the Sassanians as the new Achaemenids. We know that the Romans perceive the Sasanians as the new Achaemenids. We know that the Romans project this idea that they want to conquer all the way to the Mediterranean, that we know these things are put into the Roman text, but how much is that coming from Sasanian propaganda at the time, or how much of it is coming from the Roman construction of their wars in those great epic traditions of Greeks and Persians. Those are things you have to think about when you're looking at these ideas, because we have some really big issues about how much the Sassanians really understood about Achaemenid power and tradition and what and how they really saw themselves, that they understood themselves to be in a tradition of

great kings of kings, we understand. But did they really know all that much about the Achaemenids and about what the Achaemenids did? We're not entirely sure. Because that was going to be my next question. Does Ardashir, does he feel like he is potentially like the successor of Darius III or Achaemenid Persian who ruled so many centuries before. But as you say, so what we hear about that, I'm kind of repeating what you said now, but I think it deserves to re-emphasize this point, is largely from non-Sassanian sources. Yes, exactly. That's one of the big problems. So there's some really great evidence about the early Sassanian kings engaging with places like Persepolis.

I don't know if you've ever seen those graffiti. There's this amazingly delicately drawn graffiti of Sasanian elite cavalry men on the walls of Persepolis. So I always kind of think of this some sort of rite of passage that these young men go and, you know, draw themselves into history. It's really interesting to think about. But also really important is some of the myths, and that is a much later Islamic Persian stories like Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, connect the rise of the house of Sasan to the last of the Achaemenids. the rise of the house of Sasan to the last of the Achaemenids. We see that in some sources, but we don't see it with the Sasanian self-expression itself. Although they're reusing these very sacred sites of the Achaemenids, places like Naxxur-Stam,

they're putting their rock reliefs there, they're setting up inscriptions there. So they're obviously owning those really important sacred spaces. But we have to remember, those are sacred spaces that go back to before, to Elamites as well, to before even the Achaemenids. So we don't know exactly. But certainly, with the Roman sources telling us about these new powers in the region, there's very much a very strong idea of this rise of a new Persian world. And I would say there's a little bit of both. The Sasanians live and rule in a multicultural, vastly diverse region with lots of Greek speakers and lots of everyone's speakers. I mean, Aramaic is sort of the lingua franca of the region, but there's all

kinds of different language and traditions. And so there's no reason why Greek speaking Persians aren't, you know, equating these new Persians with the old Persians as well. So it's not quite so simple to say one thing or the other, but certainly there is this vibe around the whole region that this is a new power and you've gotten rid of a weakened power, as you said, and you've been replaced by something much more dynamic, much stronger, and much more willing to take advantage of your own weaknesses when it comes from the Roman perspective as well. So not the best move by the Romans indeed right there. Well, aside from fighting with Ardashir's initial reign, I mean, what else do we know about his reign, Eve? Do we know much about his domestic policy, how he goes about improving his empire itself?

Yeah. So, I mean, there's so many things that are interesting at the time. From way back to Alexander the Great and the successors, the foundation of cities becomes a really important part of the region and of the ideology of the region. So from Seleucid through to Parthian and through to Sassanian, there's a continuity of the foundation of new cities and of the movement of people. This is something that's quite extraordinary. They move populations from one area to the other in order to develop different routes, in order to develop agricultural land. So there's a lot of that going on. It starts with Ardashir and it continues through. But so he founds new cities and that's amazing. And some of

them are quite fantastic. And he founds new cities both in Fars, in his homeland, but also in other parts of the empire as well. Mostly near key connected routes and strategic points. I mean, it's all very well thought through and it's almost like you're stamping your authority on a really important place of contact and community and connection. So he does that. The infrastructure of the Sasanian Empire is very highly developed. So, I mean, we can't give Ardashir a credit for all of that, but it's incredibly highly developed across the whole of its period of its rule. They have really highly developed irrigation, bridges, roads. We have really highly developed defensive structures. We've talked about that that come later. So cities are really important. Infrastructure, agriculture is obviously really important as well.

And again, it's about controlling the resources of a region, of an entity. And it makes sense for anybody who comes to power to do that. And that's very much what Ardashir does. So he's accredited with lots of building in the later sources. Some of our geographies of the Sasanian Empire give Ardashir credit. The Sharastania, Iran Shar, it's called, which is this kind of list of cities and what their origins are. So he's credited with building a lot of cities. We can't give Ardashir credit for all of it, but definitely he's very involved in this kind of a strategic reorganisation of the empire.

And how does he go when he gets to the end of his reign? How does he go about securing a dynasty, ensuring that when he goes, that he has another successor lined up and that this is the beginning of this powerful Sasanian dynasty. This goes back to the idea of legitimization, to Zoroastrianism, and to the concept of rule. So this is always very important from the very beginning of the Sasanians, and they use this as a way of legitimizing succession and legitimizing themselves as the Sasanians chosen and supported by deities, Zoroastrian traditions, and also then to project that onto his son. So Shapur, his son, who inherits the throne, who inherits the kingdom from the Shire, has

been fighting with him for quite a long time. I mean, we talked about him at Hormozana, the representations of him at that original battle in 224 against the Parthians. So Shapur, the heir, is there as part of the succession. Now, Sasanian kings of kings had many, many, many, many, many, many sons, many, many, many, many wives, some of whom were related to them. They practiced endogamy in the early Sassanian dynasty. So they married their sisters amongst very many other wives as well. So there was the tradition of heirs is quite interesting because who inherits in a situation when you have so many different possibilities is really

fascinating. We have some very interesting inscriptions from Shapur's reign that give us a little bit of detail about the sort of hierarchy of tradition of dynasty, but there's no one rule. Like it's not the eldest son, it's not primogenitor as far as we can understand. Although in this case, when Ardashir then passes the power on to Shapur, it does seem to be that way. The oldest son does rule. So Ardashir, he's gone, he's out of the picture, and Shapur is now the new king. How does he go about building on the foundations laid by his father? So yeah, Shapur I, as he becomes, and he's named after the family name,

he has been fighting, as we said, along with his father for almost 20 years at this point. And he becomes king of kings after the death of his father in 240, around 240, as far as we know. So he's crowned as king of king, like his father would be. He's given this idea of legitimization through ritual and is created as this figure of the Shahanshah, which is the word, the Persian word for the king of kings, a king above all other kings. And Shapur has been there from the, as I said, from the beginning really of Ardashir's reign, so he's almost been a co-regent, it seems, for a lot of this. So that's how the dynasty progresses with into Shapur from Ardashir. Shapur is really interesting though, because he continues the

policy of Ardashir, a consolidation of power. He's very much connected to the development of a Zoroastrian legitimacy and orthodoxy. So that also develops at the same time. There's the development of a kind of almost textual type of Zoroastrianism that hadn't existed before is part of the development. Very important priests rule as well in this period. And then he also really takes it to the Romans, it seems, or at least is very explicit about representing his battles with the Romans anyway. And one of the things I think about this is that Ardashir, of course, fought the Romans, but he did have to spend, I think, a lot of time, and we do think, consolidating power within the Sasanian Empire.

So that's much more like a civil war, if you think about it. He would have been fighting in a lot of different regions within the empire itself. And to me, Shapur's turning the attention onto the Romans, onto the other, is a really interesting way of unifying his new empire and a way of articulating that so that people can be almost feel that idea of what the region is. And one of the things we haven't really talked about is the way in which the region, the Iranian world is discussed in the texts of the time and on the coinage is as the region of Iran. And with Ardashir is one of the first time in which we see the use of that word Iran into, and he becomes the ruler of Iran and an Iran or non-Iran. So he's ruling over both Iranians and non-Iranians. And that becomes a very clear and important expression in Shapur's reign of the whole of the empire. And so for me, it seems to be that, of course, Shapur wins a number of huge victories, which we'll talk about, over the Romans. But he's also very much using the Romans as a way of, I think, unifying his own power base, where his father had to establish it.

They had to fight for it. Shapur has to create a reason for it all to stay together almost. And I think that's a really important idea when we see all the amazing stories we have of Shapur's fights against the Romans. I think the story of Shapur in detail is worthy of another episode in its own right. So we might not have time to talk about Valerian and capturing a Roman emperor and Shapur being one of these great banes of Rome. But it's extraordinary that other point which you mentioned, which is sometimes overlooked. I had no idea about the word Iran emerging in that kind of Rome. It is extraordinary that other point which you mentioned, which is sometimes overlooked. I had no idea about the word Iran emerging in that kind of time. It is the first written time that it's mentioned. But I think it adds more fascination to this. I mean, at least in my

perspective, when someone mentions Persia or a Persian empire in antiquity, my mind will immediately go to the Achaemenids, to a classical against the Greeks and then Alexander the Great and so on. Does it feel that compared to the Achaemenid Persians, the Sassanians are slightly more overlooked, even though their story is arguably more fascinating, especially when you've got the Romans in the West, you've got the rise of Islam in the South, and also just the forging of this dynasty in the area of Iran? Yes, definitely. I would say yes. We have all those great stories of the Achaemenids and the Greeks and the Athenians and all those characters told. So I think at some level, it's natural that we have that amazing focus. And we also have really,

as you have done with many other people on this show, how much are the Achaemenids the world's first superpower? So there's really nobody else like them when they're existing. Whereas with the Sassanians, we always see them as this idea of Matthew Canepa, who's a great scholar of the Sassanians, calls two eyes of the earth. The Romans and the Sassanians are sort of there balancing each other. So in some ways they do get, I think, overlooked in terms of the regard and comparison to the Achaemenids anyway. But the amazing thing is that their importance is also somehow less strong of a footprint almost because of what happens afterwards, because with the rise of the

caliphate, the Umayyads and the Abbasids, and they create this amazing empire out of the Sassanian rule. And the Sassanians are really important in that, the residual influences, but they almost get sort of relegated at that point too. So we have them on two sides, one being just the enemies of Rome and also being those whom the early Caliphs defeated. And so I think in some ways that explains some of the reasons, but also because so much of our material comes from non-Sassanian sources about them. That's another reason.

We don't have as much of their own expression until much later, until we get early new Persian literature in the 9th and 10th centuries AD, where we have their memories written down and talked about in Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh. You know, the Sasanian story makes up a huge part of that epic poem. And so we have them romanticized and epicized, but by that point, it's in another tradition outside of the Western tradition. So, you know, in the Persianate world, in the old Iranian world, they do dominate still, I think, more than they do in, say, the Mediterranean. Well, Eve, this has been amazing. Always wonderful to have you on the podcast. And it just goes for

me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Thank you very much. A pleasure to be here. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Eve MacDonald talking all things Ardashir and the rise of the Sasanian dynasty, the Sasanian Empire, this great rival of Rome in ancient Mesopotamia. I really do hope you enjoyed today's episode. Last thing from me, I'm not going to say much because I'm actually quite under the weather at the moment. I've just returned from filming out in Germany for a brand new documentary series about the Varischlacht, one of the greatest defeats the Romans ever suffered, 9 AD in the

Teutoburg Forest. Varisch, give me back my allegiance. But what I will say is, if you're listening on Spotify or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, make sure that you are following the podcast so that you are notified when we release new episodes every week. That will increase our reach.

That will allow us to reach as many people as possible and continue us moving towards our infinite aim, our infinite goal of sharing these awesome stories from our distant past with as many people as possible. But that's enough from me, and I will see you in the next episode.