The Ancients - Shirin: Heroine of Iran

Episode Date: February 26, 2023

Princess, Queen, and political influencer - Shirin should be a name as famed as Cleopatra, but how come so few know of her? Coming to influence in Iran during the early 7th Century, Shirin was the Christian wife of the Sasanian King Khosrow II, and was forced to flee to Syria in the aftermath of radical revolution. Upon their return, she was crowned Queen, and ultimately used her influence to help support those in need. But beyond the tragic poems that have posthumously defined her, what do we actually know about Shirin, and what can we learn from her?In this episode, Tristan welcomes back Dr Eve MacDonald from Cardiff University, to delve into this incredible moment of history. Looking at the role women played in politics, and how they could use positions of power to their advantage, together they delve into Shirin's story and shine a light on this remarkable figure from history.The Senior Producer was Elena Guthrie.The Assistant Producer was Annie Coloe.Edited by Joseph Knight.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - enter promo code ANCIENTS for a free trial, plus 50% off your first three months' subscription.To download, go to Android > or Apple store >

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, well, we're going to ancient Iran. Some might say early medieval Iran. We're very much on the cusp of breaking into gone medieval territory here. And you know what? This daredevilism in podcast format, I love it. We've

already got about two to three million years worth of ancient history and prehistory that we talk about. But why not just try and get a bit of the medieval stuff in there once in a while too because we're going to 7th century Iran to almost the end of the Sasanian period before the Sassanid empire that centered around Iran and Iraq today fell to the emergence of the Islamic armies that would soon sweep over the eastern and southern Mediterranean. But in the decades up to this fall of the Sasanian empire you saw the emergence of this extraordinary woman, this heroine of Iran. It feels quite relevant to be talking about this strong female character from Iran in today's climate. And her name was Shirin. I had not really heard about Shirin, this princess, this queen,

who has interactions with the eastern Mediterranean, with Jerusalem and so much more. I had very, very little knowledge about Shirin before researching for today's episode and before interviewing our brilliant guest today. Our guest is someone who has been on the Ancients podcast before, who has a fountain of knowledge on the Sasanian Empire, but also on ancient Carthage, on Hannibal Barker, and who's also just great fun to be around. I'm talking about Dr. Eve McDonald from Cardiff University. I met up with Eve to interview her all about Shirin. So without further ado, to talk about this extraordinary queen, this heroine of Iran, here's Eve. Eve, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today.

Hello, Tristan. What a pleasure to be back. Hello, welcome back. It's been too long. You've talked about Hannibal, you've talked about the Sassanian frontiers in the past, and now this is a topic very much close to your heart that we're talking about today. Shirin, it feels like there are a few people in the Sasanian world, a few women, who can really match her power and her legacy. Oh yeah, absolutely. Shirin was one of the most interesting of the Sasanian women that we know about. You know, she was a historical figure who then becomes this massive legendary figure as well in the post-Sassanian world and into the early modern world.

So she's so interesting because she gives us some insight into what's happening with the Sassanians at the end of her, of their empire in the 6th, 7th century AD, but also about women's lives and power and all of that as well so it's a pretty exciting topic. We'll set the scene first of all then Eve, introduce Shirin to us. Who was Shirin? Okay so Shirin was a Christian woman who lived in the late 6th, 7th century AD and she was the queen of the Sasanian Persian Empire and of course you know the Sasanians ruled this enormous region all across the Iranian plateau, the Middle East, from the Euphrates to the Indus, and from the Caucasus to the Arabian Peninsula in this period.

We think that Shirin came from a place called Khuzestan, and that's today the southern part of, if you think, the southern part of Iraq, We think that Shirin came from a place called Khuzestan. And that's today the southern part of, if you think the southern part of Iraq, just a little bit to the east. And then the southwestern part of Iran. So that area is just a little bit to the east of the Tigris Delta. So we think that's where she was from. And that area was really well known as an old Elamite region in origin, and their big city was Susa, and so in the Sassanian period, that's where she came from. Now, we know about her from a whole bunch of different sources.

We know about her from sources that are contemporary to when she lived, and then some that come much, much later. she lived, and then some that come much, much later. So we have Christian bishops who talk about her, and we have Syriac chronicles and Armenian histories. We have early Arabic histories. We have Persian medieval poems and stories too. So she comes to us from a whole variety of different sources, which makes her interesting, but also sometimes a little tricky to get a hold of. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we'll definitely delve into first her life and then her afterlife, as you hinted at there, Eve. But I mean, set the scene a bit more, therefore. So the early 7th century, the Sasanian Empire, which you've mentioned there, what's the situation with the Sasanians at this time?

So yeah, this period is one all across the ancient world, all across the Mediterranean, Europe, the Middle East, Asia. It's a period of great change. It's a period of transition. So from the 6th and 7th century we have this period where the ancient world is moving into what we call the medieval world. And this is true really in all these different regions that the Sasanians ruled over. So the Sasanians come to power, you might remember, in the 3rd century AD by overthrowing the previous dynasty, the Arsacid dynasty, and they ruled the Parthian Empire. The Sasanians are Zoroastrians, so they come to rule

over this big empire. They themselves practice Zoroastrianism, but the population is really multicultural. There's Jewish populations, Christian populations, pagans, there's Buddhists, and everyone in between in this empire. And they rule for 400 years and until the 7th century, really. And so they have a big dynamic kind of impact on the whole of the late ancient world we like to call it. But in the time of Shirin's life in the 6th century, late 6th and early 7th century, the Sasanian empire is ruled by a king of kings whose name was Khosrow Parvez. That means Khosrow the Victorious and he's sometimes just called Khosrow II. You might see that. So he comes to power late in the 6th century AD. Now this is a tricky time in the history of the Sassanians and in the history of

the East Roman Empire as well. His father, Khosrow's father, had been very unpopular and he was deposed by the nobility. And the son is put on the throne. But in the east of the empire, so in the region that we would probably think about as Oxania, Transoxania today, so the eastern part of Iran and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, all those

places, there was a heroic general who was supposedly loyal to the king of kings who rebels against Khosrow's appointment and leads this rebellion. And his name was Baram Chobin. And he comes from a really important family. So he rebels against Khosrow and Khosrow has to flee. He doesn't stay and fight, he flees and he flees to the Byzantine Empire. So he flees to the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire whichever one we want to call it and this happens around 590 AD. So we have a king at their capital city of Ctesiphon, and we also have one in exile who's living with the Byzantines. And this is all sort of happening around the life of Sharon

really as well. So it's the background is this interplay between the Sasanian king and the Byzantine emperor, Maurice, and the way in which Khosrow comes back to power by using the troops of the Byzantine armies, the Armenians who fought with the Byzantines support Khosrow, and the Byzantine emperor supports him, and they put him back on the throne. So it's an unstable time, obviously. One of the things that's really important to think about, I think, when you think about the relationship between the Byzantine and the Sasanian Empire at this period is that it's long, complicated, very long border between the two regions, that central Middle Eastern region all the way up into Armenia. There's long periods

of peaceful interaction and periods of intense warfare. But one of the things I really like is a Greek writer from the sixth, early seventh century named Theophylact Simokata characterizes the Sasanian and the Byzantine empires as the two eyes of the earth. So they're really the two superpowers of the day and they consider themselves the most important powers in the region. So that's how they saw themselves. So more or less as equals, they fight wars, they have lots of peaceful interactions, but they rule everything in the region according to them. According to them. So it sounds like also at the moment, as you mentioned, it's unstable,

but at this time there is peaceful relations, even almost an alliance between the Byzantines and the Sassanians. But I'm guessing that alliance doesn't last that long. Exactly. So you have to imagine that the king of kings, Khosrow, is put back on the throne around 592 AD. And as far as we know, what he gets up to is he spends the next almost 10 years consolidating his power. So he's within the Sassanian confines, their sphere of influence, he's fighting, putting back his power base, knitting back together his empire. And then in the year 602, everything changes. So the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantines,

the Emperor Maurice is overthrown there by a man whose name is Phocas. So he usurps the throne and overthrows Maurice, the Eastern Roman Emperor. Now, Maurice, if you remember, that's the Maurice thing with the accent, is, you know, had been Khosrow, the Sasanian king's number one supporter. He had supported the Sasanian king of kings in his position. And so Khosrow loses his ally in the Byzantine throne, basically. And what he does is he turns around and he attacks the Byzantine Empire under this usurper. And he basically marches almost all the way straight through it in this really aggressive move.

And he conquers a huge swath of what was the Byzantine Empire at this time. So the border which had you know largely been along the Euphrates for many many many centuries all of a sudden completely collapses and we have the Sasanians marching all the way across the Middle East into Egypt they get as far as Libya they march all the way up through into Asia Minor as well so this is this huge collapse of Byzantine control of this region and an enormous gain for the Sasanians and if this is the largest extent of the Sasanian Empire through its whole existence so it's pretty intense moment of Sasanian Byzantine war happening right at this point.

Now the problem is of course is that everybody in the Byzantine Empire is horrified and they overthrow Phocas. So Phocas gets overthrown and a new emperor whose name is Heraclius, comes to power. And this happens in about 610. He doesn't last very long, our usurper. So Heraclius comes to power, and he turns around and counterattacks. And he does it in a really interesting way. He doesn't, you think about where he's in power, which is Constantinople, you know, modern Istanbul. And in order to get at the

Sasanians, he goes along the Black Sea and he goes south directly through Armenia, right into the heart of the Sasanian Empire. And then the reverse happens. So the whole of the Sasanian military collapses and he marches, the Byzantine army marches almost all the way to Ctesiphon, and by 628, Khosrow is overthrown by his own son and is killed. So in a period of almost 30 years, there's been just massive upheaval across the whole of the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean, and it's been this incredible all-out war between the Sasanians and the Byzantines. And that's the background

for Shirin basically. That's who or how we can understand her as a queen in this period. It's such an interesting turbulence period isn't it and one I really knew absolutely nothing about. So if we therefore now turn our attention to Shirin herself, what's our earliest evidence for this figure? Okay so when you go back to the beginning, to Shireen, and try and figure out about the life of this queen, of the Sassanians, and how this woman appears in this epic story of warriors and warlords, of kings and emperors, we can go back to, and it's nice in a way, we go back to the histories written at the time, and what it gives us is a picture of what's going on underneath the picture that we usually get of

big men fighting big wars. And our earliest contemporary reference to Shirin is in an ecclesiastical history that's written by a man whose name is Evagrius. Now, he lived from around 530 to around 600 AD, and he was from a town on the Orontes River in modern Syria today, and he was called a scholasticus. So his work is by Evagrius Scholasticus, and that means he was an advocate. So he was a very important man, he was very closely connected to the patriarch of the church at Antioch, and his only surviving work is this ecclesiastical history. And it tells us the story of the rise of various different Christian groups at the time, the East Syriac Church. And the reason that we have this work at all is that it was preserved in a much later

Byzantine historian work. So it was something that comes from the 11th, 12th century that preserves his work about this time. And so what's really, really interesting is that Evagrius talks about Shirin specifically. So we have specific evidence putting Shirin into the context of her time by a very important writer. And he talks about her and her husband, Khosrow II, in terms of the patronage of a really important shrine to a Christian saint whose name was Sergius that is from a place called Rassafa today. It was called Sergiopolis in the days. And it was the burial place of a Christian saint who was martyred under the Emperor Diocletian in the late 3rd century AD. And then where he was martyred, where he was buried, becomes a place of pilgrimage and it becomes a really important town.

Now this was a town that was really near the Euphrates at a crossroads between various different places so it was probably always occupied but it becomes very important in the late antique period and the emperor the Byzantine emperor Justinian, for example, builds walls around the city. And it's so cool. You can go on Google Earth. I would highly recommend it and have a look at it because I've been there once and it's absolutely spectacular. It's these massive mud brick walls surround this enormous basilica. So one of the things that's really interesting in this story with Shirin and with Khosrow

is this saint, and he's somebody who's so typical of the time. He's a warrior saint, and we don't always think about saints as warriors, Christian saints as warriors, but at the time, a really important part of Christianity were these warrior saints. And he had been a Roman soldier, as we said. He was beheaded and then buried there. And so the town becomes this important place of pilgrimage. And we have warriors, people like the Byzantine emperor and the Sassanian king of kings,

worshiping and venerating these Christian saints who are warrior saints as well. So it's all part of the masculine culture. Now how does Shirin fit into that story? It really gives us a little bit of a picture that the King of Kings, Khosrow II, in a time of marital problems for him and his wife, they're trying to conceive a child. They can't conceive, it seems. So he actually donates a lot of gold, some beautiful Christian ornaments, to the saint's basilica at this place, Sergiopolis, and asks the saint to help him and his wife, Shirin, conceive a child. So it's this incredible sort of dichotomy of information where we have these big imperial histories and then this kind of

really small very intimate domestic story being told as well through this information. And so that's how we know about Shirin. we know that Khosrow donates these goods to the Basilica, and when he does so he writes a letter, and we have preserved by Evagrius and another writer at the time the words of the letter, so we can, he tells us in Khosrow's own word what Khosrow is interested in, what he wants from the saint. And then we also learn that it worked and that Shirin conceives a child as well. I mean, a slight tangent from that, Eve, but I think it's absolutely fascinating because you mentioned Zoroastrianism in the Sasanian Empire earlier. But Christianity, obviously the Shirin link to Christianity is there.

But does it also seem to emphasize how those who ruled the Sasanian Empire, well, sometimes they could be Christian, or they could lean towards Christian beliefs. I think that's a really interesting part of the story. Yeah, no, I think it is. And it's something that many people debate. So because we have so many different sources for this period, and most of them are written not from the Sasanian perspective, but from outside. So we have Christian sources and Jewish sources and we have Buddhist and we have early Islamic sources. It's hard to get a sense of what's actually going on underneath the surface but there's no question that the Zoroastrian king patronizes the

Christian saint and that is not considered to be unusual. We know that within the Sasanian society, it's, as I said, it's big, it's multicultural. There's very important Christian communities, very important Jewish communities. There's the leaders of these communities are considered to be, you know, advisors. They're part of the story and culture of power. And so we have the words of Khosrow when he actually expresses that, you know, he has this Christian wife and he says, Shirin was a Christian and I was a Zoroastrian and our law forbids us to have a Christian wife. Nevertheless, on account of my favorable feelings towards her, I disregarded the law in respects. In those respects. So he marries her, the Christian, formally and officially, even though it says that Zoroastrians aren't allowed to do that. Now, that does hint at a great love story,

doesn't it? In some ways, don't you think? But one of the things I think it's worth saying is that, and we have to note, is that Khosrow had a lot of wives. We have to accept the fact that some say he had 12,000 wives. So there are a lot of women at play here. So what's so interesting is we have this woman who seems to stand out as a very important wife to Khosrow, but she certainly wasn't his only wife. But the Christianity of Shirin is a fundamental part of her story, absolutely. And Khosrow's sympathy, maybe not the right word, Khosrow's use of the Christian population and the importance of the Christian population in the Sasanian church,

there's actually a really great book I have to recommend. It's Richard Payne's book, and it's called A State of Mixture. And it's absolutely brilliant because it looks at Christian, Zoroastrian, and Jewish communities in the Sasanian Empire really carefully. And it's an absolutely brilliant read if anyone out there is interested. Yes, I have to check it out. I mean, it's an interesting point to start on with Evagrius and this Shurin's Christian background. I mean, it feels like

Evagrius is the starting gun, the starting point in regards to sources for Shurin. But I'm presuming we also have some other sources, two other chronicles that also reveal more about her role at the center of the Sasanian Empire. Yeah, no, we do. And the thing is, we have a couple that come from the late 6th, early 7th century, so contemporary. And then we have some that come from just slightly later, the 7th and the 8th century AD. Now, these are sources that are written just after the fall of the Sasanians to the Arab Muslim armies in the 7th century. And when this happens, we have the figure of Shirin being described as somebody who's playing a key role in the politics of the capital, of Ctesiphon, that she's there during the wars as these wars between the Byzantine and the Romans are remembered. She's there as a key Christian envoy. She's engaged in negotiation

between different factions. So from a little bit later, we get the sense of a woman who's very much at the seat of power and very much playing that power as well. So different Christian communities from the Eastern Roman Byzantine Empire are using envoys to talk to the king. And Shirin seems to be a part of that story, too. So that's really interesting. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb. And this month on Not Just the Tudors from HistoryHit, I'm dusting down my magnifying glass to investigate some of history's most notorious murders and brutal crimes. Was it a quarrel, or was the brilliant playwright Christopher Marlowe actually murdered in that Deptford Inn?

Was Amy Dudley, wife of Elizabeth I's favourite Robert, pushed down a flight of stairs to her death? Were the Guise, that great French family, actually bloodthirsty murderers who secured their power through ruthlessness and violence? And what's the truth about the Hungarian noblewoman who allegedly killed hundreds of young women? Join me, but not on an

empty stomach, for not just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Let's delve into that nature of that power there for At-Katisafon with Shirin. Talk to me first of all about the patronage which she gives to the Christian communities in the Sasanian capital. So one of the big issues that happens during the Byzantine-Sasanian war and during Khosrow's conquest of the whole of the Middle East and through to Egypt, is that he captures the city of Jerusalem. And he supposedly, if you believe that the true cross was ever in the city of Jerusalem,

and I'm sure it was, he picks up the true cross of Jesus and he takes it back to the Sasanian capital. Now this is a hugely controversial moment for Christians all over the Mediterranean. This center of Christian worship that if you remember your fourth century history in the Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena they found supposedly the fragments of the True Cross and bring it and build a church in Jerusalem around it. So the

thing is is that Khosrow's geopolitics involves these important symbols of Christianity as well and that power of the Christian community. So that's kind of the bigger question underlying this and supposedly one of our sources tells us that the true cross was taken back and put in Shirin's palace in Ktisifon so presumably in a chapel or a church there rather than actually like in her bedroom or anything but it's really fascinating it's an Armenian historian Sibaios who tells us this and it's really fascinating. It's an Armenian historian, Sabaeus, who tells us this. And it's really interesting to think about this symbol of power that that meant and how Shirin is playing a role in and among Christian communities and their support of the king, too. So what do we know from this? Like, the thing is, is how can we understand these stories about Shirin and what can we tell about her?

And you can tell that, well, first of all, she had a palace, which is really interesting. She had her own palace and presumably almost her own court within the capital city. And that she's functioning at a level that allows her to negotiate with important people from various communities around the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. from various communities around the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. And that really gives us a sense about how much real power she must have had, or real authority and influence with the king. So we know we can tell at least that much about some of these stories about Shirin.

So I'm guessing we're using that evidence to try and estimate how much power she did wield at the center of the Sasanian Empire. Do we know how people reacted to Shirin's prominence in this position? Yeah, so there's a few interesting stories that come up from a little bit later about, you know, in that what we were talking about earlier with the letter of Khosrow. I mean, he himself says that it's against the Zoroastrian law to marry a Christian. And there is some evidence and indication that there's hostility among the Zoroastrian elites who are so important in maintaining the power in the Sasanian Empire. Khosrow is a king of kings because there are other kings and satraps and rulers of different

regions that he sort of sits above, but they're all very, very important. And the elites are generally Zoroastrian in this period, and they seem to be suspicious of Shirin's Christianity and her influence over the king. Now, of course, that's pretty timeless. I mean, you're a Hellenistic historian, so you know perfectly well how women get blamed for this kind of things, especially in times of turmoil. So we don't know how much of it is just a literary trope that we see all the time with this. You know, when people are being critical of a king and his power, they can often use a woman to get to him more directly.

It's easier to criticize the woman than the king himself. So there seems to be unrest, though, some unrest around the fact that Shirin is Christian. But largely, she's operating fairly successfully in this period. So it's not Shirin, certainly, or her power that causes the collapse of Khosrow's rule. It's his own sort of overextension of his military resources and his inability to defend his own territory, it seems to be really more than anything. Well, you hinted at that. So let's go to 628. And what ultimately does therefore happen to Shirin at the time of Khosrow's fall? Yeah, so Khosrow is overthrown

by his son in 628 AD. And we don't really know what happens to Shirin in this period. And that's because between 628 AD and 651 AD, the Sasanian Empire completely disappears. And the last Sasanian king dies in 651, Yazdgirt III, in the oasis city of Merv. And so because the Sasanian Empire is in complete chaos, it's a little tricky to know what happened to Shirin. And there's a number of different stories. Khosrow is assassinated by his son. His son is called, we know him as Shiroy or Khawad II. And it's rumored as well that he kills off 17 of his brothers at the same time, and half-brothers, in order to secure this throne,

in order to make sure that there are no other possible dynastic successors at the time. There's this massive purge of the dynasty may have also caught Shirin, but some of the later medieval romances tell us that when her husband was killed she commits suicide over his body and we also then are told that by some of the early Arabic historians that Shiroi, the son who kills the father, marries every single one of his father's wives in order to cement his own legitimacy. So the problem is we don't really know, but she disappears in terms of as a historical figure. We don't see her any longer. Although there's

residuals. There's a famous monastery named after Shirin, so you wonder if she retreats to a life of ascetic prayer. We just aren't really sure. What's interesting in this period is that Shuroi, his murder of everybody doesn't work, and he's very soon overthrown. And there's two women become the Sasanian queens on the actual throne of power very briefly in the 630s as well. So there's a lot of chaos. There's a splintering of Sasanian power. We have coins being minted by different rulers in different regions. So we can see that there is the central power has kind of faded away here and that we've got a lot of regional competition going on. So we're not sure what happens to her, whether she does the star-crossed lover, commits suicide over her husband's body, or is murdered in the purge, or retires to a convent somewhere. We really don't know.

So we really don't know this mysterious end of the historical Shirin, and you've hinted at the fall, therefore, of the Sasanian Empire. So how and when is Shirin's memory and her legacy, when is it revived? Yeah, so there's a lot going on, obviously, in this period. Now, underneath the group we haven't talked about, the brief mention that needs to happen is, while the Sasanians and the Byzantines had been fighting this epic war of wars, there's a lot going on in the Arabian Peninsula, obviously. fighting this epic war of wars. There's a lot going on in the Arabian Peninsula, obviously. And this is the time of the death of the Prophet Muhammad and the rise of the early, the Rashidun Caliphs and the conquest of the Arab Muslim armies of the much of the North Africa, the Middle East, the old Sasanian, the Middle Eastern parts of the Byzantine emperors, they all become part of the new Islamic caliphate.

And as this is going on, the memory of Shirin is sort of rumbling along inside all these different regions. Now, because much of what we know about the Sasanians actually comes from this period, the post-Sasanian period, from this period, the post-Sassanian period, it's as if the story becomes epicized, it becomes romanticized in other people's epics. And that's really what happens. So through the early Islamic period, and so what I'm saying that I'm talking about up until sort of the 9th century AD, you have the establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate and then the Abbasid Caliphate. And then in the 9th century AD, you have what happens as the Abbasid Caliphate is splintering a little traditions, oral histories, memories.

So you can imagine that the people who lived in all these different regions just didn't up and run away. They stayed and new leaders came in and they converted to Islam. But their stories, their culture, their memories, their histories, that all continued in all the various ways that they had existed before. So in this period of the 9th and 10th centuries AD, you have the revival of a new Persian sort of power in the eastern part of the old Sasanian Empire. It's a region we called Khorasan, or it encompasses eastern Iran, Afghanistan, much of the area referred to as Trans-Auxania, all these amazing cities, places like Bukhara, Samarkand, Merv, Herat in Afghanistan,

Nishapur, all these places are key centers in this region. And it's a place where Persian history and culture are really preserved. And so with two dynasties that rise in this period, and they set up a kind of breakaway kingdoms under the caliphates, you get a revival of Persian culture, Sasanian history, Sasanian Persian memory, oral histories. These things all sort of bubble up and become part of a whole new story and a whole new memory. And, you know, we see that happening all across the Mediterranean. We see it happening all over Europe. So as the transition from the Roman Empire into the early medieval kingdoms, it's the same processes are happening all across the Middle East and Asia as well. And it's sort of memories and stories and tales of

a long ago past being, you know, revived in this new world, this sort of exciting new world, really. This exciting new world. And who is the figure, therefore, who comes to the fore in this exciting new world? I'm probably going to say his name, but I'm sure I'll probably say it incorrectly. The figure of Ferdowsi? Yes, that's it. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, he's amazing. So you have this group, the Samamids and the Gaznavids, these are culturally Persianate kingdoms in the 9th, 10th century. And you have a man whose name is Abul Qasim Ferdowsi, so you said it perfectly well, who is from this region. He's from a place called Tuz, which is a Khorasani town. And he is the author of this epic poem that was, I mean, it is still one of the most amazing pieces of world literature that you can read anywhere. And it's called the

Shahnameh. And that just means the book of Kings and you can read about it and read it in an amazing penguin translation by Dick Davis just in case but also I don't know if you've ever seen these puppet shows of stories from the the Shahnameh there's a man named Hamid Ramanian who does these shadow puppet shows you can see it on Instagram and all sorts of things well worth it and these are all stories and legends of the Shahnameh that we can still access today. But during this period of Persian cultural revival, this poet, Naim Ferdowsi, writes an epic poem, 50,000 rhyming couplets. It's an enormous achievement. And what it is, is the stories and memories of the Persian and Iranian history written down, mixed with myths and legends.

It's part Iliad, part Odyssey, part chivalrous knights from the medieval world. It's all these things brought together. It's really an extraordinary piece of literature. brought together. It's really an extraordinary piece of literature. And what's so interesting is in the middle of this is the figure of Shirin and her romance with the king Khosrow. And they play such a key part in the historical part of the poem. So the poem is, the early part of the poem is myths and legends, and then it evolves into historical narrative poetry when it covers the Sasanian period. And so from the Sasanian period, we have many of the characters that we learn about from bits and pieces who turn up romanticized,

but also really, you know, based in their historical reality as well. Well, let's delve into that. So how is Shirin therefore portrayed in the Shahnameh? So Shirin in the Shahnameh is so interesting. She's fantastic, really. She's like an awesome woman. She's a mix of all these amazing figures you can think of. Like she's fully formed. I think that's what you have to say about her. She's both a femme fatale. She's a bit of a saint. She's a powerful queen. She's also a victim of her ambitious male relatives. She's a bit of a vixen. She seduces the king and lures him off his straight and narrow path. So she's really quite amazing. So she, in some ways, the tale is star-crossed lovers,

but in other ways, she is also very much a reflection of the reality of the power she did wield at one point in a distant past for Dowsie, who's writing this down. So she's a bit of a mix of things, but because of that, she's such an interesting character. It's such an interesting character with all these different elements. And so how is that, therefore, how is a Christianity portrayed, depicted in the Shahnameh? Yeah, so one of the things that's so interesting is that that's pretty much forgotten. Christianity is pretty much forgotten. There's a very extraordinary scene in the Shahnameh of a kind of ritual purification scene that takes place where Khosrow's nobility are hostile to him marrying Shirin.

And there's a strange ritual that goes on that's described by Ferdowsi that some people think are maybe a reflection of the memory of Shirin's Christianity. And that may be some kind of ritual that had to be go through in order for a legal marriage to have taken place. But that's all just conjecture.

What we know is that it's largely forgotten, and that she becomes somebody from a very humble background. And yet you can see her at the same level, very much subverting gender stereotypes. She's quite a powerful woman, and also representing this kind of mythologized female as well. You know, she's an epic figure too. And that's really interesting. So her power seems to be remembered. Her Christianity is forgotten. I'd say that's a good way of wrapping it. Well, I mean, absolutely. Well, I'd like to focus a bit more on that femme fatale point you mentioned earlier. I mean, if we could explore this a little more. I mean, so how was she therefore depicted as this femme fatale figure? Well, a couple of things. The story is that she and Khosrow knew each other at some

point, and then he goes off, and then he comes back, and she presents herself to him visibly, and as he's riding by in the countryside, which is a really interesting scene, because women, of course, at this time, you know, all over the world, were very much, you know, shut away. Women didn't go out in public and present themselves like that. And so he is shocked into remembering his relationship with her and then they go off. But he has many other wives, as we mentioned. And so it seems that Shirin is responsible for poisoning one of his other wives in the Shahnameanome in the story she gets rid of a wife who we know of as miriam in the story and she's very much this sort of figure of of allure and attraction she's

luring the king towards her so in that way she is she's ambitious she's right out of that double indemnity barbara stanwick film you know getting rid of whoever she needs. Although, of course, you know, she's also at the same time the pure and virtuous woman too. So it's really quite interesting. Is it interesting for yourself as a historian looking at a text like the Shahnameh and looking at the figure of Shirin, trying to figure out what's the fact, what's the fiction behind this story? Like what elements of Shirin's story are probably literary topoi you know these stereotypes and but what could there potentially be an element of truth in? You know what's so interesting isn't it I think that as historians all of us face this issue is that the way history is transmitted over long periods of time is both official written down stories and also oral histories and dramas and plays and

emotional and tales told from one family member to another so in a way for me it's not just about figuring out the historical woman but it's also about the way in which the memory of her plays and what happens to the memory of these people over this period when the power has been forgotten but the you know important characteristics of these these figures carry on through and I think it's really really interesting I mean you and I were earlier just talking about Alexander the Great and how much the Alexander myth you you know, Alexander's in the Shahnameh, right? Alexander, this historical Hellenistic king, becomes a mythical hero in a 10th century Persian poem. It's absolutely fantastic to think about that transmission, isn't it? Absolutely. And the same thing kind of with

Shirin, as you say, you know, that mythical version of Shirin too in the Shahnameh. And I'm guessing therefore the importance of it is these elements of Shirin's story, the importance of Shirin in the Shahnameh, as you mentioned there, that makes sure that her memory, her legacy will continue in the centuries following. Absolutely. And that's what happens. So what's amazing is that, you know, Ferdowsi writes this epic poem and it's really amazing. What happens, of course, is there's big geographical and geopolitical turmoil just after this

because within a couple of centuries the Mongols have completely swept through this whole region. Many towns are destroyed or changed and there's a whole different kind of rulership in the region. But what's fascinating is the Mongol kings love the Shahnameh. They absolutely adore it and it becomes one of their favorite pieces of literature. And so it then becomes illuminated into these beautiful manuscripts over the course of the 14th and 15th into the 16th century. And so the story of Shirin and Khosrow becomes codified into the story of this whole region. And of course, the Mongols rule this massive empire. And it becomes the sort of the

Persianate world spreads out all the way from really Istanbul, well into Central Asia. And these stories turn up all over the place. So there's a, in the 12th century, there's a writer named Nizami, who kind of writes what we might call the orthodox Khosrow and Shirin romance. And that is, again, something that's remembered very, very well still in Iran and becomes something that kids read and read about. And these stories are all part of the growing up and engaging with the history and culture. So not only does it become part of a big story of kings, it also becomes part of the story of the Persian world and Persianate culture and how that lingers on across a big wide area too. And then you have all the way through to today, Shirin, absolutely fundamental into the story of Iran and Iranian women.

And the filmmaker, the Abbas Kiarostami, very famous Iranian filmmaker in 2008, made a film called Shirin that you can see still. And it's absolutely fascinating because it's the story of Khosrow and Shirin being played on a screen. But you don't see any of that. All you see are women's faces and their reaction to the story of Khosrow and Shirin. And it's an incredible piece of cinema, absolutely revolutionary.

And, of course, it's very much focused on Iranian women. And I think that's what's so interesting. And, you know, today more than ever, I think the focus on Shirin is it's a wonderful time to be doing this because of all the amazing women in Iran who are at the moment dealing with and rising up and expressing their power. And I think Shirin is a great example of that long tradition in Iranian culture. It does feel like a significant moment to be doing this podcast, an important moment to be doing it too. So it was great to get you on to talk about this. I mean, last thing from me, I know we're kind of going back, but you mentioned that Khosrow and Shirin romantic story in the Shahnameh. We didn't really talk about the end

for Khosrow and Shirin, but I'm presuming it's quite a romantic or quite a sad Romeo and Juliet end to their story too? It is really, it is a sad end. One of the classic scenarios, of course, for women in ancient societies and in medieval societies was they may be powerful in their own right, but very much subject to the whims of male power. And in this story, in the Shana Me, when Khosrow is killed, And in this story, in the Shana Me, when Khosrow is killed, there's the advances made by his successor to marry Shirin. And she refuses that and she does go and commit suicide over her husband's body. So it is a sad story. It is the sort of Romeo and Juliet end to, I guess, the only way in which in a proper medieval romance that can happen. Well, there you go. Well, Eve, this has been an absolutely fantastic chat to talk all things Shirin. And it just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast

today. Thank you so much, Tristan. A real pleasure. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Eve MacDonald, Sasanian expert and just a brilliant figure, explaining all about this heroine of ancient Iran, about Shirin. I hope you enjoyed the episode today. As mentioned at the start, it feels quite relevant to be talking about Shirin at this current time. Anyways, last things from me, if you're enjoying the ancients podcast you're enjoying our episodes and you want more well we've got more than 250 episodes in our archive all free for you to listen to just start having a delve into those although i warn you the earlier you get the more raw an interviewer i become but you know maybe that's all part of the charm who knows anyways one other thing from me if you're also really loving the ancients podcast and you want to help us out you want to

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