The Sasanian dynasty, also known as the Sassanids or the House of Sasan, was the last pre-IslamicPersian dynasty or the royal house to establish hegemony over much of Western Asia. Founded by Ardashir I in 224 CE, the dynasty ruled Ērānšahr until its fall in 651 CE. Ardashir named the dynasty in honor of his ancestor Sasan, from whom the ruling family claimed descent. Ardashir I founded an empire described by scholars as the “Second Persian Empire” or the “Neo-Persian Empire.”
During its reign, the Sasanian Empire emerged as one of the leading powers of Late Antiquity and played a pivotal role in the political and cultural history of Iran and the Near East.
The Shahanshah served as the sole sovereign, head of state, and head of government of the empire, although at times effective power passed to other officials, most notably the spahbed. After the Muslim conquest of Persia by the Rashidun Caliphate in 651 and the death of Yazdegerd III, members of the imperial sassanid family fled in exile, and sought refuge in China, where they were accepted as members of the imperial court by the Emperor Gaozong of Tang. Although several attempts were made, with Tang support, to restore Sasanian rule in Iran. The exiled branch of the dynasty remained in China. Narsieh, a grandson of Yazdegerd III and the last recorded member of the Sasanian royal house in China, adopted the surname Li (李) in honor of the Tang imperial family. He is also regarded as the last notable ruler or member of the Sasanian dynasty.
Origins
Modern Scholars View
The name "Sasanians" is derived from a Persianpriest named Sasan, the ancestor of the dynasty. One of his sons was Pâpak, who revolted against the lawful ruler of Iran, Artabanus IV, at the beginning of the third century. The Sasanians were based in Firuzabad and Istakhr, not far from ancient Persepolis. Both cities are in Persis, modern Fars.
Dara II, the last Kayanian king to rule before Alexander, is partly based on the last AchaemenidKing of Kings, Darius III (r. 336–330 BC), whose empire was conquered by Alexander's forces. A son of Dara II named Sasan (called "the elder") fled to India and lived there in exile until his death. He was survived by a son who was likewise named Sasan (called "the younger"), "which continued in the family for four generations". A descendant of the family, likewise named Sasan, worked for Pabag, who was a local ruler in Pars. Pabag's daughter married Sasan and bore him a son named Ardashir. Following this, Sasan is no longer mentioned. The Shahnameh thus indicates that the ancestors of Sasan resided in India following Alexander's conquests. This report has been used by scholars to point out Sasan's Indo-Parthian connection. The historian Marek Jan Olbrycht has suggested that the family was descended from the Indo-Parthians of Sakastan. Due to resemblance of the coinage of Farn-Sasan the last Indo-Parthian monarch and the Sasanian Ardashir I, including the shared name Sasan—a name popular in the Indo-Parthian realm—suggests that the Sasanians and Indo-Parthians possibly shared a common ancestry. IranologistKhodadad Rezakhani also noted similarities between the early Sasanians and the Indo-Parthians, such as their coinage. Yet, he stated that "evidence might still be too inconclusive."
Sasanian claims
The Sasanian monarchs claimed descent from the Kayanids, a legendary Iranian dynasty mentioned in the Avesta, the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, which is commonly thought to be based upon the late Achaemenid dynasty. As such, Dara II, the Kayanid king Sasan supposedly traced his lineage to, was most likely based upon Darius III, whose empire was conquered by Alexander the Great just like Dara's. Another differing account exists in Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan, in which Ardashir is presented as the son of Sasan, a descendant of Darius III, and a daughter of Pabag, a feudal ruler in Persis, whose name is not mentioned. However, these conflicting accounts led some historians, like Touraj Daryaee, to believe that Ardashir simply claimed descent from anyone who was most convenient for him. Relating Ardashir to the legendary Kayanians with the nickname Kay, besides connecting himself to Sasan, a guardian deity, and also to Dara, which is possibly a combination of Darius I and Darius III the Achaemenid, hints at a possible attempt to claim lineage from the Achaemenids. The Sasanians claimed such lineage for prestige and legitimacy of their rule.
Sasan deity
The name "Sasan" was thought to be composed of the epigraphic form "Ssn" on wares and other documents, implying that Sasan was based on a Zoroastrian deity, though he is not mentioned in the Avesta or any other Iranian texts. The historian Martin Schwartz has recently shown that the deity shown on the pottery wares is not related to Sasan, but shows Ssn, an old Semitic goddess that was worshiped in Ugarit in the second millennium BC.[citation needed] The word "Sasa" is written on coins found in Taxila; it is probably related to "Sasan", since the symbols on the coins are similar to the coins of Shapur I, son of Ardashir.[citation needed] With all this in mind, it can be assumed that Ardashir claimed his lineage to be divine and the Sasanians may have raised Sasan's rank to that of a god's.
↑Boyce, Mary. (1989; updated 2018). “Anāhīd i. Ardwīsūr Anāhīd.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published December 15, 1989; last updated August 7, 2018. The article states: “At the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. the Persian Sasanians were, it seems, hereditary guardians of a temple dedicated to Anāhīd at Eṣṭaḵr (probably one of the foundations of Artaxerxes II), which Ṭabarī describes as ‘the temple of the fire of Anāhīd’ …” https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/anahid/anahid-i-ardwisur-anahid/
↑Maksymiuk, K. (2018). The two eyes of theearth: The problem of respect in Sasanid-Roman relations. Greek, Roman, and ByzantineStudies, 58(4), 591–606.
“None of the Roman emperors denied the legal right to the throne of the Sasanian rulers. So for example the actions of Severus Alexander (222-235) after invading Meso-potamia: his envoys did not deny the legitimacy of the rule of Ardasir (224-242), even though they understood well the cir-cumstances of the change in the throne of Iran, as was expressed in Alexander's speech to the army (Herodian 6.3.5):
“ The Persian Artaxerxes has slain his master Artabanus, and the Parthian Empire is now Persian. Despising our arms and con-temptuous of the Roman reputation, Artaxerxes is attempting to overrun and destroy our imperial possessions. “
↑1.Daryaee, Touraj. (2009). Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. I.B. Tauris. Chapter 1, “The Political History of Iran and an-Iran.”;
[1] “By the beginning of the third century CE, for reasons unknown, there was an effort by a local Persian family known as Sasan to expand their power far beyond its locality of the city of Istakhr.”
[2] Daryaee, Touraj. (2012). “The Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE).” In The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History, edited by Touraj Daryaee, p. 188. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199732159.013.0008
“What is clear is that Erān/Eranshahr was seen as having a set territory in the minds of the Sasanian Persians.”
[3] Daryaee, Touraj. (2012). “Introduction.” In The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History, edited by Touraj Daryaee, p. 5. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199732159.013.0001
“We can understand the Iranian mentality and worldview through a story about the Persian king and his throne room.”
↑Daryaee, Touraj. (2023). Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. I.B. Tauris, Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 2; “Then a favorite son of Persis, named Ardashir [...] changed the course of history again.”
Daryaee, Touraj. (2023). Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. I.B. Tauris, Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 2; “there was an effort by a local Persian family known as Sasan to expand their power far beyond the locality of the city of Istakhr.”
↑Shahbazi, A. Shapur. “Sasanian Dynasty.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, originally published 20 July 2005, last updated 14 May 2018.
“SASANIAN DYNASTY, the last Persian lineage of rulers to achieve hegemony over much of Western Asia before Islam, ruled 224 CE–650 CE. Rise of the Sasanian empire. The overthrow of the Arsacid royal house in 224 CE and the establishment of the Sasanian dynasty was the outcome of the simultaneous decline of the Parthian state brought about by chronic civil strife, a devastating epidemic of smallpox, repeated wars with Roman forces (who sacked Ctesiphon in 165 and 198), and the gradual ascendancy of a Persian family with religious and political bases of support.”
“Ardašir succeeded in creating a “Second Persian empire” which was recognized for over four centuries as one of the two great powers in Western Asia and Europe.”
↑Ardašēr ī Pābagān (Ardashir I) is referred to as “the king of the Persians” in the Kārnāmag ī Ardašēr ī Pābagān, a Middle Persian text from the Sasanian period.
Middle Persian:
tō xwadāy ī pārsīgān pad ēn kār frēstīd kū: “xwadāyīh ī Ērānšahr pad ēv-xwadāyīh ō man rased?”
English translation:
“The king of the Persians has sent you with the commission to ask: ‘Will the kingship of Ērānšahr come to me as sole ruler?’
Reference:
Asha, Raham. (1999). Kārnāmag ī Ardašēr ī Pābagān: The Book of the Acts of Ardašir Son of Pābag. Paris: Ermān, Chapter XII, §4.
↑Persis (Fārs) as the homeland and heartland of the Sasanian dynasty
1. Wiesehöfer, Josef. (2000; updated 2013). “FĀRS ii. History in the Pre-Islamic Period.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.Text: “The early Sasanians considered themselves as successors to rulers who, like themselves, came from Fārs and ruled over a large empire. They built impressive palaces and laid out important residences. They thought of their homeland as a place of historic, religious, and political significance and honored the ‘holy places’ and remains of their ‘ancestors’ which were situated there.”
2. Balatti, Silvia, Hilmar Klinkott, and Josef Wiesehöfer, eds. (2021). Paleopersepolis: Environment, Landscape and Society in Ancient Fars. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Text: “Pārsa, approximately corresponding to the modern-day Iranian province of Fars, can reasonably be considered to occupy a prominent place in the history of Ancient Iran. Indeed, it was the heartland of the Persian empires of the Teispids, Achaemenids and Sasanians.”
↑Van Bladel, Kevin T. (2026). Ancient Persian: A Linguistic History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 3.
“Middle Persian, attested in inscriptions from the first century bce onward, was used by the Persian kings of the Sasanid dynasty from the third to the seventh centuries ce and, until today, as a literary language of the Zoroastrian religion.”
Canepa, Matthew P. (2018). The Iranian Expanse: Transforming Royal Identity through Architecture, Landscape, and the Built Environment, 550 BCE–642 CE. Oakland: University of California Press, chapter 12, “Sasanian Memory and the Persian Monumental and Ritual Legacy,” pp. 251–270.
“The Sasanian kings understood that their dynasty originated in southwestern Iran, the former homeland of the Achaemenid Empire.”
↑Narges Nematollahi, “A Stylistic Shift in the Official Documents of Pre-Islamic Iran: The Semantics of Power to the Semantics of Politeness,” in Kamran Talattof, ed., Routledge Handbook of Ancient, Classical and Late Classical Persian Literature (2023), chapter 3, p. 44 onward; the relevant discussion appears on p. 54.
“The Sasanids, people of the family of Sasan originating from the province of Persis (modern day Fārs in southwestern Iran), ruled the Iranian plateau and beyond for about four centuries before the Arab conquest of Iran in the 7th century ce. The official language of the Sasanids was Middle Persian, also known as Pahlavi, the native language of the Sasanid kings.”
↑Daryaee, Touraj (2006). “The Construction of the Past in Late Antique Persia.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 55(4), 493–503. https://doi.org/10.25162/historia-2006-0032.
“This Persian empire, which originated from the province Persis, during its largest extent spanned most of southwest Asia, including parts of north Africa and Arabia. The Achaemenids left an indelible mark on the memory of the people they conquered, especially the Egyptians, Hebrews, and the Greeks who had been subjugated by them. The Achaemenid presence in the history of the neighboring people was so important that even in Late Antiquity, when the Sasanian Persians made incursions into Syria and further west, it was seen in the eyes of the Romans and others as the regeneration of Achaemenid Persia and the continuation of their imperialistic policies. Between the time when Alexander the Great brought an end to the Achaemenid Empire and the beginning of the Sasanian Empire, half a millennium had elapsed. The Sasanians in the third century C.E. rose from the same province as the Achaemenids did and both were imperialistic in their foreign policy and shared a number of characteristics. Is it possible that such an important empire, i.e., the Achaemenids, who left their mark in the memory and history of the people whom they fought with and / or conquered, could not have been remembered by the Persians of the Sasanian period?”
”It has recently been shown that Ardasir i Kay is to be identified with Artaxerxes II, which has important implications for Sasanian historical memory of the Achaemenids.This is significant in that Artaxerxes II was connected with the establishment of the cult of Anähid in the Persian empire. The Sasanians are connected with the Anähid fire-temple which was probably established by the Achaemenid king of kings and was the center of the Persian warriors, which, under the control of the Sasanians, became a major center of anti-Parthian activity. Finally Darius III is again mentioned. Thus, now three Achaemenid kings were remembered. …These literary remains along with the intense Sasanian devotion and establishment of monuments along with the Achaemenid ones suggest a respect and some memory. Another important connection between the Achaemenid memory and the Sasanians would be through the oral tradition. The Arsacids who temporally ruled in between the two Persian empires had a strong minstrel tradition which transmitted stories of the Achaemenid along with those of the Kayanid kings. This oral tradition was already at work in the Achaemenid period, when stories of kings were recited and rehearsed with songs which lasted through the Sasanian period.
↑Bonner, Michael. The Last Empire of Iran.Gorgias Press, 2020, p. 23.
“But Parthia never realised this vision, and the House of Ar-shak endured many humiliations before yielding the rule of the Near East to another dynasty. When the end came, the House of Arshak may have been surprised that the stroke which extinguished their rule was dealt neither by a Roman, nor by a nomad, but by a Persian.”
↑Maksymiuk, K. (2015). The Parthian nobility inXusrō I Anōšīrvān court. In P. Briks (Ed.), Elitesin the Ancient World (Vol. 2, pp. 189–198)
“On 30 Mehr/28 April 224 CE at the battle in the plain of Hormzdagan, the local ruler of Fars Ardasir vanquished the Parthian monarch Ardavãn IV (216-224)16. The Arsacid Dynasty that ruled the country for nearly 500 years 17 was dethroned from Ctesiphon while the Sasanian dynasty of Persia took over power.
Sources rewritten by order of Persian rulers (Pãrsig) in 6th century diminish the role of the Parthians (Pahlav) in the official history of Iran. In Xwaday Namag a method of the Parthian reign recalculation to half of its actual duration was applied. Propaganda forgery of Xusro I (531-579) so called Nama-ye Tansar, shows Iran before power takeover by the Sasanian dynasty as a decentralized and corrupted state but even as "heretical" one. Contrast to the weak power of the Arsacid royal house had to be kingship of Sahansah Ardasir (224-242) who centralized administration relying on the Mazdean faith.”
↑Touraj Daryaee and Khodadad Rezakhani, ‘‘From Oxus to Euphrates: The World of Late Antique Iran’’ (H&S Media, 2016), p. XX: “The founder of the Sasanian dynasty, Ardashir I Pabagan, was a member of a noble family of Persis, one of the so-called Hellenistic Kingdoms of southern Iran. The kings of Persis had, throughout the Arsacid rule in Iran (211 BCE–223 CE), enjoyed a high level of local autonomy, including the right to issue coins in their own names.”
↑Dignas, Beate, and Engelbert Winter.(2007). Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity: Neighbours and Rivals. Cambridge University Press, pp. 53–62.
“ The successful revolt of the Sasanian Ardasir I (224-40) against the ruling dynasty of the Arsacids led to the fall of the Parthian kingdom and became the foundation of the Neo-Persian Sasanian Empire. “
↑“Ardašir succeeded in creating a ‘Second Persian empire’ which was recognized for over four centuries as one of the two great powers in Western Asia.”
Shahbazi, Alireza Shapur. (2005). “Sasanian Dynasty.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 20 July 2005; last updated 14 May 2018. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sasanian-dynasty/
↑The Parthian and early Sasanian empires: adaptation and expansion proceedings of a conference held in Vienna, 14-16 June 2012. British institute of Persian studies archaeological monographs series. London Oxford: British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS) Oxbow Books. 2016. ISBN978-1-78570-207-5.
Sasanian Empire
