Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/636

608 PERSIA [SASANIAN 233-282. unity, of course, was not such as in a modern European state. The great barons in particular were still very powerful, and were more than once a danger to the kings. At bottom they were a continuation of the Parthian nobility, falling into clivers classes, headed, as in the Acluumenian empire, by the seven noblest houses. There was also a numerous minor nobility. Later generations looked back upon the founder of the empire as the best of lawgivers and the ideal monarch ; and, of course, so great a patron of Zoro- astrianism left a high reputation for piety. A man of mark he certainly was, but the fratricide that opened his reign, and such a barbarity as tradition itself relates of his conduct to the conquered Ardavan, whose head he spurned with his feet, show him to have been very far from a pattern character. It is interesting to find his memory intertwined with similar romantic legends to those told of Cyrus. He was born of (we are told) a mean father, and lived as a page at the court of Ardavan, as Cyrus lived at that of Astyages, and so forth. Dreams and portents figure in the later as in the earlier legend, and even a mythical conflict with a dragon is recounted. 1 Fortunately a much more historical picture has been preserved by genuine tradition. Ardashir is said to have adopted his son Shapur as partner of his throne, and this is confirmed by coins on which a youthful head appears along with Ardashir s like- Shapdr ne .ss. He died late in 241 or early in 242. Shapur I. 1 -f h wars (older form Shahpuhr ; Sapor or Sapores of the Westerns) Rome was probably crowned on 20th March 242. Legendary tradition makes his mother an Arsacid princess taken at the capture of Ctesiphon ; but, according to a more prob able account, Shapur was already able to bear arms in the decisive battle with Ardavan. Nor can he have been a mere stripling when his reign began, as his prowess against Rome shows ; for in Ardashir s last years, in the reign of Maximin (236-238), the war had been renewed, and Nisibis and Carrhse (Haran), two fortresses which constantly re appear in this history, had been taken. In 242 Shapur had penetrated to Antioch, before Gordian III., or rather his father-in-law Timesitheus, drove him back and retook the Mesopotamian strongholds. The Persians were defeated at Reshaina, and Gordian proposed to march on the capital by way of the Euphrates, as Julian subsequently did ; when almost on the frontier, a little below the junction of the Euphrates and Chaboras, he was murdered by Philip the Arab (244), who concluded a humiliating peace with Shapur, and is said for the details are obscure to have given up to him Armenia and Mesopotamia. Our whole knowledge of the Perso-Roman wars in the 3d century is very defective ; but there seems now to have been a lull for some years, till in 251 or 252 Shapur again was in motion, now at length effecting an occupation of Armenia and com pelling its king to flee to Roman soil. The Roman world was at this period so shaken that Syria was again and again invaded, how often we can hardly say ; nay, a Syrian, Cyriades, himself led the Persians to Antioch and assumed the purple under their protection. At last the emperor Valerian took the field in person ; but, after pro tracted operations in Mesopotamia, fortune turned against the Romans and Valerian himself became Shapur s captive (2GO), under unknown circumstances, and, according to hail reigned as far as Constantinople, but this was not living tradition. Western scholars again sometimes mixed up the old and the new state, as when Libanius supposes that Susa, the residence of Xerxes and Artaxerxes, must also be the residence of his contemporary Sapor (Shapur). The Sasanians, however, regarded themselves as successors of the mythical kings of Iran. 1 An abridged extract of the romantic history of Ardashir has been preserved in the original Pahlavi, and has been published by Noldeke (see p. 135, note 1, above). The same legendary material is used by Firdausi; cp. also Z.D.M.G., xxxiv. 585, 599. Roman accounts, through treachery, but certainly not till he had entered into negotiations and vainly sought to purchase a free retreat for his army with gold. Shapur now pene trated with an invading host far into Roman territory towards Asia Minor, but he met with not unsuccessful opposition. The general Ballista cut off many Persians ; but a heavier blow was struck by Ocltenathus at the head of his Palmyrenes, who, in this or a subsequent campaign, smote the retreating Persians and even captured the royal harem ; nay, once, if not twice, he laid siege to Ctesiphon itself (for details see PALMYRA). Presumably now as in later times the Persian empire proved unable to sustain the cost of prolonged campaigns. These Oriental kingdoms are on the whole poor, though they include some fertile regions, and though the kings accumulate large stores of treasure. The Persians had no great standing army like the Romans, and the levies summoned to the standard could not long be kept together; hence so many brilliant debuts in warfare without lasting result. Shapur effected no permanent gain of territory, for even Armenia seems now to have fallen again under Roman suzerainty. 2 But Valerian was not delivered, and died in captivity. The figures of the victorious king and the captive Ciesar are still to be seen hewn, perhaps by Roman subjects, on the rocks of Persis, and Persian tradition, which preserves so few historical facts as to the immediate successors of Ardashir, has not forgotten this crowning humiliation of Rome. Some of the traditional deeds of Shapur I. really belong to Shapur II., but we may accept him as the author of the great irrigation works at Shushtar, and it was he who built Gundev Shapur (Ar. Jundai-Sabur, Syr. Beth Lapat), which was often used by the kings as their second residence, and stood to Ctesiphon as its neighbour Susa in Achsemenian times did to Babylon. Shapings sway over non-Iranian peoples has been already referred to ; but the Augustan historians are certainly right in speaking of the Bactrians as a nation still independent and often hostile to Persia, and the same is true of the Cadusians (Pollio, ] r al., ch. i.), i.e., the Delamites of Gilan, who were never subdued by the Sasanians. At the very beginning of Shapur s reign Mani, founder of the Manichsean sect (see MANICHJEISM), began to preach, against which the Persian priests fought for centuries as vigorously as against the various sections of Nicene Christians. The close of Shapur s reign saAV great changes in the Roman east (see PALMYRA). At the fall of Palmyra Shapur was probably no longer alive. His son Hormizd Succe: (Ohrmazd) I. came to the throne in 272 or 273, having snr , s previously been governor of Khorasan. His title, " the hero," appears to have been gained by prowess against the Romans before his accession, for his reign of one year gave little time for great deeds. His successor, Bahram ( Vardhrdn) I., was not his son as tradition represents, but, according to an inscription, his brother. He is said to have been a weak prince, given to pleasure. The execution of Mani falls within his reign, which (subject to a possible error of as much as two years, which affects all dates of reigns between Bahram 1. and Shapur II.) may be dated between 274 and 277. Of his son, Bahram II. (c. 277-294), Persian tradition has next to nothing to tell. To him may be probably ascribed two long but ill-preserved inscriptions, religious in content, almost sermonizing, and of very clerical colour. He had wars with Rome, of which we only know that they were terminated by a peace with Probus (27G-282), 3 and that Probus was murdered before he could renew the con- 2 See an essay by Gutschmid, Z. D.M.ff., xxxi. 5], which is instinct ive as to the relations between Persia and Armenia generally. 3 Vopiscus, Probns, 17, who, as Tillemont remarks, wrongly puts " Narseus " for " Bahram."