The Sassanid or Sasanian Empire of Persia ruled from 224 to 651 CE. It was the last Persian dynasty before the coming of Islam, and had a long history of rivalry and cultural exchange with the Roman Empire to the west. The Sassanid people called their country Eranshahr, which means "Kingdom of the Aryans."
At its greatest extent, under the Shahanshah (king of kings) Khosrow II who ruled from 590 to 628 CE, the Sassanid Empire included a huge expanse of land. Modern day Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, Egypt,Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates were all under Sasanian rule, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, and Pakistan. Khosrow II was the last of the great shahs; he would be executed by his own son following a coup, and the Persians would soon thereafter be conquered by the Arab armies of Islam.
Early Sassanid History
The Sassanid dynasty was founded in 224 CE by Ardashir I, who named his ruling line after his grandfather, Sasan.
Ardashir started out as the local governor of Darabgird, but was able to conquer neighboring provinces one after another. By 231, he controlled not only what is now Iran, but much of the top half of the Arabian Peninsula as well.
After Ardashir's death in 241, his son Shapur I (r. 241 - 272) expanded the new empire into Central Asia, conquering Bactria and the Kushan territories. He also fought with the Romans on the western front, taking the Roman emperor Valerian captive in 259 after the Battle of Edessa. This was the first time that a sitting Roman emperor had been captured by an enemy - an unprecedented humiliation for the Romans.
Shapur I had a very tolerant attitude toward different religions, establishing freedom of worship for Jews, Christians, and Manichaens in Sassanid lands. However, his son Bahram I was a Zoroastrian fundamentalist, and undid his father's liberal policies. Under his rule, Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, died while in prison awaiting his execution. The Sassanid Empire suffered under a succession of weak rulers, who lost various parts of the empire to neighboring powers, until 309, when Shapur II assumed the throne in a most astonishing fashion.
Shapur II (r. 309-379) was crowned king while still in his mother's womb. The crown was placed on her pregnant belly, the only known in utero coronation in history. His mother and a coalition of nobles served as regents for the child until he came of age; he would turn out to be a great ruler, and would lead the country into its first golden age.
First Golden Age
Shapur captured new territory to the east and west, including Afghanistan, Armenia, and five Roman provinces. He successfully pacified the Central Asian nomads along Persia's northern and eastern borders, ushering in an era of cooperation between the Persians and their nomadic neighbors. At this time, the Roman Empire converted to Christianity under Emperor Constantine; this change so alarmed Shapur II that he began to persecute Christians in Persia harshly.
After Shapur II's death in 379, Persia entered a period of relative peace and stability. Its territory remained more or less the same through 498, neither losing land to invaders nor conquering new lands for itself. One of the most famous Persian shahs, Bahram V, ruled during this period from 421 to 438. He is renowned in poetry not for his politics, so much, as for his love of hunting and polo, and his fascinating love life.
By the late 400s, Persia faced constant attacks and plundering along its eastern border from a new foe - the Hephthalites, or White Huns. The White Huns would bedevil Persia until 502, when the Sassanid shah Kavadh I managed to form an alliance with them. Together, the Persians and the Huns attacked the Romans, seizing back Armenia, Georgia, and parts of what is now Iraq.
Second Golden Age
Kavadh I's son, Khosrow I (r. 531 - 579), would better his father's record of fighting the Romans. He seized lands as far away as Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Khosrow I also rebuilt much of Persia's decaying infrastructure, rebuilding or repairing canals, fortifications, and farms ruined by Peria's many wars.
Khosrau II (590 - 628) was another powerful ruler, who sent armies to conquer the largest area yet for the Sassanid state. He captured Jersualem in 614, and all of Eygpt in 621. However, his ambition would prove the undoing of the Sassanid Empire. In trying to control this huge expanse of land, Khosrau II burned through the money in the Persian treasury, and severely over-stretched his armies.
Fall of the Sassanids
Sensing weakness in their traditional foe, the Byzantine Romans launched a series of attacks on Persia throughout the first 25 years of the 600s. Piece by piece, Persia lost bits of its empire, although the Persian homeland, Azerbaijan, most of Iraq, and what is now Afghanistan remained under Sassanid rule through 632.
In that year, newly converted Muslim armies poured out of Arabia and attacked Persia for the first time. The Persians and the Byzantines combined to hold off the Muslim army of Caliph Umar until 637, when the Arabs prevailed at the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah. Soon after, the Arab army captured the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, and with it the Persian treasury. Strapped for cash, the last Sassanid shah, Yazdegerd, fled to Merv in what is now Turkmenistan, where he was assassinated by a local tradesman in 651.
With the fall of the Sassanid Empire, Persia became a part of the quickly expanding Muslim world. Most ordinary Persians remained Zoroastrian for some time, however, paying the jizya or tax on non-Muslims living under the caliphate. Gradually, over the next two centuries, people converted to Islam, and Persia entered a new phase in its history.
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