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The Sasanian Empire: Power, Religion, and Continuity

The Sasanians reshaped late-antique Iran through war, royal art, and changing religious institutions. Their state inherited much from the Arsacids, and neither Zoroastrian organization nor the empire's fall followed a single simple line.

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Part 1

Ardashir defeated the Arsacid king Ardavan in 224 CE and established Sasanian supremacy. The change was dynastic, not a clean institutional break: powerful Parthian houses remained central to the new order, and Arsacid political and military practices continued. Ardashir promoted Mazda-worship and royal religious claims, but an immediately complete, centrally organized Zoroastrian state church is not supported by the evidence.

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Part 2

In 260 CE Shapur I captured the Roman emperor Valerian near Edessa, an extraordinary Sasanian victory recorded in Shapur's own inscription. The triumph reliefs distinguish the defeated emperors: Philip the Arab kneels, while Valerian stands beside Shapur, who grasps his wrist. Valerian is not the kneeling figure, and the reliefs do not show the later tale that he served as Shapur's footstool.

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Part 3

Mani preached during Shapur I's reign and dedicated the Shabuhragan to the king. Shapur allowed Manichaean activity but did not convert; his policy also benefited Christian and Jewish communities. Mani later lost royal protection under Bahram I, was imprisoned, and died. Sources differ in detail, so the familiar claim that Kartir personally ordered him flayed is too specific.

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Part 4

Kartir's career across several reigns shows a Zoroastrian priest gaining exceptional rank, founding fires, defining orthodoxy, and boasting of action against rival communities. His inscriptions are strong evidence for growing clerical power and persecution in the later third century. They also show why it is misleading to project that mature authority unchanged back onto Ardashir's first years.

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Part 5

The surviving Avestan tradition reflects a canon arranged and written in a specially precise script under the Sasanians, probably around the fourth century under Shapur II. Middle Persian tradition instead describes several stages from Arsacid collection through Ardashir, Shapur I, Shapur II, and Khosrow I. Iranica warns that this traditional history is often incoherent and cannot be taken literally: there was no single instant when one ruler simply 'compiled the Avesta.'

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Part 6

Khosrow II's armies seized extensive Byzantine territory after 602, but Heraclius's counteroffensives and internal revolt reversed the gains. Khosrow was overthrown in 628; rapid royal succession and factional conflict followed. The long war exhausted both empires, but it was one factor among several in the crisis that preceded the Arab-Muslim conquests, not a complete explanation by itself.

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Part 7

Arab-Muslim armies defeated the Sasanians through campaigns that unfolded over decades, not one effortless collapse. Iranica lists dynastic instability, noble conflict, religious and social tensions, the Byzantine war, Muslim organization, recruitment, faith, and mobility among the explanations; it also stresses contradictory accounts and fierce Persian resistance. The dynasty ended, but populations, institutions, languages, and cultural practices changed on different timetables.

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