8.2 THE REVOLT OF ARDAXŠIR I. THE POSSIBLE EASTERN ORIGINS AND CONNECTIONS OF THE HOUSE OF SĀSĀN.
I will try to explain now a topic quite recent in Iranian historiography, which is the possible origin and connections of the Sasanians in “East Iran”, and which could have been key in their success. This is still a disputed topic, and should be taken merely as a further expansion of the basic narrative of my previous post, which sticks more closely to the surviving documentary and numismatic evidence. Also, as you will see, in some important topics this “eastern hypothesis” merely complements the basic, established narrative that I explained in my previous post, but in some key aspects, it directly contradicts it. It’s because this that I want to emphasize the more hypothetical nature of this second narrative, which is far less supported in surviving textual sources. It’s far more recent, and its main basis comes from numismatics, reinterpretation of late literary works (especially Ferdowsī and the epic cycle of Sistān) and some oblique and obscure references found in documentary sources, interpreted in a new way with the support of the aforementioned resources.
In this post, I will use mainly two works by modern scholars:
- The Sistani Cycle of Epics and Iran's National History: on the Margins of Historiography, by Saghi Gazerani.
- The paper Dynastic connections in the Arsacid Empire and the Origins of the House of Sasan, by Professor Marek Jan Olbrycht from University of Rzeszów, published in the book The Parthian and Early Sasanian empires: adaptation and expansion, a collection of scholarly papers edited by Vesta Sarkosh Curtis, Elizabeth J. Pendleton, Michael Alram and Touraj Daryaee and published in 2016.
- The paper Ardashir’s Eastern Campaign and the Numismatic Evidence, by the expert in numismatics Michael Alram, from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, published in the Proceedings of the British Academy No.133 (2007).
This will be a difficult enterprise, because the main narrative is the one provided in Olbrycht’s paper, but Gazerani and Alram make important contributions, which in some cases support Olbrycht’s narrative and in others undermine it.
In a previous post of mine, I already made reference to Olbrycht’s paper and his reconstruction of the eastern Indo-Parthian kingdom ruled by the Gondopharid dynasty. I will take over now the narrative from where I left it in that post. One important precision that I forgot to make in that post is that Ardawān II, the king who replaced the Sinatrucid line, was only an Arsacid on his mother’s side (according to Tacitus’
Annales). Understandably, this would have risen quite a wave of opposition in a society so preoccupied about the dynastic principle s was the ancient Iranian one, especially if there were other candidates to the throne who could claim to have full Arsacid ancestry on their father’s side, and additionally, given that all the main clans (the Arsacids included) intermarried between them, there were probably also several candidates with Arsacid ancestry on their maternal line who felt they were equally entitled as Ardawān II to the throne.
And another important precision made by Classical authors about Sanatruk is that before becoming the Arsacid
šahanšah, he’d lived “for a long time” among “the Scythians”. Usually, this has been interpreted by historians meaning that Sanatruk had lived among the nomadic Iranian peoples that lived in the Eurasian steppe to the north of the Arsacid empire, but both Olbrycht and Gazerani raise the interesting possibility that in fact they had been living amongst the Sakas. The Sakas were the Scythian people who’d invaded eastern Iran in the II century, and who finally had been repulsed by one of Mihrdat II’s generals, a man who would later receive Sakastan (literally, “the land of the Sakas” as his fiefdom), an event which most scholars assume marked the beginning of the House of Sūrēn as an important power in Iranian politics. Their rule over Sakastan would endure until the Muslim invasion in the VII century CE.
Sakastan was a very badly defined area, which corresponded roughly to the ancient Achaemenid satrapy of Drangiana, which geographically corresponds to the Sistān basin and the valley of the Helmand river (although sometimes the term “Sakastan” described very loosely all the territories east of the Iranian plateau, south of Bactria and west of the Indus river). Today, this territory is divided between Iran and Afghanistan. According to ancient accounts, the Sakas were driven out by Mihrdat II’s general towards the east. And here, numismatic evidence has led modern historians to record the existence of an Indo-Scythian kingdom that would have endured in the ill-defined region of the ancient territories of Arachosia, Bactria and Gandhara until the rise of the Gondopharids in the late I century BCE. Some other Saka leaders advanced further east into India, where they founded several dynasties, the last of which would perdure until the IV century CE. The most important Indo-Scythian kings were Maues, Azes I and Azes II. All of them minted coins with Greek inscriptions, although apparently several “satraps” or warlords under their suzerainty also minted coins. The names of these kings and most of their satraps are Scythian, but surprisingly Maues was succeeded by a king who bore the typically Parthian / Arsacid name “Vonones”, suggesting that, as it was usual in ancient times, ethnical borders were very fluid.
Silver tetradrachm issued by Maues.
Silver tetradrachm issued by Vonones.
The Sūrēn established in Sakastan a domain where they ruled practically as independent kings. And since the XIX century, there’s been historians and scholars who have tied the rule of this clan in Sakastan with one of the most important cultural legacies of ancient Iran, the Sistani Cycle of Epics (SCE), which included many separated tales (all of which were written down in Islamic times in New Persian) and most of which was also included in Iran’s national epic, Ferdowsī’s Šāh-nāma in the late X – early XI centuries CE in New Persian. These stories would’ve been initially composed, recited and popularized by the Parthian minstrels, the gōsān, probably under the patronage of the great clans who wished to have their actions immortalized, and over time they became part of the popular lore of eastern Iran, and especially of Sistān.
Starting with Theodor Nöldeke in the XIX century, several scholars have noticed intriguing parallelisms between the Arsacid victor at Carrhae, Surena (as described by Plutarch) and the most important heroic character of the Šāh-nāma, Rostam. The most important of these is the fact that Plutarch wrote that Surena had the right to crown the Parthian king, and that this privilege was hereditary in his family, and in the Šāh-nāma and other stories of the SCE, the same is said about Rostam. And because of this and other reasons, there’s an increasing consensus among scholars that the House of Rostam was actually the House of Sūrēn, and that it was this clan who acted as patrons for the gōsān who composed all these tales, “in pahlavani style” to borrow an expression from Ferdowsī. Another of these coincidence is that in the
Šāh-nāma Rostam is continuously ridiculed by his enemies for having Saka blood, which would have been quite possible for a Suren: their territory bordered the Saka kingdom, and probably part of the Sakas had not fled Sakastan after the Arsacid reconquest of the territory.
Thus, Sanatruk having been living “among the Scythians” could actually mean that he’d been living among the Indo-Scythians to the east of the Arsacid empire, or that he’d been living amongst the Sūrēn, or both.
This would actually explain the extraordinary powers and privileges enjoyed by the Sūrēn under the Sinatrucids, and why they fought so bitterly against the takeover by Ardawān II; it would also explain why some other noble clans joined with Ardawān II; in Tacitus’
Annales, the nobles who supported him are said to do so “for fear of being under the rule of the house of Abdagases”, who as I wrote in my previous post was probably a Sūrēn.
And it would also explain the sudden appearance of the Indo-Parthian kingdom, although here begins the disagreement between Olbrycht and Gazerani; which could be summarized in a very simplistic way as this: Olbrycht thinks that the Gondopharids were a branch of the Arsacids, while Gazerani thinks that they were actually the main branch of the Sūrēn clan, which seceded from the Arsacid empire outright and built an eastern empire for themselves by conquering the main Indo-Scythian kingdom in Bactria, Arachosia and Gandhara.
That the first Gondophares was not an Arsacid vassal is made clear by his coins. In the reverse, he is shown being crowned by Nike (the Greek goddess of Victory), and uses the titles “autokrator” and “great king of kings”, which would have been unthinkable in a vassal of the Arsacid king of kings. An interesting detail is that it bears a sign that scholars assume to have been a tamga of the Gondopharids:
The Gondopharid "tamga".
Detail of the great "victory" relief near Ardaxšir-Xwarrah. Notice the caparison of the knight supposed to be Šābuhr I.
In the Eurasian steppes, nomads used tamgas mainly for marking cattle and horses, and to make clear their ownership by a family or clan: thus these signals acted like kind of an “heraldic” sign for a family or clan. This same sign had appeared before in Arsacid coinage minted during the reigns of Ūrūd II and Frahād IV, and interestingly it appears again decorating the caparison of one of the companions of Ardaxšir I in his great relief at Ardaxšir-Xwarrah where he portrayed his victory over Ardawān V.
The Indo-Parthian kingdom was defeated by the Kushan king Kujula Kadphises in the second half of the I century CE, and it lost Bactria, Gandhara and eastern Arachosia to the growing Kushan empire. Their rule continued then in a much reduced area, mainly in Sakastan proper, parts of western Arachosia, and Gedrosia. Their coins became increasingly smaller and debased, and the last known king of the dynasty was a contemporary of Ardaxšir I; he minted coins under the name “Farn-Sāsān”, which bear in the reverse a fire altar very similar to the one that appears in the coinage of Ardaxšir I. The coins of Farn-Sāsān bear the longest lineage of any known coin in Antiquity:
Farn-Sāsān, son of Adūr-Sāsān, grandson of Tiridat, great-grandson of Sanabar, king of kings.
Bronze coin of Farn-Sāsān.
Nothing is known about Adūr-Sāsān and Tiridat, but scholars know coins of Sanabar, and Indo-Parthian king who ruled around 100 CE. It’s not clear if Farn-Sāsān copied the motive of the fire altar from Ardaxšir I’s coins or if it was Ardaxšir who copied Farn-Sāsān; Olbrycht defends the second possibility and Alram the first one. In any case, Ardaxšir I annexed the Indo-Parthian kingdom in 224/225 (the chronology is disputed) and deposed Farn-Sāsān; the next we know, from Šābuhr I’s inscription at the ŠKZ, is that his father had named a certain Ardaxšir (perhaps a member of the Sasanian family) as “King of the Sakas” under the overall suzerainty of the Sasanian šahanšah.
Olbrycht refutes also the traditional etimology for the name Sāsān. Instead, he makes references to studies by D.N.McKenzie and V.Lipshits who derive it from the Old Iranian term sasana, which means “to defeat an enemy”. And he also states that documents (mainly ostraca) found at Old Nisa, Merv and Kosha-depe in Turkmenistan (that is, in the ancient lands of Khwarazm and Parthia proper), the name Sāsān is attested abundantly, especially in compound names like Sasandat and Sasanbuxt. The name is also attested in Soghdiana and Armenia. Thus, Olbryctht believes that Sāsān was a deity worshipped in the local Zoroastrian pantheon in Parthia proper and Chorasmia / Khwarazm, and thus it was a Parthian name. In the ŠKZ, the name is borne by several Parthian grandees, including a Sūrēn.
Olbrycht now comes to the very controversial point of Ardaxšir I’s genealogy and the identity of the “mysterious” Sāsān who was his ancestor. As I explained in my previous post, there’s hardly two ancient sources in agreement in this matter. But Olbycht analyzes them and makes five groups with them:
- The Šāh-nāma states that Sāsān the Elder was a scion of king Dara, the last Kayanid king (in the Šāh-nāma, the mythical Kayanid kings are a distant echo of the Achaemenids, and Dara is a reflex of Darius III), who fled to India and lived in obscurity there, until his descendant Sāsān the Younger came to Pārs and there the ruler of Istakhr called Pābag gave him his daughter in marriage. As we saw in the previous post, the Kārnāmag ī Ardaxšīr ī Pābagān gives a compatible genealogy, and the Bundahišn’s genealogy is also compatible with this.
- Among the western sources, the late Roman / Byzantine authors Agathias and Syncellus present quite convoluted but very similar stories that Olbrycht rationalizes as a statement that Sāsān was Ardaxšir’s biological father, while Pābag was his adoptive one.
- The Armenian authors Agathangelos and Movses Khorenats’i state clearly and without doubts that Ardaxšir was Sasan’s son.
- Tabarī states that Sāsān was a newcomer in Pārs who married a princess named Rambihišt of the Barangizid family (totally unknown outside of Tabarī’s story), and that Pābag was born from this marriage, and that Ardaxšir was his son (this is the genealogy generally most accepted, with variations, as for example in Daryaee’s proposal that I exposed in my previous post). That Sāsān was a newcomer in Pars is implicit in Tabarī’s story, but nothing is said about him coming from India or elsewhere.
Olbrycht points something strange in early Sasanian rock inscriptions. Despite having been made in less than a century, and by two kings who were father and son, there are discrepancies between them. In his great relief at Naqš-e Rustam, Ardaxšir I names “king Pābag” as his father, and “lord Sāsān” as his “ancestor”. But in his genealogy in the ŠKZ, Šābuhr I goes only as far as the “divine king Pābag” and Sāsān is totally absent. But some lines later, when Šābuhr enumerates the members of his father’s court, first amongst them is named a certain “Sāsān the lord”. But Šābuhr I only calls himself son of king Ardaxšir and grandson of king Pābag. The absence of Sāsān from Šābuhr I’s official genealogy is very telling, and I agree with Olbrycht in that it must have been a deliberate omission. Especially if we take into account, as Olbrycht points out, the text inscribed by Šābuhr I’s son, the šahanšah Narseh, in the late III century CE at Paikuli in Iraqi Kurdistan. In it, Narseh is explicit: since the gods gave glory and rulership to the family of Sāsān. And from hence onwards in Sasanian documents, Sāsān is always the main genealogical focal point.
It’s in trying to decipher the reason for this absence that Olbrycht’s narrative steers boldly into uncharted (an unsourced) territory.
One of the "Heir apparent" coins.
Olbrycht begins with a discussion about one of the most puzzling coin types issued by Ardaxšir I, the so-called “Heir apparent” coins. They were issued during the last decade of Ardaxšir I’s rule (229/230 – 239/240 CE) and in them we can see the confronted heads of Ardaxšir I, bearing his ceremonial crown, and a young beardless person bearing the bejewelled tiara (the
kolah). Ever since the first specimens of these coins were discovered, they were assumed to represent Ardaxšir I and his heir, prince Šābuhr (the future Šābuhr I). But today this notion has been largely discredited, because Šābuhr had been already depicted previously in the great victory relief at Ardaxšir -Xwarrah as a fully bearded man. In his paper, Michael Alram also analyzes the same coin. Detailed analysis of the chemical composition of these billon and copper coins made by him gave an interesting result: these coins had a chemical composition identical to the last issues of Farn-Sāsān, which implies that they were minted in Sakastan. As for the identity of the beardless person in the coin, Alram offers several possibilities, but he can’t confirm any of them. These possibilities are:
- This person is Ardaxšir, the man that Ardaxšir I installed as king of the Sakas, and was perhaps a member of the Sasanian family, possibly one of Ardaxšir I’s younger sons. Alram also point out an interesting fact: in the victory relief at Ardaxšir-Xwarrah, three people are shown on the “victorious” Sasanian side: first to the right and the largest figure is Ardaxšir I himself, immediately after him, we find his elder son Šābuhr, and after Šābuhr comes a young beardless man, who has usually been assumed to be a page. Could this person and the one in the “Heir apparent” coins be one and the same, and could this person be Ardaxšir king of the Sakas, one of the younger sons of Ardaxšir I?
- It could be a local deity.
- It could be a Zoroastrian priest, an interesting possibility that Alram names because the rock inscription of the famous priest Kirdir at Naqš-e Rajab (carved after Šābuhr I’s reign) depicts him as a beardless man.
Kirdir's relief at Naqš-e Rajab.
Olbrycht shows no doubt, and immediately declares the first possibility to be correct (which is perhaps not so clear). But then he goes further, and assumes (something that in my opinion is even less clear) that the “Heir apparent” coins with the “two Ardaxširs”, father and son, are a sign that Ardaxšir I intended to make the king of the Sakas his heir, instead of his elder son Šābuhr. As we all know, it was Šābuhr who succeeded his father on the throne, and Olbrycht supports here that he did so by displacing his younger brother. It’s interesting to notice that in Šābuhr I’s ŠKZ inscription, Ardaxšir is named as “king of the Sakas” at his father’s court, but when he enumerates the members of his own court, it’s his own son Narseh (the future
šahanšah) who holds that title.
Olbrycht goes then (in quite an abrupt way, to resume after it the issue of Ardaxšir I’s succession) to analyze the seizing of power in Iran by Ardaxšir I from his base in Pārs.
The Arsacid empire was divided by the civil war between the brothers Walaxš VI (Mesopotamia and Maishan / Mesene, basically the coastal strip at the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris) and Ardawān V (Media, Parthia, Kirman, Azerbaijan and Elymais), while in Armenia ruled their cousin Tiridates II (it’s not clear if he took sides in the war). Olbrycht assumes that the eastern Indo-Parthians would have been allies of Ardaxšir I because of their ancient feud against the Younger Arsacids (although I don’t see him as clearly as Olbrycht, given how Ardaxšir I disposed of them after his victory).
According to Tabarī, the first conquest of Ardaxšir I outside Pārs was Kirman, where he defeated its king Walaxš and installed another son of his (confusingly enough, also called
Ardaxšir) as king. This conquest was quite significative, because Ardawān II had in his days close ties with Kirman, and it had been since then one of the main bases of the Arsacid family; also the name Walaxš is an Arsacid royal name and it’s possible that this was a member of the Arsacid family, perhaps even a son of Ardawān who Ardaxšir I ousted from Kirman. Strategically it would have made sense because Kirman is the territory that stands between Pars and Sakastan, and if the Indo-Parthians were Ardaxšir I’s allies, this united their territories. Alarmed by this, Ardawān V ordained his vassal the king of Elymais to eliminate Ardaxšir I. But he was himself defeated and Elymais was in turn annexed by Ardaxšir. This left all southern Iran, from the limits with Mesopotamia to Sakastan and the Kushan border, in the hands of Ardaxšir I and his supporters. Now, Ardawān V had to intervene in person.
Rayen castle near Kerman, a fortified town dating back to Sasanian times.
Tabarī wrote about three battles between Ardawān and Ardaxšir; the first two were close affairs with large losses on both sides, but were ultimately won by Ardaxšir. The final battle was fought at Hormozdgan; this battle was a total victory for Ardaxšir, and Ardawān died during the battle. Things are so confused that even now scholars are not sure where this decisive battle took place. Many Internet sites (and some books who should know better) place it “near Bandar Abbas, by the Gulf Coast”, simply because Bandar Abbas lies in the modern Iranian province of Hormozgan. But Tabarī himself stated that the battle took place in Media, and modern scholars place it near the modern city of Shushtar in the Iranian province of Khuzestan (ancient Elymais).
View of the environs of Shushtar.
Following Tabarī’s narrative, Ardaxšir then concentrated in controlling western Iran (Media and Atropatene / Azerbaijan), and in 226 CE he entered Ctesiphon, eliminating Walaxš VI. Some ancient sources state that he took the title of
šahanšah at the plain of Hormozdgan immediately after his victory, while others say he did so after entering Ctesiphon.
Tabarī speaks explicitly of the hatred and ferocity that Ardaxšir I deployed in his treatment of the survivors among the Arsacid family. He mercilessly hunted down all of them, killing every one of them who fell in his hands. The survivors amongst the Arsacid family and their supporters took refuge in the only two western territories that stayed loyal to the Arsacids: Armenia, where an Arsacid was still king, and Hatra. And only then did Ardaxšir begin his eastern campaign to bring the eastern parts of the Arsacid empire under his rule, where compared to the west, he found practically no resistance.
The XIV century Arabic
Nihayat al-arab though gives a different chronology, stating that Ardaxšir I’s eastern campaign took place before the fall of Ctesiphon. Alram support Tabarī’s account, but Olbrycht puts forward the possibility that perhaps Ardaxšir launched two eastern campaigns: one before taking Ctesiphon, which would have been simply “mopping up” and securing his position amongst the eastern clans who anyways already supported him, thus securing his rearguard and gathering forces for the resistance he anticipated he would find in the west, and another later, perhaps, as Alram suggests, after the fighting with the Roman emperor Alexander Severus was over (after 233 CE), and which would have taken him further than the previous eastern border of the Arsacid empire, perhaps to Chorasmia and Bactria.
Olbrycht points out that the sources don’t speak of any opposition against Ardaxšir I’s rise to the throne in eastern Iran, and how according to the ŠKZ, all the principal dignitaries in the court of Ardaxšir I were of eastern origin:
- Ardaxšir, king of Kirman (according to Tabarī, one of Ardaxšir I’s sons).
- Sadaluf, king of Abrenag (in Khorasan).
- Ardaxšir, king of Merv (also in Khorasan, nothing is known about his lineage or possible relation to the Sasanian family).
- Ardaxšir, king of the Sakas (perhaps another of Ardaxšir I’s sons, as discussed above).
Olbrycht also states (and he might be making an important point here) that in the III century CE, Sakastan was one of the most important provinces / kingdoms in Iran, and one that was given more than once by the ruling šahanšah to the one amongst his sons whom he wanted to succeed him. Thus, later in the century Narseh was king of the Sakas, and also Bahram III.
A fact that has been known for some time and that Olbrycht also point out is the fact that several of the great “Parthian” clans supported the rise of Ardaxšir I, instead of siding with their fellow “Parthians” the Arsacids. According to the ŠKZ, in Ardaxšir I’s court could be find in high-ranking positions member of the great “Parthian” clans of Sūrēn, Kārin and Andegan (the Waraz clan is also named, although its origins are unclear). In his History of the Armenians, Khorenats’i also points out how the Armenian king Khosrov, who was an Arsacid, was informed that “the Parthians” preferred the rule of Ardaxšir I over that of their “own kinsman”. Khorenats’i wrote:
After Artashir, son of Sāsān, had killed Artavan and gained the throne, two branches of the Pahlav family called Aspahapet and Suren Pahlav were jealous that their own kinsman Artashes should rule, and willingly accepted the rule of Artashir, son of Sāsān.
The “Pahlav family” were the Parthians at large, and the “Sūrēn Pahlav” was the Sūrēn clan. As for the “Aspahapet”, it’s not clear. It could be a reference to the Ispahbudhan clan who appears in later Sasanian history in Abaršahr / Khorasan, or to an unnamed general, or generals, or “the army chiefs” in general, for in Parthian and Middle Persian spāhbed meant “general”.
Khorenats’i also wrote that the “House of Karin Pahlav” opposed “Artashir” (Ardaxšir), but according to Olbrycht, this claim must have referred to one of the subsidiary branches of the clan, since it’s known that members of the clan called Peroz Karin and Gog Karin held prominent offices at Ardaxšir’s court, according to the ŠKZ. The Armenian chronicler Agathangelos wrote of a certain “Karinas”, sent along with “Zekas” as Ardaxšir’s envoys to Ardawān V: they are called “the most important clan leaders and generals”. “Karinas” was clearly a member of the Parthian Karin clan. “Zekas” is mentioned in the ŠKZ as Zik, and Olbrycht thinks that he probably represented a Persian family. According to Tacitus, the Sūrēn and Kārin clans had already tried to depose the Arsacid kings Ardawān II and Gōdarz II in the I century CE, and in both cases they’d sent embassies to Rome to ask that the Romans send hem an heir of the Sinatrucid line to put on the throne, and always making abundantly clear that only a member of the Arsacid royal line could be allowed to rule; the merely wanted to exchange an “unjust” Arsacid for a “just” one.
According to Movses Khorenats’i the Armenian king Khosrov was frustrated because his “relatives” had submitted to Ardaxšir. Khosrov sent messengers asking his Parthian relatives “in the lands of the Kushans” (in eastern Iran) to come to his aid against the Persians. But the Sūrēn and Aspahapet clans did not agree. Khosrov was informed that his “kinsman Vehsachan with his branch of the Karen Pahlav had not given obeisance to Artashir”. Ardaxšir is said to have slaughtered all this branch of the Karen Pahlav. One child was rescued, who according to Khorenats’i became the ancestor of the Armenian family Kamsarakan.
NOTE: I should make an aside here. Khorenats’i got his chronology wrong. The Armenian king who ruled at the time of Ardaxšir I’s rise and waged war against him was Tiridates II (c. 194/195 – 252 CE). Khosrov II the Great was his son, who would later be murdered by a “Parthian” nobleman, “Anak the Parthian”, whom Khorenats’i states was a member of the Suren clan. Khorenats’i’s confusion can probably be explained because Tiridates II’s father was also called Khosrov (Khosrov I of Armenia, brother of the Arsacid šahanšah Walaxš V).
For Olbrycht, all this represents that Ardaxšir was helped in his uprising against Ardawān V by a coalition of several great “Parthian” houses which included the Sūrēn and at least part of the Kārin, and possibly also the Indo-Parthian kingdom. Alram and Gazerani see no distinction between the Indo-Parthians and the Suren, but perhaps Olbrycht’s hypothesis fits better with the fact that the members of the Sūrēn clan held important offices in Ardaxšir I’s court, while the Indo-Parthian dynasty of Farn-Sāsān was dispossesed of its lands and titles by Ardaxšir I.
And finally Olbrycht presents his conclusions. For him, Sāsān had been an Indo-Parthian prince, with Arsacid blood (thus agreeing with the tradition preserved in the
Sāh-nāma) that settled in Pārs and married the daughter of Pābag, who was perhaps the custodian of the temple of Anahid at Istakhr; Ardaxšir was born from this union. Olbrycht believes that Ardaxšir I, for political reasons (to gain the support of the local Persian nobility and avoid being seen as a “foreign” king) hid his real biological relationship with Sāsān, and could perhaps have reinforced this by having his father-in-law Pābag adopt him (another assumption by Olbrycht, although adoption existed in ancient Iran, and its proceedings and formalities are described in a surviving Middle Persian law treatise). Later, Šābuhr I would have had additional reasons to hide Sāsān from public view, because of his supposed relation with Sakastan, whose king would’ve supposedly been his younger brother and rival heir.
I agree with Olbrycht that this would explain the strange fact of the clear manipulation of his lineage by Šābuhr I, but I’m not so sure about Ardaxšir I. It would have been beneficial during his early rise in Pārs, but once he became
šahanšah and had won the allegiance of many clans outside Pārs, there would have been no real political reason to keep on with this fiction. On the contrary, one of the main points of Olbrycht’s reasoning (and one which actually gives some strength to them) is that Ardaxšir was actually related to the Arsacids, and that it was because of this that he gathered supports outside Pars. Then again, why hiding them after Hormozdgan? Later Sasanian kings proudly displayed Sāsān as their ancestor and forgot completely about Pābag.
In short, Olbrycht aligns himself with the genealogy given in the
Sāh-nāma and the Armenian tradition, and which appears in a very distorted way in the western accounts of Agathias and Syncellos. In his support, Olbrycht also quotes the work of one who was perhaps the greatest expert in ancient Iran in the Graeco-Roman tradition, the IV century author Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus had been for many years an officer in the Roman army in the east, and had been a member of an elite unit charged with intelligence activities, amongst them spying. In his
Res Gestae, Ammianus shows an impressive familiarity and knowledge of Iranian governance, geography, religion, traditions, history ... almost everything, and thus he’s perhaps the most trusty amongst western sources, probably because he was the only one who’d actually lived inside the Sasanian empire and who could probably speak fluentPersian, apart from Latin, Greek and Aramaic. Ammianus, in his
Res Gestae, makes no difference at all between Arsacids and Sasanians:
Hence to this very day the over–boastful kings of that race suffer themselves to be called brothers of the Sun and Moon, and just as for our emperors the title of Augustus is beloved and coveted, so to the Parthian kings, who were formerly low and obscure, there fell the very greatest increase in distinction, won by the happy auspices of Arsaces. Hence they venerate and worship Arsaces as a god, and their regard for him has been carried so far, that even down to the memory of our time only a man who is of the stock of Arsaces (if there is one anywhere) is preferred to all in mounting the throne. Even in any civil strife, which constantly arises among them, everyone avoids as sacrilege the lifting of his hand against an Arsacid, whether he is bearing arms or is a private citizen.
Thus, Ammianus implies that Aršak was an ancestor of Šābuhr II (309–379 CE). In the extant fragments of his
Res Gestae there are no references to Sāsān and the early Sasanians. Ammianus was well informed and must have heard of Ardaxšir’s rebellion, but evidently he considered him an Arsacid
de facto.
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