Sasanian Persia: Valerian Captured at Edessa and Khosrow I's Land Tax

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Ardashir I, a provincial ruler in Pars, exploited a decentralized and exhausted Parthian state, killed Artabanus IV at the Battle of Hormozgan in 224 and took the title King of Kings. He built a perfectly circular fortified capital, Ardashir-Khwarrah, as a statement of central power. His son Shapur I invaded Roman Mesopotamia and in 260 captured Emperor Valerian at Edessa, using heavily armored cataphract cavalry, and put Roman prisoners to work on bridges and dams, a triumph carved at Naqsh-e Rostam. In 298 Galerius ambushed Narseh in the mountains of Armenia and seized his treasury and family, forcing the humiliating treaty of 299.

Zoroastrianism hardened into a state creed, and under Bahram I the high priest Kartir had the prophet Mani executed. Khosrow I Anushirvan, ruling from 531 to 579, surveyed the land and replaced harvest shares with a fixed money tax, the kharaj, then paid a new class of dehqans as a standing cavalry loyal to the crown. Khosrow II's 26-year war from 602 took Syria, Egypt and Jerusalem but drained the heartland, and Heraclius struck back by sacking the sacred fire at Ganzak. Khosrow II was overthrown in 628, civil war burned through five monarchs, and Arab armies absorbed the empire after Yazdegerd III took the throne in 632.

• Shapur I protected Mani, whose faith blended Christianity, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, before later kings saw it as a threat.
• Great noble houses such as Suren and Karen kept private armies that could simply stay home from the king's wars.
• The Academy of Gundeshapur took in Greek philosophers after Justinian closed the schools of Athens, and Plato and Aristotle were translated into Pahlavi.
• Sasanian silks with the winged simurgh were worn at the Byzantine court and used to wrap Christian relics in Europe.
• The caliphates kept the kharaj tax and Sasanian coin weights, and the royal chronicles fed the Shahnameh.