Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

1 Territorial claims – Sasanians vs Rome 55
aspects of his work over historical accuracy, 10 the above passage attests
to important political changes within Iran. The successful revolt of the
Sasanian Ardaˇsīr I (224–40) against the ruling dynasty of the Arsacids led
to the fall of the Parthian kingdom and became the foundation of the
Neo-Persian Sasanian Empire. The consequences of this development for
the Romans are evident. The Roman emperor received reports from the
East that speak not only of an immediate threat for the Eastern frontier as
well as Mesopotamia and Syria but also of Sasanian territorial claims that
affected all of Asia Minor. Herodian explains these aspirations by referring
to Ardaˇsīr’s argument that all territories east of Europe and the Aegean
Sea had once been part of the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus the
Great, the ancestor of the Sasanians. Ardaˇsīr thus presents his claims as an
inherited right and his political goals as legitimate.
Cassius Dio, who wrote a history of Rome that ended with the events
of the year 229, also points to the dangers arising for Rome when power in
Iran changed hands. This contemporary author is in general judged to be a
more reliable source, but in accordance with Herodian he states that Ardaˇsīr
was planning to re-conquer everything the Persians had once ruled, all the
way to the Aegean Sea. 11 This also corresponds to the Sasanian tradition,
which is now lost but has been passed on through Muslim scholars. The
Arab historian Tabarī, who lived in the ninth/tenth century, is the main
representative of this learned tradition. 12 He reports that Ardaˇsīr started an
uprising in order to avenge the blood of the last Achaemenid ruler Darius
III, who had been defeated by Alexander the Great. Tabarī moreover reveals
that Ardaˇsīr intended to return power to the legitimate family and to restore
it as it had existed during the reigns of his ancestors, 13 who had lived before
the ‘vassal’ kings. 14
Succession to the former Persian kings included, so Ardaˇsīr believed,
ruling the territories they had ruled. Although knowledge regarding the
10 See Müller 1996; on Herodian as a historical source for the third century see Alföldy 1974: 89-111;
Zimmermann 1999a and 1999b: 119–43.
11 Cass. Dio lxxx.4.1.; cf. Bering-Staschewski 1981: 112–13; on the relation between Herodian and
Cassius Dio see also Alföldy 1971: 360–6.
12 Tabarī, tr. Nöldeke 2–3; Bosworth 3–4 (813–14); on Tabarī and his work see Sezgin 1967: 323–8;
Springberg-Hinsen 1989: 32–4; see also the relevant chapters on the Arab authors al-Masūdī (29)
and Ibn Miskawayh (29 and 37).
13 The Neo-Persian ‘letter of Tansar’, which probably goes back to the late Sasanian period but refers
to the reign of Ardaˇsīr states that the king did not want to give peace before he had avenged Darius
against the successors of Alexander (letter of Tansar, p. 42; tr. Boyce 65; cf. Fowden 1993: 29–30; in
n. 72 Fowden points to Masūdī naming ‘Ardashir as restorer of the Achaemenid achievement and
principal forerunner of Muhammad’s Islamic Empire’.
14 This is a reference to Parthian rule; on the ‘vassal kings’ see the glossary.