Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

omans and sasanids 639
Kurdistan highlands to the fringes of the Persian Gulf in the south. 3
Mesopotamia, where a complex irrigation system permitted dense settlement,
was the economic heart of the Persian realm, whose rich agriculture
generated the largest part of the Sasanid state’s tax revenues and supported
a network of major cities: Ctesiphon, the capital; Veh Ardashir, on the west
bank of the Tigris opposite Ctesiphon, which was founded by the first
Sasanid monarch; Perozshapur on the Euphrates, which commemorated the
site of Shapur I’s victory over Gordian and exploited the large number of
Roman captives secured then; and Veh Antiok Khusrau, which was a similar
foundation by Khusro I to celebrate his capture of Antioch on the Orontes
and provide a home for the captives and booty from his successful 540 campaign.
By contrast, the Iranian plateau was sparsely settled, with the main
centres of habitation clustered around and along the sources of water
emerging from the Zagros: rainfall is low, and beyond the reach of rivers and
qanats (underground water channels) lay the expanse of the Gedrosian
Desert in the south-east, where much of Alexander’s army had perished in
324 b.c., and the salt desert of the Great Kavir to the north. On the fringes
of the Sasanid world were further distinct areas of considerable military
importance: the sub-Caucasian zone in the north-west, where Iran competed
for influence with Rome among the nobilities of Armenia, Lazica, Iberia and
Albania and attempted to control movements across the Caucasus passes,
and the wide expanses of Transoxiana, where Iran had to confront its traditional
enemies, the succession of nomadic federations of the Central Asian
steppes, the Hephthalites or White Huns who dominated the frontier in the
fourth and fifth century and the Turks who co-operated with Khusro I in the
elimination of their mutual enemy, the Hephthalites, in the 550s and then
rapidly emerged as a much more powerful threat during the rest of the sixth
century. The vast barrier of the Zagros restricted communications to a
limited number of major passes, so that the structural backbone of the
empire was simple: from the economic and political heartland of lower
Mesopotamia, routes up the Tigris led to the area of conflict with Rome in
the north and north-west, while the road to the east crossed the Zagros into
Media and then continued along the southern flanks of the Elburz range,
another major defining mountain range, towards Khorasan and the frontier.
The Sasanid heartland was located in Fars, the relatively fertile region at
the south-western end of the Iranian plateau, where the family combined
positions of religious authority (the chief priesthood of the temple of
Anahita at Istakhr) and secular power (governorship of Darabjird). After
two decades in which a strong local power base was transformed into authority
over the Iranian plateau, Ardashir descended to the Mesopotamian lowlands,
overthrew the Arsacid monarch and was crowned King of Kings at
3 Comprehensive discussion of all aspects of Iranian geography in Fisher (1968).
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