he fourth in the series of ‘The Idea of Iran’ was held as a one-day symposium at which contributions by six eminent scholars covered aspects of the late Sasanian period.
More than 150 documents written in Bactrian, the ancient language of northern Afghanistan, came to light during the last years of the twentieth-century. As well as revealing a previously almost unknown language of the Iranian family, these documents shed new light on the history and culture of the eastern Iranian world during the fourth to eighth-centuries C.E. This presentation will concentrate on the Bactrian documents from the Sasanian period, many of them still unpublished, which mention high officials in the Sasanian administration of Bactria, including the Kushan-shah, the vassal ruler of the former Kushan kingdom, and even the Shahan-shah himself. They also refer to the Hephtalites, who brought an end to Sasanian rule in the fifth-century, and to the Western Turks, who subsequently allied themselves with the Sasanians to defeat the Hephthalites.
This idea of Iran in the Sasanian period is explored from several complementary points of view. There is the imperial approach to the subject, in which the King of Kings and the royal establishment occupy a central position in the distinction between Iranianism and the hostile non-Iranian world. There is also the point of view of the priestly establishment, which, while serving the interests of the state, also holds an indepenedent, sometimes critical, attitude towards the court. A more deeply religious attitude is also attested, one which stands aloof from politics. There is also evidence of non-conformist, perhaps sectarian, religious expressions, in opposition to the religious hierarchy. Much more variety is evident in the definitions of Iranian identity than what is seen in the scholarly descriptions.
The impetus for Shapur II’s large scale Roman campaigns undoubtedly lies in the inherent inequity of the peace treaty of Nisibis in 198, concluded between the Sasanian king Narseh – Shapur II’s grandfather – and Diocletian’s Caesar, Galerius. The disadvantageous terms of the treaty, to which narseh was forced to acquiesce under duress, were not intended to generate lasting peace with Persia. On the contrary, they prepared the ground for future hostilities. This presentation will investigate whether or not Shapur II’s bellicosity vis-a-vis Rome belonged to the realm of Realpolitik, or whether it was fuelled by a nostalgia for the Achaemenid period, which classical testimonies readily attribute to Shapur II.
This paper first presents evidence for the capability of the Sasanian government – (1) the impressive military performance of the Sasanian state, best exemplified in the anni mirabilies of 572-6; (2) massive infrastructure projects, of which the two most notable were the fortifications of the Caspian Gates and the Nahrawan canal, both completed in the reign of Khusro I Anushirwan; and (3) the empire-wide distribution of a uniform silver coinage, issued from some forty mints. It then turns to the social order, to the conservation of which the Shahan-shahs were committed, but which, in practice, was far from stable. The period covered extends from the late fifth-century when defeat in the steppes triggered a convulsion of society (and a relatively bright light is cast on internal Sasanian structures by the Lazar of Pharb’s account of the Armenian rebellion of 482-4) through what was subsequently regarded as the apogee of Iran in late antiquity (the reign of Khusro I) to the final war for control of western Eurasia in the early seventh-century.
Economic data for the Sasanian period is very scarce, but thanks to the new collection of Pahlavi dated parchments, located in the Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley, recorded information on the cost of living at the end of this period has not become available. Pahlavi literature also features a lot of data on juridical matters, the content of which is related to heritage, slave prices, property, medicine, ritual ceremonies and so on. This lecture will utilise both sources. The Bactrians documents published by Nicholas Sims-Williams may also be compared to obtain the costs of fees in the breaking of agreements whilst the Berkeley documents on linen and leather provide us with the prices in drachms of wine, oil, honey, sheep and goats, garments, firewood, etc. Sometimes these prices correspond to those attested in the Pahlavi texts, namely the price of meat. Finally, an examination of the post-Sasanid Arabo-Persian works will reveal a strong inflation of the costs, even though they are often exaggerated or anachronistic.
Ancient Iran long remained a society of limited literacy in which writing was the privilege of professional scribes in the service of the priests and the upper class. It is not until the sixth-century C.E. that we find more evidence of a widespread use of writing. The present study tries to demonstrate that written documents of an oral society cannot be judged in the same way as in a literate society. It furthermore provides some examples showing that late Sasanian society constitutes a turning point; it is probably at the time that the xwaday-namag “Book of Rulers” and the Avesta were written down.