Dastagird (also spelled as Dastgerd, Dastigird and Daskara), was an ancient Sasanian city in present-day Iraq, and was close to its capital, Ctesiphon.
Originally known as Artemita, the city was rebuilt and renamed by king Hormizd I (r. 270-271). During the reign of king Khosrow I (r. 531-579), the city greatly expanded and had its own court, palace and fortress. During this period, the city also got a secondary name, Khosrow-shad-Kavadh. During the reign of the latter's grandson, Khosrow II (r. 590-628), Dastagird became a royal residence of the Sasanians. In 628, Dastagird was sacked by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius. After that, the city completely disappears from sources.
Heraclius was Byzantine emperor from 610 to 641. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Africa, led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas.
Year 619 (DCXIX) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 619 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Ctesiphon was an ancient Iranian city, located on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and about 35 kilometres (22 mi) southeast of present-day Baghdad. Ctesiphon served as a royal capital of the Iranian empire in the Parthian and Sasanian eras for over eight hundred years. Ctesiphon was capital of the Sasanian Empire from 226–637 until the Muslim conquest of Persia in 651 AD.
Kavad I was the Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 488 to 531, with a two or three-year interruption. A son of Peroz I, he was crowned by the nobles to replace his deposed and unpopular uncle Balash.
Kavad II was the Sasanian King of Kings of Iran briefly in 628.
Khosrow II, commonly known as Khosrow Parviz, is considered to be the last great Sasanian king (shah) of Iran, ruling from 590 to 628, with an interruption of one year.
Hormizd-Ardashir, better known by his dynastic name of Hormizd I, was the third Sasanian King of Kings (shahanshah) of Iran, who ruled from May 270 to June 271. He was the third-born son of Shapur I, under whom he was governor-king of Armenia, and also took part in his father's wars against the Roman Empire. Hormizd I's brief time as ruler of Iran was largely uneventful. He built the city of Hormizd-Ardashir, which remains a major city today in Iran. He promoted the Zoroastrian priest Kartir to the rank of chief priest (mowbed) and gave the Manichaean prophet Mani permission to continue his preaching.
Ardashir III was the Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 6 September 628 to 27 April 630.
Shahrbaraz, was shah (king) of the Sasanian Empire from 27 April 630 to 9 June 630. He usurped the throne from Ardashir III, and was killed by Iranian nobles after forty days. Before usurping the Sasanian throne he was a spahbed (general) under Khosrow II (590–628). He is furthermore noted for his important role during the climactic Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, and the events that followed afterwards.
Boran was Sasanian queen (banbishn) of Iran from 630 to 632, with an interruption of some months. She was the daughter of king Khosrow II and the Byzantine princess Maria. She is the second of only three women to rule in Iranian history, the others being Musa of Parthia, and Boran's sister Azarmidokht.
Spāhbed is a Middle Persian title meaning "army chief" used chiefly in the Sasanian Empire. Originally there was a single spāhbed, called the Ērān-spāhbed, who functioned as the generalissimo of the Sasanian army. From the time of Khosrow I on, the office was split in four, with a spāhbed for each of the cardinal directions. After the Muslim conquest of Persia, the spāhbed of the East managed to retain his authority over the inaccessible mountainous region of Tabaristan on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, where the title, often in its Islamic form ispahbadh, survived as a regnal title until the Mongol conquests of the 13th century. An equivalent title of Persian origin, ispahsālār or sipahsālār, gained great currency across the Muslim world in the 10th–15th centuries.
The SasanianEmpire or Sassanid Empire, also known as the Second Persian Empire or Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th–8th centuries AD. Named after the House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651 AD, making it the second longest-lived Persian imperial dynasty, after the Arsacids. The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire, and re-established the Persians as a major power in late antiquity alongside its neighbouring arch-rival, the Roman Empire. The empire ended with the Arab conquest of Iran.
Varaztirots II Bagratuni was an Armenian nakharar from the Bagratuni family, the son of Smbat IV Bagratuni. He was marzpan of Armenia c. 628, fled to the Byzantine Empire soon thereafter and was exiled for several years to Africa for his participation in a plot against Heraclius. On his return c. 645/6, he was named curopalates and presiding prince of Armenia, but died before being formally invested.
In 615, during the ongoing war with the Byzantine Empire, the Sasanian army under spahbod Shahin invaded Asia Minor and reached Chalcedon, across the Bosporus from Constantinople. It was at this point, according to Sebeos, that Heraclius had agreed to stand down and was about ready to become a client of the Sasanian emperor Khosrow II, allowing the Roman Empire to become a Persian client state, as well as even allow Khosrow II to choose the emperor. The Sassanids had already captured Roman Syria and Palestine in the previous year. After negotiations with Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, a Byzantine ambassador was sent to Persian Shahanshah Khosrow II, and Shahin withdrew again to Syria.
Farrukhzad was an Iranian aristocrat from the House of Ispahbudhan and the founder of the Bavand dynasty, ruling from 651 to 665. Originally a powerful servant of the Sasanian king Khosrow II, he, along with several other powerful aristocrats made a conspiracy against the latter and ended his tyrannical rule. They thereafter put Khosrow's son Kavadh II on the throne, whose rule lasted only a few months, before he was killed by a plague, being succeeded by his son Ardashir III, who was only after one year murdered by the rebellious former Sasanian army chief (spahbed) Shahrbaraz, who usurped the throne.
The Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 was the final and most devastating of the series of wars fought between the Byzantine / Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire of Iran. The previous war between the two powers had ended in 591 after Emperor Maurice helped the Sasanian king Khosrow II regain his throne. In 602 Maurice was murdered by his political rival Phocas. Khosrow declared war, ostensibly to avenge the death of the deposed emperor Maurice. This became a decades-long conflict, the longest war in the series, and was fought throughout the Middle East: in Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, Anatolia, Armenia, the Aegean Sea and before the walls of Constantinople itself.
The Sasanian civil war of 628–632, also known as the Sasanian Interregnum was a conflict that broke out after the execution of the Sasanian king Khosrow II between the nobles of different factions, notably the Parthian (Pahlav) faction, the Persian (Parsig) faction, the Nimruzi faction, and the faction of general Shahrbaraz. Rapid turnover of rulers and increasing provincial landholder power further diminished the empire. Over a period of four years and 14 successive kings, the Sasanian Empire weakened considerably, and the power of the central authority passed into the hands of its generals, contributing to its fall.
Veh-Ardashir, was an ancient Sasanian city in present-day Iraq, and formed a suburb of their capital, Ctesiphon.
Sasanian Iberia refers to the period the Kingdom of Iberia was under the suzerainty of the Sasanian Empire. The period includes when it was ruled by Marzbans (governors) appointed by the Sasanid Iranian king, and later through the Principality of Iberia.
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