Sasanian navy | |
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Military leader | Navbed |
Political leader | Sasanian king |
Active regions | Indian Ocean basin (Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, Red Sea), Mediterranean Sea |
Part of | Sasanian Empire |
Allies | Lakhmids, Himyarite Kingdom, Avars, Slavs |
Opponents | Arabians, Aksumites, Byzantines |
Battles and wars | Ardashir I's Arab campaign, Shapur II's Arab campaign, Abyssinian–Persian wars, Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 |
Military of the Sasanian Empire |
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Armed forces and units |
Ranks |
Defense lines |
Conflicts |
The Sasanian navy was the naval force of the Sasanian Empire active since its establishment. It operated in the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and briefly in the Mediterranean Sea.
Not much is known about the Sasanian navy, which never really became a major force. [1] Information about the Sasanian navy is mostly in oriental sources, i.e. works of Arab, Persian and Armenian authors. There is little information in the Roman/Byzantine sources, and almost no iconographic information. [2]
The Sasanian naval forces were established since the time of the empire's founder, Ardashir I. [3]
The main role of the Sasanian navy was to protect Sasanian economic interests, not military expeditions, as the coasts of the Persian Gulf were already under rule of Sasanians or their vassals. [4] According to V. A. Dmitriev, the role of the navy was to enhance the military, political, and commercial influence of the empire in the north of the Indian Ocean. The navy was mostly active in the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Arabian Sea. The Sasanians did not emphasize the development of their navy due to their geopolitical interests as well as the fact that their military was highly influenced by the land-based military of the Parthian Empire, and that, unlike the Achaemenids, the Sasanians failed to capture the ports of the Eastern Mediterranean. [3]
The leader of the navy allegedly bore the title of navbed .
The vessels used by the Sasanian military were exclusively transport landing ships used to transport land forces, and possibly also merchant ships to transport cavalry. The dhow -type vessels were used in the Indian Ocean basin, while the Byzantine-style sailing-rowing dromon s and chelandion s were used in the Mediterranean, but only for the purpose of transporting troops. [2]
The Persians were able to construct large ships suited for long voyages as far as the marginal seas of the north of the Indian and west of the Pacific Oceans. [2]
There were two distinct areas of operation for the Sasanian navy: the Indian Ocean basin (against the Arabs and the Ethiopians) and the Mediterranean (against the Byzantines). [2]
The Sasanian navy played an important role in Ardashir I's conquest of the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf as well as in Shapur II's Arab campaign. The peak of the navy's activities was during the reign of Khosrow I (r. 531-579), who sent a force of eight ships (kashtīg) under Vahrez to conquer Yemen—each ship could carry 100 men. [5] Six of the ships managed to reach Yemen safely. [6] [3] An attempt by Khosrow I to establish a Sasanian fleet in the Black Sea via the ports of Lazica in 540s, which was able to directly threaten the heart of the Byzantine Empire, was thwarted by the defeats at Petra and Phasis in the last stage of the Lazic War. [3] During the climactic Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, the Sasanian navy tried naval expeditions in the Mediterranean Sea—although not very successful, they managed to capture the island of Rhodes in 622/3 and several other islands in the eastern Aegean around the same time. [7] [8] [9] [10] Since the Sasanians did not used to have a fleet in the Mediterranean, it has been suggested that their forces were transported either by the captured Byzantine ships in the newly conquered ports (e.g. Alexandria, Antioch, and Rhodes) or by vessels built in Egyptian or Syrian shipyards especially for them. [3] Later in that war, they were forced to rely on monoxyla of their allied Slavs in order to transport the 3,000 troops across the Bosphorus which they had promised the khagan of the Avars. [10] The weakness of the Sasanian navy is considered a key factor in their failure to defeat the Byzantines in the last war between them. [2]
After the Muslim conquest of Persia, the Sasanian navy forces joined the Muslim armies and participated in the wars against the Byzantines and elsewhere. For example, according to the Chinese source Old Book of Tang , Guangzhou was ravaged and burned during the joint naval expedition of the Arabs and the Persians in 758. [3]
Khosrow I, traditionally known by his epithet of Anushirvan, was the Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 531 to 579. He was the son and successor of Kavad I.
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.
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.
Shapur I was the second Sasanian King of Kings of Iran. The precise dating of his reign is disputed, but it is generally agreed that he ruled from 240 to 270, with his father Ardashir I as co-regent until the death of the latter in 242. During his co-regency, he helped his father with the conquest and destruction of the city of Hatra, whose fall was facilitated, according to Islamic tradition, by the actions of his future wife al-Nadirah. Shapur also consolidated and expanded the empire of Ardashir I, waged war against the Roman Empire, and seized its cities of Nisibis and Carrhae while he was advancing as far as Roman Syria. Although he was defeated at the Battle of Resaena in 243 by Roman emperor Gordian III, he was the following year able to win the Battle of Misiche and force the new Roman emperor Philip the Arab to sign a favorable peace treaty that was regarded by the Romans as "a most shameful treaty".
Shapur II, also known as Shapur the Great, was the tenth Sasanian King of Kings (Shahanshah) of Iran. He took the title at birth and held it until his death at age 70, making him the longest-reigning monarch in Iranian history. He was the son of Hormizd II.
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.
Wahrez was a Sasanian general of Daylamite origin, first mentioned in the prelude to the Iberian War and then during the Aksumite–Persian wars.
This is a family tree of the Sasanian emperors, their ancestors, and Sasanian princes/princesses.
Sasan, considered the eponymous ancestor of the Sasanian Dynasty in Persia, was "a great warrior and hunter" and a Zoroastrian high priest in Pars. He lived sometime near the fall of the Arsacid (Parthian) Empire in the early 3rd century.
Mazun was a Sasanian province in Late Antiquity, which corresponded to modern-day Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and the northern half of Oman. The province served as a Sasanian outpost and played an important role in the Sasanian efforts to gain control over the Indian Ocean trade, and to establish their dominance in the wealthy regions of Hadramaut and Yemen.
The Azadan were a class of Iranian nobles. They are probably identical to the eleutheroi mentioned in Greek sources to refer to a group of Parthian nobles. According to the 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian Josephus, the Parthian army led by prince Pacorus I during the invasion of Judea consisted of members of the eleutheroi. The Kingdom of Armenia adopted the same hierarchy as that of the Parthians, which included the azadan class, which was used to label the Armenian middle and lower nobility. The name of the Georgian nobility, Aznauri, also corresponded to that of azadan. A class of azadan are also attested in Sogdia, an Iranian civilization located in Central Asia.
Farrukh Hormizd or Farrokh Hormizd, also known as Hormizd V, was an Iranian prince, who was one of the leading figures in Sasanian Iran in the early 7th-century. He served as the military commander (spahbed) of northern Iran. He later came in conflict with the Iranian nobility, "dividing the resources of the country". He was later killed by Siyavakhsh in a palace plot on the orders of Azarmidokht after he proposed to her in an attempt to usurp the Sasanian throne. He had two children, Rostam Farrokhzad and Farrukhzad.
Sasanian Iberia was 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.
Pars was a Sasanian province in Late Antiquity, which almost corresponded to the present-day province of Fars. The province bordered Khuzestan in the west, Kirman in the east, Spahan in the north, and Mazun in the south.
The Perso-Roman wars of 337–361 were a series of military conflicts fought between the Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire between 337 and 361. They were a result of long-standing competition between the rival powers over influence in the border kingdoms of Armenia and Iberia, as well as the desire of Shapur II, after his Arab campaign, to revoke the unfavorable terms of the Treaty of Nisibis, which had concluded the previous war between the empires. Though the Romans under Constantius II were defeated in several sanguinary encounters, Shapur was unable to secure a decisive victory.
Shapur was an Iranian prince, who was the penultimate King of Persis from 207–210 to 211/2. He was succeeded by his younger brother Ardashir I, who founded the Sasanian Empire.
The Kings of Persis, also known as the Darayanids, were a series of Iranian kings, who ruled the region of Persis in southwestern Iran, from the 2nd century BCE to 224 CE. They ruled as vassal kings of the Parthian Empire, until they toppled them and established the Sasanian Empire. They effectively formed some Persian dynastic continuity between the Achaemenid Empire and the Sasanian Empire.
The Iranian society in the Sasanian era was an Agrarian society and due to this fact, the Sasanian economy relied on farming and agriculture.