Sasanian–Kidarite Wars
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Sasanian–Kidarite Wars
The Sasanian-Kidarite Wars were a series of military confrontations between the Sassanid Empire and the Kidarites. First Sassanid-Kidarite Conflict Around 350 C.E, the emperor of the Sassanids had to abandon his military expedition to the city of Nisibis because of the arrival of various central Asian nomadic tribes on their east and had struggles against them. During this period, the Xionite/ Huna tribes who are likely to be the Kidarites, appeared as a threat to the Sassanids and even to the Guptas. After a long struggle, the Kidarites were forced to align with the Sassanids against the Romans.They agreed to enlist their light cavalry into the Persian army for accompanying Shapur II. The presence of the Kidarites in the Persian Campaign of the Western Caspian areas has been described by the Contemporary Eyewitness Ammianus Marcellinus. The presence of Grumbates is also observed at the Siege of Amida in 359, in which Grumbates lost his son. Second Sassanian-Kidarite Conflict The ...
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Bactria
Bactria (; Bactrian language, Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient Iranian peoples, Iranian civilization in Central Asia based in the area south of the Oxus River (modern Amu Darya) and north of the mountains of the Hindu Kush, an area within the north of modern Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Bactria was strategically located south of Sogdia and the western part of the Pamir Mountains. The extensive mountain ranges acted as protective "walls" on three sides, with the Pamir on the north and the Hindu Kush on south forming a junction with the Karakoram, Karakoram range towards the east. Called "beautiful Bactria, crowned with flags" by the Avesta, the region is considered, in the Zoroastrianism, Zoroastrian faith, to be one of the "Avestan geography, sixteen perfect Iranian lands" that the supreme deity, Ahura Mazda, had created. It was once a small and independent kingdom struggling to exist against nomadic Turya (Avesta), Turanians. One of the early centres of ...
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Huna People
Hunas or Huna (Middle Brahmi script: ''Hūṇā'') was the name given by the ancient Indians to a group of Central Asian tribes who, via the Khyber Pass, entered the Indian subcontinent at the end of the 5th or early 6th century. The Hunas occupied areas as far south as Eran and Kausambi, greatly weakening the Gupta Empire. The Hunas were ultimately defeated by a coalition of Indian princes that included an Indian king Yasodharman and the Gupta emperor, Narasimhagupta. They defeated a Huna army and their ruler Mihirakula in 528 CE and drove them out of India. The Guptas are thought to have played only a minor role in this campaign. The Hunas are thought to have included the Xionites, Xionite and/or Hephthalite, the Kidarites, the Alchon Huns (also known as the Alxon, Alakhana, Walxon etc.) and the Nezak Huns. Such names, along with that of the Hara Huna Kingdom, Harahunas (also known as the Halahunas or Harahuras) mentioned in Hindu texts, have sometimes been used for the Hunas ...
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Sassanian
The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign over ancient Iran was second only to the directly preceding Arsacid dynasty of Parthia. Founded by Ardashir I, whose rise coincided with the decline of Arsacid influence in the face of both internal and external strife, the House of Sasan was highly determined to restore the legacy of the Achaemenid Empire by expanding and consolidating the Iranian nation's dominions. Most notably, after defeating Artabanus IV of Parthia during the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224, it began competing far more zealously with the neighbouring Roman Empire than the Arsacids had, thus sparking a new phase of the Roman–Iranian Wars. This effort by Ardashir's dynasty ultimately re-established Iran as a major power of late an ...
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Sasanian
The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranians"), was an Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign over ancient Iran was second only to the directly preceding Arsacid dynasty of Parthia. Founded by Ardashir I, whose rise coincided with the decline of Arsacid influence in the face of both internal and external strife, the House of Sasan was highly determined to restore the legacy of the Achaemenid Empire by expanding and consolidating the Iranian nation's dominions. Most notably, after defeating Artabanus IV of Parthia during the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224, it began competing far more zealously with the neighbouring Roman Empire than the Arsacids had, thus sparking a new phase of the Roman–Iranian Wars. This effort by Ardashir's dynasty ultimately re-established Iran as a major power of late antiquity.Norman A. Stillman ''The Jew ...
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Yazdgird II
Yazdegerd II (also spelled Yazdgerd and Yazdgird; ), was the Sasanian King of Kings () of Iran from 438 to 457. He was the successor and son of Bahram V (). His reign was marked by wars against the Eastern Roman Empire in the west and the Kidarites in the east, as well as by his efforts and attempts to strengthen royal centralisation in the bureaucracy by imposing Zoroastrianism on the non-Zoroastrians within the country, namely the Christians. This backfired in Armenia, culminating in a large-scale rebellion led by the military leader Vardan Mamikonian, who was ultimately defeated and killed at the Battle of Avarayr in 451. Nevertheless, religious freedom was subsequently allowed in the country. Yazdegerd II was the first Sasanian ruler to assume the title of '' kay'' ("king"), which evidently associates him and the dynasty to the mythical Kayanian dynasty commemorated in the Avesta. His death led to a dynastic struggle between his two sons Hormizd III and Peroz I for t ...
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Sasanians
The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranians"), was an Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign over ancient Iran was second only to the directly preceding Arsacid dynasty of Parthia. Founded by Ardashir I, whose rise coincided with the decline of Arsacid influence in the face of both internal and external strife, the House of Sasan was highly determined to restore the legacy of the Achaemenid Empire by expanding and consolidating the Iranian nation's dominions. Most notably, after defeating Artabanus IV of Parthia during the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224, it began competing far more zealously with the neighbouring Roman Empire than the Arsacids had, thus sparking a new phase of the Roman–Iranian Wars. This effort by Ardashir's dynasty ultimately re-established Iran as a major power of late antiquity.Norman A. Stillman ''The Jew ...
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Priscus
Priscus of Panium (; ; 410s/420s AD – after 472 AD) was an Eastern Roman diplomat and Greek historian and rhetorician (or sophist)...: "For information about Attila, his court and the organization of life generally in his realm we have the authentic and reliable evidence of contemporary Greek historian Priscus, who accompanied Maximinus, the head of the Byzantine embassy, in 448." Biography Priscus was born in Panion (located in Thrace) between 410 and 420 AD. In 448/449 AD, he accompanied Maximinus, the head of the Byzantine embassy representing Emperor Theodosius II (r. 402–450), on a diplomatic mission to the court of Attila the Hun. While there, he met and conversed with a Greek merchant, dressed in "Scythian" (or Hunnic) fashion, who was captured eight years earlier () when the city of Viminacium (located on the Danube east of modern-day Belgrade) was sacked by the Huns.: "Priscus of Panium met one of these in Attila's camp. He was, he said, a Greek who had settl ...
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Kushanshahr
Kushanshahr was a province of the Sasanian Empire comprising the region between Kabul Valley and Peshawar Valley.The Cambridge History of Iran: Seleucid Parthian, E. Yarshaterp.770 sq/ref> The Kushanshar territory centered on Tukharistan, and covered the area from Tirmidh to Peshawar. The establishment of Sasanian rule in Kushanshar permitted the control of Central Asian trade routes. The Kushano-Sasanids were in charge of the area. They issued coinage which was following the Kushan standard, due to the traditional importance of trade links with India. Kushanshahr was a pendant to Eranshahr to the West, which was the cradle of the Sasanian Empire. Sasanian rule ended in Kushanshahr when the area was overrun by the Kidarites and then the Hephthalites The Hephthalites (), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian languages, Iranian as the ''Spet Xyon'' and in Sanskrit and Prakrit as the ''Sveta-huna''), were a people who lived in Central As ...
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Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom
The Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom (or Indo-Sasanians) was a polity established by the Sasanian Empire in Bactria during the 3rd and 4th centuries. The Sasanian Empire captured the provinces of Sogdia, Bactria and Gandhara from the declining Kushan Empire following a series of wars in 225 CE. The local Sasanian governors then went on to take the title of Kushanshah (KΟÞANΟ ÞAΟ ''or Koshano Shao'' in the Bactrian language) or "King of the Kushans", and to mint coins. They are sometimes considered as forming a "sub-kingdom" inside the Sasanian Empire.The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Attila, Michael Maas, Cambridge University Press, 201p.284 ff/ref> This administration continued until 360–370, when the Kushano-Sasanians lost much of their domains to the invading Kidarites; the remainder was incorporated into the Sasanian Empire proper. Later, the Kidarites were in turn displaced by the Hephthalites.Sasanian Seals and Sealings, Rika Gyselen, Peeters Publishers, 2007p.1/ref> T ...
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Sassanian Empire
The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign over ancient Iran was second only to the directly preceding Arsacid dynasty of Parthia. Founded by Ardashir I, whose rise coincided with the decline of Arsacid influence in the face of both internal and external strife, the House of Sasan was highly determined to restore the legacy of the Achaemenid Empire by expanding and consolidating the Iranian nation's dominions. Most notably, after defeating Artabanus IV of Parthia during the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224, it began competing far more zealously with the neighbouring Roman Empire than the Arsacids had, thus sparking a new phase of the Roman–Iranian Wars. This effort by Ardashir's dynasty ultimately re-established Iran as a major power of late an ...
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Siege Of Amida (359)
The siege of Amida was a military investment of the Roman fortified frontier city of Amida (modern Diyarbakır, Turkey) by the Sasanian Empire. It took place in AD 359 when the Sasanian army under king Shapur II invaded the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Shapur wanted to exploit the absence of the Roman Emperor Constantius II who was overseeing affairs in the western part of the Empire. The city fell after a siege of 73 days. Background Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman army officer, provided a vivid description of the siege in his work (''Res Gestae''). Ammianus served on the staff of Ursicinus, the Magister Equitum (master of horse) of the East, during the events of the siege. Persian When Shapur II took control of the Sasanian Empire, he sought to regain old territories previously lost to the Roman Empire. After crushing the Arabs in the south, Shapur II had to fight for a decade against invaders called the Xionites. He was successful in his efforts, asserting his d ...
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Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus, occasionally anglicized as Ammian ( Greek: Αμμιανός Μαρκελλίνος; born , died 400), was a Greek and Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). Written in Latin and known as the '' Res gestae'', his work chronicled the history of Rome from the accession of Emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Only the sections covering the period 353 to 378 survive. Biography Ammianus was born in the East Mediterranean, possibly in Syria or Phoenicia, around 330, into a noble family of Greek origin. Since he calls himself ''Graecus'' ( Greek), he was most likely born in a Greek-speaking area of the empire. His native language was Greek, but he also knew Latin. The surviving books of his history cover the years 353 to 378. Ammianus began his career as a military officer in the Praetorian Guard, where he gained firsthand exper ...
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