|
Arteshtaran-salar
''Arteshtaran-salar'' (strictly transliterated as ''artēštārān-sālār'', meaning "chief of the warriors") was a high office of the military of the Sasanian Empire. According to al-Tabari, the rank was above ''spahbed'' and below '' argbed'' (which was reserved for the royal family members). According to Procopius, the bearer of the title (in Greek: ''adrastadáran salánēs'') was "a generalissimo invested with quite exceptional powers" in the 500s AD. The Middle Persian titles ''artēštārān-sālār'' and ''wāst(a)ryōšān-sālār'' are both derived from the Avestan designations of the social classes ''vāstryō-fšuyant'' ("cattle-breeder") and ''raθaēštā'' ("warrior"). The first recorded bearer of the title is Kārd (or Kārdār), the third son of the chief minister Mihr-Narseh, per an account from '' Khwaday-Namag''. It is possible that the rank was established by Mihr-Narseh himself. According to Procopius, the office was held last by Siyawush Siyawush (also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siyawush
Siyawush (also spelled Siyavash), known in Byzantine sources as Seoses (Σεόσης), was an Iranian officer, who served as the head of the Sasanian army ('' arteshtaran-salar'') during the second reign of the Sasanian king (shah) Kavad I (). In , he was accused of purposely misusing peace negotiations with the Byzantine Empire, and was thus removed from power and executed. Biography In 496, the Sasanian shah Kavad I was overthrown by the nobility and replaced by his brother Jamasp. He was imprisoned in the "Prison of Oblivion" in Khuzestan. With the aid of his sister and close-friend Siyawush, Kavad managed to free himself from imprisonment, and went to the court of the Hephthalite king, where he took refuge.Procopius6 There Kavad gained the support of the Hephthalite king, and also married the latters daughter (who was Kavad's own niece). In 498, Kavad returned to Iran with a Hephthalite army. When Kavad crossed the domains of the Kanarangiyan family in Khorasan, he was met ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mihr-Narseh
Mihr-Narseh ( pal, 𐭬𐭲𐭥𐭭𐭥𐭮𐭧𐭩 ), was a powerful Iranian peoples, Iranian dignitary from the House of Suren, who served as minister () of the Sasanian Empire, Sasanian ''shahanshahs'' Yazdegerd I (), Bahram V (), Yazdegerd II () and Peroz I (). According to the Iranologist Richard N. Frye, Mihr-Narseh was the "prototype of the later Islamic grand vizier." Notable for his religious zeal, Mihr-Narseh was the architect behind the Roman–Sasanian War of 421–422 and the Battle of Avarayr. Etymology The name of Mihr-Narseh is a combination of the Middle Iranian theophoric names of ''Mihr'' (Mithra) and . Background Mihr-Narseh was born in the 4th-century in the village of Abruwan in the rural district of Dasht-e Barin in the administrative division of Ardashir-Khwarrah, in southwestern Pars (Sasanian province), Pars. He belonged to the House of Suren, one of the Seven Great Houses of Iran. The family, of Parthian origin, had been active in Iranian politics s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Military Of The Sasanian Empire
The Sasanian army was the primary military body of the Sasanian armed forces, serving alongside the Sasanian navy. The birth of the army dates back to the rise of Ardashir I (r. 224–241), the founder of the Sasanian Empire, to the throne. Ardashir aimed at the revival of the Persian Empire, and to further this aim, he reformed the military by forming a standing army which was under his personal command and whose officers were separate from satraps, local princes and nobility. He restored the Achaemenid military organizations, retained the Parthian cavalry model, and employed new types of armour and siege warfare techniques. This was the beginning for a military system which served him and his successors for over 400 years, during which the Sasanian Empire was, along with the Roman Empire and later the East Roman Empire, one of the two superpowers of Late Antiquity in Western Eurasia. The Sasanian army protected '' Eranshahr'' ("the realm of Iran") from the East against the i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sasanian Empire
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named after the Sasanian dynasty, House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651 AD, making it the longest-lived List of monarchs of Persia, Persian imperial dynasty. 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 (after 395 the Byzantine Empire).Norman A. Stillman ''The Jews of Arab Lands'' pp 22 Jewish Publication Society, 1979 International Congress of Byzantine Studies ''Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London, 21–26 August 2006, Volumes 1–3'' pp 29. Ashgate Pub Co, 2006 The empire was founded by Ardashir I, an Iranian ruler who rose to po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Tabari
( ar, أبو جعفر محمد بن جرير بن يزيد الطبري), more commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Muslim historian and scholar from Amol, Tabaristan. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari is known for his historical works and his expertise in Qur'anic exegesis (), but he has also been described as "an impressively prolific polymath".Lindsay Jones (ed.), ''Encyclopedia of religion'', volume 13, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005, p. 8943 He wrote works on a diverse range of subjects, including world history, poetry, lexicography, grammar, ethics, mathematics, and medicine. His most influential and best known works are his Quranic commentary, known in Arabic as , and his historical chronicle called '' History of the Prophets and Kings'' (), often referred to as ("al-Tabari's History"). Al-Tabari followed the Shafi'i madhhab for nearly a decade before he developed his own interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence. His unde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spahbed
''Spāhbed'' (also spelled ''spahbod'' and ''spahbad'') is a Middle Persian title meaning "army chief" used chiefly in the Sasanian Empire. Originally there was a single ''spāhbed'', called the , who functioned as the generalissimo of the Sasanian army. From the time of Khosrow I ( 531–579) on, the office was split in four, with a ''spāhbed'' for each of the cardinal directions.Gyselen (2004) 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 ( fa, اسپهبذ; in ar, اصبهبذ ), survived as a regnal title until the Mongol conquests of the 13th century.Bosworth (1978), pp. 207–208 An equivalent title of Persian origin, '' ispahsālār or sipahsālār'', gained great currency across the Muslim world in the 10th–15th centuries. The title was also adopted by the Armenians ( hy, � ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argbed
Argbed (Middle Persian: hlgwpt; in Parthian: hrkpty ''Hargbed'';Paikuli inscription, line 16 etymology uncertain; in Roman sources: ''archapetēs'') were a class of military commanders in charge of castles and fortresses of the Parthian and Sasanian Empires of Persia (Iran) between the 2nd and 7th centuries CE. The office became more important under the Sasanian Empire. Argbeds were granted their command by the Sassanian emperor (Shahanshah) and were responsible for maintaining the security of their area of operation (usually a trading post, military fortress, or city), fighting the encroaching nomadic tribes such as Bedouin Arabs, White Huns and Oghuz Turks, and resisting the advances of settled enemies such as Romans and Kushans. The Sasanian king usually selected Argbeds from ''wuzurgan'', Iranian noble families who held the most powerful positions in the imperial administration. This rank, like most imperial administration, was mostly patrimonial, and was passed down thr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Procopius Of Caesarea
Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in Emperor Justinian's wars, Procopius became the principal Roman historian of the 6th century, writing the ''History of the Wars'', the ''Buildings'', and the ''Secret History''. Life Apart from his own writings the main source for Procopius's life was an entry in the ''Suda'',Suda pi.2479. See under 'Procopius' oSuda On Line a Byzantine Greek encyclopaedia written sometime after 975 which discusses his early life. He was a native of Caesarea in the province of '' Palaestina Prima''. He would have received a conventional upper class education in the Greek classics and rhetoric, perhaps at the famous school at Gaza. He may have attended law school, possibly at Berytus (present-day Beirut) or Constantinople (now Istanbul) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generalissimo
''Generalissimo'' ( ) is a military rank of the highest degree, superior to field marshal and other five-star ranks in the states where they are used. Usage The word (), an Italian term, is the absolute superlative of ('general') thus meaning "the highest-ranking of all generals". The superlative suffix itself derives from Latin , meaning "utmost, to the highest grade". Similar cognates in other languages include in Spanish, in Portuguese, in French, and in Latin. Historically this rank was given to a military officer leading an entire army or the entire armed forces of a state, usually only subordinate to the sovereign. The military leader Albrecht von Wallenstein in 1632 was the first imperial generalissimo (general of the generals). Other usage of the rank has been for the commander of the united armies of several allied powers and if a senior military officer becomes the head of state or head of government of a nation like Chiang Kai-Shek in China and later i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Persian
Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Persian continued to function as a prestige language. It descended from Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenid Empire and is the linguistic ancestor of Modern Persian, an official language of Iran, Afghanistan ( Dari) and Tajikistan (Tajik). Name "Middle Iranian" is the name given to the middle stage of development of the numerous Iranian languages and dialects. The middle stage of the Iranian languages begins around 450 BCE and ends around 650 CE. One of those Middle Iranian languages is Middle Persian, i.e. the middle stage of the language of the Persians, an Iranian people of Persia proper, which lies in the south-western highlands on the border with Babylonia. The Persians called their language ''Parsik'', meaning "Persian". A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avestan Language
Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scriptural language of Zoroastrianism, and the Avesta likewise serves as their namesake. Both are early Eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian language branch of the Indo-European language family. Its immediate ancestor was the Proto-Iranian language, a sister language to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, with both having developed from the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian language; as such, Old Avestan is quite close in both grammar and lexicon to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language. The Avestan text corpus was composed in the ancient Iranian satrapies of Arachosia, Aria, Bactria, and Margiana, corresponding to the entirety of present-day Afghanistan as well as parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khwaday-Namag
''Khwadāy-Nāmag'' ( pal, 𐭧𐭥𐭲𐭠𐭩 𐭭𐭠𐭬𐭪; New Persian: ; ) was a Middle Persian history from the Sasanian era. Now lost, it was imagined by Theodor Nöldeke to be the common ancestor of all later Persian-language histories of the Sasanian Empire, a view which has recently been disproven. It was supposed to have been first translated into Arabic by Ibn al-Muqaffa' (d. 757), who had access to Sasanian court documents. According to Nöldeke's theory, the book itself was composed first under the reign of Khosrow I Anushirvan (), and redacted in the reign of the last Sasanian monarch, Yazdegerd III (). ''Khwaday-Namag'' was the primary source of the 10th-century Persian epic ''Shahnameh'' ('Book of Kings') written by Ferdowsi. ''Khwaday-Namag'' was also translated to New Persian, and was expanded using other sources, by Samanid The Samanid Empire ( fa, سامانیان, Sāmāniyān) also known as the Samanian Empire, Samanid dynasty, Samanid amirate, or sim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
