Sassanid Empire

Does anyone here have any recommendations on reading regarding the sassanids? I know very little about them, but the idea of a late antiquity persian empire fascinates me. Discussion regarding the near east of late antiquity such as the eastern romans is welcome as well.

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archive.org/details/SasanianPersia
youtube.com/watch?v=kWQUNOwgz_U
youtu.be/WqZ6kXWMDeM?t=512
youtube.com/watch?v=FethLEZULHg
cais-soas.com/index.htm
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

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If you really know nothing avout them, Touraj Daryaree is your man. I really wish I would've read his book "sasanian persia: rise and fall of an empire" way before.

archive.org/details/SasanianPersia

Touraj Daryaee is a good source, his books are great. Also visit IranChamber which has a lot of good stuff not only on the Sassanians but also the Arsacids/Parthians and Achaemenids.

>You will never be a Persian cataphract serving in the Sassanian Empire and take a Roman waifu as your booty during one of Shapur I or Shapur II's conquests of Roman Mesopotamia and the Caucasus areas.

(f)assanid empire more like

feelsbadman.jpg

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Why do you turks have to ruin everything

Hello Memet, how are you?

Khosrow was a fucking idiot if he seriously thought he could hold onto all of that. He should have sacked Antioch, forced the Byzzies to pay him some tribute and sign a peace treaty and called it a day.
Instead he just had to fuck up his entire people and nation.

youtube.com/watch?v=kWQUNOwgz_U

Some aforementioned Touraj Daryaee. However, this youtube series specifically focuses on the twilight of the Sassanian Empire. As for reading up on general Sassanian history, Iran Chamber Society and especially Encyclopedia Iranica have been my go-to for reading. Though I should try to go after real books some time.

Arslan Senki :^)

>Khosrow
Its Khosaru. And he only fucked up when he tried to have Shahrabaraz removed from command, the Persians would've had their most seasoned and veteran army under Shahrabaraz keep Heraclius in check and could've held onto at least half of Byzantine territory in Anatolia and the Levant being annexed by them.

Also even with the loss, the Persians were not completely expelled from Byzantine lands after the war ended. Shahrabaraz entered post-629 AD as a third power between Kavadh II and Heraclius and the latter had to negotiate and pay him off into leaving Syria and Egypt a full year after the truce was already signed between the Persians and Byzantines.

why the f? I dont understand, why (f)ersians and (f)assanids?

>replying to yourself

i thinks is because arabic doesnt have P so they use F for persian words like PARSA is now FARSI

achaemenids, parthian or sassanids should have conquered all central asia and then focus on west asia

if any of them would have done that then they would have been the most powerfull empire, not even rome or alexander could have beat them

leaving central asian to those fucking mongoloids was a huge mistake

It would be cool to hear a Sassanian version of Crucem Sanctam.
8:31 kind stands in for it to me.
youtu.be/WqZ6kXWMDeM?t=512

P is actually made by adding or omitting a diacritic to the Pe letter in abjad based alphabets. The same is also done to distinguish hard b from soft v and other letters.

Believe it or not, but the third part of the Shahnameh is actually not that inaccurate when detailing Sassanian kingly lineage.

Iranica is simply great.

They kinda conquered most if not all of central asia at one point. But you can't conquer steppe and tents. Even less when the roman peril is always there, Sasanians went west in self-defense from their perspective.

Tbh Central Asia did not become ethnically Turkified until Genghis fucking killed everyone there, before it was it was a cultural mixing region between Turks and Iranians. Before Genghis' invasion and the ethnic Turkification of Central Asia, Iranians in places such as Khwarezmia and the northern reaches of Sogdiana were adopting Turkic speech and culture. However, it was fairly nuanced and not a one-way assimiliation. In turn, the Turks would adopt things such as Iranian dress and customs such as Nowruz. The Turks were too sparse a population to ethnically replace the Iranians as things stood.

Though regarding Central Asia being steppe and tents, it was surprisingly urbanized and fortifable in several places such as Merv, Bactria/Balkh, Khwarezmia, and Sogdiana. I remember reading in this one book about the Sogdians about how the Arabs managed a solid defense of the area upon conquering it.

>it was surprisingly urbanized and fortifable in several places such as Merv, Bactria/Balkh, Khwarezmia, and Sogdiana
All of those were part of the Achaemenid Empire. I should check it but I'm fairly sure that the Sasanians owned all if not most of those places at some point. It's not that they didn't focus on that scenario, it's that they lost ground because fighting in several fronts (three at the very least) isn't easy.

The Turkification of most of Central Asia happened due to Turkic but more so Mongol genocide and mass-murders and massacres. I'm not sure if Genghis himself ordered those or wanted those things to happen but his sons and grandsons were especially bloodthirsty, even cities, towns, villages, and settlements that completely followed the Mongol directions for surrendering and not putting up resistance under Genghis' successors were wiped out.

Which is why the ethnic and linguistic character of Central Asia is largely Turkic and the only remaining Iranian character in it are in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and parts of Pakistan and Turkmenistan.

They were, same with the Arsacid dynasty aka the Parthians and Achaemenids. Most of Central Asia from like 2000 BCE up to the 12th or 13th century AD were majority Iranian in character. Sogdians, Daylamites, Khwarezmians (not to be confused with the Persianized Khwarazimian Turks), Bactarians, Scythians/Saka, Sarmatians, Parthians, Dahae, Parni, Arachosians, Arians, Hepthalites, etc...

Its really quite fascinating and saddening that the Iranians were at one point from various tribes and branches of the Indo-Iranian family tree, covering most of Central Asia, the western Steppes, Urals, Southern Russia, and even into Eastern Europe and all the way to parts of Germania and Gaul.

>ywn be a Roman Equites and plunder the Persian king's personal harem of slave girls with the lads before sacking Ctesiphon

Parthians were pushovers but Persians never lost Ctesiphon to the romans except one single time in the early formative period. Not even Heraclius could take it.

Here you go OP, here's a epic movie about them

youtube.com/watch?v=FethLEZULHg

this. Arabs have P. Its just not commonly used.

>implying their was anything worth conquering in central Asia for a settled civilized people
Turan doesn't count since that was part of Iran back then

I don't mean to shit up the thread, but I don't want to make an entire new thread just for this one question: what are some recommendations for books on Rome? Namely the transition between Republic and Empire?

I wouldn't call 299 that early of a time for the Sassanids. They'd had a good 70 years of empire under their belt by then. And Heraclius had Ctesiphon by the balls. The only reason he left was because the Sassanids agreed to a peace treaty.
I will admit however that the sacking I was thinking of was the one that occurred under the Parthians.
I forget whether the harem that a Roman army captured was that of the Parthian or Sassanid king though.

>And Heraclius had Ctesiphon by the balls. The only reason he left was because the Sassanids agreed to a peace treaty.
Heraclius didn't have Ctesiphon by the balls more than the persians had Constantinople by the balls. He was defeated and couldn't take the city, he got his peace because Khosrow had made enemies at the court and got coup'd.

And you say "70 good years" like that's a lot. It wasn't, I don't get what you're trying to say. At that point the state could've still very well collapsed and dissapeared like Palmyre or so much short-lived asiatic empires.

The Sassanians drew their borders at the Amu Darya in their later centuries, effectively ceding lands beyond that to the Gokturk Khaganate. Though Sassanian culture would have some influence in these areas, they politically did not have much to do with each other. For example, aside from Merv, Sogdiana had much heavier influence from India and China (they still did write in the Aramaic-based script imported from Pahlavi though). They were pretty well insulated from the centralizing tendencies under the Sassanids due to their strong and independent trade networks and being co-opted into bigger military powers with influence in the region (Kushans, Hephtalites, Gokturks, Chinese).

Also, Daylamites were Caspian and in the west of Iran, they had nothing to do with Central Asia. Perhaps you mean the Dahae/Daoi, who were closely affiliated with the Parthians?

By the way, Germania and Gaul? I'm a pretty big Iranboo myself, but that's a bit of a stretch. You could make an argument for interactions with Germanic tribes due to the Iazyges in the pannonian plain, the Roxolani in the western end of the Pontic Steppe, or the Goths migrating into the Pontic Steppe/Crimea. But claiming the influence of Scythian culture extended to Gaul is bordering on wewuzing.

Unless if you mean the Sarmatian forces employed by Rome, which apparently got deployed as far as Britain. But they were acting more as an agent of Roman influence and culture in that case then their own.

Who are the descendants of the Sarmatians? I've heard Poles and some Eastern Europeans do largely descend from Sarmatians as genetic studies show.

The whole we wuz Sarmatians thing some Polish like to do is overrated imo. Sure, they might have some haplogroup that might be linked to an Eastern Iranian ancestry, but not enough to be a significant part of their heritage.

Due to the fluid nature of the steppe and for how most of history nomads lived on it, it's hard to say whether the people living there now have any significant ancestry from Iranian nomads in antiquity. My personal guesses for people with [very] partial Sarmatian ancestry are modern Crimean Tatars and/or Ukrainians. Some Cossacks were known to intermix with Alans so we have clearer ancestry in that case, but I'm not sure if that's what you want.

Have you embraced the Good Religion yet?

>The Sassanians drew their borders at the Amu Darya in their later centuries, effectively ceding lands beyond that to the Gokturk Khaganate.
Because they lost that and way more to the Hephtalites and kinda had to settle with a partition once they defeated the huns with gokturk help.

Do I get persian waifu if I do?

Wrong. He had no siege engines to take the city, his men were on the verge of mutiny due to fear of Shahrabaraz returning to reinforce the capital from the East, and the bridges were intentionally downed across the Tigris and Euphrates.

He could not take the city and there is only one attested sacking of Ctesiphon under the Sassanids.

Meant for actually.

There were significant Sarmatian and Scythian migrations up and passing beyond the Danube, with the Iranics mixing in with various Germanic tribes.

quads
what did He mean by this??!

Mongols really were the worst steppeniggers, even the Huns had some humanity

>Khosrau

Get out.

It was far easier for the Romans to sack the Persian capital than vice versa. This was demonstrated numerous times throughout history. It's such a pain in the ass to march all the way across Syria, the Taurus mountain range, the Anatolian plateau, and then have to besiege the city itself (which needed a fleet and naval superiority to have a chance of falling to the enemy). Ctesiphon,however, was practically always within striking distance of Rome.

Not saying you're entirely wrong. But Ctesiphon was only easy to sack compared to Constantinople, and (during Sassanid period) it was only besieged and/or taken "many times" in comparison to Constantinople. But, if you forget childish comparisons like that, you see that actually romans didn't have it easy at all to reach and even less take the city. So many centuries of constant warfare and they took it one or two times and reached it a couple more.

True, but whereas Egypt and North Africa were the lifeblood of the Roman Empire, and were (except in the last war) basically off-limits to Persian armies, the entire Persian state was centred financially, militarily and demographically around Mesopotamia, which had been invaded by the Romans more times than I can count.
Simple geography handed a large advantage to the Romans, really. The Persians were fortunate in some sense because southern Mesopotamia was largely too far from the heart of Roman power to ever be threatened, and anything further east was untouchable. But I think the Romans were overall more capable of presenting an existential threat to the Sassanids, whereas the Sassanids were rarely anything more than a major regional threat to Rome/ERE.

They did indeed lose more to the Hephtalites, and when the Turks helped them out that was the border that was drawn when they sandwiched said Hephthalites.

(cont) wow I'm stupid I didn't read that whole message.

But yeah, point being that no matter the circumstances behind the Amu Darya border, they were essentially locked out of the rest of Central Asia.

Well, yeah, that's why I mentioned the Iazyges, who were to my knowledge the farthest west Sarmatian tribe. And brought up several other cases in which Germanic and Iranian peoples mixed. Claiming they were a significant demographic force as far as Gaul is stupid, though.

They didnt conquered all and
>But you can't conquer steppe and tents
That is shitty stupid excuses, sorry but you can always populate those lands with colonies, gauls were just tribes roaming around and still roman conquered and make colonies there so bring that, it sound stupid
There wasnt many iranians there when turkics settles and yes, those lands got turkified
They fcking dont, its just WE WUZZING
Why you prople say that?
Its just so stupid, gaul and brittany didnt have any civ and still roman conquered

They could have conquer those lands make colonies, colonies means trade, money flowing and more soldiers


You guys would make as shitty rulers

He could, his only mistake was attacking constatinople, he should put ln defense mode and he would be fine

wew

>gauls were just tribes roaming around

Gauls were settled retard. It's not about sophistication it's about economy. What were those "colonists" supposed to eat?

I'm in the 4th video and this conference is great, thanks for sharing user.

Because, you know what you need for Colonies, food, water, agriculture, trade, timber or stone to build buildings out of. You can't just build a city in the middle of the Steppe, it has to be somewhat sustainable. It's why the great plains was never full of sedentary Native peoples

cais-soas.com/index.htm

boi warrior