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Ardashir I or Ardeshir I (Ardašire Bâbakân) was the founding father of the Sassanian Empire (224/226–651 CE) and also known as Ardashir the Unifier (180– 242 CE). Some texts call him Artaxerxes, surely pointing to the Persian continuity of rule. The different spellings of his name are due to the development of the Iranian languages, from the Old Persian ‘*Ṛtaxšira’ to Middle Persian (namely Pahlavi)’ ʾrthštr’, which makes him Artaxerxes V in the succession of Persian Shah (the Shah of Persis/Persia/Fars), after the Achaemenid Shah (Shahanshah) Artaxerxes IV; or Artaxerxes VI, if we consider Bessus, the famous Persian satrap of Bactria who killed Darius III while fleeing and probably assumed the crown name Artaxerxes, as the Artaxerxes mentioned in the ‘Alexander and Artaxerxes Fragment’ of the Babylonian Chronicles. The father of Ardashir I, according to Kârnâmag î Ardashîr î Babagân, was Sassan, a descendant from Dārā, i.e., the Achaemenid King Darius III. Ardashir’s mother was the daughter of Babag (Papag), the Parthian satrap of Persis. However, another Sassanian source, the famous Res Gestae Divi Saporis (ŠKZ) (KAʿBA-YE ZARDOŠT), identifies Babag as the grandfather of Shapur I and father of Ardashir in the very first paragraph. A later account provides a third version of the lineage of Ardashir: In Al-Tabari’s (839–923 CE) History of the Prophets and Kings (Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, commonly called Tarikh al-Tabari), Sassan was the custodian of the temple of the Fire of Anāhitā (Bayt nār Nāhīḏ) at Eṣṭaḵr, who married Rāmbehešt, a descendant or princess of the Bāzarangid family, who gave birth to Babag who fathered Ardashir (Bosworth 1999, 4). A modern reconstruction, based on the studies of ancient religion and theological figures, has been proposed by Touraj Daryaee in 2010. It was the fourth version of Ardashir's lineage, where Babag is thought to be the father of Ardashir, whose mother was the daughter of Sassan (Daryaee 2010, 241). Martin Schwartz provides another description of ‘Sasan’, which can be traced back to a goddess ‘from the middle of 2nd millennium BCE’ in Ugarit (Schwartz 1996, 253.b–254.a). For now, it is known that Ardashir I has been described as a descendant of a royal lineage of the Achaemenid House or as having had some blood from some obscure celestial being as far as his propaganda goes. I.e., he presented himself as the descendant of Achaemenid lineage, from Darius III to be exact, or he propagated the idea that he was affiliated with Ahura Mazda and thus rightfully enthroned by the God Supreme himself, just as the relief from Naqš-i Rustam shows.
Reference:
Bosworth, C. E. 1999.
The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume V: The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen. Albany, New York.
Daryaee, T. 2009.
Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. New York.
Daryaee, T. 2010.
“‘Ardashir and the Sasanians’ Rise to Power.” Anabasis: Studia Classica et Orientalia 1: 236–255.
Schmitt, R. 1979.
„Artaxerxes, Ardašīr und Verwandte.“ Incontri Linguistici 5: 61–72.
Schwartz, M. 1996.
“*Sasm, Sesen, St. Sisinnios, Sesengen Barpharangēs, and... ‘Semanglof’.” Bulletin of the Asia Institute New Series 10: 253–257.
Schwartz, M. 1998.
“Sesen: a Durable East Mediterranean God in Iran.” In: N. Sims-Williams (ed.), Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies held in Cambridge, 11th to 15th September 1995, Part 1, ‘Old and Middle Iranian Studies’. Wiesbaden, 9–13.
Online Reference:
Finkel, I.L., Spek, R.J. van der and Pirngruber, R. (eds.). 2020.
Chronographic Texts from the Hellenistic Period. BCHP 4.
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Wiesehöfer, J. 1986.
“ARDAŠĪR I i. History.” Encyclopaedia Iranica 2/4: 371-376, accesed under http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ardasir-i (15.10.2021).