Shapur Ier

Shapur Ier was King of the kings of the Persian Empire Sassanide of 240 with 272 a. J. - C.

A crown prince

Wire of Ardachîr I {{er}}, founder of the Empire sassanide, Shapur made its first weapons at the sides of his/her father at the time of the battle of Hormizdaghan in 224, during which Ardachîr reversed the dynasty Parthian Arsacide. Of 226 - date of the crowning of Ardachîr with Ctésiphon - with 240, one is unaware of which was its precise role. In 240, it is undoubtedly him which directs the catch and the destruction of Hatra, in Mésopotamie. April 12th, 240, it is crowned King of the Kings and reign in partnership with his Ardachîr father. In 241, with died of this last, there remains alone on the throne.

The war of 243 ‑ 244 and peace with the Romans

In 243, it must face a new Roman forwarding led by the emperor Gordien III and its Préfet of the court Timésithée. Persians are demolished with Rhesaïna (Close-cropped el- 'Ayn, Iraq) but the following year, in 244, Shapur beats the Romans with Misikhè (Al-Anbar close to Falluja, Iraq), making many prisoners and forcing Gordien with the retirement. This last dies on the way (assassination or wound, one does not know) and the Roman army elects the prefect Philippe to succeed to him.

Shapur concludes peace with the new emperor. The Romans pour a ransom of 500.000 aurei for the release of the prisoners, preserve their conquests of 243 which extend until Anatha (“Anna, Iraq), but undoubtedly commit themselves not intervening in the disagreement which opposes it to king Khosrow Arménie. Philippe in addition commits himself pouring a tribute to him.

The tender of the Arménie

This victory makes it possible Shapur to consolidate its authority on the majority of its vassal, and to rejoin some which still supported the dynasty Arsacide. But it is necessary for him always to leave in war against rebels, as in 250 in the Khorassan. In 252, undoubtedly, it makes assassinate the king of Arménie Khosrow, and occupies this kingdom immediately where the majority of the aristocracy make him allegiance, while others will take refuge among Romans, taking along with them the young crown prince Tiridate, any young person and last survivor of the family Arsacide. Shapur names his/her son Hormizd king d' Arménie, in the tradition going back to Ier century which wants that king d' Arménie is resulting from the family of the King of the Kings, with the capacity with Ctésiphon.

The war of 252 against the Romans

Reacting to this takeover by force, the Romans concentrate an army in Syria but Shapur joins together its vassal and strikes first, with the support of Arménie directed by his/her Hormizd son and of dissenting Romans taken along by Mariadès, notable exiled Antioche. Shapur demolishes the Roman army in 252 with Barbalissos on Euphrate (Bâlis, Syria), then with Chalcis (Qinnasrin, Syria), devastation all Syria of North, and stops in front of Antioche (Hatay, Turkey) where it lets Mariadès seize the power (one does not know with which title) and to make him allegiance. Odénath, chief of the Roman forces installed with Palmyre, tries to persuade Shapur but refuses to make him allegiance formally. Shapur will not try anything against him.

The following year, in 253, Shapur is charmed, makes occupy Antioche, destroyed the city and off-sets into low-Mésopotamie or Persia of the thousands of civil prisoners. It installs them on grounds to be emphasized where they will create new cities. In Syria, Shapur runs up against local resistance and the reformed remains of the Roman army in the area of Emèse (Homs, Syria), while the new Roman Emperor, Valérien, reestablish with Antioche into 254 and restore the imperial authority on the Roman territories. Shapur is folded up on Ctésiphon, preserving only Nisibe (Nisibin, Turkey), old Roman capital of Mésopotamie.

From 254 to 260, Shapur remains in constant conflict against the Romans, with various fortunes. Thus, in 256, it seems that the Romans celebrated a great success against him, whereas the same year Persians took thestrong one of Doura-Europos on Euphrate (Salhiyé, Syria) and completely destroyed it and emptied its population.

Triumph on the Romans in 260

In 260 Shapur invades what remained Mésopotamie and Roman Osrhoène, besieging Carrhes and Edesse (Harran and Sanliurfa, Turkey). Valérien having joined together an important army with Samosate (Samsat, Turkey) walk against him but is beaten and made captive (Shapur is praised to have personally captured it). The Roman army does not do anything to recover its emperor and is folded up immediately on Emèse (Homs, Syria), leaving without defense Syria of north and the heart of minor Asia. Shapur is engulfed in this breach and devastates Syria, Cilicie and Cappadoce without really meeting serious resistance initially, then at the end of the military season folds up itself with its vassal, charged with spoils.

What Shapur did it make of captive Valérien? We have only contradictory informations on this subject. Traditions Iranian, reproduced by authors medieval like Tha' alibi, Tabari and Firdousi, say that Valérien was treated with regards relative, while Lactance at the 4th century claims that the emperor was maltreated then, after its death in captivity, empaillé and exposed in a temple.

End of the reign (261 ‑ 272)

In Syria the Roman counter-offensive organizes as of 261, under the direction of Odénath of Palmyre that Valérien had undoubtedly made governor of Syria-Phénicie, and that Gallien, wire of Valérien, promoted in the urgency supreme leader of the Roman forces of the East. Odénath claimed to have intercepted Persians on their return towards Ctésiphon, and to have even devastated the states of Shapur to the surroundings of Ctésiphon twice between 260 and 267.

One knows little about the events which mark the last decade of the reign of Shapur. The last partisans of Arsacides did still not disarm, and are seems it arranged under the banner of Odénath de Palmyre, chief of the Roman army subordinated in theory to the Gallien emperor, but asserting at the same time the title of King of the Kings, in a clear challenge with Shapur. But that did not lead to a new major conflict.

For Shapur, the time of the diplomacy and compromise seems come. While Odénath directs the Roman East since Emèse, the city of Palmyre (Tadmor, Syria) directed seems it by certain Worod, concludes from the agreements with Shapur. Without ceasing belonging to the Romain Empire, Palmyre takes again his trade caravaneer and Worod (if it is indeed same, which is probable) is even counted to Shapur with the number of his vassal. When, after the assassination of Odénath and her Hérodien son in 267, the widow of Odénath Zénobie seizes the capacity in Syria, then in Egypt, Shapur seems to be remained neutral in what is at the bottom only one Roman civil war.

Shapur dies in May 272, in its town of Bishapour (close to Kazerun, Iran). Perhaps it was buried in a rupestral tomb, with the manner of Achéménides, in fact the cave close to Bishapour where his colossal statue still today is seen. Its sons Hormizd, Vahram and Narsès succeeded one to him after the other.

A stable mode

Shapur passed most clearly from its reign to overall guerroyer, against the Armenians, against the Romans, but also against many people in the east of his empire. If, in the facts, it consolidated the domination of Sassanides on the Irano-mésopotamien world, by physically eliminating the last representatives from the Parthian dynasty Arsacide who could claim with more legitimacy than him, it still remained at the end of its reign of nostalgic of Arsacides, but all tiny rooms to be fought for the Romans. The force of its mode appears when his stability is considered, compared with the instability of the Romain Empire at the same period. Shapur, which had received the capacity of his/her father and transmitted it to his/her son, saw in thirty years of reign following one another among Romans Gordien III, Philippe the Arab, Trajan-Dèce, Trébonien Galle, Emilien, Valérien, Gallien and Claude the Gothic, without counting the innumerable rebellious usurpers and others whose Zénobie is most known. This stability could only reinforce its authority and its prestige near the populations of the Middle East.

Shapur builder

In its great inscription commemorative of Naqsh-e Rostam, Shapur states to have built many cities. The principal one of them is Bishapur, in Persia, close to Kazerun. It is not a round city like are generally the parthes cities or sassanides, but a city in the partially rectangular plan, with two main roads crossing with right angle, in a style which immediately makes think of the Roman foundations such as Timgad or Philippopolis of Arabia. One does not know with the Juste at which period of its reign work was undertaken, if it is necessary to see there the hand of the prisoners made into 260 or rather that of the Roman specialists provided by Philippe the Arab to the title in the peace of 244. One can make the same remark for Band I Kaisar (“Dam of César”), bridge-stopping on the river Karun in the south-west of Iran.

Other cities were created under its reign for the establishment of the Syrians off-set into 252-253, without counting the many recastings, which had to result in important constructions, like that of Misikhè, refondée like “Peroz Shapur” (“Shapur Victorieux”) on Euphrate, places essential for the defense of Ctésiphon.

Finally is it necessary to allot to Shapur Ier the construction of the immense palate of Ctésiphon whose ruins are always visited in the south of Baghdad?

Shapour was not that a builder, it was also a destructor. It made destroy Antioche, one of the largest cities of the Romain Empire and capital of the Roman East - and if Antioche were concerned some, it always carried the mark from there one century later, with the dires of Libanios. It on the other hand literally striped chart at least two important cities, Hatra in 240 and Doura-Europos in 256: nobody any more never re-occupied them, until the arrival of the archeologists at the 20th century. By thus making the desert at the borders, and by off-setting the populations inside her empire for letting this time there thrive, it applied the traditional policy of the Assyrians and the Babylonians.

The religious policy of Shapur

Grandson of a priest of the goddess Anahita, Shapur declares himself resulting from the race from the gods and “admirer of Mazda”, the dynastic god of the former kings Achéménides then kings of Persia. On the low-reliefs commemorating their nomination, it is of Ahura Mazda that Ardashir and later Shapur receive the royal attributes.

The religious phenomenon which marks more the Iranian world under its reign is the rise to power of the Mazdéen clergy, as the rise testifies some to the mobedh Kartir. This last claims, in an inscription that it made engrave, to have benefitted from the conquests of Shapur to promote the Mazdéisme. If it is true that Kartir belonged to the court of Shapur, it is noticed however that it is mentioned in the protocolar order only with one relatively modest row, which limits the influence to which he can claim. The Church mazdéenne treated on a hierarchical basis and structured, which will become the true religion of State under Sassanides of the IV {{E}} at the 7th century, does not have yet this statute under Shapur. On the other hand, the king would have liked to annex to the Avesta, the holy book of Mazdéisme formatted in his Ardashir father, the writings not-monks come from the Roman Empire or the India, on the Médecine, the Astronomie, the Logique, etc

In Shapur fact, which was never under the cut of the monks, seems a particularly tolerant sovereign, ensuring the best reception the representatives of all the worships in which he sees the potential relays of his authority. The Jewish sources preserved the memory of the benevolent audiences which it granted to the chiefs of their community. The Greek late accounts of the invasion of Syria in 252-253 evoke Shapur destroying all but respecting at least the sanctuary of Apollo with Daphne, or ready to negotiate with a priest of Emèse, while the Christians of Antioche off-set in Persia receive any freedom to reconstitute their churches there and to even preach the Gospel with the local populations there.

The most known aspect of the religious policy of Shapur 1st was the impulse which it gave to the diffusion Manichéisme. If no official document of the time mentions it, the texts Manicheans insist on protection that Shapur granted to the Mani prophet, while at the same time this last tie-beam in direct competition with the clergy zoroastrien. It is not a question there of a simple matter of tolerance and respect for the traditions of the various communities of the empire: Mani created a religion new with the universal claims, likely to link Orient and Occident, which the Christianisme and the Zoroastrisme were not, according to him, managed to realize. Protection that Shapur granted to this company can analyze in various ways, but it is certain that the new religion served its political interests, and that its development would make it possible to limit the growing influence of the clergy zoroastrien. Moreover later, under Dioclétien, awaited from an edict of persecution of the Manicheans regard this religion as pro-Persia subversion, while at the same time in the Sassanide Empire she was persecuted she also on this date.

There exists much of spelling variants of this name: Sapor, Shahpur, Shâhpur, Chahpuhr, Shahpuhr, Châhpuhr, Chapuhr, etc

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