Bahram II

Coin with the portrait of Bahram II.

Bahram II (also Vahram or Varahran ; † 293 ) was king of the Sassanid Empire from 276 to 293 . His seventeen year reign was marked by foreign and domestic political conflicts.

Life

Several scattered sources report on Bahram's life, but none of them offer a detailed account. There is hardly any information about his time as Crown Prince. After the death of his father Bahram I , Bahram apparently succeeded him as Great King without any problems .

During the reign of Bahram II, the state and the Zoroastrian clergy were closely intertwined , with the Mobad (priest) Kartir in particular apparently having a great influence on the young Bahram. So it says on an inscription:

"Karder (Kartir), the Redeemer of the soul of Varehran (Bahram)."

Kartir was finally appointed supreme judge by Bahram, who showed a special veneration of his name deity, and raised to the rank of nobility, Christians and Manicheans were persecuted. The extraordinary power that Bahram bestowed on Kartir may be due to Bahram's neglect of the business of government, or perhaps to his inexperience. However, the close connection between state and religion was largely loosened again under King Narseh (293-302).

In terms of foreign policy, Bahram had to assert itself in the west against the Romans who invaded Mesopotamia under Emperor Carus in 283 , apparently taking advantage of unrest in Persia. The death of Carus at the end of July 283 prevented the further advance of the Romans, who had also taken the Persian capital Ctesiphon , whose further advances to the east were unsuccessful. However , Bahram was able to negotiate a peace treaty with Carus' successor Diocletian . In the east, a certain Hormizd had also risen, probably a brother of Bahram, where he received support from the Saks and the Kushan . The rebellion lasted for several years and tied up considerable forces. There is some evidence that this period of crisis weakened the empire considerably, something the Romans tried to exploit. Bahram was finally able to put down the rebellion and his son Bahram III. as the "King of the Saks" in the east.

It is worth mentioning the upswing that Sassanid art took in Bahram's reign, which can be seen, among other things, in the coin images. Also on rock reliefs - no Sassanid king left more reliefs than he did - the king and his court were impressively immortalized.

He was succeeded by his son Bahram III. who ruled only a few months before his great-uncle Narseh, the youngest son of Shapur I , was raised to the rank of great king by a noble party and Bahram III. defeated in a brief civil war.

literature

• Bahram II . In: Encyclopædia Iranica , Vol. 3, pp. 516f. ( online , with a different chronology of the reign).
• Touraj Daryaee: Sasanian Iran 224-651 CE. Portrait of a Late Antique Empire. Mazda Pub., Costa Mesa (Calif.) 2008, pp. 31ff.
• Klaus Schippmann : Basic features of the history of the Sassanid Empire. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1990, ISBN 3-534-07826-8 .

Web links

• Sassanid rock reliefs

Remarks

1. ↑ According to Schippmann, Grundzüge , p. 29.
2. ↑ See the entry Carus in the Encyclopædia Iranica .

predecessor	Office	successor
Bahram I.	King of the New Persian Empire 276–293	Bahram III