Bahram IV.

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Coin with the portrait of Bahram IV.

Bahram IV (also Vahram , Varahran ; † 399) was from 388 to 399 Persian great king from the house of the Sassanids .

The sources on the life of Bahram IV are sparse and are also partly contradicting: His father is said to be Shapur III. (cf. also Agathias , 4,26), but it would also be possible that he was his brother. Whether a treaty with the Roman Emperor Theodosius I on the partition of Armenia was only concluded during his reign (see Persarmenia ), or whether this treaty - which modern research considers more likely - already under Shapur III. has been completed is not entirely clear.

During his reign there was a Huns burglary in 395 ; they passed the Caucasus passes and were only stopped in Mesopotamia . Apart from that, however, there does not appear to have been any major military conflicts. However, it is possible that the narrative sources (which in any case hardly report anything about his reign) only describe nothing; possibly (as before and after) there were conflicts with the so-called Iranian Huns on the northeast border . Bahram, who is described as a weak ruler, fell victim to a noble conspiracy in 399 and was murdered. He was succeeded by his son Yazdegerd I. on.

literature

  • Bahram IV. In: Encyclopædia Iranica . Vol. 3, pp. 517f.
  • Karin Mosig-Walburg: Royalty and nobility in the reign of Ardashir II, Shapur III. and Truthams IV . In: Henning Börm, Josef Wiesehöfer (eds.): Commutatio et contentio. Studies in the Late Roman, Sasanian, and Early Islamic Near East . Düsseldorf 2010, pp. 133–158.
  • Nikolaus Schindel: Wahram IV. In: Nikolaus Schindel (Ed.): Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum . Vol. 3/1 (text volume). Vienna 2004, p. 285ff.
  • Klaus Schippmann : Basic features of the history of the Sassanid Empire . Darmstadt 1990.

Remarks

  1. See Klaus Schippmann: Fundamentals of the history of the Sasanid empire . Darmstadt 1990, p. 40 with note 125.
  2. Geoffrey B. Greatrex , The Background and Aftermath of the Partition of Armenia in AD 387 , in: The Ancient History Bulletin 14.1-2 (2000), pp. 35-48.
  3. See Otto Maenchen-Helfen : Die Welt der Huns , Wiesbaden 1997 (ND of the 1978 edition), pp. 38–43.
  4. See Nikolaus Schindel: The Sasanian Eastern Wars in the 5th Century. The Numismatic Evidence. In: A. Panaino, A. Piras (Ed.): Proceedings of the 5th Conference of the Societas Iranologica Europaea. Volume I. Milan 2006, pp. 675-689, here pp. 677f.
predecessor Office successor
Shapur III. King of the New Persian Empire
388–399
Yazdegerd I.