Marzban
Marzban ( Middle Persian mlcpʾn ' marz (o) bān , derived from the words marz for border or district and the suffix -bān for protector ) were a class of " margraves " or military commanders who were responsible for the border provinces of the Persian Sassanid Empire in the period from 3 were responsible until the 7th century.
The Marzbans were charged with the administration of the border provinces. Among other things, they were responsible for the security of the trade routes and the fight against invading enemies ( Kushana and Iranian Huns in the east and Eastern Romans in the west).
Little is known about the function of the Marzbans. These officials seem to have had more regional tasks (in addition to the military, probably also civil), while a Spahbod had supra-regional military competencies, especially after Chosrau I had divided the empire into four military districts. The thin and sometimes contradicting sources allow only approximate competencies.
In addition, there seem to have been special cases. In addition to the Spahbod and the Marzban , the sources mention a public official with the title Pāygōsbān , and in some cases the exact delimitations are difficult to identify. The commander of the Central Asian province of Abarshahr on the northeast border to the steppe, in turn, bore the title kanārang , which, like other titles in the Sassanid Empire, seems to have been hereditary within a family that is mentioned in the sources as Kanarangıyan .
literature
- Marzban. In: The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity . Volume 2 (2018), p. 984.
Remarks
- ↑ Spāhbed in: Encyclopædia Iranica .
- ↑ Spāhbed in: Encyclopædia Iranica .
- ↑ See Parvaneh Pourshariati: Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire. London 2008, p. 265 ff.