Sassan

Sassan (also Sasan ; Persian ساسان, DMG Sāsān ) is a male given name , which historically appeared for the first time as the eponymous ancestor of the Sassanids , who is said to have lived around 200 AD. Today it is a common name in the oriental language area.

Little is certain about the historical personality of Sassan. There are several, partly contradicting stories. According to a story by Tabari , which was not written down until centuries after the fall of the Sassanids, Sassan was the father of Papak , the father of Ardashir I , and head of the fire temple in Istachr (Tabari I 814). According to the Karnamak-i Ardashir ( Ardashir's Book of Deeds), a later Middle Persian work, Sassan was Papak's father-in-law. According to another version, Sassan was a shepherd; Papak was told that Sassan's son would one day become a powerful ruler, so he gave him his daughter to be his wife. The reconstruction of the early Sassanids is problematic because they are silent about the family relationship between Sassan and Papak: In the well-known inscription of Naqsch-e Rostam from the time of Shapur I , the son of Ardashir, the ancestors of the Sassanids are listed, where Papak is named as the father of Ardashir, but the relationship to Sassan, also named there, is not discussed further.

It is only certain that the Sassanids did not regard Papak as their ancestor, but Sassan; but it is also possible that Sassan was perhaps just a legendary person to whom the Sassanids referred, similar to how the Achaemenids traced back to Achaimenes .

literature

• Richard N. Frye : The political history of Iran under the Sasanians , in: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran , Vol. 3, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 1983, pp. 116f., ISBN 0-521-24693-8 .