Yazdegerd II.

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Yazdegerd II coin

Yazdegerd II ( Persian یزدگرد Yazdgerd [ jæzdgʲerd ]) († 457 ) ruled from 438 or 439 to 457 as Great King from the family of Sassaniden the late antique Iran .

Yazdegerd was the son of his predecessor Bahram V. His reign was marked by constant military conflicts: Right at the beginning of his rule, fighting broke out with the Eastern Roman Empire in 440/41 . The war, the cause of which is unclear (Emperor Theodosius II had probably stopped the agreed payments to the Persians in 422) and which was probably intended primarily as a demonstration of power by the new king, was ended after a few weeks. The Romans seem to have bought peace with tributes .

During his reign, however, Yazdgerd was also constantly tied to the north-eastern border of the empire, where his father Bahram had already undertaken campaigns. There was repeated fighting with hostile groups there. In some sources they are referred to as Kushana , but apparently they were the Kidarites , a group of the so-called Iranian Huns , to whom Yazdegerd refused to pay tribute. The historian Priskos reports of repeated battles by the Persians on the border against the Kidarites. Yazdgerd resided in Gorgan and Nischapur for several years , where he tried to stabilize the situation and had fortifications built. In constant defensive battles the king was able to secure the north-eastern border with great difficulty and only temporarily; the situation there remained precarious even among his successors.

The old Mihr-Narseh , who had previously acted as an important advisor and who, as Wuzurg-Framadar, was subordinate to the royal administration , remained influential at Yazdgerd . Domestically, Yazdegerd ordered locally limited persecution of Christians ; apparently he had succumbed to the pressure of his Zoroastrian priests (or from Mihr-Narseh), but political motives could have been decisive. Forced missions were intended to tie areas on the periphery of the empire more closely to Persia, especially since the king was also very religious personally. The representations of these persecutions in the Christian and Jewish chronicles - 153,000 Assyrian Christians are said to have been killed in Kirkuk alone - are now considered distorted and far exaggerated. Mihr-Narseh seems to have called for tough crackdown on rebellious nobles in Armenia; but religious reasons may also have played a role. In any case, this led to an uprising in the predominantly Christian Persarmenia in 449/50 , but this was suppressed in 451. The Romans, who had called on the Armenians for help in the name of Christianity, had not intervened.

Yazdegerd was the first Sassanid king to have the titulature of Kay minted on coins, thus establishing a connection to the mythical Kayanid dynasty of early Iranian times. After his death, his eldest son Hormizd followed him as Hormizd III. after, which was soon to be embroiled in a civil war.

literature

  • Touraj Daryaee: Yazdgerd II . In: Encyclopædia Iranica Online
  • Nikolaus Schindel: Yazdgerd II. In: Nikolaus Schindel (Ed.): Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum . Vol. 3/1 (text volume). Vienna 2004, p. 368ff.
  • Klaus Schippmann : Basic features of the history of the Sassanid Empire. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1990, ISBN 3-534-07826-8 .

Remarks

  1. ^ Geoffrey B. Greatrex : The two fifth-century wars between Rome and Persia . In: Florilegium 12, 1993, pp. 1-14.
  2. ^ 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. 679f.
  3. ↑ See Daniel T. Potts: Nomadism in Iran. From Antiquity to the Modern Era. Oxford et al. a. 2014, p. 136 and p. 138.
  4. ^ Daniel T. Potts: Nomadism in Iran. From Antiquity to the Modern Era. Oxford et al. a. 2014, p. 136.
  5. ↑ Nikolaus Schindel: Yazdgerd II. In: Nikolaus Schindel (Ed.): Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum . Vol. 3/1 (text volume). Vienna 2004, p. 385f.
  6. ↑ Nikolaus Schindel: Yazdgerd II. In: Nikolaus Schindel (Ed.): Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum . Vol. 3/1 (text volume). Vienna 2004, p. 384.
  7. ↑ So among other things Touraj Daryaee: Yazdgerd II . In: Encyclopædia Iranica Online .
  8. ↑ Touraj Daryaee: Sasanian Iran 224-651 CE. Portrait of a Late Antique Empire. Costa Mesa (Calif.) 2008, p. 63.
predecessor Office successor
Bahram V. King of the New Persian Empire
438–457 		Hormizd III.
personal data
SURNAME Yazdegerd II.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES یزدگرد (Persian); Yazdgerd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Great King of the Sassanid Empire (439–457)
DATE OF BIRTH 5th century
DATE OF DEATH 457