Battle of Hormozdgan (224): Ardashir I Founds Sasanian Persia

The Battle of Hormozdgan was fought in AD 224, traditionally on 28 April, between Ardashir, a rebel ruler from the province of Persis in south-western Iran, and Artabanus IV, king of the Parthian Empire. Artabanus was killed and his army broken. The victory ended almost five centuries of Arsacid rule and founded the Sasanian Empire, which became Rome’s great rival in the East until the rise of Islam.

Background: a divided Parthian empire

The Parthian Arsacid dynasty had ruled Iran and Mesopotamia since the 3rd century BC (see Arsaces I and the Founding of the Parthian Empire). By the early 3rd century AD it was weakened. Roman armies had repeatedly invaded Mesopotamia, sacking the royal city of Ctesiphon in 165 and again in 198.

The dynasty was also divided. From around 213, two brothers, Vologases VI and Artabanus IV, fought over the throne. Artabanus gained control of most of the empire and even defeated a Roman army under the emperor Macrinus at Nisibis in 217. However, Vologases continued to strike coins in Mesopotamia, showing that Arsacid authority was split.

Many regions of the empire were run by local kings and powerful noble families who owed loyalty to the Arsacids but had their own armies. One of these sub-kingdoms was Persis (Pars, modern Fars), the ancient homeland of the Achaemenid Persians.

The rise of Ardashir

Ardashir was the son of Papak (Pabag), a local lord in Persis associated with the town of Istakhr, near the ruins of Persepolis. The family took its later name from Sasan, an ancestor whose role is told differently in different sources: some call him Papak’s father, others a more distant forebear.

Around the beginning of the 3rd century Papak overthrew the local ruler of Persis and took power. Ardashir, meanwhile, had become commander at Darabgerd in the south-east of the province. After Papak’s death and that of Ardashir’s elder brother Shapur, who died in an accident according to later tradition, Ardashir became the dominant ruler in Persis, probably around 211–222.

He then expanded rapidly. According to the Arab historian al-Tabari, who drew on Sasanian traditions, he conquered Kerman, Isfahan and Khuzestan and took Mesene (Characene) at the head of the Persian Gulf. He founded a new city, Ardashir-Khwarrah (“Glory of Ardashir”), in a valley in southern Persis, the site of modern Firuzabad.

Artabanus treated Ardashir as a rebellious vassal. Tabari’s account says the king ordered the ruler of Ahvaz to crush him, but that force was defeated. A direct confrontation became unavoidable.

The battle

Very little reliable detail survives about the battle itself. It took place on a plain called Hormozdgan. Its location is debated; suggestions include the area of Golpayegan in western Iran or a site in Khuzestan.

Tabari reports that Ardashir killed Artabanus with his own hand, and that his son Shapur killed Artabanus’s scribe or chief minister, named Dadbundad. These details come from Sasanian royal tradition, written down centuries later, and may be embellished.

The best evidence for how the Sasanians wanted the battle remembered is a large rock relief near Firuzabad. It shows three pairs of mounted warriors in combat. In the leading pair Ardashir unhorses Artabanus with his lance; behind him Shapur unhorses another Parthian, and a Sasanian noble overcomes a third. The scene celebrates the battle as a contest of heroic horsemen, a theme that runs through later Sasanian art.

Key people

• Ardashir I (reigned 224–c. 242): founder of the Sasanian Empire, who took the title “King of Kings of Iran”.
• Artabanus IV (died 224): the last major Arsacid king; some modern numbering calls him Artabanus V.
• Papak: father of Ardashir, a local ruler in Persis who began the family’s rise.
• Shapur I: son of Ardashir, who fought at Hormozdgan and later became one of the most powerful Sasanian kings.
• Vologases VI: Artabanus’s brother and rival, who kept a foothold in Mesopotamia into the 220s.

Consequences: a new empire

After Hormozdgan, Ardashir moved quickly to take over the Arsacid realm. He occupied Mesopotamia and was crowned at Ctesiphon, probably in 226, as “King of Kings”. His inscriptions call him “the Mazda-worshipping lord Ardashir, King of Kings of Iran”. The use of the name Iran (Eran) for the realm became a lasting feature of Sasanian ideology.

Not all of the old empire submitted at once. Members of the Arsacid family resisted for some years, and Arsacid princes continued to rule in Armenia. Ardashir also besieged the fortified city of Hatra in northern Mesopotamia without success; it fell to his son Shapur around 240–241.

Ardashir soon came into conflict with Rome. Between 230 and 232 he campaigned against the Roman east, and the emperor Severus Alexander led a counter-offensive. The result was roughly a stalemate, but it signalled that the new dynasty was more aggressive than the late Parthians. Under Shapur I the Sasanians went on to win great victories over Rome, culminating in the capture of the emperor Valerian at the Battle of Edessa in 260.

Legacy

The Sasanian Empire lasted until 651, when its last king, Yazdegerd III, was killed during the Arab Muslim conquest that followed the Battle of Nahavand. For more than four centuries it was one of the great powers of the world, a centre of Zoroastrian religion, Persian art and long-distance trade.

The Sasanians presented themselves as restorers of ancient Iranian kingship, linking themselves to the land of Persis and its Achaemenid past. Their rock reliefs, many carved near older Achaemenid monuments, reinforced this message. At Naqsh-e Rostam, close to the tombs of Darius the Great and his successors, Ardashir had himself shown receiving the ring of kingship from the god Ahura Mazda, with the fallen Artabanus beneath the hooves of his horse.

Ardashir’s story also became legend. A Middle Persian romance, the Karnamag i Ardashir i Pabagan (Book of the Deeds of Ardashir, Son of Papak), and later the Persian epic Shahnameh by Ferdowsi turned his rise into a tale of destiny, flight and triumph. These works are valuable as literature but cannot be taken as reliable history.

Myths and facts

Myth: Hormozdgan was a clash between Persians and foreign Parthians. Both sides were Iranian, and many Parthian noble families, such as the Suren and Karen, joined the Sasanians and kept their power under the new dynasty.

Fact: the exact date is a later tradition. The day of 28 April 224 comes from reconstructions based on later Iranian sources. The year 224 is widely accepted, but the precise date is uncertain.

Timeline

• c. 205–210: Papak takes power in Persis.
• c. 213: Civil war between Vologases VI and Artabanus IV divides the Parthian empire.
• 217: Artabanus IV defeats the Romans under Macrinus at Nisibis.
• Early 220s: Ardashir, now ruler of Persis, conquers Kerman, Isfahan, Khuzestan and Mesene.
• 224, April: Battle of Hormozdgan; Artabanus IV is killed.
• c. 226: Ardashir is crowned King of Kings at Ctesiphon.
• 230–232: War between Ardashir and the Roman emperor Severus Alexander.
• c. 240–242: Death of Ardashir; Shapur I succeeds.

Why it matters

Hormozdgan replaced one Iranian dynasty with another, but the change was profound. The Sasanians built a more centralised and ideologically assertive state that challenged Rome and Byzantium for four centuries and left a deep mark on Persian culture, religion and art.