Successors to the Parthians and the last pre-Islamic Iranian dynasty to rule over a large part of western Asia. Considered one of the most powerful and famous Persian dynasties, their reign from 224 to 651 AD would lay the cultural foundations of what became modern Iran.
The dynasty was founded by a rebel governor named Artaxerxes when he defeated the last Parthian king, Arsacid Artabanus V in 224 and the capture of Ctesiphon, the Parthian capital in 226. The kingdoms of Punjab and Kabul in the east quickly submitted to his overlordship, but Artaxerxes had to fight, with not a few successes, Rome and Armenia in the west.
Thirty-four Sassanid kings ruled Persia over that next four hundred years, during which its expansion brought it often into conflict with the Byzantine Empire in the west. Despite all its cultural and national accomplishments, the empire was beginning to collapse by the early 7th Cent. In the four years prior to the enthronement of the last Sassanid king, Yazdadjird III, more than ten persons had taken power and claimed to be king. Yazdadjird's position was further weakened by incursions of Islamic forces from the south-west where many of its governors, promised "equality" and "justice" by the Muslims, converted to the new religion. Yazdadjird died in 652, his son forced to take refuge in Tang dynasty China.
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