Sources

A variety of source material makes it possible to reconstruct Roman-Sasanian relations in Late Antiquity (Christensen 1944: 50-83; Frye 1984: 287-91; Schippmann 1990: 3-9; Wiesehofer 2001: 153-64). But most of these sources are not without their problems: they are written from a specific perspective and unevenly distributed over the period. First of all, there are the Greco-Roman historiographic sources, foremost among them the works of Cassius Dio, Herodian, Ammianus Marcellinus, Procopius, and Agathias. These authors concentrate in particular on Roman-Persian warfare, and describe it almost exclusively from the Roman point of view. They tell us little, for instance, about Sasanian institutions and state structure. Historiographic sources of this kind are not available on the Sasanian side. The written materials we have are the impressive royal inscriptions such as the Res gestae divi Saporis in Naqsh-i Rustam (Huyse 1999). These inscriptions boast of accomplishments and victories of the Persian rulers Ardashir (ad 224-40), Shapur I (ad 240-72), and Narses (ad 293302) and are very much of a propagandistic nature, but they also provide information on matters like the social and administrative structure of the Sasanian state. Unfortunately, these inscriptions are available only for the third century ad and have no analogues in later centuries. Other written sources for the history of the Sasanid Empire and its relations with Rome are the Syriac chronicles, the Armenian historians (e. g., Moses of Chorene) - Armenia had always had close connections with Persia as well as with Rome - and Arabic historians, foremost among them al-Tabari. Apart from religious texts, such as the Avesta - of which the earliest manuscript dates only from the thirteenth century - many texts written in Middle Persian on a variety of subjects, such as history, geography, didactics, astronomy, law, and etiquette, as well as novels and romances have been lost; only a fraction has been preserved in Arabic and New Persian translations. Most interesting for Roman-Persian relations is the Christian tradition. Martyr acts, chronicles, church histories, synodal decrees, and other sources inform us about the vicissitudes of the Christian communities in the Sasanid Empire: the persecutions, but also the relatively good relations with the authorities - in particular in the second half of the Sasanian period - as well as the many contacts with fellow believers in the Roman Empire. Manichaean texts are similar in kind. There is also other important material evidence: Sasanian rock reliefs; the architectural remains of cities, royal palaces, bridges, and Zoroastrian fire-temples, as well as seals, coins, and silver plates with royal (hunting) scenes (Ghirshman 1962). The Book of Lords, a kind of Iranian national history, holds a special place among the Sasanian sources (Yarshater 1983b). Compiled in the first half of the seventh century ad, it is mostly based on oral, legendary traditions and presents the Sasanian version of Iranian history.