Sasanian Persia

Reviewed by: Imran H Khan Suddahazai – The One Institute, UK

Published by: London: I.B. Tauris, 2023, 256pp. ISBN: 978-0755618415.

This is a highly engaging contribution that attempts and succeeds to provide a comprehensive overarching perspective of the Sasanian empire (224–651 C.E.). Daryaee qualifies his research through a sound methodological approach, whereby the strength of his scholarship is demonstrated through a technical linguistic appreciation of the classical languages, literature, and artefacts. Although he is humble enough to concede that his knowledge of classical Greek and Latin are not as proficient as his grasp of classical Persian, nevertheless he is able to access both Roman and Greek sources to demonstrate their hostility and animosity towards Persia. He argues poignantly and pertinently that in the 3rd century “[t]he Romans from Rome have ended up in Mesopotamia (from one continent to another), but raise the alarm of the ‘Persian or Iranian threat,’ something that we see also in the contemporary American empire... These sources supposed that the Iranians should fold and just give in on their own sovereignty and leave the workings of their region to the other empire, because might makes it right.”

He argues appropriately that this trend has continued into the contemporary era and thus justifies the desperate requirement for this research not only as a response to western imperialism but as an insight into an empire that eventually “...established the first post-Hellenic civilization on an imperial scale in the Near East”.