Azarmidokht was the twenty-seventh
SassanidThe Sassanid Empire or Sasanian Empire, known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr, was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty who reigned from 224 to 651 CE...
Monarch of Persia, and daughter of
Khosrau II250px|thumb|Khosrau II was the twenty-second Sassanid King of Persia, reigning from 590 to 628...
. She ruled Persia after her sister Purandokht.
After the death of her father Khosrau II
anarchyAnarchy may refer to any of the following:* "No rulership or enforced authority." * "Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder."...
spread in the Sassanid empire. The subsequent rulers could stay for only a relatively brief time on the throne, and for many we do not know much more than the name. Furthermore, tradition from then is very unreliable and sometimes contradictory, so that the reign of Azarmedukht is not accurately dated.
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Azarmidokht was the twenty-seventh
SassanidThe Sassanid Empire or Sasanian Empire, known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr, was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty who reigned from 224 to 651 CE...
Monarch of Persia, and daughter of
Khosrau II250px|thumb|Khosrau II was the twenty-second Sassanid King of Persia, reigning from 590 to 628...
. She ruled Persia after her sister Purandokht.
After the death of her father Khosrau II
anarchyAnarchy may refer to any of the following:* "No rulership or enforced authority." * "Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder."...
spread in the Sassanid empire. The subsequent rulers could stay for only a relatively brief time on the throne, and for many we do not know much more than the name. Furthermore, tradition from then is very unreliable and sometimes contradictory, so that the reign of Azarmedukht is not accurately dated. Because a female succession in the Persian Empire was not foreseen, she might also have acted as a
regentA regent, from the Latin regens "reigning", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Thus, the common use is for an acting deputy governor....
.
According to Tabari, her reign lasted a few months in the year 630; although that contradicts the notion that her sister Boran, whom she apparently succeeded, didn't die before 631. They probably reigned only a few months, but probably in the 631/632 period. Tabari reported further that General Farrukh propposed to marry Azarmidokht. The queen, however, had him murdered; and the son of the General captured
CtesiphonCtesiphon, the imperial capital of the Arsacids and of the Sassanids, was one of the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia.The ruins of the city are located on the east bank of the Tigris, across the river from the Hellenistic city of Seleucia. Today, the remains of both cities lie in Iraq,...
and had Azarmidokht blinded and then killed. According to Tabari, it is this son
Rostam FarrokhzādRostam Farrokhzād was the Ērān Spāhbod of the Sāsānian Empire under the reign of Yazdgird, r. 632 - 651...
, subsequently a General under Yazdegerd III, who lost battle for the Arabs.
In short intervals Hormizd V and Khosrau IV followed her on the throne. Only under King Yazdegerd III, the last male offspring of the ruling family, could the situation of the kingdom be stabilized briefly before the Arab attacks in 636.
Further reading
- John Martindale:The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire IIIa. Cambridge, 1992, p. 160
- Antonio Panaino:Women and Kingship. Some remarks about the enthronisation Boran of Queen and her sister Azarmigduxt. In: Josef Wiesehöfer
Josef Wiesehöfer is a German classical scholar and current professor of Ancient history at the Department of Classics of the University of Kiel...
, Philip Huyse (eds):Eran ud Aneran. Studien zu den Beziehungen zwischen dem Sasanidenreich und der Mittelmeerwelt. Stuttgart 2006, p. 221-240.