Hormizd I and Bahram I

Hormizd I and Bahram I were two sons of Shapur I who ruled the Sasanian Empire one after the other for about four years, from around 270 to 274 CE. Their reigns were short, but they decided two things that shaped the next generation: the rise of the priest Kartir to power at court, and the arrest and death of the prophet Mani.

Shapur’s sons and their provinces

Shapur I ruled for about thirty years and gave his sons kingdoms of their own inside the empire. His great inscription on the Ka’ba-ye Zartosht at Naqsh-e Rostam lists them. Hormizd, called Hormizd-Ardashir, was “great king of Armenia”, a post that seems to have marked the heir. Bahram ruled Gilan, the wet green country on the south-west shore of the Caspian. Narseh, the youngest of the three who matter here, was “king of the Sakas” in Sistan and the east. The inscription is discussed on the page on the Ka’ba-ye Zartosht inscription of Shapur I.

Ranking among the sons depended partly on their mothers. Bahram was the eldest, but his mother seems to have been a lesser wife, and in the inscription he stands below his younger brothers. When Shapur died, probably at Bishapur around 270, the throne went to Hormizd.

Hormizd I: a year on the throne

Hormizd reigned for roughly a year, and almost nothing about his deeds is securely dated. Three things are known with some confidence.

First, he founded or renamed a city in Khuzestan, Ram-Hormizd-Ardashir, “the peace of Hormizd-Ardashir”. The town survives as Ramhormoz (رامهرمز), and local tradition says the king was buried there.

Second, he made the coinage formula “king of kings of Iran and non-Iran” (Middle Persian shahan shah Eran ud Aneran) the standard royal title on coins. Shapur had used it in inscriptions. Hormizd’s coins also show a new reverse, with two figures at the fire altar, one of them a god.

Third, he honoured the priest Kartir. In his own inscriptions Kartir says that Hormizd gave him the cap and belt of high rank and the title “mowbed of Ohrmazd”, chief priest of the god. This was the first step in a career that would make Kartir the most powerful churchman in Sasanian history. Yet Hormizd also let Mani go on preaching. Like his father, he seems to have kept the competing religions in balance rather than choose one.

Bahram I and the turn against Mani

Hormizd’s death around 271 opened a contest. Bahram, the passed-over elder brother, took the throne, and modern historians generally think Kartir and his party helped him to it. Narseh, who had a strong claim and who later called Bahram’s line usurpers, was compensated with Armenia. That settlement held for twenty years, until Narseh overturned it in 293.

The best-known event of the reign is the fall of Mani. The prophet, who had travelled with Shapur’s court and enjoyed his protection, was summoned before Bahram, accused of leading people away from the religion of the Magi, and put in chains. Manichaean texts say he died after 26 days in prison at Bet Lapat, the city better known as Gondishapur. His followers called it his crucifixion. The date is disputed: some scholars put it in 274, others in 276 or 277. Manichaean writers blamed Kartir above all, and Kartir himself later listed the Manichaeans (zandik) among the faiths that were “struck” in the empire. The full story is told on the page on Mani and Manichaeism.

It is easy to read the reign only through Mani’s eyes. Bahram may have had political reasons too: a priesthood loyal to him was a counterweight to brothers and nobles who doubted his right to rule.

A relief that changed its name

Bahram I left one great monument. In the gorge at Bishapur, on the Shapur river, he had himself carved on horseback receiving the ring of kingship from the god Ohrmazd, who rides towards him on another horse. It is among the finest Sasanian reliefs, with deep carving and flowing ribbons.

When Narseh finally won the throne, he had the Middle Persian label beside the king changed, so that it named him instead of Bahram. The figure stayed the same; only the words were altered. It is a small, telling act: Narseh treated the reign of Bahram and his son as an interruption of the proper order. See Bishapur: Shapur’s City for the other reliefs in the gorge.

Rome and the west

These years were turbulent on the western frontier, but Persia played little visible part. The Palmyrene state of Zenobia, which had grown strong by fighting Shapur, was destroyed by the emperor Aurelian in 272–273. The Greek historian Zosimus says Zenobia was captured as she tried to cross the Euphrates to seek help from the Persians. No Persian army is known to have intervened. With princes at odds over the succession, the court had reason to avoid a war.

How historians see the two reigns

Later Arabic and Persian histories, which depend on the lost Sasanian royal chronicle, say little about either king. Al-Tabari gives Hormizd a short and favourable notice and repeats the story of Mani’s death under Bahram. For modern historians the period matters as a turning point in religious policy. Under Shapur the court protected several faiths. Under Bahram I and his son Bahram II, the Zoroastrian priesthood led by Kartir gained office, property and the power to judge.

Bahram I died around 274 and was succeeded by his son, Bahram II, in whose long reign Kartir reached the height of his power. That story continues on the page on Kartir and the Zoroastrian Church, while Narseh’s revenge is told in Narseh and the Peace of Nisibis.