Shapur I: The Persian King Who Captured a Roman Emperor
HISTORY 360
M. Muñoz · AI-narrated by Madison (from Google)
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4 hr 13 min
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In 260 AD, a Persian king did something no other enemy of Rome ever managed: he defeated a reigning Roman emperor in battle and took him alive. Shapur I tells the story of the Sasanian ruler behind this extraordinary event, still commemorated today in a monumental rock relief at Naqsh-e Rostam showing him gripping the wrist of a kneeling Valerian. The book follows Shapur from his early campaigns alongside his father Ardashir, founder of the Sasanian dynasty, through his exploitation of Rome's chaotic third-century crisis, sacking the great eastern metropolis of Antioch before confronting Valerian's plague-weakened army near Edessa. It examines the disputed ancient accounts of exactly how the emperor was captured, and the lurid later Roman legend, almost certainly propaganda, that Shapur used him as a human footstool. The book also explores Shapur's surprisingly pragmatic religious policy, including his patronage of the controversial prophet Mani, his ambitious building program at the new city of Bishapur, built partly with Roman prisoners of war, and the rise of Palmyra under Zenobia as a third power that ultimately checked further Persian expansion. By focusing on a single dramatic reign rather than four centuries of empire, this book offers a fast-moving, character-driven entry point into the world of Sasanian Persia and the Roman disaster that made one Persian king famous for fifteen centuries and counting.
In 260 AD, a Persian king did something no other enemy of Rome ever managed: he defeated a reigning Roman emperor in battle and took him alive. Shapur I tells the story of the Sasanian ruler behind this extraordinary event, still commemorated today in a monumental rock relief at Naqsh-e Rostam sh...
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