Papak Sassanid King of Persis [60586]

  General Notes:

http://www.rpi.edu/~holmes/Hobbies/Genealogy/ps31/ps31_279.htm


Most scholars have assumed, following the Arabic history by Tabari, that Sasan was the grandfather and Papak the father of Ardashir, founder of the Sasanian dynasty. The trilingual inscription (Greek, Parthian, and Middle Persian) of Shapur I on the Ka'ba-yi Zardusht at Naqsh-i Rustam, however, does not say that Sasan was the father of Papak.In an ascending order of importance, Sasan is merely designated as a lord, while Papak is a king. Ardashir, his son, is called king of kings of Iran, while Shapur, son of Ardashir, is called king of kings of Iran and non-Iran. There is another version of the lineage of Ardashir found in a story in the Middle Persian book, the Kar-namag or "Book of Deeds of Ardashir son of Papak". The same version is also given by Firdausi in his epic the Shah-nama and appears to be the basis of a sucrrilous Greek adaption of the tale recorded by Agathias, a sixth-century Byzantine author. This story tells how Sasan was married to the daughter of a local prince Papak after the latter learned that Sasan had royal Achaemenian blood in him. From this union Ardashir was born. Then Sasan vanishes from the story and Papak is considered the father of Ardashir. This corresponds to the inscription and other later Arabic and New Persian sources. The problem is, who was Sasan?

One should note that Shapur's inscription does not give us the answer and for lack of another course, one may choose between the version of the epic, and the statement of Tabari that Sasan was the father of Papak. Tabari's account, however, is suspect, since he reports a lengthy genealogy of Ardashir tracing it back to mythical, heroic kings of ancient Iran. It is more likely that Sasan was a remote ancestor of Ardashir whose name was given to the dynasty as Achaemenes was f or the Achaemenids. Most plausible, however, is the epic version which may have the following interpretation: Sasan was the natural father of Ardashir, but he died shortly after the birth of his son whereupon, according to current Zoroastrian practice, Papak adopted Ardashir as his own son; or the adoption may have occurred after a certain Shapur, Papak's son, was killed.

In any case, King Papak probably united much of Fars under his sway during the hectic time of the Parthian sovereign Vologeses IV (192-207) when Septimius Severus invaded Mesopotamia and wrought havoc there. About the year 205 (or possibly 209 according to another reckoning), if we may accept this date from an inscription of Shapur on a pillar from his capital at Bishapur, which gives the date 58 with no indication of any era, something happend which started a Sasanian chronology. Because we have no sources, one can only guess at the event in Fars which led to this dating. Perhaps Papak overthrew a ruler of Stakhr at that time, or he may have decided to proclaim his independence of the Parthians at that date. Since the same inscription also mentions two other ways of dating, the fortieth year of the fire of Ardashir and the twenty-fourth year of the fire of Shapur, the conjecture that the year 58 had something to do with Papak, rather than with Ardashir's rise to the governorship of a city, or the like, is eminently plausible. The political interpretation is also more likely than any other, such as a religious act connected with the shrine dedicated to Anahita at Stakhr, with which the early Sasanians seem to have been closely connected. The custom of establishing a fire temple, at least kindling a new fire at the accession of a new ruler, may have existed in Parthian times. The fire of the Sasanian monarch was extenguished at the end of his reign, a symbolic as well as religious act. In any event, a Sasanian system of daing from the year of Papak did not spread; rather the old method of dating by the regnal years of a king, or the Seleucid calendar, beginning with the year 312 BC, became usual.

-The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3(1): The Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian Periods, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (NY: Cambridge UP, 1983), 116-118.

Papak married Rodak [60587] [MRIN: 551617009].