Sassanid rupture and renovation

Upon overthrowing the Arsacids, the Sassanids quickly and dramatically reshaped Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau to bring it into accord with their new imperial vision. They established new regional settlements that controlled their surrounding agricultural hinterlands militarily and economically while expanding and restructuring the imperial cities of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.

Their new cities brought new areas into prominence and rendered other cities and ceremonial centers obsolete, as well as the trade networks that had depended on them. Cities played an integral role in building the empire of the Iranians not only materially but conceptually. We want to talk about the impact of Sassanid cities on their surrounding landscapes and the methods by which the Sassanids integrated one with the other. In this regard we focus especially on the Sassanids’ use of rock reliefs to recode the significances of the empire’s landscapes, be they natural features in remote locations, or those constellated around their new cities.

These inscribed and sculpted landscapes not only enveloped Sassanid cities but, through epigraphic, visual, thematic, and odontic correspondences, integrated them with the surrounding environment. In linking the artistic and monumental elements that articulated their cities with related architectural and rock-cut features seeded throughout the landscape, the dynasty articulated a larger sense of imperial space. They extended the microcosmic symbolism of the city into the macrocosm of the empire, ensuring that one reinforced and was continuous with the other.

In many ways, the Sassanids’ campaign of city foundation and their efforts to dismantle, sideline, and supersede the urban and environmental underpinnings of the former Arsacid Empire paralleled the Seleucids’ dismemberment of the Achaemenid Empire, as do many of its effects.

However, in addition to using the tried and true Seleucid techniques of expanding or sidelining previous foundations, the Sassanids radically transformed or outright obliterated many significant settlements. For example, the Sassanids destroyed the vibrant trading city of Hatra. Similarly, they ended Susa’s long tenure as a semi-independent city-state, shifting population and political importance to their new foundations located elsewhere on the Susa Plain.

Through more subtle shifts in local or regional settlement patterns, the former Seleucid and Arsacid metropolises of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris and Babylon all ceased to be living cities. Emptied of its population, Babylon and its walls were eventually converted into an extensive royal game park. Khuzestan and the “land behind Ctesiphon,” on the other hand, expanded exponentially and became the early Sassanid kings’ primary source of agricultural revenue.

With shifts in the empire’s frontiers and military interests, fortress cities like Neyshabur grew along the eastern frontier, and long-derelict ancient sites in northern Mesopotamia such as Nineveh, enjoyed renewed importance as Sassanid settlements.

 

The above is a lightly edited version of part of chapter entitled, ‘Sassanid Rupture and Renovation’, from a book entitled, ‘The Iranian Expanse’, written by Matthew P. Canepa, published by the University of California Press.