Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

HISTORY OF PERSIA. 157
reign of Ardashfr (sometimes called Babekrfn) was
brilliant and successful. He was able to unite and
to consolidate the various fragments of his empire ; to
contend with varying success against the Romans
under Severus Alexander and to establish in its purity
Zoroastrianism in opposition to the nature worship
of the Arsacides 1
. The coins of the Sassanian
dynasty, which abound, completely confirm the testimony
of history. On all of them, we find the symbols
of fire worship, the altar and its attendant priests,
their legends being no longer in Greek, as those of
the Arsacidae, but in the ancient language of Persia.
Ardashir was succeeded by his son, Shahpur I (A.D.
240), who worthily carried out his father's schemes.
After a brief war with an Arabian chief who had, dur-
ing his absence in Khorassan, seized Jezireh (Mesopotamia),
and fortified himself in the fortress of Al Hathr
(Hatra), which had, as we have seen, already successfully
defied the arms of Trajan and Severus, he passed on to
Nisibis, carrying terror and devastation into the Roman
provinces on the Euphrates and Tigris. The siege of
Nisibis was long and tedious, but, at length, according
to Persian writers, Heaven heard the prayers of their
devout emperor, and the walls of the city, like those of
Jericho, yielded to religious influence what they had
refused to military genius. Pursuing his conquests,
Carrhae fell before his victorious arms, and, shortly
afterwards, in a great battle between him and the
1 Gibbon has further stated (though he does not quote his authority)
that Ardashir was recognized in a solemn assembly at Balkh. If
so, he must have subdued Bactria, but strictly speaking, this province
was not absorbed into Persia till the reign of Julian, 130 yean
later.