Shapur I

Manichean texts describe him traveling all over Mesopotamia, Iran, and even sailing as far as India to the mouth of the Indus River.

Mani apparently gathered followers and friends in high places, as seen in his relationship with the great Sasanian king, Shapur I. Manichean literature says that Mani's public mission coincided with the coronation of Shapur, and later describes him gaining imperial support from Persian royalty.

He even wrote a Middle Persian book for the king, in which he lays out his teachings.

Ultimately, Mani's message and growing popularity led to animosity with one of the court priests, who managed to get Mani imprisoned and executed around the age of 60.

Like, what the hell is, how is this even happening? What the hell is happening? This is what Mohsen Rezaei, the main advisor to Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, here's what he says.

"When after defeat and humiliation at the hands of Iran, they head to Athens to craft a narrative of a civilization war, it would be better if they also read another crucial chapter of history, the place where the Roman emperor knelt before Shapur.

Whoever brings history into the fray must be prepared for its repetition as well." And then you also have MB Ghalebbaf, Iran's lead civilian negotiator and parliament leader says, "Throughout history, we Iranians have faced those who declare themselves masters of the universe and sought to erase ancient civilizations.

They came in fire and flame only to depart in dust and shame.

Mani is a historical prophet from, I think, modern-day Iraq was where he was born, and he did most of his preaching during the very early Sasanian period.

There was a king named Shapur, and Mani wrote a book called The Shabu Raghon for the king, where he explained how the world was created and how this and that was gonna happen.

Mani is preaching a brand-new religion.

Once Mani had gone into the court-- So we actually have a great text about this.

So the idea is that Mani positioned himself as fulfilling as many religions as he could find.

So he wouldn't really be a renegade Zoroastrian, but they sort of saw him that way, as someone who was a heretic.

After Mani, like, went to the king and gave him this book, this was Shapur.

Shapur's son did not like him.

But then the Sassanid Persians start to become pretty strong.

And they're run by this guy named Shapur I.

And he's much more military than his father.

He's much more powerful than his father.

And he decides he's going to start encroaching on Roman land.

So then Valerian actually leads a Roman army against Shapur I, and he loses to the point that he's actually captured and then used as a footstool by Shapur for the rest of his life.

There's actually a statue of this in Tehran showing Shapur with his foot on the back of this Roman emperor, which I think modernly it's supposed to be like, we have our foot on the West.

The thing that happens after this is you have the emperor Gallienus, that's his son, that actually can't go get him back.

This gave him authority over Roman governors and military forces in Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, which Odonathus used to great effect to help push the Persians out of the eastern provinces, recapturing Roman fortresses of Carhi and Nisibis.

In a brazen move showing his ambitions, he had declared himself King of Kings, a challenge to the imperial claims of Shapur I of Persia.

In 262 and 266 he twice invaded Persian-held Lower Mesopotamia, reaching as far as the Persian capital Ctesiphon on both occasions, but was unable to take the city.

In 267, on the Emperor's orders, he also campaigned against Gothic and Herulian raiders in Asia Minor.

The war had been won.

Aurelian now faced the difficult task of restructuring the eastern frontier, which had fallen into disarray during the war with Palmyra.

The Persians would have surely sought to capitalize on the crisis Rome was facing, but they faced their own internal problems following the death of Shapur I in 270 AD.

Needless to say, the Persians were now anxious to avoid a full-scale war with the victorious Aurelian.

Uh, there's a hahik yorta, a certain convert that is in the era of Shmuel.

This was probably during the reign of the famous King Shapur I, also known as Shvur Malka in much of the text.

Uh, and he was a king that appears actually with some frequency in the Talmud, uh, and he had a, uh, relatively expansive policy with regards non-Zoroastrians in his empire.

Uh, he wanted to be as inclusive as possible as the empire was expanding.

But during this time, there was, um, more tolerance and acceptance of the idea of converting to Judaism.

Very brief-lived period.

It would ironically also be present in the era of a successor, not an immediate successor, but Shapur II with the same name that was associated especially with Rava and the town of Mechoza.

So, uh, the first reference that we have today refers to this hahik yorta, the fact that there was such a convert in the era of Shmuel, which is, uh, in itself interesting.

One emperor is killed, another one is captured.

actually humiliated by the Persian king of kings, Shapur I.

And there's a huge rock relief, which portrays the Roman emperor bowing down in chains before the Persian shah and shah.

So this is the kind of level of pushback that we get from Persia in the third century.