43 Facts About Khosrow II

Khosrow II, commonly known as Khosrow Parviz, is considered to be the last great Sasanian King of Kings of Iran, ruling from 590 to 628, with an interruption of one year.

Khosrow II was the last king of Iran to have a lengthy reign before the Muslim conquest of Iran, which began five years after his execution.

Khosrow II lost his throne, then recovered it with the help of the Byzantine emperor Maurice, and, a decade later, went on to emulate the feats of the Achaemenids, conquering the rich Roman provinces of the Middle East; much of his reign was spent in wars with the Byzantine Empire and struggling against usurpers such as Bahram Chobin and Vistahm.

Khosrow II began a war against the Byzantines in 602, ostensibly to avenge the murder of his ally Maurice.

Dissatisfied with the war, the feudal families of the empire supported a coup in which Khosrow II was deposed and killed by his estranged son Sheroe, who took power as Kavad II.

Khosrow II is first mentioned in the 580s, when he was at Partaw, the capital of Caucasian Albania.

Furthermore, Khosrow II served as the governor of Arbela in Mesopotamia sometime before his accession to the throne.

Khosrow II then appointed a new governor for Khorasan, and afterwards set out for the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon.

Khosrow II started minting coins, where he is on the front imitated as an exalted figure, bearded and wearing a crenellation-shaped crown with two crescents of the moon, whilst the reverse shows the traditional fire altar flanked by two attendants.

Khosrow II then sent a message to Maurice, and requested his help to regain the Sasanian throne, which the Byzantine emperor agreed with; in return, the Byzantines would re-gain sovereignty over the cities of Amida, Carrhae, Dara and Martyropolis.

In 591, Khosrow II moved to Constantia and prepared to invade Bahram Chobin's territories in Mesopotamia, while Vistahm and Vinduyih were raising an army in Adurbadagan under the observation of the Byzantine commander John Mystacon, who was raising an army in Armenia.

Shortly after this, Khosrow II sent one of his Iranian supporters, Mahbodh, to capture Ctesiphon, which he managed to accomplish.

Khosrow II had a church and monastery constructed near the palace in Ctesiphon, which was used to receive a portion of the treasury for the wages of the clergy and their vestments.

Soon Khosrow II changed his intentions: trying to disassociate himself from his father's murder, he decided to execute his uncles.

Finally, Khosrow II called upon the services of the Armenian Smbat Bagratuni, who engaged Vistahm near Qumis.

In 600, Khosrow II executed Al-Nu'man III, King of the Lakhmids of Al-Hira, presumably because of the Arab king's refusal to give him his daughter al-Hurqah in marriage and insulting Persian women.

Toward the beginning of his reign, Khosrow II had good relations with the Byzantines.

However, when in 602 Emperor Maurice was murdered by his General Phocas, who usurped the Roman throne, Khosrow II launched an offensive against Constantinople: ostensibly to avenge Maurice's death, but his aim clearly included the annexation of as much Byzantine territory as was feasible.

Khosrow II then tried to negotiate peace with Khosrow II by sending diplomats to his court.

Khosrow II [Khosrow] ordered that a huge elephant be adorned and brought to the chamber.

Khosrow II wrote [to Smbat] a hrovartak [expressing] great satisfaction and summoned him to court with great honor and pomp.

Khosrow II fled from his favorite residence, Dastagird, without offering resistance.

The overthrow and death of Khosrow II culminated in a chaotic civil war, with the most powerful members of the nobility gaining full autonomy and starting to create their own government.

Khosrow II, like all other Sasanian rulers, was an adherent of Zoroastrianism.

Khosrow II favored the Monophysites, and ordered all his subjects to adhere to Monophysitism, perhaps under the influence of Shirin and the royal physician Gabriel of Sinjar, who both supported this faith.

Khosrow II's great tolerance to Christianity and friendship with the Christian Byzantines even made some Armenian writers think that Khosrow II was a Christian.

Smbat IV Bagratuni likewise led an illustrious career under Khosrow II, rising to the office of frontier commander of Gurgan, possibly the most vital and contested area of the Sasanian realm.

Khosrow II paid attention to the Zoroastrians, and had various fire temples constructed.

Khosrow II's reign was considered a golden age in music.

Khosrow II restored the practice of erecting rock reliefs, after an absence of nearly three centuries, the last one being erected under Shapur III.

At Taq-e Bostan, Khosrow II mimicked and magnified the rock relief of Shapur III.

Khosrow II's relief, known as the "Great Ayvan", is in a barrel vault carved in a cliff.

Khosrow II combined this together with the word abzot, making the full inscription thus read as: "Khosrow, he has increased the royal splendor".

Islamic tradition tells a story in which Khosrow II was a Persian king to whom Muhammad had sent a messenger, Abdullah ibn Hudhafah as-Sahmi, along with a letter in which Khosrow was asked to preach the religion of Islam.

Islamic tradition further states that Khosrow II tore up Muhammad's letter saying, "A pitiful slave among my subjects dares write his name before mine" and commanded Badhan, his vassal ruler of Yemen, to dispatch two valiant men to identify, seize and bring this man from Hijaz to him.

The battles between Heraclius and Khosrow II are depicted in a famous early Renaissance fresco by Piero della Francesca, part of the History of the True Cross cycle in the church of San Francesco, Arezzo.

Khosrow II was the son of Hormizd IV and an unnamed Ispahbudhan noblewoman who was the sister of Vistahm and Vinduyih.

Khosrow II had two cousins from the Ispahbudhan family who were named Mah-Adhur Gushnasp and Narsi.

Khosrow II had a brother-in-law named Hormuzan, a Sasanian nobleman from one of the seven Parthian clans, who later fought against the Arabs during the Muslim invasion of Persia.

Khosrow II bore Khosrow a son, Mardanshah, and unsuccessfully tried to secure the succession for him.

The 9th-century historian Dinawari claims that Khosrow II married Gordiya, the sister of Bahram Chobin, after the latter's death, and that Gordiya bore him a son named Javanshir.

Khosrow II had a sister who was married to the Sasanian spahbed Shahrbaraz and bore him Shapur-i Shahrvaraz.

Khosrow II was called Mihran because she had married into the House of Mihran.