Download Persia Social Structures Tolerant of local customs. The Sassanid

Persia
Social
Structures
Tolerant of local customs.
The Sassanid empire had an autocratic emperor.
The Sassanid Empire also had a landed aristocracy that exploited farmers.
Culture
Lively artistic style.
The Parthian empire produced little original culture, they mostly relied on old
Persian beliefs.
Resurgence of arts in early Sassanid empire.
Religion
Zoroastrism was the main religion in early Persia.
Christianity began to spread to Persia during classical time partly through Rome.
Under the Sassanid empire Zoroastrism flourished.
Under the Sassanid empire there was lots of conversion to Christianity.
At the end of the classical era the main religion in the Middle East is Islam
Interactions
Several African-Eurasian trading routes in the classical age passed through Parthia
and Persia.
Christianity was in part brought by Roman missionaries.
The Parthian Empire took part of Alexander the Great's empire.
Parthian Empire took parts of Roman Mediterranean holdings.
Parthian and Sassanid empires served as bridges between Mediterranean and the east
in terms of ideas
and goods.
The Sassanids attempted to gain Roman land as Rome was declining.
Politics
Three different empires (Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanid).
Cyrus the great built the empire early on (550 BCE).
Persepolis was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire.
The Parthian empire had an effective bureaucracy.
The Parthian empire, in the post-classical era, expanded onto Roman holdings of the
Mediterranean and parts of north-western India.
In 227 CE a Persian rebellion displaced the Parthian empire, the Sassanid empire
rose to power.
The Sassanid Empire fell after the Arabs overthrew them in 7th century.
Technology
Economics
Demography
Advanced in ironworking
The Empire spread across northern middle east, into north-western India. The
Parthian empire was centered on the Tigris-Euphrates, but went all the way from the
Mediterranean to some parts of north-west India.