He overthrew the Parthian Empire in224 and crowned himself. At that time Parthian king Artabanus V was occupied with campaigns against Romans.
The Sassanid Empire was predominantly ethically Persian, and its social structure was designed to concentrate power based on ethnicity with a class system determined by birthright with a few rare exceptions.
Ardashir’s son Sharpur I expanded Persian territory but was stopped in 260 when he ventured too far into Anatolia.
In 244, King Sharpur attacks Rome. Many cities were founded by Sharpur settled in part of Christian emigrants from Roman territory. He resumed the military struggle with Rome with considerable success.
The next shahs lost territory to the Romans in the east and the Arabs in the south.
In 633, the Rashidun Caliphate attacked both the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Empire, and the following year Islamic forces invade Persia, Syria, Egypt and Byzantine territories. The advance of the Muslim Arabs was a fatal to the Sassanids as it was to the Byzantines. In 636, the Arabs capture Ctesiphon and the Sassanid Empire ends.
Persian Sasanian Empire
