Imperial Administration

We do not have detailed information about the structure of Parthian administra­tion, though a variety of documents provide us with scattered evidence of official titles. These reflect the fact that the empire itself grew from a conglomeration of different kingdoms, independent cities, and royal holdings.

Although often portrayed as a point of weakness, the decentralized nature of the Parthian Empire and relative independence of its kingdoms provided the em­pire sufficient flexibility and military power to challenge and hold back the Roman military at its height while simultaneously defending the empire from nomadic incursions from Central Asia. Ultimately, the internal forces of the powerful families and client kingdoms, rather than the external pressure of the Roman Empire, led to the downfall of the Arsacid Empire. The fact that the Sasanians were so quickly able to mount a challenge to the Romans attests that the power of the previous system was largely intact and that many of the wuzurgan simply switched sides to keep their lands and privileges intact. Indeed, much of the history of the Sasanian Empire was dominated by the early Sasanian kings of kings' attempts to impose greater and greater control over this decentralized structure, to find new fiscal and military re­sources independent of the wuzurgan, and to diminish their power.

Following quickly on their conquest of the Parthian Empire, the Sasanians began to consolidate power in the imperial court and to establish an administrative struc­ture that was beholden entirely to the king of kings. Eventually the Sasanian king in­tegrated, replaced, or rendered irrelevant all preexisting aristocratic hierarchies and political structures. While the Islamic sources and earlier streams of scholarship understood that the empire was thoroughly centralized almost immediately, a more nuanced reading of the evidence indicates that it unfolded in several stages and as a result of a number of different strategies and methods with constant resistance from those disenfranchised by the changes. Over the course of the third century, the Sasanian king of kings replaced the kings of important provinces with members of the royal family and imposed control over the provincial bureaucracies. As under the Parthian Empire, each of these provincial kings maintained a court and bureauc­racy. In the early Sasanian Empire, with each province ruled by a member of the Sasanian family, they bore a deeper imprint of that of the king of kings. And unlike the Parthian Empire, the king of kings could transfer a provincial king, as Ohrmazd I (270/2-273) transferred Narseh from the throne of Sagestan to Armenia. If a king fell from favor or became troublesome, he could even be removed altogether. In the third and fourth centuries, the heir apparent of the empire often occupied the throne of the kingdoms of Armenia, the Sakas, or the Kushans. These changes provided a more stable and centralized ruling structure compared to the Parthian Empire. Nevertheless, a number of Sasanian princes used their kingdom to stage revolts, including Ohrmazd, king of the Sakas, Narseh, king of the Armenians (later king of kings), and Ohrmazd III, king of the Sakas. These revolts were mainly challenges to the succession and not attempts to detach the provinces from the em­pire, but they succeeded in destabilizing the empire.

In the fifth century the Sasanians replaced the kings of all important provinces with a governor (marzban) who owed his position solely to the king of kings and was accountable to him.^[854] The function of the office of marzban was originally that of a military governor of a sensitive border region or important urban area, such as Ctesiphon, though in the late empire, marzbans could govern provinces in the interior of the Iranian plateau. The Sasanians drew from the noble families, local aristocrats, and occasionally from their own family in appointing marzbans. However, no matter who took these offices, the official was bound to the throne in a much more accountable relationship, with accountants (amargaran) and judges (dadwaran) overseeing their activities. The fact that individuals who lacked a dy­nastic claim to the throne occupied the majority of these posts and that they operated with significantly less autonomy further reduced the threat of revolts or challenges to the king of kings. However, because of their localized power, the governors were at a disadvantage in responding to large-scale external threats, and command of the Sasanian army up to this point was in the hands of a single general. This hindered the empire's ability to prosecute wars on two fronts, as it often had to do.

Paralleling the transition to the marzban system, the late Sasanian Empire devel­oped a more complex and structured imperial bureaucracy. At the very top we see the emergence of the office of wuzurg-framadar, often translated as “prime min­ister” or “vizier,” though the office itself evolved and became prominent over the course of the late empire and grew from the careers and prominence of individual officeholders.^[855] In response to the simultaneous pressures that the empire experi­enced on all external fronts under Peroz and Kawad I, in the sixth century a new set of offices and administrative superstructure was introduced whereby the empire was divided into four administrative units, each controlled by a spahbed (general).

The goal and ultimate result of the administrative reforms of the sixth century were to make the administrative and social structure of the empire even more de­pendent on the central court. Nevertheless, the Sasanians never fully broke the power of the most important families. A number of the Parthian grandees who oc­cupied the role of spahbed, such as Wahram Cubin, were responsible for a major re­volt. While they strengthened the royal court, the empire's reliance on the dehgans for taxation and military service ultimately hastened the conquest of the Arabs, to whom they were happy to pay tax to simply retain their lands and privileges.^[857]