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The rise of the Sasanian dynasty can be understood as the successful struggle of a minor ruler of Persis not only against his Parthian overlord, but also against a multitude of neighbouring rulers. The main adversary of the Persians was the Roman empire, and the ambitions of the first Sasanian ruler were soon countered by Rome. It was during the reign of Yazdgard that the Christians of the Sasanian empire held a council in the city of Seleucia in the year 410. Shortly after Bahrāam accession in 421 the persecution of Christians in the Sasanian empire was resumed, probably at the instigation of Zoroastrian priests. The Sasanians inherited from the Parthians a legacy of over two centuries of conflict with the western power. With a Sasanian belief in the destiny of Iran to rule over the territories once held by the Achaemenians, it was inevitable that wars between the two great powers would continue.
The appearance of the Persian goddess Anāhitā in Asia Minor represents part of a change taking place throughout the dominions of the Achaemenians, not the introduction of something traditionally Iranian into new territories. The Anāhitā cult probably represents a fundamental change in Iranian religion. One cannot speak about the Iranians in Asia Minor without speaking about the Greeks, which is without understanding what Greeks and Persians had in common, for they were enemies who respected each other. The Greeks were fascinated and astonished by the outlandish grandeur of the Persians, with its successes and failures, but they also sensed in it a pathetic quality and saw its extraordinary tendency to entangle all but the best of the Persians in illusion and self destruction. Until the fall of the Persian monarchy, the Iranian presence had probably been as intense in Asia Minor west of the Halys as it had been in P.
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