The Sassanian Empire

Persian empire founded AD 224 by Ardashir, a chieftain in the area of what is now Fars, in Iran, who had taken over Parthia; it was named after his grandfather, Sasan. The capital was Ctesiphon, near modern Baghdad, Iraq. After a rapid period of expansion, when it contested supremacy with Rome, it was destroyed in 637 by Muslim Arabs at the Battle of Qadisiya.

The Sassanid Empire or Sassanian Empire (Persian: ساسانیان Sasanian) is the name used for the fourth Iranian dynasty, and the second Persian Empire (226 - 651). The Sassanid dynasty was founded by Ardashir I after defeating the last Arsacid king, Artabanus IV and ended when the last Sassanid Shahanshah (King of Kings), Yazdegerd III (632–651), lost a 14-year struggle to drive out the early Caliphate, the first of the Islamic empires.

The empire's territory encompassed all of today's Iran, Iraq (see also: Iraq Maps), Armenia, Afghanistan, eastern parts of Turkey, and parts of Syria, Pakistan, Caucasia, Central Asia and Arabia. During Khosrau II's rule in 590–628 Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon was also annexed to the Empire. The Sassanids called their empire Erānshahr ايرانشهر (Iranshæhr) Dominion of the Iranians (Aryans)

The Sassanid era, encompassing the length of the Late Antiquity period, is considered to be one of the most important and influential historical periods in Iran. In many ways the Sassanid period witnessed the highest achievement of Persian civilization, and constituted the last great Iranian Empire before the Muslim conquest and adoption of Islam. Persia influenced Roman civilisation considerably during the Sassanids times; their cultural influence extending far beyond the empire's territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe, Africa, China and India and also playing a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asiatic medieval art. This influence carried forward to the early Islamic world. The dynasty's unique and aristocratic culture transformed the Islamic conquest of Iran into a Persian Renaissance. Much of what later became known as Islamic culture, architecture, writing and other skills, were taken mainly from the Sassanid Persians into the broader Muslim world.