Historiography of the Sasanian Empire: The Dark Side of the Moon in Late Ancient Studies

The Sasanian Empire and its history has been slow in becoming a field of study. George Rawlinson's The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy in 1875 was the first book dedicated to the study of Sasanian history. This was followed by Arthur Christensen's L'Iran sous les Sassanides in 1944. Since then much work has been done to understand the history of this great empire, but its reception has been slow in the field of late ancient / late antique studies. This paper examines all the major works and their approaches to the study of Sasanian history and suggests how the inclusion of this dynasty into the field of late ancient studies has caused it to flourish outside of the narrow field of ancient Iranian history. This inclusion, however, has caused the fragmentation in approaches and methods in the study of the Sasanians. The consequence of this development will also be elucidated for the study of ancient Iranian history as a unit and its relation to the late ancient world history.