The birth of the
Sasanian army (
Middle Persian Spâh-i Sasanig) dates back to the rise of
Ardashir I (r. 224–241), the founder of the
Sassanid Empire, to the throne. Ardashir aimed at the revival of the
Persian Empire, and to further this aim, he reformed the military by forming a standing army which was under his personal command and whose officers were separate from
satraps, local princes and nobility. He restored the
Achaemenid military organizations, retained the
Parthian cavalry model, and employed new types of armour and siege warfare techniques. This was the beginning for a military system which served him and his successors for over 400 years, during which the Sassanid Empire was, along with the
Roman Empire and later the
East Roman Empire, one of the two superpowers of
Late Antiquity in Western
Eurasia. The Sassanid army protected
Eranshahr ("the realm of Iran") from the East against the incursions of
central Asiatic nomads like the
Hephthalites and
Turks, while in the west it was engaged in a recurrent struggle against the Roman Empire.