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145-457: Bahram II (also spelled Wahram II or Warahran II ; Middle Persian : 𐭥𐭫𐭧𐭫𐭠𐭭 ) was the fifth Sasanian King of Kings ( shahanshah ) of Iran , from 274 to 293. He was the son and successor of Bahram I ( r.  271–274 ). Bahram II, while still in his teens, ascended the throne with the aid of the powerful Zoroastrian priest Kartir , just like his father had done. He was met with considerable challenges during his reign, facing

290-500: A diadem by a courtier. During the reign of Bahram II, art in Sasanian Iran flourished, notably in the portrayals of the shah and his courtiers. He is the first and only shah to have a woman illustrated on his coins, apart from the 7th-century Sasanian queen Boran ( r.  630–630, 631–632 ). The modern historian Matthew P. Canepa calls Bahram II a relatively weak shah, whose shortscomings allowed Kartir to take over some of

435-487: A Christian Psalter fragment, which still retains all the letter distinctions that Inscriptional Pahlavi had except the one between t and ṭ ; and the Pahlavi found in papyri from the early 7th century CE, which displays even more letter coincidences than Book Pahlavi. The Manichaean script was an abjad introduced for the writing of Middle Persian by the prophet Mani (216–274 CE), who based it on his native variety of

580-648: A barren wife giving her husband a slave as a concubine is recorded in the Code of Hammurabi . The children of such relationships would be regarded as legitimate . Such concubinage was also widely practiced in the premodern Muslim world, and many of the rulers of the Abbasid Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire were born out of such relationships. Throughout Africa, from Egypt to South Africa, slave concubinage resulted in racially mixed populations. The practice declined as

725-410: A concubine to wife, if the original wife had died and the concubine was the mother of the only surviving sons. Moreover, the prohibition against forcing a widow to remarry was extended to widowed concubines. During this period tablets for concubine-mothers seem to have been more commonly placed in family ancestral altars, and genealogies of some lineages listed concubine-mothers. Many of the concubines of

870-536: A currently more popular one reflecting the Sassanid-era pronunciation, as used by C. Saleman, W. B. Henning and, in a somewhat revised form, by D. N. MacKenzie (1986). The less obvious features of the usual transcription are: A common feature of Pahlavi as well as Manichaean spelling was that the Aramaic letters ṣ and ḥ were adapted to express the sounds /t͡ʃ/ and /h/ , respectively. In addition, both could use

1015-468: A different shape from a historical point of view, by under- or overlining them: e.g. the heterogram for andar 'in' is transliterated B YN , since it corresponds to Aramaic byn , but the sign that 'should' have been b actually looks like a g . Within Arameograms, scholars have traditionally used the standard Semitological designations of the Aramaic (and generally Semitic) letters, and these include

1160-694: A direct dispute with the ruling branch of the Sasanian family. Hormizd I Kushanshah was supported in his efforts by the Sakastanis, Gilaks , and Kushans. Another revolt also occurred in Sakastan, led by Bahram II's cousin Hormizd of Sakastan , who has been suggested to be the same person as Hormizd I Kushanshah. However, according to the Iranologist Khodadad Rezakhani, this proposal must now be disregarded. At

1305-405: A high tiara (known as a Median bonnet); and a fourth one shows Bahram II with the female figure and the unbearded youngster all together. The female figure is wearing different headdress on some of the coins, sometimes with a boar, griffin, horse or eagle. The precise meaning of these variations is unclear. As the coins' legends contain no information regarding the status of these characters, it

1450-472: A horse, whilst facing an Iranian grandee who is escorting a group of six men resembling Arabs in their clothing, arriving with horses and dromedaries . Apparently, it depicts the dimplomatic mission from the Himyarite king Shammar Yahri'sh at the beginning of his reign. A fifth relief, at Naqsh-e Rostam , portrays Bahram II standing whilst being surrounded by his family members and attendants; to his left are

1595-921: A large number of diacritics and special signs expressing the different Semitic phonemes, which were not distinguished in Middle Persian. In order to reduce the need for these, a different system was introduced by D. N. MacKenzie , which dispenses with diacritics as much as possible, often replacing them with vowel letters: A for ʾ , O for ʿ , E for H , H for Ḥ , C for Ṣ , for example ORHYA for ʿRḤYʾ ( bay 'god, majesty, lord'). For ''ṭ'', which still occurs in heterograms in Inscriptional Pahlavi, Θ may be used. Within Iranian words, however, both systems use c for original Aramaic ṣ and h for original Aramaic ḥ , in accordance with their Iranian pronunciation (see below). The letter l , when modified with

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1740-558: A less common view is that /x/ and /ɣ/ were uvular instead. Finally, it may be pointed out that most scholars consider the phoneme /w/ as being still a labial approximant, but a few regard it as a voiced labial fricative /v/ . The initial clusters of /s/ and a stop ( /sp-/ , /st-/ , /sk-/ ) had acquired a prosthetic vowel /i/ by the time of the Manichaean Middle Persian texts: istāyišn ( ՙst՚yšn ) 'praise' vs Pahlavi stāyišn ( ՙst՚dšn' ) 'praise'. Stress

1885-583: A long-term sexual relationship between a man and a woman who are not legally married. In pre-modern to modern law, concubinage has been used in certain jurisdictions to describe cohabitation, and in France, was formalized in 1999 as the French equivalent of a civil union . The US legal system also used to use the term in reference to cohabitation, but the term never evolved further and is now considered outdated. Forms of concubinage have existed in all cultures, though

2030-451: A man and were expected to bear children for him. Unofficial concubines ( Chinese : 婢妾 ; pinyin : bì qiè ) were of lower status, and their children were considered illegitimate. The English term concubine is also used for what the Chinese refer to as pínfēi ( Chinese : 嬪妃 ), or "consorts of emperors", an official position often carrying a very high rank. In premodern China it

2175-455: A man could kill another man caught attempting a relationship with his concubine. By the mid fourth century, concubines could inherit property, but, like wives, they were treated as sexual property. While references to the sexual exploitation of maidservants appear in literature, it was considered disgraceful for a man to keep such women under the same roof as his wife. Apollodorus of Acharnae said that hetaera were concubines when they had

2320-524: A permanent relationship with a single man, but nonetheless used the two terms interchangeably. Concubinatus was a monogamous union recognized socially and to some extent legally as an alternative to marriage in the Roman Empire . Concubinage was practiced most often in couples when one partner, almost always the man, belonged to a higher social rank, especially the senatorial order , who were penalized for marrying below their class. The female partner

2465-508: A plot element, the children of concubines are depicted with a status much inferior to that in actual history. The zhai dou ( Chinese : 宅斗 ，residential intrigue) and gong dou ( Chinese : 宫斗 ，harem intrigue) genres show concubines and wives, as well as their children, scheming secretly to gain power. Empresses in the Palace , a gong dou type novel and TV drama, has had great success in 21st-century China. Hong Kong officially abolished

2610-477: A praiseworthy fashion toward them. He was wont to say: If fortune furthers our designs, we receive this with thankfulness; if the reverse, we are content with our share." Bahram II was met with considerable challenges during his reign. His brother Hormizd I Kushanshah , who governed the eastern portion of the empire (i.e., the Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom ), rebelled against him. Hormizd I Kushanshah

2755-458: A prefix meaning "with, together" and " cubare ", meaning "to lie down". Concubine is a term used widely in historical and academic literature, and which varies considerably depending on the context. In the twenty-first century, it typically refers explicitly to extramarital affection, "either to a mistress or to a sex slave ", without the same emphasis on the cohabiting aspect of the original meaning. Concubinage emerged as an English term in

2900-543: A rebellion in the east led by his brother, the Kushano-Sasanian dynast Hormizd I Kushanshah , who also assumed the title of King of Kings and possibly laid claims to the Sasanian throne. Another rebellion, led by Bahram II's cousin Hormizd of Sakastan in Sakastan , also occurred around this period. In Khuzestan , a Zoroastrian factional revolt led by a high-priest ( mowbed ) occurred. The Roman emperor Carus exploited

3045-499: A result of the abolition of slavery. In ancient Rome , the practice of concubinatus was a monogamous relationship that was an alternative to marriage, usually because of the woman's lesser social status. Widowed or divorced men often took a concubina , the Latin term from which the English "concubine" is derived, rather than remarrying, so as to avoid complications of inheritance. After

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3190-461: A script derived from Aramaic . This occurred primarily because written Aramaic had previously been the written language of government of the former Achaemenids , and the government scribes had carried that practice all over the empire. This practice had led to others adopting Imperial Aramaic as the language of communications, both between Iranians and non-Iranians. The transition from Imperial Aramaic to Middle Iranian took place very slowly, with

3335-561: A slow increase of more and more Iranian words so that Aramaic with Iranian elements gradually changed into Iranian with Aramaic elements. Under Arsacid hegemony , this Aramaic-derived writing system for Iranian languages came to be associated with the Parthians in particular (it may have originated in the Parthian chancellories ), and thus the writing system came to be called pahlavi "Parthian" too. Aside from Parthian, Aramaic-derived writing

3480-660: A son, the son could inherit his father's social status. Concubines sometimes wielded significant influence. Nene , wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was known to overrule her husband's decisions at times and Yodo-dono , his concubine, became the de facto master of Osaka castle and the Toyotomi clan after Hideyoshi's death. Joseon monarchs had a harem which contained concubines of different ranks. Empress Myeongseong managed to have sons, preventing sons of concubines from getting power. Children of concubines often had lower value in account of marriage. A daughter of concubine could not marry

3625-467: A special horizontal stroke that shows that the pronunciation is /l/ and not /r/, is rendered in the MacKenzie system as ɫ . The traditional system continues to be used by many, especially European scholars. The MacKenzie system is the one used in this article. As for Pahlavi, c is used for the transliteration of original Aramaic ṣ and h for the transliteration of original ḥ . Original Aramaic h , on

3770-542: A thousand of these in the Book Pahlavi variety. In addition, their spelling remained very conservative, expressing the pronunciation of the Arsacid period. The two most important subvarieties are: Other known Pahlavi varieties are the early Pahlavi found in inscriptions on coins issued in the province of Pars from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century CE; the relatively conservative Psalter Pahlavi (6th–8th centuries CE), used in

3915-516: A usurper. Bahram was briefly given the governorship of the southeastern provinces of Sakastan , Hind and Turgistan , which Narseh had previously governed. Sakastan was far away from the imperial court in Ctesiphon , and ever since its conquest the Sasanians had found it difficult to control. As a result, the province had since its early days functioned as a form of vassal kingdom, ruled by princes from

4060-466: A viable alternative to marriage. In polygynous situations, the number of concubines there were permitted within an individual concubinage arrangement has varied greatly. In Roman law , where monogamy was expected, the relationship was identical (and alternative) to marriage except for the lack of marital affection from both or one of the parties, which conferred rights related to property, inheritance and social rank. By contrast, in parts of Asia and

4205-462: A victory. The lower panel depicts Bahram II's war with Hormizd I Kushanshah. A seventh relief, at Tang-e (or Sarab-e) Qandil, depicts a divine investiture scene, with Bahram II receiving a flower from Anahita. Bahram II also erected two rock reliefs in Barm-e Delak : the first depicts Bahram II giving a flower to Shapurdukhtak; the second depicts Bahram II making gesture of piety, whilst being offered

4350-420: A wife-born son of the same class. For example, Jang Nok-su was a concubine-born daughter of a mayor, who was initially married to a slave-servant, and later became a high-ranking concubine of Yeonsangun . The Joseon dynasty established in 1392 debated whether the children of a free parent and a slave parent should be considered free or slave. The child of a scholar-official father and a slave-concubine mother

4495-479: A year before he died. Bahram I, with the aid of the powerful Zoroastrian priest Kartir , ascended the throne. He then made a settlement with his brother Narseh to give up his entitlement to the throne in return for the governorship of the important frontier province of Armenia , which was constantly the source of conflict between the Roman and Sasanian Empires. Nevertheless, Narseh still most likely viewed Bahram I as

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4640-495: Is c.  262 , since that is the date of Shapur I's inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht , which mentions the rest of the royal family but not him. His father, Bahram I, although the eldest son of Shapur I, was not considered a candidate for succession, probably due to his mother's lowly origin. She was either a minor queen or perhaps even a concubine . Shapur I died in 270, and was succeeded by his son Hormizd I , who only reigned for

4785-406: Is a major difficulty for scholars. It has also been pointed out that the Pahlavi spelling does not express the 3rd century lenitions, so the letters p , t , k and c express /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ and /z/ after vowels, e.g. šp' for šab 'night' and hc for az 'from'. The rare phoneme /ɣ/ was also expressed by the same letter shape as k (however, this sound value is usually expressed in

4930-690: Is derived from the Old Iranian Vṛθragna . The Avestan equivalent was Verethragna , the name of the old Iranian god of victory, whilst the Parthian version was *Warθagn . The name is transliterated in Greek as Baranes , whilst the Armenian transliteration is Vahagn/Vrām . The name is attested in Georgian as Baram and Latin as Vararanes . Bahram II was the eldest son of Bahram I ( r.  271–274 ),

5075-504: Is difficult to analyze them. The unbearded youngster is usually understood as being the crown prince Bahram III, while the female figure is usually labelled as Bahram II's queen Shapurdukhtak, who was his cousin. If the supposition is correct, this would make Bahram II the first (and last) shah to have coins minted of his family. According to the Iranologist Touraj Daryaee , "this is an interesting feature of Bahram II in that he

5220-432: Is expressed in a synchronic alternation: at least at some stage in late Middle Persian (later than the 3rd century), the consonants /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ appear to have had, after vowels, the fricative allophones [ β ] , [ ð ] , [ɣ] . This is slightly more controversial for /ɡ/ , since there appears to have been a separate phoneme /ɣ/ as well. A parallel development seems to have affected /d͡ʒ/ in

5365-469: Is far more common for the letter l to have that function, as in the example plhw' for farrox . In the relatively rare cases where l does express /l/ , it can be marked as ɫ . Concubine Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between two people in which the couple does not want to, or cannot, enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar, but mutually exclusive. In China , until

5510-402: Is forty of silver. Therefore, send very beautiful concubines without blemish." – (Lewis, 146) Concubines would be kept in the pharaoh's harem . Amenhotep III kept his concubines in his palace at Malkata , which was one of the most opulent in the history of Egypt. The king was considered to be deserving of many women as long as he cared for his Great Royal Wife as well. In Ancient Greece ,

5655-569: Is in this particular late form of exclusively written Zoroastrian Middle Persian, in popular imagination the term 'Pahlavi' became synonymous with Middle Persian itself. The ISO 639 language code for Middle Persian is pal , which reflects the post-Sasanian era use of the term Pahlavi to refer to the language and not only the script. In the classification of the Iranian languages, the Middle Period includes those languages which were common in Iran from

5800-421: Is most likely supposed to portray a simple royal display of braveness during a real-life hunt. An inscription of Kartir is underneath the relief. A third relief at Sarab-e Bahram , close to Nurabad , and 40 km north of Bishapur , portrays Bahram II facing, with Kartir and Papak, the governor of Iberia, to his left, and two other grandees to his right. A fourth relief, at Bishapur, portrays Bahram mounted on

5945-399: Is nevertheless often the old pronunciation or a transitional one that is reflected in the Pahlavi spelling. 2. Voiceless stops and affricates, when occurring after vowels as well as other voiced sounds, became voiced: This process is thought not to have been taken place before Sassanid Pahlavi, and it generally is not reflected in Pahlavi spelling. A further stage in this lenition process

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6090-450: Is portrayed standing alone. An additional relief at Sar Mashhad , south of Kazerun , portrays Bahram as a hunter: a dead lion reclines at his feet, and he thrusts his sword into a second lion as it attacks him. His queen Shapurdukhtak is holding his right hand in a signal of safeguard, whilst Kartir and another figure, most likely a prince, are watching. The scenery has been the subject of several symbolic and metaphorical meanings, thought it

6235-719: Is spelt mtr' . In contrast, the Manichaean spellings are gʾh , ngʾh , šhr , myhr . Some other words with earlier /θ/ are spelt phonetically in Pahlavi, too: e.g. gēhān , spelt gyhʾn 'material world', and čihr , spelt cyhl 'face'. There are also some other cases where /h/ is spelt /t/ after p : ptkʾl for pahikār 'strife', and /t/ may also stand for /j/ in that position: ptwnd for paywand 'connection'. There are some other phoneme pairs besides /j/ and /d͡ʒ/ that are not distinguished: h (the original Aramaic ḥ ) may stand either for /h/ or for /x/ ( hm for ham 'also' as well as hl for xar 'donkey'), whereas

6380-427: Is that Arsacid word-initial /j/ produced Sassanid /d͡ʒ/ (another change that is not reflected in the Pahlavi spelling). The sound probably passed through the phase /ʒ/ , which may have continued until very late Middle Persian, since Manichaean texts did not identify Indic /d͡ʒ/ with it and introduced a separate sign for the former instead of using the letter for their native sound. Nonetheless, word-initial /j/

6525-514: Is thus under Bahram II that Kartir unquestionably becomes a powerful figure in the empire; the latter claimed on his inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht that he "struck down" the non-Zoroastrian minorities, such as the Christians , Jews , Mandaeans , Manichaeans , and Buddhists . According to the modern historian Parvaneh Pourshariati: "it is not clear, however, to what extent Kartir's declarations reflect

6670-530: The Eastern Han period (AD 25–220) onward, the number of concubines a man could have was limited by law. The higher rank and the more noble identity a man possessed, the more concubines he was permitted to have. A concubine's treatment and situation was variable and was influenced by the social status of the male to whom she was attached, as well as the attitude of his wife. In the Book of Rites chapter on "The Pattern of

6815-790: The Great Qing Legal Code in 1971, thereby making concubinage illegal. Casino magnate Stanley Ho of Macau took his "second wife" as his official concubine in 1957, while his "third and fourth wives" retain no official status. Polygyny and concubinage were very common in Mongol society, especially for powerful Mongol men. Genghis Khan , Ögedei Khan , Jochi , Tolui , and Kublai Khan (among others) all had many wives and concubines. Genghis Khan frequently acquired wives and concubines from empires and societies that he had conquered, these women were often princesses or queens that were taken captive or gifted to him. Genghis Khan's most famous concubine

6960-472: The Judeo-Christian-Islamic world, the term concubine has almost exclusively been applied to women, although a cohabiting male may also be called a concubine. In the 21st century, concubinage is used in some Western countries as a gender-neutral legal term to refer to cohabitation (including cohabitation between same-sex partners). The English terms "concubine" and "concubinage" appeared in

7105-647: The Pahlavi Psalter (7th century); these were used until the beginning of the second millennium in many places in Central Asia , including Turpan and even localities in South India . All three differ minimally from one another and indeed the less ambiguous and archaizing scripts of the latter two have helped to elucidate some aspects of the Sasanian-era pronunciation of the former. The vowels of Middle Persian were

7250-638: The imperial variety of the Aramaic alphabet used in the chancelleries of the Achaemenid Empire . As is typical of abjads, they express primarily the consonants in a word form. What sets them apart from other abjads, however, is the use of Heterograms , and more specifically Aramaeograms , i.e. words written in Aramaic (sometimes, in later periods, with distortions) but pronounced in Middle Persian: e.g. LY (Aramaic 'to me') for man 'me, I'. There were about

7395-470: The legal personhood to marry under Roman law or to contract concubinatus , but the heterosexual union of two slaves, or a freedperson and a slave, might be recognized as an intention to marry when both partners gained the legal status that permitted them to do so. In this quasi-marital union, called contubernium , children seem often to have been desired, in contrast to concubinatus , in which children more often were viewed as complications and there

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7540-481: The w and n have the same graphic appearance. Furthermore, letters used as part of Aramaic heterograms and not intended to be interpreted phonetically are written in capitals: thus the heterogram for the word ān is rendered ZK , whereas its phonetic spelling is transliterated as ʾn' (the final vertical line reflects the so-called 'otiose' stroke, see below ). Finally, there is a convention of representing 'distorted/corrupt' letters, which 'should' have appeared in

7685-442: The "old" language (i.e. Middle Persian) and Aramaic-derived writing system. In time, the name of the writing system, pahlavi "Parthian", began to be applied to the "old" Middle Persian language as well, thus distinguishing it from the "new" language, farsi . Consequently, 'pahlavi' came to denote the particularly Zoroastrian, exclusively written, late form of Middle Persian. Since almost all surviving Middle Persian literature

7830-412: The 10th–11th centuries, Middle Persian texts were still intelligible to speakers of Early New Persian. However, there are definite differences that had taken place already by the 10th century: Texts in Middle Persian are found in remnants of Sasanian inscriptions and Egyptian papyri , coins and seals, fragments of Manichaean writings , and Zoroastrian literature , most of which was written down after

7975-542: The 14th century, deriving from Latin terms in Roman society and law . The term concubine ( c.  1300 ), meaning "a paramour, a woman who cohabits with a man without being married to him", comes from the Latin concubina ( f. ) and concubinus ( m. ), terms that in Roman law meant "one who lives unmarried with a married man or woman". The Latin terms are derived from the verb from concumbere "to lie with, to lie together, to cohabit," an assimilation of " com ",

8120-599: The 20th century, concubinage was a formal and institutionalized practice that upheld concubines' rights and obligations. A concubine could be freeborn or of slave origin, and her experience could vary tremendously according to her master's whim. During the Mongol conquests , both foreign royals and captured women were taken as concubines. Concubinage was also common in Meiji Japan as a status symbol . Many Middle Eastern societies used concubinage for reproduction. The practice of

8265-774: The 7th-century, the Sassanids were overthrown by the Arabs. Under Arab influence, Iranian languages began to be written in Arabic script (adapted to Iranian phonology ), while Middle Persian began to rapidly evolve into New Persian and the name parsik became Arabicized farsi . Not all Iranians were comfortable with these Arabic-influenced developments, in particular, members of the literate elite, which in Sassanid times consisted primarily of Zoroastrian priests. Those former elites vigorously rejected what they perceived as ' Un-Iranian ', and continued to use

8410-420: The Aramaic distinctions between ḥ and h and between k and q were not always maintained, with the first often replacing the second, and the one between t and ṭ was lost in all but Inscriptional Pahlavi: thus YKTLWN (pronounced о̄zadan ) for Aramaic yqṭlwn 'kill', and YHWWN (pronounced būdan ) for Aramaic yhwwn 'be', even though Aramaic h is elsewhere rendered E . In the rest of this article,

8555-477: The Aramaic script of Palmyrene origin. Mani used this script to write the known book Šābuhrāgān and it continued to be used by Manichaeans until the 9th century to write in Middle Persian, and in various other Iranian languages for even longer. Specifically the Middle Persian Manichaean texts are numerous and thought to reflect mostly the period from the 3rd to the 7th centuries CE. In contrast to

8700-447: The Arsacid sound values, but is known from the more phonetic Manichaean spelling of texts from Sassanid times. As a result of these changes, the voiceless stops and affricates /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , /t͡ʃ/ rarely occurred after vowels – mostly when geminated, which has protected them from the lenition (e.g. waččag , sp. wck' 'child'), and due to some other sound changes. Another difference between Arsacid and Sassanid-era pronunciation

8845-494: The Avesta also retain some old features, most other Zoroastrian Book Pahlavi texts (which form the overwhelming majority of the Middle Persian corpus as a whole) are linguistically more innovative. In view of the many ambiguities of the Pahlavi script, even its transliteration does not usually limit itself to rendering merely the letters as written; rather, letters are usually transliterated in accordance with their origin regardless of

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8990-572: The Christianization of the Roman Empire , Christian emperors improved the status of the concubine by granting concubines and their children the sorts of property and inheritance rights usually reserved for wives. In European colonies and American slave plantations , single and married men entered into long-term sexual relationships with local women. In the Dutch East Indies , concubinage created mixed-race Indian-European communities . In

9135-554: The Family" ( Chinese : 內則 ) it says, "If there were betrothal rites, she became a wife; and if she went without these, a concubine." Wives brought a dowry to a relationship, but concubines did not. A concubinage relationship could be entered into without the ceremonies used in marriages, and neither remarriage nor a return to her natal home in widowhood were allowed to a concubine. There are early records of concubines allegedly being buried alive with their masters to "keep them company in

9280-496: The Jia family are supported by one notable concubine of the emperor, Jia Yuanchun , the full elder sister of the male protagonist Jia Baoyu . In contrast, their younger half-siblings by concubine Zhao, Jia Tanchun and Jia Huan, develop distorted personalities because they are the children of a concubine. Emperors' concubines and harems are emphasized in 21st-century romantic novels written for female readers and set in ancient times. As

9425-477: The Manichaean script and a maximally disambiguated transliterated form of Pahlavi do not provide exhaustive information about the phonemic structure of Middle Persian words, a system of transcription is also necessary. There are two traditions of transcription of Pahlavi Middle Persian texts: one closer to the spelling and reflecting the Arsacid-era pronunciation, as used by Ch. Bartholomae and H. S. Nyberg (1964) and

9570-570: The Middle East, powerful men kept as many concubines as they could financially support. Some royal households had thousands of concubines. In such cases concubinage served as a status symbol and for the production of sons. In societies that accepted polygyny, there were advantages to having a concubine over a mistress, as children from a concubine were legitimate, while children from a mistress would be considered "bastards". Scholars have made attempts to categorize patterns of concubinage practiced in

9715-560: The Pahlavi scripts, it is a regular and unambiguous phonetic script that expresses clearly the pronunciation of 3rd century Middle Persian and distinguishes clearly between different letters and sounds, so it provides valuable evidence to modern linguists. Not only did it not display any of the Pahlavi coalescences mentioned above, it also had special letters that enabled it to distinguish [p] and [f] (although it didn't always do so), as well as [j] and [d͡ʒ] , unique designations for [β] , [ð] , and [ɣ] , and consistent distinctions between

9860-523: The Pahlavi spellings will be indicated due to their unpredictability, and the Aramaeograms will be given priority over the 'phonetic' alternatives for the same reason. If a word expressed by an Arameogram has a grammatical ending or, in many cases, a word-formation suffix, these are generally expressed by phonetic elements: LYLYA ʾn for šab ʾn 'nights'. However, verbs in Inscriptional Pahlavi are sometimes written as 'bare ideograms', whose interpretation

10005-432: The Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon without much fighting. The Sasanians, due to severe internal problems, were unable to mount an effective coordinated defense at the time; Carus and his army may have captured Ctesiphon. However, Carus briefly died afterwards, reportedly being struck by lightning. The Roman army as a result withdrew, and Mesopotamia was re-captured by the Sasanians. The following year, Bahram II made peace with

10150-478: The Sasanian era. The language of Zoroastrian literature (and of the Sasanian inscriptions) is sometimes referred to as Pahlavi – a name that originally referred to the Pahlavi scripts , which were also the preferred writing system for several other Middle Iranian languages. Pahlavi Middle Persian is the language of quite a large body of literature which details the traditions and prescriptions of Zoroastrianism , which

10295-500: The Sasanian family, who held the title of sakanshah ("King of the Saka"). Bahram I's reign lasted briefly, ending in September 274 with his death. Bahram II, still in his teens, succeeded him as shah; he was probably aided by Kartir to ascend the throne instead of Narseh. This most likely frustrated Narseh, who held the title of Vazurg Šāh Arminān ("Great King of Armenia"), which was used by

10440-659: The Sasanians most likely kept control over Armenia until the later Peace of Nisibis (299) . In the same year, Bahram II secured the Iberian throne for Mirian III , an Iranian nobleman from the House of Mihran , one of the Seven Great Houses of Iran . His motive was to strengthen Sasanian authority in the Caucasus and utilize the position of the Iberian capital Mtskheta as an entrance to

10585-503: The Sasanians. By the end of his reign, Bahram II had made peace with the Roman emperor Diocletian and put an end to the disturbances in Khuzestan and the east. In the Caucasus , Bahram II strengthened Sasanian authority by securing the Iberian throne for Mirian III , an Iranian nobleman from the House of Mihran . Bahram II has been suggested by scholars to be the first Sasanian ruler to have coins minted of his family. He also ordered

10730-439: The actual implementation, or for that matter, success, of the measures he is supposed to have promoted." Indeed, Jewish and Christian sources, for example, make no mention of persecutions during this period. Starting with Bahram II, all the Sasanian shahs are portrayed with earrings on their coins . He is the first shah to have wings on his crown, which refers to the wings of the god's bird, Verethragna. Like his predecessors (with

10875-413: The afterlife". The position of the concubine was generally inferior to that of the wife. Although a concubine could produce heirs, her children would be inferior in social status to a wife's children, although they were of higher status than illegitimate children. The child of a concubine had to show filial duty to two women, their biological mother and their legal mother—the wife of their father. After

11020-564: The carving of several rock reliefs that unambiguously emphasize distinguished representations of his family and members of the high nobility. He was succeeded by his son Bahram III , who after only four months of reign, was overthrown by Narseh , a son of the second Sasanian ruler, Shapur I ( r.  240–270 ). His theophoric name "Bahram" is the New Persian form of the Middle Persian Warahrān (also spelled Wahrām ), which

11165-404: The central component of his crown . Bahram II, like his father, received the influential Zoroastrian priest Kartir well. He saw him as his mentor, and handed out several honors to him, giving him the rank of grandee ( wuzurgan ), and appointing him as the supreme judge ( dadwar ) of the whole empire, which implies that thenceforth priests were given the office of judge. Kartir was also appointed

11310-429: The cluster *θr in particular), but it had been replaced by /h/ by the Sassanid period: The phoneme /ɣ/ (as opposed to the late allophone of /ɡ/ ) is rare and occurs almost only in learned borrowings from Avestan and Parthian , e.g. moγ (Pahlavi mgw or mwg 'Magian'), maγ (Pahlavi mγ ) 'hole, pit'. The sound /ʒ/ may also have functioned as a marginal phoneme in borrowings as well. The phoneme /l/

11455-411: The coinciding forms: thus, even though Book Pahlavi has the same letter shapes for original n , w and r , for original ʾ and ḥ and for original d , g and y , besides having some ligatures that coincide in shape with certain individual letters, these are all transliterated differently. For instance, the spelling of gōspand 'domestic animal' is transliterated gwspnd in spite of the fact that

11600-493: The concubine of a king could achieve power, especially if her son also became a monarch. In China, successful men often had concubines until the practice was outlawed when the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949. The standard Chinese term translated as "concubine" was qiè 妾 , a term that has been used since ancient times. Concubinage resembled marriage in that concubines were recognized sexual partners of

11745-573: The court as a concubine to Xianfeng Emperor and gave birth to his only surviving son, who later became Tongzhi Emperor . She eventually became the de facto ruler of Qing China for 47 years after her husband's death. An examination of concubinage features in one of the Four Great Classical Novels , Dream of the Red Chamber (believed to be a semi-autobiographical account of author Cao Xueqin 's family life). Three generations of

11890-581: The daughters of allies, as was the custom of ancient kings. Concubinage was a common occupation for women in ancient Egypt, especially for talented women. A request for forty concubines by Amenhotep III (c. 1386–1353 BC) to a man named Milkilu , Prince of Gezer states: "Behold, I have sent you Hanya, the commissioner of the archers, with merchandise in order to have beautiful concubines, i.e. weavers. Silver, gold, garments, all sort of precious stones, chairs of ebony, as well as all good things, worth 160 deben. In total: forty concubines—the price of every concubine

12035-513: The death of a concubine, her sons would make an offering to her, but these offerings were not continued by the concubine's grandsons, who only made offerings to their grandfather's wife. Until the Song dynasty (960–1276), it was considered a serious breach of social ethics to promote a concubine to a wife. During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the status of concubines improved. It became permissible to promote

12180-521: The early Middle Persian of the Arsacid period (until the 3rd century CE) and the Middle Persian of the Sassanid period (3rd – 7th century CE) is due to a process of consonant lenition after voiced sounds that took place during the transition between the two. Its effects were as follows: 1. Voiced stops, when occurring after vowels, became semivowels : This process may have taken place very early, but it

12325-543: The emperor of the Qing dynasty were freeborn women from prominent families. Concubines of men of lower social status could be either freeborn or slave. Imperial concubines, kept by emperors in the Forbidden City , had different ranks and were traditionally guarded by eunuchs to ensure that they could not be impregnated by anyone but the emperor. In Ming China (1368–1644) there was an official system to select concubines for

12470-460: The emperor. The age of the candidates ranged mainly from 14 to 16. Virtues, behavior, character, appearance and body condition were the selection criteria. Despite the limitations imposed on Chinese concubines, there are several examples in history and literature of concubines who achieved great power and influence. Lady Yehenara, otherwise known as Empress Dowager Cixi , was one of the most successful concubines in Chinese history. Cixi first entered

12615-496: The exception of Ardashir I and Shapur I, whose legends were slightly different), Bahram II's legend on his coinage was "the Mazda-worshiping, divine Bahram, King of Kings of Iran(ians) and non-Iran(ians), whose image/brilliance is from the gods." Several coin types were minted during Bahram II's reign; one type imitates him alone; another with him and a female figure; a third one with Bahram II and an unbearded youngster wearing

12760-610: The fall of the Achaemenid Empire in the fourth century BCE up to the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century CE. The most important and distinct development in the structure of Iranian languages of this period is the transformation from the synthetic form of the Old Period ( Old Persian and Avestan ) to an analytic form: The modern-day descendants of Middle Persian are New Persian and Luri . The changes between late Middle and Early New Persian were very gradual, and in

12905-421: The family name. A samurai could take concubines but their backgrounds were checked by higher-ranked samurai. In many cases, taking a concubine was akin to a marriage. Kidnapping a concubine, although common in fiction, would have been shameful, if not criminal. If the concubine was a commoner, a messenger was sent with betrothal money or a note for exemption of tax to ask for her parents' acceptance. Even though

13050-479: The following: It has been doubted whether the Middle Persian short mid vowels /e/ and /o/ were phonemic , since they do not appear to have a unique continuation in later forms of Persian and no minimal pairs have been found. The evidence for them is variation between spelling with and without the matres lectionis y and w , as well as etymological considerations. They are thought to have arisen from earlier /a/ in certain conditions, including, for /e/ ,

13195-534: The fourth king ( shah ) of the Sasanian dynasty, and the grandson of the prominent shah Shapur I ( r.  240–270 ). The Sasanians had supplanted the Parthian Arsacid Empire as the sovereigns of Iran in 224, when Ardashir I (Bahram II's great-grandfather) defeated and killed its last monarch Artabanus IV ( r.  213–224 ) at the Battle of Hormozdgan . A terminus post quem for Bahram II's birth

13340-456: The freedwoman and secretary of Antonia Minor , was Vespasian 's wife "in all but name", according to Suetonius , until her death in AD 74. Roman manumission law also allowed a slave-owner to free the slave and enter into concubinatus or a regular marriage . Epitaphs indicate that both partners in concubinatus might also be freedpersons, for reasons that are not entirely clear. A slave lacked

13485-417: The heir to the throne. Bahram II's accession is mentioned in the narratives included in the history of the medieval Iranian historian al-Tabari ; "He is said to have been knowledgeable about the affairs [of government]. When he was crowned, the great men of state called down blessings on his head, just as they had done for his forefathers, and he returned to them greetings in a handsome manner and behaved in

13630-719: The important passes through the Caucasus Mountains . This was of such importance to Bahram II that he allegedly went in person to Mtskheta in order to secure Mirian III's position. He also sent one of his grandees named Mirvanoz (also a Mihranid) to the country in order to act as the guardian of Mirian III, who was then aged seven. After Mirian III's marriage with Abeshura (daughter of the previous Iberian ruler Aspacures ), 40,000 Sasanian "select mounted warriors/cavalry" were subsequently stationed in eastern Iberia, Caucasian Albania and Gugark . In western Iberia, 7,000 Sasanian cavalrymen were sent to Mtskheta to safeguard Mirian III. By

13775-441: The late 14th century to mean the "state of being a concubine; act or practice of cohabiting in intimacy without legal marriage", and was derived from Latin by means of Old French, where the term may in turn have been derived from the Latin concubinatus , an institution in ancient Rome that meant "a permanent cohabitation between persons to whose marriage there were no legal obstacles". It has also been described more plainly as

13920-467: The later forms are an (Manichaean ՚n ), and meh (Pahlavi ms and Manichaean myh ); indeed, some scholars have reconstructed them as monosyllabic any , mahy even for Middle Persian. Middle Persian has been written in a number of different scripts. The corpora in different scripts also exhibit other linguistic differences that are partly due to their different ages, dialects and scribal traditions. The Pahlavi scripts are abjads derived from

14065-431: The legal and financial complications of marriage. Practical impediments or social disincentives for a couple to marry could include differences in social rank status, an existing marriage and laws against bigamy , religious or professional prohibitions, or a lack of recognition by the appropriate authorities. The concubine in a concubinage tended to have a lower social status than the married party or home owner, and this

14210-496: The letter p to express /f/ , and ṣ to express z after a vowel. The widespread use of Aramaeograms in Pahlavi, often existing in parallel with 'phonetic' spellings, has already been mentioned: thus, the same word hašt 'eight' can be spelt hšt or TWMNYA . A curious feature of the system is that simple word stems sometimes have spellings derived from Aramaic inflected forms: the spellings of verb stems include Aramaic inflectional affixes such as -WN , -TWN or -N and Y- ;

14355-544: The middle stage of development of the numerous Iranian languages and dialects . The middle stage of the Iranian languages begins around 450 BCE and ends around 650 CE. One of those Middle Iranian languages is Middle Persian, i.e. the middle stage of the language of the Persians, an Iranian people of Persia proper , which lies in the south-western highlands on the border with Babylonia . The Persians called their language Parsig , meaning "Persian". Another Middle Iranian language

14500-431: The new Roman emperor Diocletian , who was faced with internal issues of his own. The terms of the peace reportedly divided Armenia between the two empires, with Western Armenia being ruled by the pro-Roman Arsacid prince Tiridates III , and the remaining greater portion being kept by Narseh. However, this division is dismissed by the modern historian Ursula Weber, who argues that it conflicts with other sources, and that

14645-437: The other hand, is sometimes rendered as ẖ . For original ṭ , the sign ṯ is used. The special Manichaean letters for /x/ , /f/ , [β] , /ɣ/ and [ð] are transcribed in accordance with their pronunciation as x , f , β , γ and δ . Unlike Pahlavi, the Manichaean script uses the letter Ayin also in Iranian words (see below) and it is transliterated in the usual Semitological way as ՙ . Since, like most abjads, even

14790-582: The pairs [x] – [h] and [r] – [l] . Since knowledge of Pahlavi decreased after the Muslim conquest of Iran , the Zoroastrians occasionally transcribed their religious texts into other, more accessible or unambiguous scripts. One approach was to use the Avestan alphabet , a practice known as Pazand ; another was to resort to the same Perso-Arabic script that was already being used for New Persian , and that

14935-400: The pejorative paelex referred to a concubine who was a sexual rival to a wife—in early Rome, most often a war captive and hence unwillingly—and by late antiquity was loosely equivalent to " prostitute ". However, in Latin literature concubinae are often disparaged as slaves kept as sexual luxuries in the literal sense of "bedmate". The distinction is that the use of an enslaved woman

15080-440: The practice of keeping a concubine ( Ancient Greek : παλλακίς pallakís ) was common among the upper classes, and they were for the most part women who were slaves or foreigners, but occasional free born based on family arrangements (typically from poor families). Children produced by slaves remained slaves and those by non-slave concubines varied over time; sometimes they had the possibility of citizenship. The law prescribed that

15225-473: The presence of a following /n/ , sibilant or front vowel in the next syllable, and for /o/ , the presence of a following labial consonant or the vowel /u/ in the next syllable. Long /eː/ and /oː/ had appeared first in Middle Persian, since they had developed from the Old Persian diphthongs /ai/ and /aw/ . The consonant phonemes were the following: A major distinction between the pronunciation of

15370-723: The prevalence of the practice and the rights and expectations of the persons involved have varied considerably, as have the rights of the offspring born from such relationships, a concubine's legal and social status, their role within a household and society's perceptions of the institution. A relationship of concubinage could take place voluntarily, with the parties involved agreeing not to enter into marriage, or involuntarily (i.e. through slavery ). In slave-owning societies, most concubines were slaves, also called "slave-concubines". This institutionalization of concubinage with female slaves dates back to Babylonian times, and has been practiced in patriarchal cultures throughout history. Whatever

15515-453: The royal privileges. Military wise, however, Bahram II was more successful, putting an end to the disturbances in Khuzestan and the east, and repelling the Romans from Mesopotamia. According to Daryaee and Rezakhani, Bahram II's reign "appears to be one of stability and increasing introspection for the Sasanian administration." Middle Persian language "Middle Iranian" is the name given to

15660-442: The same position, possibly earlier; not only was it weakened to a fricative [ʒ] , but it was also depalatalised to [z] . In fact, old Persian [d͡ʒ] and [ʒ] in any position also produced [z] . Unlike the case with the spirantisation of stops, this change is uncontroversially recognised for Sassanid times. The lenition of voiceless stops and affricates remained largely unexpressed in Pahlavi spelling, which continues to reflect

15805-404: The same time, a revolt led by a high-priest ( mowbed ) occurred in the province of Khuzestan , which was seized by the latter for a period. Meanwhile, the Roman emperor Carus , hearing of the civil war occurring in the Sasanian Empire, chose to take advantage of the situation by making a campaign into the empire in 283. He invaded Mesopotamia while Bahram II was in the east, and even besieged

15950-537: The sculptures of Shapurdukhtak, a prince, the crown prince Bahram III, Kartir, and Narseh. To his right are the sculptures of Papak, and two other grandees. A sixth relief, portraying an equestrian combat, was carved directly below the tomb of the Achaemenid King of Kings Darius the Great ( r.  522–486 BCE ). The relief has two panels. The top panel depicts Bahram II's war against Carus, which he claims as

16095-400: The slave of the wife. However, in the late Babylonian period, there are reports that concubines could be sold. In general, marriage was monogamous. "If after two or three years of marriage the wife had not given birth to any children, the husband was allowed to buy a slave (who could also be chosen by the wife) in order to produce heirs. This woman, however, remained a slave and never gained

16240-411: The spellings of pronouns are often derived from Aramaic prepositional phrases ( tо̄ 'you' is LK , originally Aramaic lk 'to you', о̄y 'he' is OLE , originally Aramaic ʿlh 'onto him'); and inalienable nouns are often noun phrases with pronominal modifiers ( pidar 'father' is ABYtl , originally Aramaic ʾby 'my father', pāy 'foot' is LGLE , originally Aramaic rglh 'his foot'). Furthermore,

16385-514: The state of affairs in living Middle Persian only indirectly. The surviving manuscripts are usually 14th-century copies. Other, less abundantly attested varieties are Manichaean Middle Persian , used for a sizable amount of Manichaean religious writings, including many theological texts, homilies and hymns (3rd–9th, possibly 13th century), and the Middle Persian of the Church of the East , evidenced in

16530-402: The status and rights of the persons involved, they were typically inferior to those of a legitimate spouse, often with the rights of inheritance being limited or excluded. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive. In the past, a couple may not have been able to marry because of differences in social class, ethnicity or religion, or a man might want to avoid

16675-464: The status of a second wife." In the Middle Assyrian Period, the main wife ( assatu ) wore a veil in the street, as could a concubine ( esirtu ) if she were accompanying the main wife, or if she were married. "If a man veils his concubine in public, by declaring 'she is my wife,' this woman shall be his wife." It was illegal for unmarried women, prostitutes and slave women to wear a veil in

16820-475: The steward of the Anahid fire-temple at Istakhr , which had originally been under the care of the Sasanian family. The Sasanian kings thus lost much of their religious authority in the empire. The clergy from now on served as judges all over the country, with court cases most likely being based on Zoroastrian jurisprudence, with the exception of when representatives of other religions had conflicts with each other. It

16965-467: The street. "The children of a concubine were lower in rank than the descendants of a wife, but they could inherit if the marriage of the latter remained childless." While most Ancient Egyptians were monogamous , a male pharaoh would have had other, lesser wives and concubines in addition to the Great Royal Wife . This arrangement would allow the pharaoh to enter into diplomatic marriages with

17110-490: The time of Bahram II's death in 293, the revolts in the east had been suppressed, with his son and heir Bahram III being appointed the governor of Sakastan, receiving the title of sakanshah ("King of the Saka"). Following Bahram II's death, Bahram III, against his own will, was proclaimed shah in Pars by a group of nobles led by Wahnam and supported by Adurfarrobay, governor of Meshan . After four months of reigning, however, he

17255-451: The transition of /θ/ to /h/ in some words (in front of /r/ this reflex is due to Parthian influence, since the Middle Persian reflex should have been /s/ ). In such words, the spelling may have s or, in front of r – t . For example, gāh 'place, time' is spelt gʾs (cf. Old Persian gāθu ) and nigāh '(a) look' is spelt nkʾs ; šahr 'country, town' is spelt štr' (cf. Avestan xsaθra ) and mihr 'Mithra, contract, friendship'

17400-628: The transliteration). Similarly, the letter d may stand for /j/ after a vowel, e.g. pʾd for pāy 'foot' – this is no longer apparent in Book Pahlavi due to the coincidence of the shapes of the original letters y , d and g , but is already clearly seen in Inscriptional and Psalter Pahlavi. Indeed, it even appears to have been the general rule word-finally, regardless of the word's origins, although modern transliterations of words like xwadāy ( xwtʾd ) and mēnōy ( mynwd ) do not always reflect this analogical / pseudo-historical spelling. Final īy

17545-460: The turbulent situation of Iran by launching a campaign into its holdings in Mesopotamia in 283. Bahram II, who was in the east, was unable to mount an effective coordinated defense at the time, possibly losing his capital of Ctesiphon to the Roman emperor. However, Carus died soon afterwards, reportedly being struck by lightning. As a result, the Roman army withdrew, and Mesopotamia was reclaimed by

17690-475: The use of original Aramaic h is restricted to heterograms (transliterated E in MacKenzie's system, e.g. LGLE for pāy 'foot'). Not only /p/ , but also the frequent sound /f/ is expressed by the letter p , e.g. plhw' for farrox 'fortunate'. While the original letter r is retained in some words as an expression of the sound /r/ , especially in older frequent words and Aramaeograms (e.g. štr' for šahr 'country, town', BRTE for duxt 'daughter'), it

17835-426: The various forms of marriage, the status of a concubina , and whether an extramarital sexual relationship was adultery or permissible pleasure-seeking with a prostitute, professional entertainer , or slave . Roman emperors not infrequently took a concubina , often a freedwoman, rather than remarrying after the death of their wife to avoid the legal complications pertaining to succession and inheritance . Caenis ,

17980-421: The woman would not be a legal wife, a situation normally considered a demotion, many wealthy merchants believed that being the concubine of a samurai was superior to being the legal wife of a commoner. When a merchant's daughter married a samurai, her family's money erased the samurai's debts, and the samurai's social status improved the standing of the merchant family. If a samurai's commoner concubine gave birth to

18125-416: The world. The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology gives four distinct forms of concubinage: Junius P. Rodriguez gives three cultural patterns of concubinage: Asian, Islamic and European. In Mesopotamia , it was customary for a sterile wife to give her husband a slave as a concubine to bear children. The status of such concubines was ambiguous; they normally could not be sold but they remained

18270-558: Was Möge Khatun , who, according to the Persian historian Ata-Malik Juvayni , was "given to Chinggis Khan by a chief of the Bakrin tribe, and he loved her very much." After Genghis Khan died, Möge Khatun became a wife of Ögedei Khan. Ögedei also favored her as a wife, and she frequently accompanied him on his hunting expeditions . Before monogamy was legally imposed in the Meiji period , concubinage

18415-504: Was Parthian , i.e. the language of the northwestern Iranian peoples of Parthia proper , which lies along the southern/south-eastern edge of the Caspian sea and is adjacent to the boundary between western and eastern Iranian languages. The Parthians called their language Parthawig , meaning "Parthian". Via regular sound changes Parthawig became Pahlawig , from which the word 'Pahlavi' eventually evolved. The -ig in parsig and parthawig

18560-442: Was a concubina ; the term concubinus is used of men mainly in a same-sex union or to deprecate a relationship in which the woman was dominant. The use of the term concubina in epitaphs for family memorials indicates that the role was socially acceptable. A man was not allowed to have both a concubina and a wife (uxor) at the same time, but a single tombstone might list multiple wives or concubinae serially. By contrast,

18705-637: Was a regular Middle Iranian appurtenant suffix for "pertaining to". The New Persian equivalent of -ig is -i . When the Arsacids (who were Parthians) came to power in the 3rd-century BCE, they inherited the use of written Greek (from the successors of Alexander the Great ) as the language of government. Under the cultural influence of the Greeks ( Hellenization ), some Middle Iranian languages, such as Bactrian , also had begun to be written in Greek script . But yet other Middle Iranian languages began to be written in

18850-516: Was adopted for at least four other Middle Iranian languages, one of which was Middle Persian. In the 3rd-century CE, the Parthian Arsacids were overthrown by the Sassanids , who were natives of the south-west and thus spoke Middle Persian as their native language. Under Sassanid hegemony, the Middle Persian language became a prestige dialect and thus also came to be used by non-Persian Iranians. In

18995-453: Was common among the nobility. Its purpose was to ensure male heirs. For example, the son of an Imperial concubine often had a chance of becoming emperor. Yanagihara Naruko , a high-ranking concubine of Emperor Meiji , gave birth to Emperor Taishō , who was later legally adopted by Empress Haruko , Emperor Meiji's formal wife. Even among merchant families, concubinage was occasionally used to ensure heirs. Asako Hirooka , an entrepreneur who

19140-456: Was illegal and socially disreputable for a man to have more than one wife at a time, but it was acceptable to have concubines. From the earliest times wealthy men purchased concubines and added them to their household in addition to their wife. The purchase of concubines was similar to the purchase of slaves, but concubines had a higher social status. In the earliest records a man could have as many concubines as he could afford to purchase. From

19285-511: Was no intention to marry. Concubinage was highly popular before the early 20th century all over East Asia . The main functions of concubinage for men was for pleasure and producing additional heirs, whereas for women the relationship could provide financial security. Children of concubines had lower rights in account to inheritance, which was regulated by the Dishu system . In China and the Muslim world,

19430-693: Was not concubinatus in the legal sense, which might involve a signed document , though even an informal concubine had some legal protections that placed her among the more privileged slaves of the household. Concubines occupied an entire chapter, now fragmentary, in the 6th-century compilation of Roman law known as the Digest , but concubinatus was never a fully realized legal institution. It evolved in ad hoc response to Augustan moral legislation that criminalized some forms of adultery and other consensual sexual behaviors among freeborn people ( ingenui ) outside marriage. Even Roman legal experts had trouble parsing

19575-407: Was often the reason why concubinage was preferred to marriage. A concubine could be an "alien" in a society that did not recognize marriages between foreigners and citizens. Alternatively, they might be a slave, or person from a poor family interested in a union with a man from the nobility . In other cases, some social groups were forbidden to marry, such as Roman soldiers, and concubinage served as

19720-419: Was on the last syllable. That was due to the fact that any Old Persian post-stress syllables had been apocopated : It has been suggested that words such as anīy 'other' (Pahlavi spelling AHRN , AHRNy d , Manichaean ՚ny ) and mahīy 'bigger' (Manichaean mhy ) may have been exceptionally stressed on the first syllable, since the last one was apocopated already in the course of the Middle Persian period:

19865-399: Was overthrown by Narseh, who had Wahnam executed. The line of succession was thus shifted to Narseh, whose descendants continued to rule the empire until its fall in 651. Before Bahram II, the Sasanian shahs had been "lukewarm Zoroastrians." He displayed a particular fondness to his name-deity by giving his son the name of Bahram, and by selecting the wings of the god's bird, Verethragna , as

20010-452: Was referred to as Pārsī. Since these methods were used at a relatively late linguistic stage, these transcriptions often reflect a very late pronunciation close to New Persian. In general, Inscriptional Pahlavi texts have the most archaic linguistic features, Manichaean texts and the Psalter exhibit slightly later, but still relatively early language stages, and while the Pahlavi translations of

20155-425: Was regularly written y d . In the same way, (w)b may also correspond to a w in the pronunciation after a vowel. The fortition of initial /j/ to /d͡ʒ/ (or /ʒ/ ) is not reflected either, so y can express initial /d͡ʒ/ , e.g. yʾm for ǰām 'glass' (while it still expresses /j/ in the learned word y z dt' for yazd 'god'). Some even earlier sound changes are not consistently reflected either, such as

20300-555: Was retained/reintroduced in learned borrowings from Avestan . Furthermore, some forms of Middle Persian appear to have preserved ǰ (from Proto-Iranian /d͡ʒ/ or /t͡ʃ/ ) after n due to Parthian influence, instead of the usual weakening to z . This pronunciation is reflected in Book Pahlavi, but not in Manichaean texts: Judging from the spelling, the consonant /θ/ may have been pronounced before /r/ in certain borrowings from Parthian in Arsacid times (unlike native words, which had /h/ for earlier *θ in general and /s/ for

20445-446: Was still relatively rare as well, especially so in Manichaean texts, mostly resulting from Proto-Iranian *rd, *rz and, more rarely, *r. It also occurred in the combination /hl/ , which was a reflex of Old Persian /rθ/ and /rs/ (cf. the words 'Pahlavi' and 'Parthian'). The sound /xw/ may be viewed as a phoneme or merely as a combination of /x/ and /w/ . Usually /x/ , /xw/ and /ɣ/ are considered to have been velar ;

20590-461: Was the daughter of a concubine, worked hard to help her husband's family survive after the Meiji Restoration . She lost her fertility giving birth to her only daughter, Kameko; so her husband—with whom she got along well—took Asako's maid-servant as a concubine and fathered three daughters and a son with her. Kameko, as the child of the formal wife, married a noble man and matrilineally carried on

20735-591: Was the first Kushano-Sasanian ruler to mint coins with the inscription of "Hormizd, the Great Kushan King of Kings" instead of the traditional "Great Kushan King" title. The Kushano-Sasanian king, now laying claims to the title of King of Kings, which had originally also been used by the Kushan Empire , displays a "noteworthy transition" ( Rezakhani ) in Kushano-Sasanian ideology and self-perception and possibly

20880-491: Was the state religion of Sasanian Iran (224 to c. 650) before the Muslim conquest of Persia . The earliest texts in Zoroastrian Middle Persian were probably written down in late Sasanian times (6th–7th centuries), although they represent the codification of earlier oral tradition. However, most texts date from the ninth to the 11th century, when Middle Persian had long ceased to be a spoken language, so they reflect

21025-614: Was very much concerned to leave a portrait of his family which incidentally gives us information about the court and the Persian concept of the royal banquet ( bazm )." The modern historian Jamsheed Choksy has attempted to establish that the female figure in reality illustrates the goddess Anahita , whilst the unbearded youngster illustrates Verethragna. The reverse shows the traditional fire altar flanked by two attendants. Various rock reliefs were carved under Bahram II; one of them being at Guyom , 27 km northwest of Shiraz , where Bahram

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