CivilWar’s Reviews > Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings > Status Update
CivilWar
is on page 574 of 886
lol in Ardašir I's long ass and BORING ASS Wisdom Literature-ass deathbed speech to his son there is an entire paragraph which can be summed up as Ferdowsi fr just looks you straight in the face and says "I'm going to explain Indo-European bipartite sovereignty" now lmao. I mean look at it: "religion has no stability without the royal throne, royalty cannot survive without religion", "They are two brocades interwoven
— Jun 28, 2026 01:43AM
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CivilWar
is on page 577 of 886
"I shall keep Ardašir’s ordinances in effect with you, asking for no more than a thirtieth of landowners’ incomes..." actually I didn't even touch it but lmao, I am fairly certain that we have proof that Ardašir and co taxated the SHIT out of his subjects, e.g. in the Letter of Tansar: "the
Sāhanšāh demands of men earnings and work [ makāsib va mrdh; the last word may be muzdah "wages" instead]"
— Jun 28, 2026 02:16AM
Sāhanšāh demands of men earnings and work [ makāsib va mrdh; the last word may be muzdah "wages" instead]"
CivilWar
is on page 577 of 886
with one another by wisdom. Religion cannot do without the king, and the king will not be respected without religion; they are guardians of one another, and you could say that they live together beneath one tent. The former cannot function without the latter, nor the latter without the former; we see them as two companions united in doing good...." like damn not even Dumézil is this clear abt it in Mitra-Varuna lmao
— Jun 28, 2026 01:45AM
CivilWar
is on page 557 of 886
An etiological legend for the practice of castration to make (as it were) a royal eunuch! The only other I know of in the Indo-European world (there IS a Sumerian one in Inanna's Descent To The Underworld, and the rather different Akkadian version; these are both quite different from their IE counterparts here) is the various myths of Attis from Phrygia. A thematic comparison is no doubt to be interesting here.
— Jun 26, 2026 03:03AM
CivilWar
is on page 554 of 886
theological motifs that Ferdowsi himself calls "obscure", like the tale of Haftvād's worm, all proves without doubt that Ferdowsi's sources, whatever they may have been, were from Zoroastrian priests: one is the sole surviving bit of Sasanian epic, the [i]Kār-Nāmag ī Ardašīr ī Pāpagān[/i], which is full of Zoroastrian themes and symbolism.
— Jun 18, 2026 03:31AM
CivilWar
is on page 554 of 886
The sheer consistency of the Ardešir I epos with other epos of the "Solar Hero" in the Indo-European world, specially as it relates to the notions of "re-founding the nation" after some apocalyptic, existential-level threat (e.g. Camillus with the Gauls in Rome, Odysseus with the suitors, the Ossetian Soslan...), themes of continuity (in this case, the re-establishment of fire temples etc) and the prevalence of
— Jun 18, 2026 03:27AM
CivilWar
is on page 529 of 886
I remember when I first read the Šāhnāma I was so disappointed bc it had none of the nuance, detail or psychological depth of Homer, but then I learned Avestan & Iranian theologies, Zoroastrian & of the Scythians and co, as well as how epic transpositions works and the countless ways IE storytellers went abt it so when I returned I went "holy shit Ferdowsi is a genius actually just in a different way than Homer lmao"
— May 19, 2026 01:33AM
CivilWar
is on page 529 of 886
anyway with the Sekandar arc done, we are out of the realm of legend (the Sekandar anime arc being only 1% history, 99% a mix of more epic transposition as everything that preceded it (sans Darius III as the hapless opponent of Alexander) + Ferdowsi's rewrite of the the Alexander Romance lmao), reaching the Parthian Period, I will brush up on Parthian history before continuing or there'd be no point
— May 19, 2026 01:29AM
CivilWar
is on page 529 of 886
Sekandar (=Alexander The Great) is literally just a transposed Freyr (yes, from Germanic mythology), it's actually crazy how Freyr-like Ferdowsi has made him - from the Zoroastrian texts he was using as a source, the natural conclusion is that he is a transposition of Haᵘrvatāt, the structural equivalent to Freyr's place in the Germanic pantheon (it adds up because Homay = Freyja and Dārāb = Njördr too, all in order)
— May 19, 2026 01:27AM
