IT WAS THEODOR NÖLDEKE who first pointed out, in an appendix to his monumental translation of the Sasanian section of al-Ṭabarī’s Ta ‘rīkh alrusul wa-l-mulūk, the strong likelihood that the main stream of information contained in the Arabic and New Persian sources about the revolt of Bahrām Chōbīn against Khusro II Parvēz ultimately derives from a lost Pahlavī romance about this rebel, known (in translation) both to al-Mas’ūdī in his Murūj al-dhahab , and to Ibn al-Nadīm in his Fihrist. Nöldeke was also able to give an outline of some of the most outstanding characteristics of this lost romance that still come through in the more recent accounts relying on it, in so far as these were known to him at the time. Following in Nöldeke’s footsteps, Arthur Christensen undertook, when he was still a young scholar, a more detailed reconstruction of the romance, and produced what he believed to be a very close replica of its lost original. Unfortunately, this impressive attempt has not been given the attention it deserves, and in spite of some rather grave problems posed by its treatment of points of detail, it will be addressed, wherever necessary, in the course of the present discussion.

One of the characteristics that come through quite clearly in these reconstructions is the ambivalent attitude that it apparently showed towards its hero: a scion of the famous house of Mihrān, one of the noble houses (traditionally seven in number) of the Sasanian realm, which claimed genealogical glory reaching back in the past to the times of the Arsacids, and even before; a gifted and valiant general; a national hero, and for a long time the prop of the reigning dynasty; an adventurer, and a rebellious usurper. The author’s sympathy towards him personally stands in clear contrast to the unequivocal denunciation of his ultimate initiative, much more as an act of vainglorious imprudence than as a step devoid of any justification from the outset. Whatever genuine grievances or reasonable motives he may have had make little difference. “He is an ignorant fool who claims kingship without belonging to the royal house” , an old woman is reported to have said to the fugitive Bahram, whose true ident ity was unknown to her at the t ime, after the defeat inflicted on him by Khusrau Parvēz.