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Iran: Coin of Hormizd I, King of Sassanian Persia 272-273 CE, minted in Afghanistan, and derived from earlier Kushan designs (PHGCOM)

Hormizd I was the third Sassanid King of Persia from 270/72 to 273.

He was the son of Shapur I (240–270/72), under whom he was governor of Khorasan, and appears in his wars against Rome (Historia Augusta, Trig. Tyr. 2, where Nöldeke has corrected the name Odomastes into Oromastes, i.e. Hormizd).

In the Persian tradition of the history of Ardashir I (226–240 [died 241/42]), preserved in a Pahlavi text (Nöldeke, Geschichte des Artachsir I. Papakan), Hormizd I is made the son of a daughter of Mithrak, a Persian dynast, whose family Ardashir had extirpated because the Magi had predicted that the restorer of the empire of Persia would come from his blood.

According to legend, this daughter alone was saved by a peasant; Shapur I saw her and made her his wife, and afterwards her son Hormizd I was recognized and acknowledged by Ardashir. In this legend, which has also been partially preserved in Tabari, the great conquests of Shapur I are transferred to Hormizd I. In reality he reigned only one year and ten days.