The Shahnameh atlas · The historical age
Aleppo (Halab)
حلبThe Syrian city where Anushirvan's war chest ran dry and a shoemaker offered his silver
- A real place the poem names
- Anushirvan, Bozorgmehr, the shoemaker
Halab, Aleppo, appears twice in the Shahnameh as a city on the border of Rum. Its great moment comes late in Anushirvan's reign. Caesar marches from Amorium to Halab, and the city, the poem says, becomes a sea of blood before the Roman army asks for quarter. Then a trench filled with water is dug across the king's path and the campaign stops dead.
While the army waits, the treasury runs three hundred thousand short. On Bozorgmehr's advice the king borrows from the towns nearby, and a shoemaker weighs out four million silver dirhams without asking for a bond. All he wants in return is for his son to be trained as a scribe. Anushirvan refuses: a tradesman's son must not serve the throne. He sends the silver back, and the shoemaker's heart fills with pain. Soon afterwards Caesar's envoys arrive to ask for peace.
Aleppo, in northern Syria, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It was a Roman and Byzantine city in Sasanian times, and Khosrow I, the historical Anushirvan, captured and burned it during his invasion of Syria in 540. Its medieval citadel, great mosque and covered markets made it one of the most famous cities of the Middle East; much of the old city was badly damaged in the Syrian civil war after 2011.
The tales told hereداستانها
The shoemaker's sonکفشگر و انوشیروان
A rich shoemaker offers to fund the king's war if his son may become a scribe
More from the historical ageشاهنامه
Babylonبابل
In the Shahnameh, Eskandar (Alexander) returns from his travels to Babylon, where omens foretell his death. He dies there, and his body is carried to Alexandria.
Estakhrاستخر
In the Shahnameh, Babak, the ruler of Estakhr, takes the shepherd Sasan into his service, dreams of his royal destiny and gives him his daughter. Their son is Ardashir, founder of the Sasanian dynasty.
Gur (Firuzabad)گور (فیروزآباد)
After his victory over Ardavan, Ardashir founds a city in Fars that the Shahnameh calls both Khurra-ye Ardashir, the Glory of Ardashir, and the city of Gur. Its perfectly circular ruins, with palaces and a fortress nearby, still survive near Firuzabad.
Kajaran, Haftvad's fortressکجاران
In one of the Shahnameh's strangest episodes, Ardashir fights Haftvad, a lord of the coast whose fortune comes from a magical worm found in an apple. Ardashir kills the worm with molten metal.