Khosrow II

Khosrow II inherited the Sasanian throne in 590, lost it to a usurper, then clawed it back with Roman help - a debt he'd later repay in blood. In 602, using the murder of his ally Maurice as pretext, he launched a war that swallowed Rome's richest eastern provinces and earned him the name "the Victorious." By 626 his forces were at the gates of Constantinople, but the siege failed and the Roman emperor Heraclius drove deep into Persia's heartland with Turkish allies. Feudal families turned on their overstretched shah: his son Sheroe deposed and executed him in 628, triggering a civil war that unraveled every gain. Five years later, Arab armies would pour into an empire still tearing itself apart. Persian literature remembered him differently - Ferdowsi and Nizami cast him as a tragic lover in Khosrow and Shirin, the tale of his long, star-crossed courtship of the Aramean princess who became his queen.