page_title: Bahram V
section_title: Relations with Armenia
hierarchical_section_title: Bahram V / Reign / Relations with Armenia
caption_attribution_description: English: Persian Armenia. Armenia, 387-591 A. D.
context_page_description: Bahram V, also known as Bahram Gor was the fifteenth king of the Sasanian Empire, ruling from 420 to 438.
  The son of Yazdegerd I, Bahram was exiled at an early age to the Lahkmid court in al-Hira, where he was raised under the tutelage of the Lakhmid kings. After the assassination of Yazdegerd I, Bahram hurried to the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon with a Lakhmid army, and won the favour of the nobles and priests, according to a long-existing popular legend, after withstanding a trial against two lions.
  Bahram V's reign was generally peaceful, with two brief wars—first against his western neighbours, the Eastern Roman Empire, and then against his eastern neighbours, the Hephthalites, who were disturbing the Sasanian eastern provinces. It was also during his reign that the Arsacid line of Armenia was replaced by a marzban, which marked the start of a new era in Armenia, known in Armenian historiography as the "Marzpanate period".
  Bahram V is a central figure in several of the most famous works in Persian literature. He is mentioned in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh written between 977 and 1010, and he is the protagonist of Nizami Ganjavi's romantic epic Haft Peykar, written in 1197.
context_section_description: The situation in Armenia occupied Bahram immediately after the conclusion of peace with Rome. Armenia had been without a king since Bahram's brother Shapur IV had vacated the country in 418. Bahram now desired that a descendant of the royal line of kings, a scion of the Arsacids, should be on the throne of Armenia. With this intention in mind, he selected an Arsacid named Artaxias IV (Artashir IV), a son of Vramshapuh, and made him king of Armenia.
  But the newly appointed king did not have a good character. The frustrated nobles petitioned Bahram to remove Artaxias IV and admit Armenia into the Sasanian Empire so that the province would be under the direct control of the Sasanian Empire. However, the annexation of Armenia by Iran was strongly opposed by the Armenian patriarch Isaac of Armenia, who felt that the rule of a Christian was better than that of a non-Christian regardless of his character or ability. Despite his strong protests, however, Armenia was annexed by Bahram, who placed it under the charge of a Sasanian governor in 428.
caption: Map of Sasanian Armenia.