PEOPLEIn the early sixth century, Qubadh I (488-96, 499-531) is said to
have settled people, brought in from other regions in villages in upper
and lower Iraq.4 By the end of the Sasanian period, there was a belt
of defensive Persian settlements in the outposts of 'Ayn Tamr,5 Qadi-
siyya,^6 the oases called 'Uyun of T af£,? and in the garrison towns of
Hira,8 Anbar,9 and Sinjar.lO There were also significant numbers of
Persians in cities such as Nasibin, Takrit, the eastern half of Mada'in,ll
Veh-Ardashir,12 and Kaskar, as well as in towns such as Irbil and
Kirkuk, which were located in heavily Persian districts.^13
The structure of Persian society in the Sasanian period may be
described in two alternative ways. One of them presents the picture
of an internally subdivided four-class system organized for the separate
performance of military, religious, administrative, or economic re-
sponsibilities. The priesthood had its own elaborate hierarchy. Soldiers
were divided into cavalry and infantry and distinguished by rank. The
bureaucratic class included correspondence secretaries, accountants,
court clerks, and official historians, as well as physicians, poets, and
astrologers (the latter three because of their connection with the royal
court). The fourth estate was made up of farmers, herdsmen, artisans,
and merchants-the vast majority of the productive, tax-paying public.
All classes were bound by separate codes decreed and registered by
the state, which were intended to preserve the integrity and usefulness
of each by preventing anyone from changing his occupation and by
providing external, visual distinctions among them by the special iden-
4 Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," H(2), 124-25.
5 Baladhuri, Futu~, p. 246; Tabari, Ta'rzkh, I, 2062.
6 Qadisiyya was garrisoned by a force sent by Khusraw H Parvlz to protect the desert
frontier after the fall of the Banii Lakhm (Qazwlni, Athiir al-biliid, n, 159).
7 Ibn Rustah, A'liiq, pp. 107-8; Yaqut, Buldiin, n, 476; Ill, 539-40.
8 Before the fall of the Banu Lakhm, the Sasanians stationed a body of one thousand
cavalrymen (M.P. asiiwira) at Hira as'reinforcements. After a year's service, they were
recalled and replaced by another troop (Kister, "Al-I:Ilra," p. 167). After the fall of the
Banu Lakhm, a regular garrison under a marzbiin was established at Hira. Persian
dahiiqzn also lived at Hira (Horovitz, "'Adi Ibn Zeyd," p. 35) and Persian was spoken
and written there (Tabari, Ta'rzkh, I, 2052-53).
9 DInawari, Akhbiir at-tiwiii, p. 122. The descendents of the Persians settled at Anbar
by Shapur I are supposed to have been still living there at the time of the Muslim
conquest in the seventh century (Baladhuri, Futu~, p. 177).
10 Abu Yiisuf, Kharii;, p. 64; Baladhuri, Futu~, p. 177.
11 TabarI, Ta'rzkh, I, 2451.
12 Ibid., I, 2426, 2528.
13 Persians from Istakhr were settled at Kirkuk; a Magian woman at Lashom in the
sixth century was descended from them (Fiey, Assyrie Chretienne, H, 15; III, 15).