Legendary Patterns in Late Antique Biography: The Parallel Lives of Ardashir I and Constantine the Great

In an examination of the legendary biographies of Constantine I and Ardashir I A Memorial in the World argues that the two share a literary heritage and that both were created to serve a similar purpose.

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A Memorial in the World offers a new appraisal of the reception and role of Constantine the Great and Ardashir I (the founder of the Sasanian Empire c.224-651), in their respective cultural spheres. Concentrating on marked parallels in the legendary material attached to both men it argues that the memories of both were reshaped by processes referencing the same deep literary heritage.



What is more, as “founders” of imperial systems that identified with a particular religious community, the literature that developed around these late antique figures applied these ancient tropes in a startlingly parallel direction. This parallel offers a new angle on the Kārnāmag tradition, an originally Middle Persian biographical tradition of Ardashir I.