Hormisdas II. appears to have had a son, of the same name with himself, who attained to manhood while his father was still reigning.  This prince, who was generally regarded, and who, of course, viewed himself, as the heir-apparent, was no favorite with the Persian nobles, whom he had perhaps offended by an inclination towards the literature and civilization of the Greeks.  It must have been upon previous consultation and agreement that the entire body of the chief men resolved to vent their spite by insulting the prince in the most open and public way at the table of his father.  The king was keeping his birthday, which was always, in Persia, the greatest festival of the year, and so the most public occasion possible.  All the nobles of the realm were invited to the banquet; and all came and took their several places.  The prince was absent at the first, but shortly arrived, bringing with him, as the excuse for his late appearance, a quantity of game, the produce of the morning’s chase.  Such an entrance must have created some disturbance and have drawn general attention; but the nobles, who were bound by etiquette to rise from their seats, remained firmly fixed in them, and took not the slightest notice of the prince’s arrival.  This behavior was an indignity which naturally aroused his resentment.  In the heat of the moment he exclaimed aloud that “those who had insulted him should one day suffer for it—­their fate should be the fate of Marsyas.”  At first the threat was not understood; but one chieftain, more learned than his fellows, explained to the rest that, according to the Greek myth, Marsyas was flayed alive.  Now, flaying alive was a punishment not unknown to the Persian law; and the nobles, fearing that the prince really entertained the intention which he had expressed, became thoroughly alienated from him, and made up their minds that they would not allow him to reign.  During his father’s lifetime, they could, of course, do nothing; but they laid up the dread threat in their memory, and patiently waited for the moment when the throne would become vacant, and their enemy would assert his right to it.

Apparently, their patience was not very severely taxed.  Hormisdas II. died within a few years; and Prince Hormisdas, as the only son whom he had left behind him, thought to succeed as a matter of course.  But the nobles rose in insurrection, seized his person, and threw him into a dungeon, intending that he should remain there for the rest of his life.  They themselves took the direction of affairs, and finding that, though King Hormisdas had left behind him no other son, yet one of his wives was pregnant, they proclaimed the unborn infant king, and even with the utmost ceremony proceeded to crown the embryo by suspending the royal diadem over the womb of the mother.  A real interregnum must have followed; but it did not extend beyond a few months.  The pregnant widow of Hormisdas fortunately gave birth to a boy, and the difficulties of the succession were thereby ended.  All classes acquiesced in the rule of the infant monarch, who received the name of Sapor—­whether simply to mark the fact that he was believed to be the late king’s son, or in the hope that he would rival the glories of the first Sapor, is uncertain.