Spahbed Spāhbed ( ; early form spāhpat ) is a Middle Persian title meaning " army chief " used chiefly in the Sassanid Empire . Originally there was a single " spāhbed " , called the " Ērān - spāhbed " , who functioned as the generalissimo of the Sassanid army . From the time of Khosrau I ( r . 531 – 579 ) on , the office was split in four , with a " spāhbed " for each of the cardinal direction s . After the Muslim conquest of Persia , the " spāhbed " of the East managed to retain his authority over the inaccessible mountainous region of Tabaristan on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea , where the title , often in its Islamic form ispahbadh ( ; Arabic form " işbahbadh " ) , survived as a regnal title until the Mongol conquests of the 13th century . The title was also adopted by the Armenians ( " [ a ] sparapet " ) and the Georgians ( " spaspet i " ) , as well as Khotan ( " spāta " ) and the Sogdians ( " spʾdpt " ) in Central Asia . It is also attested in Greek sources as " aspabedēs " ( ) . The title was revived in the 20th century by the Pahlavi dynasty , in the New Persian form sepahbod ( ) , equivalent to a three - star Lieutenant General , ranking below " arteshbod " ( full General ) . An equivalent title , " spāhsālār " , gained great currency across the Muslim world in the 10th – 15th centuries . Use in pre - Islamic Persia . The title is attested in the Achaemenid Empire in its Old Persian form , " spādhapati " ( from * " spādha - " " army " and * " pati - " " chief " ) , signifying the army ' s commander - in - chief . The title ( ) continued in use under the Arsacid Parthian Empire , where it seems to have been a hereditary position in one of the seven great houses of the Parthian nobility . The Sassanid Empire , which succeeded the Arsacids , retained the title , which is attested in a series of inscriptions from the 3rd century . Until the early 6th century , there was a single holder of the title , the " Ērān - spāhbed " , who according to the list of precedence provided by the 9th - century Arab historian Ya ' qubi occupied the fifth position in the court hierarchy . The Byzantine and Syriac sources record a number of senior officers who might be holders of the rank in the early 6th century . Thus during the Anastasian War of 502 – 506 , a certain Boes , who negotiated with the Byzantine " magister officiorum " Celer and died in 505 , is named in the Syriac sources as an " astabid " . His unnamed successor in the negotiations also bore this title . Although this has been interpreted by some modern scholars as a new office , that of " astabed " , it is likely that this is simply a corrupted form of " spāhbed " , since the Greek sources give the name of the second man as Aspebedus or Aspetius . Again , during the Iberian War ( 526 – 532 ) , a man named Bawi , according to the historian Procopius a maternal uncle of Khosrau I ( r . 531 – 579 ) , appears . In 527 he took part in negotiations with Byzantine envoys , and in 531 he led an invasion of Mesopotamia along with Chanaranges and Mermeroes . He was executed by Khosrau shortly after his accession for plotting with other nobles to overthrow him in favour of his brother Jamasp . Khosrau I ' s reform . To curb the power of the over - mighty generalissimo , Khosrau I — although this reform may already have been planned by his father , Kavadh I ( r . 499 – 531 ) — split the office of the " Ērān - spāhbed " in four regional commands , corresponding to the four traditional cardinal direction s ( " kust " , cf . " Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr " ) : the " army chief of the East ( Khurasan ) " ( " kust ī khwarāsān spāhbed " ) , the " army chief of the South " ( " kust ī nēmrōz spāhbed " ) , the " army chief of the West " ( " kust ī khwarbārān spāhbed " ) , and the " army chief of Azerbaijan " ( " kust ī Ādurbādagān spāhbed " , where the northwestern province of Azerbaijan substitutes the term " north " because of its negative connotations ) . As this reform was mentioned only in later literary sources , the historicity of this division , or its survival after Khosrau I ' s reign , was questioned in the past , but a series of thirteen recently discovered seals , which provide the names of eight " spāhbed " s , provide contemporary evidence from the reigns of Khosrau I and his successor , Hormizd IV ( r . 579 – 590 ) ; P . Pourshariati suggests that two may date to the reign of Khosrau II ( r . 590 – 628 ) . The eight known " spāhbed " s are : Other holders of the rank are difficult to identify from the literary sources , since the office of " spāhbed " was held in tandem with other offices and titles , such as " Shahrwarāz " ( " Boar of the Empire " ) , which are often treated as personal names . A further factor of confusion in later literary sources is the interchangeable use of the rank with the junior provincial ranks of " marzobān " ( " frontier - warden , margrave " ) and " pāygōsbān " ( " district guardian " ) . Islamic period . Tabaristan . During the Muslim conquest of Persia , the " spahbed " of Khurasan apparently retired to the mountains of Tabaristan . There he invited the last Sassanid shah , Yazdgerd III , to find refuge , but Yazdgerd refused , and was killed in 651 . Like many other local rulers throughout the former Sassanid domains , including those of the neighbouring provinces of Gurgan and Gilan , the " spahbed " then made terms with the Arabs , which allowed him to remain as the practically independent ruler of Tabaristan in exchange for an annual tribute . This marked the foundation of the Dabuyid dynasty , which ruled Tabaristan until 759 – 761 , when it was conquered by the Abbasids and incorporated into the Caliphate as a province . The early rulers of the dynasty are ill attested ; they minted coins of their own with Pahlavi legends and a dating system starting from the Sassanid dynasty ' s fall in 651 , and claimed the titles " Gīlgīlan " , " Padashwargarshah " ( " Shah of Patashwargar " , the old name of Tabaristan ' s mountains ) , and " ispahbadh " ( a New Persian form of " spahbed " ) of Khurasan . The title " ispahbadh " was also claimed by other lines of local rulers in the region , who claimed distant descent from the Sassanid past : the Karen family , who saw themselves as heirs of the Dabuyids and ruled central and western Tabaristan until 839 / 840 , and the Bavandid dynasty in the eastern mountains , whose various branches survived until well after the Mongol conquests of the 13th century . The title was also used by the Daylam ites neighbouring Tabaristan . In some later texts from this region , the title came to signify simply a local chieftain . Central Asia . In Khurasan , the title survived in usage among the local Soghdia n princes . The " ispahbadh " of Balkh is mentioned in 709 , al - Ishkand , the " ispahbadh " of Nasa in 737 , and the same title is used in connection with the king of Kabul in the early 9th century . In the 1090s , it appears as the personal name of a Seljuk commander , Isfabadh ibn Sawtigin , who seized control of Mecca for a while . In Armenia . The Kingdom of Armenia , which was ruled by a branch of the Parthian Arsacid dynasty , adopted the term first in its Old Persian form , giving Armenian " [ a ] parapet " and then again , under Sassanid influence , from the Middle Persian form , giving the form " aspahapet " . The title was used , as in Persia , for the commander - in - chief of the royal army , and was borne in hereditary right by the Mamikonian family .