SASSANID PERSIANS

(210 - 651 CE)

 

Bazrangid Kingdom of Pars (140 BCE - 210 CE)

Sassanid Kingdom of Pars (210 - 225 CE)

Sassanid Persian Empire (226 - 651 CE)

Eranshahr (Middle Persian, “Aryan Empire”)

 

This gallery and these notes cover the armies of the Sassanid Dynasty of Persia (226-651 CE), as well as those of the Kingdom of Pars (210-225 CE) from the time of the Sassanid takeover (ca. 210 CE) until Ardashir was crowned as Shahanshah (ca. 226 CE). Pars was an ethnic Persian state in southern Iran, including two of the four cities that had served as capitals of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (550-330 BCE)—Parsa/Persepolis (after which the region was named) and Pasaragada/Pasargadae. Alexander of Macedon vanquished the Achaemenids (ca. 334-330 BCE), and subsequently the Persians and their empire were ruled by Alexander (330-312 BCE) and then two non-Persian imperial dynasties—the Hellenistic Seleukids (312-63 BCE) and the Parthian Arsakids (247 BCE-226 CE). But the Persians never forgot that they were the heirs of the Achaemenids, and when the Bazrangid Dynasty of vassal rulers in Pars were overthrown by scions of the House of Sassan, the stage was set for the Persian king to challenge, defeat, and replace the last of the Parthian Arsakids as Shahanshah (Middle Persian, “King-of-kings”).

 

During the Alexandrian and early Seleukid periods, the rulers of the satrapy (i.e., province) of Persis in southern Iran held the title of proteros (Koine Greek, “foremost”). These rulers were initially Greeks or Macedonians, but sometime during the late third century BCE (the exact date is unknown) a dynastic line of ethnic Persian satraps emerged that used the title of frataraka (Old Persian, “foremost”). In about 150 BCE, the frataraka Vadfradad/Autophradates I successfully rebelled against the Seleukids, although soon thereafter (ca. 140 BCE) his successor Vadfradad/Autophradates II succumbed to an invasion of Persis by the Parthians (see my Arsakid Persian gallery). The Parthians would go on to destroy the Seleukid Dynasty and establish themselves as the overlords of the Persian Empire under the Arsakid Dynasty. Under the domination of the Parthians, the province of Persis was made into a vassal kingdom—Pars—whose rulers now assumed the title of “king” (shah). Once again, we have no firm dates, but at some point the kings of Pars began also to style themselves as Bazrangi, and so the Kingdom of Pars is sometimes called the Bazrangid Kingdom—it is unclear whether this was an honorific title (i.e., it could mean “holder of the scepter [of office]”) or a surname (i.e., “men from [the region of] Bazrangar”). Although we have no firm date for the beginning of the Bazrangid Dynasty, it seems logical to date it to the defeat of Vadfradad II and the foundation of a regime that accepted Parthian suzerainty (i.e., 140 BCE).

 

The last Bazrangid king of Pars, Vahshir/Gochihr II (206-210 CE), however, was overthrown by Papak, the district headman of Khir (a district in northern Pars) in 210 CE. Papak then spent the next twelve years (ca. 210-222 CE) consolidating his control over Pars, Drangiana, and Karmania/Carmania (two neighboring provinces). Papak was succeeded by his eldest son, Shapur, although Shapur was opposed by one of his brothers, Ardashir, who was at that time the castellan (argbed) of a fort called Darabgerd in eastern Pars. Shapur besieged Darabgerd, but was slain just a few months after taking the throne—Ardashir suggested a parley with his brother in a house near the fort, but when Shapur entered the house, Ardashir's men collapsed the roof and killed Shapur. Ardashir then became king of Pars (ca. 222-224 CE). During this period, the Parthian hold on the Persian Empire was already weakening. The Romans had invaded Mesopotamia in 195 CE and had stormed and sacked the Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, in Lower Mesopotamia (near modern Baghdad). The Arsakid Shahanshah, Walagash/Vologases V (191-208 CE), had been forced to make a treaty with the Roman emperor, Septimius Severus (193-211 CE), that left most of Upper Mesopotamia in Roman hands until 240 CE. From 213 to 226 CE, there was a civil war between two Arsakid claimants to the throne—Vologases VI (208-228 CE) and Artabanus IV (213-224 CE). Neither claimant had strong support from the other noble houses, but Artabanus had gained the upper hand by 220, leaving Vologases in control of little more than the city of Seleucia/Seleukia (Seleucia/Seleukia had been the capital during the Seleukid Dynasty, and lay across the River Tigris from Ctesiphon). The Romans took advantage of this Parthian civil war by invading the Parthian vassal kingdom of Armenia (ca. 216 CE). Finally, with the collapse of the Indo-Parthian vassal kingdom in eastern Iran (Gedrosia, Drangiana, and Sakastan), southern Afghanistan (Arachosia), and western Pakistan (Gandhara and Hindush), the Iranian Plateau had been subjected to frequent raiding at the hands of the Kushans, Bactrians, and Saka. In part, the Sassanid rebellion seems to have been due to Persian dissatisfaction with the multiculturalism of the Parthians, especially their adoption of aspects of Hellenistic culture. Papak and his sons were priests of the ancient Aryan religion of Mazdaism (an early form of Zoroastrianism), Ardashir’s campaign against the Parthians looks a lot like a crusade, and after Ardashir came to power he started to build a state apparatus in which the Mazdayan clergy played a prominent role. Although the Parthians were, like the Persians, an ethnic Aryan people of the Iranian subgroup, the Sassanids seem to have viewed the Parthians as something akin to apostates due to their lax attitude toward the Mazdayan religion.

 

The last of the Arsakids seem to have tried to ignore the rise of the Sassanids (who took their dynastic name from Papak’s father, Sassan, who claimed descent from the Achaemenids) in the hope that regional rivalries in southern Iran would hold them in check long enough for the Parthians to resolve the other crises faced by the empire, at which time they would be free to crush the Sassanids. As it turned out, Papak was indeed occupied for twelve years in trying to consolidate his control over Pars, Drangiana, and Karmania, and the conflict between his sons over the succession had the potential for unraveling his efforts, but the Arsakids failed to resolve their own crises in time, and when Artabanus (a.k.a., Artavan) finally ordered the vassal king of Susiana/Elymais (another ethnic Persian state in southwestern Iran)—a man named Shadh-Shapur—to eliminate Ardashir, it was already too late. Ardashir defeated and killed Shadh-Shapur and annexed his kingdom (ca. 224 CE), then went on to conquer the vassal kingdom of Characene at the head of the Persian Gulf. Ardashir thus made himself a threat that could not be ignored (Characene put him in striking distance of Ctesiphon), and Artabanus could no longer play the waiting game—he hastily called together an army and marched on Pars, but he does not seem to have had the wholehearted support of the other Parthian great houses. He had been an usurper, Walagash VI (the Shahanshah Artabanus had ousted) still ruled in Seleukia, and many of the Parthian great houses had lost estates when the Romans were allowed, via treaty, to retain Upper Mesopotamia. Many of the Parthian great houses were equally alarmed by the failure of the Arsakids to protect the northeastern borders of the empire after the fall of the Indo-Parthian Gondopharids. Thus, when Artabanus faced Ardashir at the Battle of Hormozdgan/Samangan (28 April 224 CE), several of the Parthian lords that had accompanied Artabanus switched sides on the eve of battle, helping Ardashir defeat Artabanus. Ardashir received the submission of most of the great noble houses of Parthia soon thereafter (he was crowned as Shahanshah in Ctesiphon in 226 CE). Walagash VI continued to rule Seleukia for another two years after Ardashir's coronation. We do not have any detailed historical account of what happened, but Walagash disappears from the historical record around 228 CE, and it is assumed that Ardashir took Seleukia and probably deposed and killed Walagash as he was preparing for his great push against the Romans in Upper Mesopotamia (ca. 230-240 CE), since controlling both banks of the Tigris would have been a necessary precondition for such a campaign (in order to protect Ardashir's supply lines).

 

The term most often used by the Sassanids themselves when referring to their empire was Eranshahr (Middle Persian, “Aryan Empire”), from which we get the modern name of Iran (Eran = Iran). My use of the word “Aryan” here and elsewhere on this website may make some people uncomfortable, but I feel it is appropriate. For a discussion of my use of the term “Aryan” herein and throughout this website, please use the button at the bottom of this page to view my essay on the topic. The Sassanid Dynasty was composed of 44 consecutive monarchs who ruled the Persian Empire until Yazdegerd III (632-651 CE) was defeated by the forces of the Rashidun Caliphate of Arabia (ca. 622-651 CE) and Persia was made part of the Islamic Empire. At its height, the Aryan Empire encompassed all of today's Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Syria, the southern Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan), southern Central Asia (Afghanistan, western Tajikistan, southwestern Kyrgyzstan, eastern Uzbekistan, and parts of southern Turkmenistan), parts of eastern Turkey, the Persian Gulf coast of the Arabian Peninsula (including most of modern Oman), most of modern Yemen, and parts of western Pakistan. The official state religion was Zurvanite Mazdaism, but the empire included sizable minorities of other Mazdayan sects (Mithraic, Armenian, Yazdani, and Mazdakite), Christians (mostly of the Syriac and Nestorian sects), Jews, Buddhists, and various tribal and/or ethnic religions. The Sassanids were at great pains to associate themselves with the founders of the Persian Empire—the dynasts of the Achaemenid Dynasty (550-330 BCE)—consequently dissociating themselves with the intervening Seleukid (312-63 BCE) and Arsakid (247 BCE-228 CE) dynasties, on the grounds that they were too Hellenized, but it is clear that the Sassanids were inheritors of all three previous dynasties, incorporating elements of each. During the Sassanian era, the heartlands of the Persians in southern Iran—Khwuzistan/Khuzistan (formerly Susiana/Elymais), Pars (formerly Persis), Kirman (formerly Karmania/Carmania), and Spahan/Aspadana (formerly Drangiana)—experienced a renaissance, but the Sassanid emperors continued to rule from the Parthian capital at Ctesiphon (Greek, pronounced kuh-tess-uh-fon), rendered in Middle Persian (the language of the Sassanids) as Tesfon or Tisfon, located approximately 20 miles southeast of the modern-day city of Baghdad in Iraq. The empire encompassed numerous prosperous cities, caravanserai, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, and settled peoples of different ethnicities—primarily Iranians (Persians, Medes, Parthians, Daylamites, Gilaks, Kurds, Mazanderanis, Tabars, Bactrians, and Paktyans/Arachosians) and other Aryan groups (Saka, Dahae, and Kushans), but also Semitic peoples (Hebrews, Arabs, and Syrians), Hunnic peoples (Xionites, Kidarites, and Hephthalites), and Caucasians (Hayars/Armenians and Kartvelians/Georgians). The Sassanids had a caste system derived from the ancient Mazdayan holy book, the Abestag (Middle Persian, “Song of Praise,” known today as the Avesta), that included at least five castes—religious (asronan)(“priests”), “warriors” (arteshtaran), “tradesmen” (hutukhshan)(i.e., artisans, craftsmen, and merchants), intelligentsia (dabiran)(i.e., scribes, administrators, physicians, poets, and minstrels), and commoners (wastaryoshan)(literally, “herdsmen,” but also including “serfs”/anshahrig, “laborers”/wardag, “slaves”/bandag, and “indigants”/shkoh). Sitting astride the western terminals of the nascent Silk Road and Spice Road trade routes that linked China, India, East Africa, Arabia, and the Mediterranean civilizations, the Sassanids grew immensely wealthy by taxing trade that crossed their borders. The Sassanian era is considered to have been one of Persia's most important, dynamic, and influential periods, constituting the last great Aryan civilization before the Muslim Conquest of the Iranian Plateau, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India, and the Hunnic conquest of the central and western Eurasian steppes. In many ways, the Sassanids witnessed the peak of ancient Persian civilization. The Aryan Empire influenced Roman civilization considerably during the Sassanian period, and Sassanian cultural influence extended far beyond the empire's territorial borders into Western Europe, East Africa, China, and India. This included playing a prominent role in the development of Medieval European, Arabian, Indian, East African, and Asian military equipment and martial doctrines—in particular, Sassanian cavalry equipment, uniforms and insignia, and the martial codes of the warrior caste were transmitted both to Western Europe and China via the great Eurasian steppe (the Sassanids were in a state of almost perpetual war with the nomadic tribes of Central Asia, which led to extensive mutual military influence and cultural transference).

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Sassanian emperors used the titles, Shahanshah-i Eran (Middle Persian, “King-of-kings of the Aryans”) and Shahanshah-i Eran ud Aneran (“King-of-kings of the Aryans and non-Aryans”)—or just Shahanshah—a title that originated with the Achaemenids (Shahe Shahan) and was also used by the Seleukids (Basileus Basileon) and Arsakids (Shahan Shah), although the Sassanids also coined the additional title of Padishah (“Master-king” or “Master-of-kings”). Sassanian rulers believed they ruled by divine right, being the agents of Ohrmazd (Middle Persian, “Wise Lord”) on earth. Mazdaism/Zoroastrianism was/is a dualistic religion, essentially founded on the belief that the universe is a battleground between two primal impulses, expressed through belief in a creative spirit of good and light (i.e., Ohrmazd, in modern Zoroastrianism Ahura Mazda) and a lower destructive spirit of evil and darkness known to the Sassanids as Ahriman (Middle Persian, “Malign Spirit,” known today as Angra Mainyu). Today, followers of the Wise Lord are tasked with defeating the Malign Spirit through acts of creation and good works (right thoughts, right words, right deeds), although historically there was often a crusading element to Mazdaism that emphasized the need to fight those perceived to be the agents of the Malign Spirit. Fire, symbol of light, played/plays a prominent role in Mazdayan/Zoroastrian symbolism and eschatology, so the Mazdayans were sometimes referred to as “fire-worshippers” by outsiders, although this is not rigorously accurate (any more than Christians could be called “cross-worshippers”). For Sassanian rulers, the concept of khvarenah/khwarenah (a.k.a., xvarna, xwarna, or farr) was essential to their belief in their divine rights as rulers. Khvarenah was conceived as a mystical link between the righteousness and effectiveness of rulers and the spiritual and material well-being of the ruled. Success on the field of battle was often viewed both as evidence of a leader’s existing khvarenah and a way to attain more khvarenah, although other good works were also essential (like building aqueducts and cisterns, providing largess to the poor, building roads and bridges, etc.). Consequently, lack of success on the field of battle—or recurrent natural disasters—were often viewed as a lack of khvarenah, and could lead to the downfall of a leader.

 

The Sassanian state had two types of province/satrapy—inner province (shahr) and border protectorate (marz)—each being subdivided into districts (tasug) and sub-districts (rustag). Each sub-district was composed of a collection of villages (deh). There were also districts called ostan that were part of the patrimony of the House of Sassan (i.e., they were basically imperial estates that were directly administered by the imperial court, and not subject to the authority of the governor in whose province they lay). Vassal kingdoms were known as shahristan/shahrestan. The governor of an inner province held the title of shahsab or shahrab, the governor of a border protectorate was called a marzban, the overseer of an imperial ostan held the title of ostandar, the guardian of a district was called a tasugar, the headman of a subdistrict held the title of rustagar, and vassal kings were known as shahrdar or shahrigh. The Sassanids used the same three-fold division of the warrior-caste/propertied aristocracy as that used during the Arsakid period, although the Middle Persian renderings of the ranks (rang) are different—the “great ones” or “grandees” (Middle Persian, wuzurgan, Parthian, vaspuhran), the “high born” (azadan/azatan), and the “village headmen” (dehgan/dahigan)—and each tier continued to dominate offices in the imperial bureaucracy according to social rank. The wuzurgan dominated the imperial court, the provincial governorships, and the border protectorate commands, while the azadan dominated the district guardianships, and the dehgan often acted as sub-district and village headmen (the term dehgan was derived from deh, “village”). The seven great noble houses of Parthia were not entirely divested of power during the Sassanian period, and they retained dynastic control over what became the border protectorates of Gurgan/Gorgan (House of Aspahbadh), Marv/Margiana (House of Karen), Sakastan/Sistan (House of Suren), Goyman (House of Mihran), Adurbadagan/Aturpatakan (House of Zik), and Khorasan/Khwarasan (House of Varaz). The seventh great house—Spandiyadh—is a bit of a mystery, sometimes being associated with Goyman, although that border protectorate is much more firmly attested as being the feudal demesne of the Mihran. Branches of the Mihran family also came to govern in the border protectorates of Wirozan/Iberia and Arran/Albania, and it has been plausibly suggested that the Spandiyadh may have been yet another branch of the Mihran family that were subordinate rulers of the strategically important city of Ray/Rey in northwestern Goyman. The vast estates of these houses, and those of the ethnic Persian wuzurgan that arose with the Sassanids (e.g., the houses of Varazes, Andigan, Kanarangiyan, Dabuyan, and Padusban), were ruled as quasi-feudal demesnes, and despite Sassanid claims to centralization the upper nobility do not seem to have been any more tame than they were during the Seleukid and Arsakid periods. Indeed, the wuzurgan and vaspuhran continued to enjoy great perks, and only scions of these great houses or the House of Sassan could hold the most important positions within the imperial court—collectively, the officers of the imperial court were known as framadaran (singular, framadar), “those that give commands to many”—including the Prime Minister or “Great Framadar” (Wuzurg Framadar), the Minister of Agriculture (Wastaryoshan-salar, “Leader of the Commoners”), the “Great Tax-collector” (Wuzurg Amargar), the “Sword-bearer” of the Shahanshah (Shafshelar), and the Commander-in-chief of the Army (usually known as the Eran-spahbad, “Commander of the Aryan Army”).

 

Nevertheless, the Sassanid state was slightly more centralized than that of the Arsakids/Parthians. The Sassanids ultimately conquered or annexed most of the semi-independent vassal-kingdoms of the Parthian era and governed them directly. The Kingdom of Kartli (an ethnic Kartvelian/Georgian state) in the southern Caucasus remained a vassal state (shahristan) until an unsuccessful rebellion against the Sassanids led to the abolition of the Kartvelian monarchy and the transformation of the kingdom into a border protectorate called Wirozan/Wiruzan (ca. 523-580 CE); the Kingdom of Armenia in the southern Caucasus long tried to keep its independence as it was fought over by Rome and Persia, but it was eventually divided between Rome and Persia, and the eastern half was governed by the Sassanids as a border protectorate called Parskahayastan (“Persian Armenia,” ca. 428-646 CE); upon Ardashir’s ascension to the throne, the Kingdom of Aturpatakan in the southern Caucasus was annexed and made into a province called Adurbadagan (ca. 226-651 CE); the Armenian-Kurdish Kingdom of Corduene in Upper Mesopotamia was reconquered from the Romans and made into the border protectorate of Kurdistan (ca. 363-578 CE); the Armenian Kingdom of Adiabene in Upper Mesopotamia was reconquered from the Romans and made into a province called Nodsheragan/Nor-Shirakan (ca. 228-649 CE); the Arab city-state of Hatra in Upper Mesopotamia was destroyed and its lands folded into the province of Arwastan/Arbayistan (ca. 241-638 CE); the Kingdom of Characene in Lower Mesopotamia was conquered and made into the border protectorate of Meshan/Maishan (ca. 224-638 CE); and the Kingdom of Susiana in southwestern Iran was conquered and made into the province of Khwuzestan/Khuzistan (ca. 224-639 CE). As Sassanian hegemony was pushed into new areas, these were also generally brought into the imperial administrative hierarchy. The former territories of the Kushan Empire (30-375 CE) were divided into a province—the Kushanshahr (formerly Arachosia, southern Afghanistan)—and five border protectorates—Tokharistan (formerly Bactria, modern northern Afghanistan), Fararud (formerly Sogdiana, modern Tajikistan), Turgistan/Turestan (formerly Hindush, modern eastern Balochistan, Pakistan), Paradan/Paratan (western Balochistan), and Gandara (formerly Gandhara, modern northwestern Pakistan)—with the governor of the Kushanshahr (the Kushanshah) also serving as the overlord of the commanders of the border protectorates (ca. 240-467 CE). The northern Persian Gulf coast of the Arabian Peninsula (including most of the Oman Peninsula) was made into a border protectorate called Mazun (ca. 227-630 CE); and the Kingdom of Himyar in the south of the Arabian Peninsula was first made into a vassal-kingdom (ca. 570-597 CE) and then a border protectorate called Yaman (ca. 597-630 CE). The other way in which we can see the increased centralization of the imperial administration was in the creation of a parallel system of governance at the imperial, provincial, and district levels embodied by the official state religion. The bureaucratic structure of the religious caste (asronan) had a high priest (mobadan mobad) who represented the faith at the imperial court, chief priests (wuzurg mobadan, singular, wuzurg mobad) of each of the provinces and border protectorates, senior priests (mobadan, singular, mobad) of each of the districts, and priests (herbadan, singular, herbad) of each subdistrict. The common title for all Mazdayan priests regardless of rank was magu/moghu (singular) or magi (plural). However, if the religious hierarchy was intended to act as a counterbalance to the power of the warrior caste (arteshtaran), this does not seem to be how things actually worked. The high priest was one of the most powerful members of the imperial court, he and the other magi often fought alongside members of the warrior caste, and the higher-ranking priests of the religious caste were also great landholders, which meant their interests were often more aligned with those of the warrior aristocracy than they were with the Shahanshah—there seems to have been a high degree of collusion between the military-political and religious grandees based on longstanding relationships that sometimes included intermarriage (unlike Christian clerics, Mazdayan priests could wed). It was in part due to this cozy relationship, and the resulting oppression of the lower castes (hutukhshan, dabiran, and wastaryoshen), that gave rise to the Mazdakite Movement in the early sixth century CE—the Mazdakites, named for the reforming mobad, Mazdak, emphasized communal values, asceticism, and social programs to aid the poor. The movement was initially very successful, especially after it received the support of the Shahanshah, Kavad I (488-496 & 498-531 CE). However, Kavad was driven from the throne in 496 CE by a cabal of grandees that disliked the growing influence of Mazdak on Kavad, and although Kavad was able to regain his throne with aid from the Hephthalite Huns (ca. 499 CE), he eventually turned on the Mazdakites, purged the government of Mazdakite sympathizers, and had his son and intended successor launch a military campaign against the Mazdakite communities that had sprung up throughout the empire (ca. 524-528 CE). The campaign was largely successful, thousands of Mazdakites were slaughtered, and Mazdak himself was gruesomely executed (ca. 528 CE). Ironically, Kavad continued his reforms, which included giving the lesser nobility (dehgan) a greater role in both governance and the military (ca. 493 CE). His son and successor—Khosrow I (531-579 CE)—greatly expanded these efforts, including a massive overhaul of the military that sought to eschew the quasi-feudal system of recruitment in favor of a standing army in which social rank (rang) within the warrior caste was subordinated to professional military careerism. These reforms ultimately failed to break the power of the grandees, and the quasi-feudal system reasserted itself during the reign of Khosrow II (590-628 CE). But the dehgan retained much of their elevated socio-political stature and military importance, and the influence of the Hephthalites on the military system of Sassanid Persia was also pronounced during this period (the Hephthalite ruler, Kushnewaz, loaned Kavad 30,000 Hunnic cavalrymen to help him retake his throne, and these gave him an alternative source of military manpower during his and his son's military reforms, but they also seem to have further influenced the evolving tactical doctrines of the Sassanids during this period). Thus, the period 499-591 CE is generally considered to be the tipping point in the military history of the Sassanid Dynasty between the Early and Late periods (see below), as the Sassanid military system evolved away from the Parthian model and toward the model provided by the great steppe empires of the Huns and Turks.

 

I herein divide the history of the Sassanian military system into three periods—the Early Sassanid Period (ca. 210-498 CE), including the military system of the Sassanid Kingdom of Pars (210-225 CE) and the early period of Sassanid imperial hegemony (226-498 CE), during both of which the Sassanids were heavily influenced by the Parthian military system that preceded it; the Middle Sassanid Period (499-591 CE), which saw a break from the military traditions inherited from the Parthians, in part due to the reforms of Kavad I, Khosrow I, and Hormizd IV that were aimed at eschewing the quasi-feudal system of army recruitment in favor of a standing professional army, and in part due to the increasing influence of the Xionites and Hephthalites (Hunnic peoples); and the Late Sassanid Period (590-651 CE), during which there was a full return to the quasi-feudal system of recruitment, albeit with an expanded role for the lower nobility, although the shift in cavalry equipment and tactics that had taken hold during the Middle Period significantly changed the appearance and performance of Sassanian armies thereafter, and this was further reinforced under the influence of the Göktürks. The figures I've used here are a mixture of Lurkio and War & Empire miniatures, and the pennons and flags are a mixture of my own creations and those from Stephen Hales at Little Big Men Studios.