King of Kings

Though it was eventually defeated, the Great Satraps' Revolt of 366–360 BC showed the growing structural problems within the Empire.

[31] Regardless of how he came to acquire the title, Mithridates II did undertake conscious steps to be seen as an heir to and restorer of Achaemenid traditions, introducing a crown as the customary headgear on Parthian coins and undertaking several campaigns westwards into former Achaemenid lands.

Ardashir himself used a new variant of the title, introducing "Shahanshah of the Iranians" (Middle Persian: šāhān šāh ī ērān).

Ardashir's successor Shapur I introduced another variant; "Shahanshah of the Iranians and non-Iranians" (Middle Persian: šāhān šāh ī ērān ud anērān), possibly only assumed after Shapur's victories against the Roman Empire (which resulted in the incorporation of new non-Iranian lands into the empire).

[32] The defeat of Yazdegerd and the fall of the Sasanian Empire was a blow to the national sentiment of the Iranians, which was slow to recover.

From the 9th century on, parts of Iran were ruled by a series of relatively short-lived Muslim Iranian dynasties; including the Samanids and Saffarids.

The new dynasties do not appear to have had any interest in re-establishing the empire of the old Shahanshahs, they at no point seriously questioned the suzerainty of the Caliphs and actively promoted Arabic culture.

Asfar ibn Shiruya, a Zoroastrian and Iranian nationalist, rebelled against the Samanids in 928 AD, intending to put a crown on himself, set up a throne of gold and make war on the Caliph.

More prominently, Mardavij, who founded the Ziyarid dynasty, was also Zoroastrian and actively aspired to restore the old empire.

[37] At the time he was murdered by his own Turkic troops, Mardavij was planning a campaign towards Baghdad, the Abbasid capital.

[38] After the death of Mardavij, many of his troops entered into the service of the founder of the Buyid dynasty, Imad al-Dawla.

When a significant portion of Firuz Khusrau's (laqab Jalal al-Dawla) army rebelled in the 1040s and wished to enthrone the other Buyid Emir Abu Kalijar as ruler over the lands of the entire dynasty, they minted coins in his name with one side bearing the name of the ruling Caliph (Al-Qa'im) and the other side bearing the inscription "al-Malik al-Adil Shahanshah".

[41] When discussing peace terms, Abu Kalijar in turn addressed Jalal in a letter with the title Shahanshah.

It can be assumed that the Caliph agreed (since the title was later used), but its usage by Jalal in a mosque caused outcry at its impious character.

[46] Some non-Seleucid rulers even assumed the title for themselves, notably in Pontus (especially prominently used under Mithridates VI Eupator).

[49] After the Parthian Empire under Mithridates II defeated Armenia in 105 BC, the heir to the Armenian throne, Tigranes, was taken hostage and kept at the Parthian court until he bought his freedom in 95 BC (by handing over "seventy valleys" in Atropatene) and assumed the Armenian throne.

[50] Tigranes ruled, for a short time in the first century BC, the strongest empire in the Middle East which he had built himself.

[53][54] After a successful campaign against the Sasanian Empire in 262 AD, which restored Roman control to territories that had been lost to the Shahanshah Shapur I, the ruler of the city of Palmyra, Odaenathus, founded the Palmyrene kingdom.

[55][56] Usage of the title was probably justified through proclaiming the Palmyrene kingdom as the legitimate successor state of the Hellenic Seleucid empire, which had controlled roughly the same territories near its end.

"And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.

"Some Christian realms (Georgia, Armenia and Ethiopia) employed the title and it was part of the motto of the Byzantine Emperors of the Palaiologan period, Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλευόντων (Basileus Basileōn, Basileuōn Basileuontōn, literally "King of Kings, ruling over those who rule").

[citation needed] In the Byzantine Empire the word Βασιλεὺς (Basileus), which had meant "king" in ancient times had taken up the meaning of "emperor" instead.

[71] Following the fall of the Sasanian Empire in 651 AD, the title of Shahanshah was sternly criticized in the Muslim world.

[33] After the end of the Buyid dynasty in 1062, the title of Shahanshah was used intermittently by rulers of Iran until the modern era.

[80] Although Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had reigned as Shah for twenty-six years by then, he only took the title of Shahanshah on 26 October 1967 in a lavish coronation ceremony held in Tehran.

He said that he chose to wait until this moment to assume the title because in his own opinion he "did not deserve it" up until then; he is also recorded as saying that there was "no honour in being Emperor of a poor country" (which he viewed Iran as being until that time).

At the meeting, held in the city of Benghazi, Gaddafi was given gifts including a throne, an 18th-century Qur'an, traditional outfits and ostrich eggs.

At the same meeting, Gaddafi urged his guests to put pressure on their own governments and speed the process of moving towards a unified African continent.