First mentioned in a mid-3rd-century CE trilingual inscription at the Ka'ba-i Zartosht, concerning the political, military, and religious activities of Shapur I, the second Sassanid king of Iran, the family remained the hereditary "margraves" of Ray throughout the Sassanid period. Several members of the family served as generals in the Roman–Persian Wars, where they are mentioned simply as Mihran or Μιρράνης, mirranēs, in Greek sources. Indeed, Procopius, in his History of the Wars, holds that the family name Mihran is a title equivalent to General.[3][4]
The much later Samanid dynasty that ruled most of Iran in the 9th and 10th centuries claimed descent from Bahrām Chōbin[11][12][13][14] although many scholars deny this.
^Toumanoff, Cyril. Introduction to Christian Caucasian History, II: States and Dynasties of the Formative Period. Traditio 17 (1961), p. 38.
^Britannica, "The Samanids", Their eponym was Sāmān-Khodā, a landlord in the district of Balkh and, according to the dynasty’s claims, a descendant of Bahrām Chūbīn, the Sāsānian general.[1] or [2]