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SAPOR. Shapur, the hereditary name of the Sassanid kings of Persia, is applied to the most famous one, Shapur I, who reigned A.D. 241-272. He continually attacked the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and captured the emperor Valerian in 260. Odaenatus and Zenobia defeated Shapur and forced him to withdraw from Roman territory (Boccaccio, De claris mulieribus XCVIII).

The Monk gives Petrarch as his source for the story of Cenobia's defeat of Sapor, MkT 2319-2326; Chaucer, however, is following Boccaccio. [Cenobia: Odenake]

Sapor, the Latin variant that appears in Boccaccio's work, occurs in medial position, MkT 2320.

Boccaccio, CFW, trans. G. Guarino, 226-230; ibid., De claris mulieribus, ed. V. Zaccaria, 678-682; Trebellius Pollio, Tyranni Triginta, XXX; Scriptores historiae Augustae, ed. and trans. D. Magie, III: 135-143.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.
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