Artaxerxes was the successor and brother (the cousin-german) of the great Sapor, and the guardian of his son Sapor III. (Agathias, 1. iv. [c. 26] p. 136, edit. Louvre [p. 263, ed. Bonn.]). See the Universal History, vol. xi. p. 86, 161. The authors of that unequal work have compiled the Sassanian dynasty with erudition and diligence but it is a preposterous arrangement to divide the Roman and Oriental accounts into two distinct histories.