Hormizd I was the third Sassanid King of Persia

Sassanid Empire

The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...

 from 270/72 to 273.

He was the youngest son of Shapur I

Shapur I

Shapur I or also known as Shapur I the Great was the second Sassanid King of the Second Persian Empire. The dates of his reign are commonly given as 240/42 - 270/72, but it is likely that he also reigned as co-regent prior to his father's death in 242 .-Early years:Shapur was the son of Ardashir I...

 (240–270/72), under whom he was governor of Khorasan

Greater Khorasan

Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan is a historical region of Greater Iran mentioned in sources from Sassanid and Islamic eras which "frequently" had a denotation wider than current three provinces of Khorasan in Iran...

, and appears in his wars against Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 (Historia Augusta, Trig. Tyr. 2, where Nöldeke

Theodor Nöldeke

Theodor Nöldeke was a German Semitic scholar, who was born in Harburg and studied in Göttingen, Vienna, Leiden and Berlin....

 has corrected the name Odomastes into Oromastes, i.e. Hormizd).

In the Persian tradition of the history of Ardashir I

Ardashir I

Ardashir I was the founder of the Sassanid Empire, was ruler of Istakhr , subsequently Fars Province , and finally "King of Kings of Sassanid Empire " with the overthrow of the Parthian Empire...

 (226–240 [died 241/42]), preserved in a Pahlavi text (Nöldeke, Geschichte des Artachsir I. Papakan), Hormizd I is made the son of a daughter of Mithrak, a Persian dynast, whose family Ardashir had extirpated because the Magi

Magi

Magi is a term, used since at least the 4th century BC, to denote a follower of Zoroaster, or rather, a follower of what the Hellenistic world associated Zoroaster with, which...

 had predicted that the restorer of the empire of Persia would come from his blood.

According to legend, this daughter alone was saved by a peasant; Shapur I saw her and made her his wife, and afterwards her son Hormizd I was recognized and acknowledged by Ardashir. In this legend, which has also been partially preserved in Tabari

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari

Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari was a prominent and influential Sunni scholar and exegete of the Qur'an from Persia...

, the great conquests of Shapur I are transferred to Hormizd I. In reality he reigned only one year and ten days.