Hormizd III, sixteenth Sassanid King of Persia, son of Yazdegerd II

Yazdegerd II

Yazdegerd II was the fifteenth Sassanid King of Persia. He was the son of Bahram V and reigned from 438 to 457....

 (438–457), succeeded his father in 457.

Hormizd, the older son of Yazdegerd II, was kept near Ctesiphon, while his younger brother, Peroz, was stationed in Sistan. Following his father's death, Hormizd became ruler of the Sassanian Empire. In response, Peroz

Peroz I

Peroz I Peroz I Peroz I (also Pirooz; Peirozes (Priscus, fr. 33); Perozes (Procopius, De Bello Pers. I. 3 and Agathias iv. 27; the modern form of the name is Perooz, Piruz, or the Arabized Ferooz, Firuz; Persian: پیروز "the Victor"), was the seventeenth Sassanid King of Persia, who ruled from 457...

 sought the aid of the Hephthalite monarch, Khush-Nevaz in Bactria

Bactria

Bactria and also appears in the Zend Avesta as Bukhdi. It is the ancient name of a historical region located between south of the Amu Darya and west of the Indus River...

. The Hephthalites aided Peroz, who defeated Hormizd and by 459 controlled Ctesiphon making him ruler of the Sassanian Empire.

Sources differ as to what happened to Hormizd after his capture. Some say that he was put to death in 459.

However, the Persian historian Mirkhond

Mirkhond

Mīr-Khvānd, Moḥammad ibn Khvāndshāh ibn Maḥmūd was a noted Persian-language historian of the fifteenth century. Born in 1433 in Bukhārā, present-day Uzbekistan, the son of a pious man belonging to an old Bukhāran family of sayyids, or direct descendants of Muḥammad, Mīr-Khvvānd grew up and died in...

says that Peroz pardoned his younger brother and amicably spared his life.