Kavad II () was the Sasanian King of Kings () of Iran briefly in 628.
Born Sheroe, he was the son of Khosrow II () and Maria. With help from different factions of the nobility, Sheroe overthrew his father in a coup d'état in 628. At this juncture, the Iranian army had been split into three separate armies, each led by one of the faction leaders. After ascending the throne, he had his father and all his brothers executed. Also, he made peace with the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (), thus concluding the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628.
Kavad II soon died of a devastating plague, which became known as the Plague of Sheroe. He was succeeded by his seven-year-old son Ardashir III ().
Contemporary sources and modern historiography present a mixed view of Kavad II, with some of the latter criticizing him for his fratricide, considering it to have heavy consequences for the empire. The Austrian historian and numismatist Nikolaus Schindel in contrast suggests that Kavad II's fratricide may have prevented a possible civil war, and had Kavad II lived longer, he might had been able to prevent the disintegration of the Sasanian political structure and the impending Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran.
Background
Born Sheroe, he was the son of Khosrow II (), the last prominent Sasanian King of Kings () of Iran. His mother was Maria, a Byzantine woman which some Eastern sources considered to be a daughter of the emperor Maurice (). However, Byzantine sources do not report that Maurice had a daughter named Maria, much less that he gave her in marriage to a member of the Sasanian dynasty. According to the Austrian historian and numismatist Nikolaus Schindel, Maria most likely belonged to the aristocracy of the Sasanian Empire. The union of Khosrow and Maria took place in 590 at the earliest, making Sheroe 37 years old at maximum when he became king in 628. It is certain Sheroe had at least reached adulthood by then, as he had a seven-year-old son (Ardashir III) when he died in the same year. According to the 7th-century Greek Christian chronicle Chronicon Paschale, Sheroe was Khosrow II's eldest son. However, this remains uncertain.
Early life
In 602, Maurice was murdered by his political rival Phocas. As a result, Khosrow II proceeded to declare war, ostensibly to avenge the death of Maurice. During the two-decade war, Khosrow II was initially successful, conquering the Byzantine provinces in the Near East, including Egypt. However, by 627 the tables had turned against the Sasanians, with the Byzantine emperor Heraclius () seizing chunks of Adurbadagan (in present-day northwestern Iran) and laying waste to the temple of Adur Gushnasp. The nobles had grown weary of Khosrow II's policies, with some of them possibly already starting to form an opposition against him following the failed siege of Constantinople in 626. During this period, Sheroe was imprisoned in a fortress outside of Babylon together with a couple of unidentified brothers. There they were educated by tutors sent by Khosrow II.
Following the Byzantine sacking of the royal Sasanian residence at Dastagird on 6 January 628, Khosrow II fled to the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon. There he tried to secure the city and his legacy. He planned to crown his son Mardanshah (whose mother was the Christian queen Shirin) as his heir apparent. When Sheroe was informed of this, he immediately sent his foster brother to Gurdanasp, a former general who led the opposition against Khosrow II. Gurdanasp declined to have an audience with Sheroe, instead asking him to send a letter to express himself. Sheroe soon sent a letter, in which he promised to replace Khosrow II as the shahanshah, make peace with the Byzantines and the Western Turkic Khaganate, and increase the rank of the conspirators and the income of the army. Having convinced the conspirators with his letter, Sheroe continued to correspond with them through his foster brother, who made it possible for the two parties to plan their actions for the upcoming coup d'état.