Miraculous circumstances were freely interwoven with these narratives, and a result was produced which staggered the faith even of such a writer as Moses of Chorene, who, desiring to confine himself to what was strictly true and certain, could find no more to say of Artaxerxes's birth and origin than that he was the son of a certain Sasan, and a native of Istakr, or Persepolis.
Even, however, the two facts thus selected as beyond criticism by Moses are far from being entitled to implicit credence.

Artaxerxes, the son of Sasan according to Agathangelus and Moses, is the same as Papak (or Babek) in his own and his son's inscriptions.

The Persian writers generally take the same view, and declare that Sasan was a remoter ancestor of Artaxerxes, the acknowledged founder of the family, and not Artaxerxes' father.

In the extant records of the new Persian Kingdom, the coins and the inscriptions, neither Sasan nor the gentilitial term derived from it, Sasanidae, has any place; and though it would perhaps be rash to question on this account the employment of the term Sasanidae by the dynasty, yet we may regard it as really "certain" that the father of Artaxerxes was named, not Sasan, but Papak; and that, if the term Sasanian was in reality a patronymic, it was derived, like the term "Achaemenian," from some remote progenitor whom the royal family of the new empire believed to have been their founder.
The native country of Artaxerxes is also variously stated by the authorities.

Agathangelus calls him an Assyrian, and makes the Assyrians play an important part in his rebellion.