The party in power set his son Ardashir III, a child of seven, in his place; and an epoch of unspeakable confusion ensued, in which the children and women on the throne served only as a pretext for the ambitions of contesting nobles. During Ardashir’s reign the cross, which had been sent back from Ctesiphon to Heraclius through the head of the Nestorian church, was solemnly set up again by him in Jerusalem. The festival of the Elevation of the Cross on the 14th of September still keeps that joyful day in remembrance (629). The government at Ctesiphon was powerless. The Khazars invaded and ravaged the empire. Possibly it was at this time that Chosroes, the son of Kavadh and grandson of Hormuzd IV, who had grown to manhood among the Turks, first tried to establish his throne in Khorasan. He was killed in a few months, but a mightier than he, the victorious general Shahrbaraz, grasped at the crown. In a personal interview at Arabissus in Cappadocia (June, 629) he seems to have secured the assent of Heraclius, who must have been deeply interested in weakening the hostile empire by fostering internecine discord. Shahrbaraz then marched with a small force upon Ctesiphon, and the famous defender of the empire took the city of its kings by the treasonable aid of some of the principal inhabitants. The city was given over to plunder, murder, and horrors of every kind; and the boy Ardashir was slain on April 27, 630. But on the ninth of June, Shahrbaraz himself fell a victim of the jealousy and legitimism of his compeers. His corpse was dragged through the street; and tradition heaps grotesque irony on the man who would be king and could not, because he was not of the legitimate line. [Sidenote: [630-633 A.D.]] A woman, Boran, the daughter of Chosroes II, was next raised to the throne. She seems to have formally concluded peace with Heraclius at last; on what terms we do not know, but probably the peace with Maurice was simply ratified anew. At all events, Nisibis remained Persian. Boran only reigned until about the autumn of 631. She was succeeded at Ctesiphon, probably after the brief intermediate reign of a prince, Peroz by name, by her sister Azarmidokht. At Nisibis, however, the troops of the murdered Shahrbaraz set up Hormuzd V, a grandson of Chosroes II, who held his ground in that district for some time (in the years 631 and 632). Azarmidokht was overthrown by Rustem, the mighty hereditary crown-general of Khorasan, whose father she had caused to be put to death. From the confused accounts of this time of confusion we cannot gather with any certainty who was king or who pretender in the capital or provinces, nor determine the date or even the sequence of these “reigns.”