The difficulty of the research on the Sasanians, especially their administrative hierarchy, is a shortage of the Iranian sources, which would allow reconstruc¬tion of the competences of the particular offices. The purpose of the following discussion is to attempt to clarify the meaning of the three highest the offices, which in the differing sources are described as being associated with the Sasan¬ian army. The starting point of the following considerations is an account, by the classical Arabic historian of Ṭabarī. He ranks the spāh’s three most impor¬tant military titles as the (h)argbed, the artēštārān sālār, and the spāhbed.