text: Theophylact Simocatta gives a similar account with additional information. "In the following year the Persian king [Khosrau II] proclaimed as queen Seirem [Shirin] who was of Roman birth and Christian religion, and of an age blossoming for marriage, slept with her. ... "In the third year he entreated Sergius, the most efficacious in Persia, that a child by Seirem be granted to him. Shortly afterwards this came to pass for him. The Roman (Byzantine) ancestry of Shirin is contradicted by Sebeos: "[Xosrov], in accordance with their Magian religion, had numerous wives. He also took Christian wives, and had an extremely beautiful Christian wife from the land of Xuzhastan named Shirin, the Bambish, queen of queens [tiknats' tikin]. She constructed a monastery and a church close to the royal abode, and settled priests and deacons there allotting from the court stipends and money for clothing. She lavished gold and silver [on the monastery]. Bravely, with her head held high she preached the gospel of the Kingdom, at court, and none of the grandee mages dared open his mouth to say anything—large or small—about Christians. When, however, days passed and her end approached, many of the mages who had converted to Christianity, were martyred in various places."