 After the assassination of Yazdegerd I, Bahram hurried to the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon with a Lakhmid army, and won the favour of the nobles and priests, according to a long-existing popular legend, after withstanding a trial against two lions.Bahram V's reign was generally peaceful, with two brief wars—first against his western neighbours, the Eastern Roman Empire, and then against his eastern neighbours, the Hephthalites, who were disturbing the Sasanian eastern provinces.It was also during his reign that the Arsacid line of Armenia was replaced by a "marzban" (governor of a frontier province, "margrave"), which marked the start of a new era in Armenia, known in Armenian historiography as the "Marzpanate period".