Its sordid stuff in end.
I have good Iranian friend I keep in regular touch with (in larger group of Iranian friends living in Iran).
He has freely admitted multiple times so far that in hindsight he wishes that Sassanids never were weakened by the wars with Byzantines.
He abhors the ayatollah regime....but is very proud of his nation. He is a nationalist first. There is then the uncomfortable chapters of how the qajar transitioned into modern 20th century w..r.t pahlavi (senior and then junior)....and the promises on offer for Zoroastrian reinvigoration back into Iran.....but also the weaknesses in Iran preyed upon during this era by world powers that ultimately led to serious reversals on Iran's overall inertia on these larger matters post 1979.
i.e The larger temperament of the people is quite different to the regime now, but what to do about it?
There was also the great depopulation of Iran that the Mongols inflicted that must have played its role in the way power coursed in those that wielded it downstream as well upon the remaining Zoroastrians. Like I don't think the safavids would have been like they were without the mongol arc. Theologies have their matter vs anti-matter issue in the end (all that varies is how deep you need to go to reach that inner layer....with the outer layers promoting say tolerance and syncretism) and power recognises and responds to that.
Exceedingly intellectual woman Hypatia was, but the ugly wretches did what they did to her in end too. One theology had to be erased altogether as another was on the ascendancy now, with memories of what the earlier one sometimes/often did when the latter was just budding.
It was just two lines in the first "History of Mathematics" large book my dad acquired it at book fair when I was maybe 6 or 7. When I actually decided to read it all in detail at maybe 10 years old (given before that I preferred only the great diagrams, photos and stern visages it had, over the fine print text), the contempt I felt was new to me then but has never changed since regarding this part of the human realm.